I'm sure many of you heard the
news last week of an angry young employee, Wesley Neal Higdon, who killed five people at a Henderson, Kentucky plastics factory where he worked, before taking his own life.
Such murder-suicides are not uncommon. A
recent study by the Violence Policy Center found:
"more than 1,100 Americans died in murder-suicides in 2007. The murder-suicides included in the study range from high-profile mass shootings like the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech massacre to familial shootings claiming the lives of spouses and children."
These horrific actions are committed by people who feel like victims. They are furious about the way they are treated and their anger builds up till they can't take it anymore. Finally, they lash out at their perceived tormenters, then take their own lives to end their misery. And these are only the statistics about murder-suicide. Many more people who feel victimized kill without taking their own lives.
But the modern world does not have a campaign against people who think and feel like victims. Society is only going after bullies. But bullies don't commit murder and suicide. Victims do. However, the worst thing anyone can do today is suggest that victims have anything to do with the way they are being treated. So we go after bullies instead, with the hope that if we can just get rid of bullies, there will be no victims, and these horrific murders and suicides will stop.
But, if anything, our anti-bullying policies are encouraging disgruntled workers to commit these horrible actions. If we are repeatedly bombarded with messages about how terrible bullies are...that bullies should not be tolerated...that bullying is a crime...that terrorism, rape, murder, slavery and genocide are acts of bullying, how should we react when we feel bullied by our employers and colleagues? Don't terrorists and rapists and murderers deserve to die? So we feel justified in wanting to kill, thanks to our ceaseless anti-bully education.
I often say at my seminars that no one gets insulted and criticized as much as I do. Because I dare to criticize the anti-bully movement as a misguided and counterproductive witch-hunt, explain how victims unwittingly reinforce their bullies, and teach victims how to stop being bullied all by themselves, many victims and victim-advocates want to see me dead. Don't believe me? Read the following email I recently received from D.T. (he does not want me to give his full name) with a nice email address of gofuckyourself@yahoo.com. Note that his gripe is not only against me, but against Jesus, as well. After all, we give the same advice. (By the way, I get many letters like this, but most are more inhibited in expressing their sentiments towards me.)
You disgust the Hell out of me. I hope you spend all eternity getting picked on in Hell. ____You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. You obviously were never the victim in school. If you had been the victim you would know what shit your advice really is._____From Bullies to Buddies_ is the stupidest advice I have ever heard. Would you tell a girl that is getting raped that it is somehow her fault? That_s what bullying is. A form of rape. What the victims need to be told is that they have the right to defend themselves. Enroll the kid in Martial Arts classes. Teach the kid how to fight. The bully will find another target. ____I am 48 years old. 35 years ago I was picked on unmercifully in High School. I didn_t fight back. I had the bible beating _turn the other cheek_ parents. That is the worst advice you can give. LEARN TO STAND UP FOR YOURSELF. Bullies always pick out the weakest target. Teach kids not to be a target.____If all else fails, BREAK THE BULLIES NOSE. IF BULLIES GOT THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF THEM, THEY WOULD LEARN SOME MANNERS.____THE ONLY GOOD BULLY IS A DEAD BULLY
And we're worried about bullies?
Best Wishes,
Izzy Kalman
5 Comments:
Thanks for your e-post. This 48 year old guy who angrily wrote you the letter is obviously in a lot of pain, and maybe hasn't dealt with it well. I hope he hasn't been sexually abused himself based on the content of his message. I work as a therapist in a mental health clinic in the Midwest, and his comments sound like a few young men I have worked with as well. Looks like you (Izzy) are catching some of the flak he wishes he could give to his past tormenter(s). Hang in there with your message, because I still believe that kids need to be taught that holding to a "victim mentality" is more harmful than good. Most school bullying is not in the form of physical or sexual abuse, but it unfortunately may have been for this man. Best wishes, ANON
Dear Izzy,
After attending your lecture/ workshop on Bullies to Buddies, you confirmed for me what was lingering in my mind: bullies are victims, they are really not addressing their own painful concerns. Robert Alton Harris was executed in CA for the tragic murder of a young man and his friend. The boy's father was in Law Enforcement and went to the scene as LE to find his murdered son. Harris had a life of horrible abuse as a baby and child. He became the bully when he murdered. Had he been able to address the horrible abuse he might have been led down a completely different path.
Keep up your good work. I am a guidance counselor in a Native Am. school. There is bullying, but nothing as severe as can be seen in "outside" schools. It is still a problem. Healing and empowering the "bully" to stop thinking like a victim and someone who needs to overpower the other may be the answer. I hope the 48 y/o man finds a very good therapist to help him heal his anger and learn empowerment. No one needs to be a victim.
I don't believe you said the rape victim is responsible. Missed that somehow. But continuing to think like a victim attracts more of the same.
A believer.
Elizabeth,
South Florida
Just discovered your blog and I have read very little but your premise is interesting. I've worked for several years in the domestic violence field with men who have abused their partner and, of course there so often is a victim of abuse but also a victim turned abuser. Large numbers of the guys in these groups grew up having this behavior modeled for them or being abused themselves. Both sides of this equation seem drawn together like magnets into unhealthy relationships. Lots of things going onhere, I know.
Thanks for your work.
R. Tom Hudgens LPC retired; THuds Blog/tom.hudgens@gmail.com
This post has been removed by the author.
This is Izzy Kalman responding to Tom. You are in the right direction, but many people have trouble understanding the concept completely. It's not that people who were victims become abusers. They are victims. To the other person, they are an abuser, but to themselves, they are a victim.
Whenever a person is angry, the person feels like a victim. It has nothing to do with someone's size or strength or position. The problem is that the mental health professions have abandoned the scientific approach and replaced it with a legalistic one. In the legal view, on side is the victim and the other is the abuser. But that is not psychology.
Psychologically, when two people are angry with each other, each one feels they are the victim and the other is the abuser. I can be a huge man and you can be my tiny wife, and I can be beating you every day. If I'm angry at you, it's because I feel like I'm your victim: "I can't trust you anymore...I see you looking at other men...You don't want to have sex with me anymore...My dinner is never ready when I come home from work," etc. Just because I am 10 times stronger than you and beating you every day, it doesn't mean I don't feel like I'm your victim. It has nothing to do with imbalances of power. You can be much smaller and weaker than me, and still make my life hell. If you've had children, you know what it can be like.
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