Break your silence!

Have you ever been bullied, in school or at work place? I was once. Sharing it here. It was my second job. New place, new people and new work. I was scared initially and looked up to colleague for help. Later after a couple of months I was on my own and then started the craziness. I was very confused as it was initially very hard to understand, his behavior was quite illogical and manipulative. At first I was calm enough and took all the feedback in a positive manner, in fact I changed my style of working as per his. A lot of time and energy went into trying to understand or finding a ‘reason’ for such conduct.

For some time I was under an impression that his way of working is the correct way and I started working his way, later I realized whatever way I used he was not liking it. He was trying to control situations regardless of my opinions or input. Finding fault, flaws and potential errors was first thing he used to do and he also pointed those only to the superiors. I termed him as insecure, but then started threatening behaviors. He stopped helping me when I needed. Covert or inappropriate responses became a habit of his. Though he appeared to be organised and was convincing to superiors but I was also sure that I wasn’t doing anything wrong or not achieving the tasks assigned to me.

Well enough was enough, I decide to deal with his bullying behavior with all my strength and energy. I stopped trying to understand or make sense of the illogical, confusing behavior of his and getting sucked into believing it’s my fault unless it was actually mine. In-fact, now I started to ignore his allegations. I started to communicate with superiors directly and not via him. I shared each and every incident with the supportive people at work and made them observe his behavior. I was prepared to leave or resign if needed, but I am glad that didn’t happened and I got help from the appropriate people to confront him.

One fine day, I confronted him with all the evidences and incidents and with me were people who has already observed his bullying behavior towards me. He was ashamed and was guilty for what all he did to me all this time. I was happy and feeling like a winner. I am glad that I fought and won!