YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I have learned so much about the impact of workplace bullying and it's link to mental illness. Bullies seek out the best targets for their tactics and someone experiencing any kind of mental health issues smells like a wounded prey to a bully. Perfectly healthy (comparatively) people can be reduced to self doubting shells of themselves because of a bully's attentions. Society currently is drawing attention to bullying prevention in all our schools to protect our children (rightly so) but no adult should be denied the same rights and dignity too.

I have recently been almost solely responsible for an administrator who was a terrible bully being transferred out of my workplace. Higher ups strategically called it a promotion. I don't care anymore because me and my colleagues will never have to work with him ever again. He will never be in charge of a budget or staff below him in his new position and rumour has it from the secretaries at the main branch, he doesn't even get a computer in his office. The people responsible for putting him in charge of my work place haven't been made accountable and there has been absolutely no acknowledgement that any bullying ever occurred. We aren't protected from getting another bully as a boss but there is hope for the near future to give us all a reprieve.

With decades of mental health issues behind me and a generally strong personality it was a genuine shock to look back and finally be able to name the reason despite being medicated for major depression I have dealt with significant anxiety and situational stress that I could t pinpoint a source for other than 'work' so I couldn't do anything about it.

Anyone else out there been a victim or a target of bullying as a kid or as an adult?

That's great rational how did you do it?

I have been a victim, though I didn't think of it as bullying at the time... it was not really horrible bullying but it was bullying. Looking back I don't know whether documenting it and showing someone would have helped. The bully was a high-output person and the boss seemed to turn a blind eye to the bullying.

Honestly I knew that nothing I could say or accuse this person of would be heard and even when I did express in detail what was happening his bosses completely and totally backed him and tried to intimidate me on another matter when I was acting more or less like a whistle blower. But since there is no whistle blower legislation, I was simply being unprofessional criticizing my employer and my boss - mainly on Twitter. It was kind of like getting Al Capone on tax evasion. I found and exposed a major breach of duty that was objectively identifiable then right before the meeting that should have been taking place monthly for over a year where my boss was answerable to stakeholders he was promoted. Literally effective the day before the meeting was to take place - they couldn't risk putting this person in front of people who were going to ask hard questions and demand adequate responses. They couldn't get me for bringing light to his breach if duty because I went about making sure the meeting took place according to all policies and chain of command. So as retribution they were irrational disciplining me on my unprofessional conduct. Luckily I had colleagues that supported me and were also or had been also persecuted by this boss, a supportive husband and eventually a lawyer to consult. They wanted me to request a transfer or succumb to stress leave. I ended up taking a week off due to stress because my doctor required me to - extreme situational anxiety/stress. But because of the support I had, my anti-depressant cocktail being effective and an over developed sense of of right and wrong I returned to work and refused to be backed in a corner, I ended up with a severe letter of reprimand. I am still challenging the wording of the letter because it contains patently false accusation and misleading b.s. (accused of being disrespectful of the head of the district by only referring to him by his last name on Twitter.) I doubt I will be ale to move up or get into admin but that is just fine by me.

Actually, what I discovered is that unless a company actively has EFFECTIVE, MEANINGFUL policies in place it is just about impossible to get support within the organization. That was extremely disheartening. But it means that until workplace bullying is just as unacceptable as gender or race discrimination peer support and personal therapy to regain what the bullying took from you is what the vast majority of people have to rely on exclusively.

That is what drew me to Paul's podcast - the desire to create a raw, honest community of support. Not some guru spouting some bullshit scheme to help everyone and everything. Paul isn't trying to take advantage of people's situations or even solve them - which is rare in the over twenty years I have lived with major depression. He isn't making money off people or trying to scam some miracle cure. At most he seems to want enough financial support to be able to continue developing a real network of support and a safe place to share and simply plod though it all with as much dignity as we all deserve but don't feel we deserve at the same time.

Wow good for you, getting that person moved was quite an accomplishment. You must be proud of yourself. Yes, criticizing your employer on Twitter is not going to help you so glad you've stopped that.
Your last paragraph was great in describing Paul's podcast.

I'm shy, bookish, overweight, and insecure. In other words, I'm a bully's wet dream.

I actually was just laid off from a job where half the upper management were full-scale bullies. One only communicated through yelling (and I'm not exaggerating... he literally only yelled), one obeyed the middle school girl rule of communication (only relay information through other people), one picked a new victim to harass each week, and one would stab you in the back the second he got the chance. All middle-aged men, most of whom have families. Not sure what's wrong with them, but it's not my problem anymore.

But yeah. In my last month or so there, I was so miserable and depressed that it took ENERGY to not drive into oncoming traffic on the way home every day. I actually thought through the suicide process so far that I realized that the only notice my workplace bullies would take would be complaining that I had showed up late. Le sigh. At least I'm not there anymore, and I feel SO MUCH better.

I was also bullied terribly as a kid. I've blocked most of it, but I remember the boys in my 4th grade class mooing as I walked by, and one kid in particular who loved to knock my glasses off my desk and throw dodgeballs at my head. I got called a slut in middle school all the time (even though I was 15 when I had my first kiss) and had rumors swirling around me for most of adolescence. I still have a lot of trust issues because of all the shit other kids pulled on me and the teachers who ignored my cries for help.

The thing that upsets me the most is when I hear about how well my former bullies are doing. I'm 23, so a lot of the kids I went to school with are now starting careers. One of my biggest bullies is a successful business consultant. Meanwhile, I'm unemployed. It makes me so angry that they haven't had the comeuppance I was always promised while going through the bullying. I've thought about tracking some of them down to get some closure, but I think that'll just make me seem petty.

Sigh. Thank you for letting me get that out.

I have been bullied and would NOT like to view myself as a target or victim.
I'm interested in learning about ways to demand or claim respect from others.
How to do it? Is posture that important? If I'm trembling, how can I defend myself? If the bully is a relative, does it make a difference? If the bully is an older person, should I avoid them and wait for the to die? I truly don't know how to demand respect properly and I don't want to be called a target!

Thank you for reading.
~Shanarchy

This seems like an area where a lot of people share common ground both on the show and on the forum, but it's a pretty limited section on the forum. I'd like to see more sub-topics added to inspire others to post. Below are my thoughts on a layout for this section with all the sub-topics I thought made sense. Please vote and comment to let me know what you think.