Verbal Self Defense Tactics

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It’s a basic component of human nature to be curious — one of the Prime Directives of the Unconscious Mind is to always be seeking new knowledge and always learning new information. In our modern society this deeper need for more information and understanding has lead to a strong demand from the public for government and organizations to be more open about procedures and policies with regard to what they do, how they do it, and why.

One unexpected benefit of this general drive toward organizational transparency has, in the last few decades, brought about discoveries of dishonest and underhanded actions on the part of officials in all levels of public and private office. The downside of these new insights is an overall sense of distrust and fear among the average people in our communities.

USEFUL VIGILANTISM

Now, when this natural sense of curiosity is combined with our need for fairness and equality the outcome can be both gainful and disastrous. In the case of our political, legal, union, government, and organizational systems the result has been overwhelmingly positive with greater accountability on the part of people in positions of power. As well, it has allowed for more and more input from the public at large in how things are done and where our society, both nationally and internationally, is headed. Positive results due to internet vigilantes include:

• YouTube Cat Abuse Incident

  A video of a young male physically abusing a cat was posted on YouTube. After 30,000 views, YouTube removed the video and blocked the hosting account. Anonymous members investigated, identifying the individual as Kenny Glenn of Lawton, Oklahoma and reported him to local law enforcement. Two minors were arrested on charges of cruelty to animals.

• Cyclist Abuser Incident

  In 2008, video of Patrick Pogan, a rookie police officer, body-slamming Christopher Long, a free-spirited cyclist, surfaced on the Internet. The altercation happened when members of Critical Mass conducted a bicycling advocacy event at Times Square. The officer claimed the cyclist had veered into him, and so the biker was charged with assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The video went viral on the internet and after being viewed for over 2 million times. The charges against the cyclist were later dropped and Pogan was found to be guilty and was convicted for lying about confrontation with cyclist.

HARMFUL VIGILANTISM

On the flip-side there has also been an ever increasing sense of injustice on the part of individuals. To quote an old saying, ‘You can please some of the people most of the time, but you’ll never please everyone all of the time.’ — and, in this regard, that saying is truer than ever. Where there was a time when a consensus was needed for any type of action to be taken people have become more self-focused in their beliefs and values, resulting in a deeper feeling of ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ in some people. If this need to be ‘right’ is transferred onto situations of injustice or inequality people begin to feel a strong desire for vengeance or ‘payback’ in order to balance things out — to quote another old saying, ‘What goes around comes around’ … the problem being that people who feel they’re right want to be the person to enforce the ‘comes around’ part.

In the past it took an effort on the part of many people to organize and protest and take action to make changes and influence people in power. As the world has grown smaller and smaller with the advancement of new communication technologies, the number of people, the time required and the target of such protest and action have gotten smaller as well. Today, this modern vigilante mentality has moved to the internet in many different forms of cyber-bullying. Some notable examples from the Wikipedia article on Internet Vigilantism include:

• Dog Shit Girl

  In 2005 in South Korea, bloggers targeted a woman who refused to clean up when her dog defecated on the floor of a Seoul subway car, labeling her “dog shit girl” (rough translation into English). Another commuter had taken a photograph of the woman and her dog, and posted it on a popular Korean website. Within days, she had been identified by internet vigilantes, and much of her personal information was exposed on the World Wide Web in an attempt to punish her for the offense. The story received mainstream attention when it was widely reported in South Korean media, and was discussed in Korean communities in the United States as well. The public humiliation led the woman to quit her university, according to reports.

  The reaction by Korean citizens to the incident prompted several Korean newspapers to run editorials voicing concern over Internet vigilantism. One paper quoted Daniel Solove as saying that the woman was the victim of a “cyber-posse, tracking down norm violators and branding them with digital Scarlet Letters.” Another called it an “Internet witch-hunt,” and went on to say that “the Internet is turning the whole society into a kangaroo court.”

• Zhang Ya & Sichuan Earthquake

  In 2008, a girl called Zhang Ya (sp?) from Liaoning province, Northeast China, posted a 4 minute video of herself complaining about the amount of attention the Sichuan earthquake victims were receiving on television. An intense response from Internet vigilantes resulted in the girl’s personal details (even including her blood type) being made available online, as well as dozens of abusive video responses on Chinese websites and blogs. The girl was taken into police custody for three days as protection from vigilante death threats.

• Stephen Fowler and Wife Swap

  Stephen Fowler, an English expatriate and venture capitalist businessman, gained notoriety after his performance on ABC’s Wife Swap (originally aired Friday January 30, 2009) when his wife exchanged positions in his family with a woman from Missouri for a two-week period. In response to her rule changes (standard procedure for the second week in the show) he insulted his guest and, in doing so, groups including the lower classes, soldiers, and the overweight. Several websites were made in protest against his behaviour, such as StephenFowlerSucks.com. After the show, and after watching the Wife Swap video, his wife, a professional life coach, reported that she had encouraged him to attend professional behaviour counselling. Businesses with only tangential connection to Fowler publicly disclaimed any association with him due to the negative publicity. He resigned positions on the boards of two environmental charities to avoid attracting negative press.

• Vigilante Group Torments Mother

  In 2009, a Facebook group was started, accusing a single mother for the death of a 13 month old child in her foster care. It was the Mother’s, then-common-law husband who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the mother was not accused of any wrongdoing. It’s important to note that none of the vigilantes were held accountable for the consequences of any damages caused by the original accusations made against the innocent woman.

VIGILANTE DANGERS

Although a person’s heart is often in the right place the thing people should keep in mind is that no one ever fully knows all the information on a situation. This is the reason why there are procedures and protocols for investigators in law enforcement, government agencies, and organizations — to ensure there is a full and clear understanding of all the facts BEFORE any action is taken against a person or group.

Individual vigilantes who work within the system to initiate and encourage proper investigations by qualified people can definitely make a positive difference in our world … however, individual bullies and cyber-bullies who seek only to advance their own self-proclaimed heroism by enforcing their own twisted form of justice will only do more harm than good — creating a society where it is an accepted common practice to take action specifically designed to hurt others (even with the best of intentions) will only increase the feelings of anger, hate, resentment, and distrust which are already too prevalent in our world.

The final outcome to these kinds of attacks (especially from sources which aren’t held accountable for unfounded or unethical accusations — i.e. anonymous cyber-bullies) is being identified more and more often as the cause for bullycide in our communities. To better understand how cyber vigilantes incite people to commit bullycide you can check out the article recently published on www.DrDanSays.com ‘Why did daddy kill himself?‘

The basic purpose behind a bully’s bullying behaviors are to share and/or project their negative emotions onto others in an attempt to relieve their suffering. (Check out the recent post on www.drdansays.com ‘Why Bullies Bully’) Not unlike a thought virus, feelings of being bullied … powerlessness, hurt, shame, etc. … are easily passed on through repetitive thought patterns — a target of bullying can take on those bad feelings by repeating the bullying experience in their mind over and over. In that sense a bully is able to successfully have their target take on some of their original feelings of low self-esteem.

The point at which this is accomplished is the moment the target of the bully begins to second-guess the way they handled the interaction. The most well known example people recognize are those times when you have sat around thinking back on an event wishing you could go back and change how you acted or what you said to the other person. It’s during this process of re-experiencing the negative feelings generated during the original incident that one’s inner bully is created and made stronger.

The more you allow your unconscious mind to re-live a bad experience the more you’re allowing your mind and feelings to emotionally bully you into feeling bad about yourself and your abilities to handle life. The truth is that the higher purpose of your unconscious mind doing this behavior is to help you learn from it and deal with the unpleasant feelings so you can let them go. This unconscious healing process, however, is not always successful because the act of re-experiencing something over and over — although occasionally beneficial — does not in any way address the problem of not having the proper skills to deal with the situation in the first place.

Only by avoiding this negative thought cycle can you stay out of the ongoing, negative emotional feedback and be able to overcome your inner bully. Taking the time to logically pull apart the facts of an experience and identify what you could do differently next time will you help your unconscious mind come to the conclusion that re-living the experience has served its purpose, and consequently be able to leave those bad feelings behind.

Alternatively, it’s possible that there is no identifiable lesson or learning to get from an experience of bullying — occasionally there is nothing you could have done or do differently next time … you did everything you could, the best you were able to based upon everything you know and have learned. In these cases the only thing to do is realize that you did your best and give yourself the praise necessary to help overcome and put an end to the negative thought cycle of inner bullying.

Whatever the case may be, the fact is that bullies in our external world are one of the truest sources of inner bullying which people live with on a daily basis. Negative self talk, bad feelings, and low self-esteem can easily start and end with bullying in one form or another — the important thing is to develop the strength and defense mechanisms to deal with inner bulling because there will always be people who say and do things (whether they mean to be bullies or not) that leave you feeling bad … the trick is to not let them influence how you see or speak to yourself and who you are and what you can do in this world.

As a side note, people in the field of NLP have noted that it can be very helpful to change the inner voice of bullying to one of more comical origin … like the voice of a cartoon character such Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse — as an example, any time your inner bully starts to negatively comment on your how you handle verbal conflict try changing that inner voice to the voice of Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants and see how it affects the validity of those arguments.

The aged old saying is that ‘blood is thicker than water’ — commonly interpreted to mean ‘family ties are more important than any other relationships.’ If that was true, however, then people in your family should ALWAYS treat you better than anyone else in the world … but that isn’t always the case.

The fact is that there are a lot of people who will agree that their friends are more like ‘family’ than their actual family is — in verbal self defense we put it this way:

If you wouldn’t allow someone on the street to treat you in a certain way, then why would it be okay for your own family members to treat you in that same manner?

Being Tripped Up by Guilt

One of the most common form of bullying among family members is ‘guilt tripping’ — intentionally causing someone to experience feelings of guilt in order to get them to comply with your wishes. The act of making another person feel guilty is easily accomplished by putting that individual’s personal identity in question. One way to do that is to use voice tone to imply that the other person’s decision to do, or not do, what you want makes them a bad person (ie. uncaring, selfish, spoiled, mean, etc.).

In order to verbally defend yourself from such attacks requires two main things; 1) enough self-worth to acknowledge that there are times when your own beliefs, values, and needs deserve more attention than the attacker’s. 2) the confidence to say that implying someone (ex. you)  is a bad person [that you don't care, that you don't love them, that you are doing this out of spite, etc.] in order to convince them to think or do things differently is not the kind of communication you want to use in building your relationship.

How to Stop Guilt Tripping

When you confront a person who guilt trips you it is very important to be specific about identifying what the person is doing or saying that is creating the feelings of guilt — is it their tone of voice, the look on their face, a certain phrase or comment, etc.? When you know what it is about the person’s communication that is making any implication regarding how you are being personally irresponsible towards them (ex. intentionally causing them pain by not agreeing to their request) you can then use the techniques of verbal self defense against that exact bullying behavior.

In the case where you’re not comfortable addressing the issue in the moment, you only need to remember the details of the conversation in which the other person laid a guilt trip on you. You can then go back at a different time and place where you and the person are in a better, or more private, place and you can speak without any blame or emotion getting in the way.

At that point in time, simply present your concerns as facts about how you feel and what you’re hoping the other person will be open to changing… or at least being aware of how their way of communicating is being perceived by you. Stay focused on only dealing with the exact component of their communication that is of concern — stay away from talking about the content!

The goal is to get them to ask for what they want or explain their thoughts in a healthier way that leads to a better and more open relationship. Remember that this is all about ‘family’ and building those deeper ties that bind … free from negative feelings like fear, obligation, and guilt.

The term Hard Limit refers to the absolute limit of one’s personal boundaries which they simply will not cross under any circumstances. Verbal Self Defense has its own kind of hard limit to which it simply will not work — that limit is attempting to use it against hidden or anonymous attackers.

In the modern age one of the greatest benefits of the internet is anonymity; however, it is also one of the internet’s greatest short-comings. In a time where big business and government must be held accountable, a degree of anonymity allows whistle-blowers to inform the public of inappropriate decisions on the part of the people in charge of our country and our economy. This same anonymity also offers people who have more sinister intentions a greater amount of freedom to harass, bully and discredit people without the risk of any consequences for their actions.

This exact scenario has recently happened to several people I know (including myself) and there is absolutely no recourse on the part of the victim(s). It would seem that, as an expert in the art of Verbal Self Defense, I should have some kind of means for dealing with something as simple as attacks to one’s character, but the problem is the lack of an opponent towards which I can fight back. Anyone who has access to a local internet coffee shop can create a fake (and untraceable) email or social network account under a false identity, and then they can use those accounts to begin spreading malicious libel on website forums, personal blogs and social networking sites. In real life a person who slanders your good name can be held accountable in a court of law for any damages they may cause you, but on the internet anonymity means there is no accountability at all. Huge companies such as Microsoft/Hotmail, Google, and Yahoo are able to protect these cyber-bullies from prosecution by helping them to hide their identity … and simply because no one has the wealth necessary to fight such large corporations there is no recourse for the average person even if they attempt to use techniques of verbal self defense.

You see, the main concept behind any effective strategy for verbal self defense relies on the persuasive power behind the potential consequences for the bully if they do NOT change their abusive behaviors. For this reason, verbal self defense has no power against anonymous internet attackers because there is no chance for any type of consequence to the things these cyber-terrorists say (online or in private messages), insinuate, or even directions they give for people to attack a person or their family.

This is currently a growing trend behind cyber-bullying and one of the major causes behind ever increasing statistics on bullycide (bullying induced suicide). However, until large internet businesses such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and others are made to be held accountable for their choice to protect the identity of cyber-terrorists you can expect to see this problem continuing to become worse and worse. At this point in time the only way targets of internet bullying will ever be able to make the changes necessary to stop these kinds of personal attacks is if we band together as a group and start more class-action lawsuits against the industry leaders who are allowing the victimization of innocent people by mean-hearted individuals using their internet servers and websites.

It seems that workplace bullying has become more and more common place in the past decade. However, that’s not because it’s happening more — it’s often the exact same behaviors that have been around for generations — the difference is that people have become more “sensitive.”

There are certain contexts that will have behaviors which, in a completely different setting, would be considered inappropriate or in some cases even illegal, but in those places/situations are thought to be normal. A good example is bars and pubs — anywhere else people wouldn’t allow the rampant amount of sexual harassment that is common place in the liquor industry. In an office environment using vulgar language will usually end in some kind of reprimand from your supervisor, but in a bar it’s totally acceptable.

In the same way, just like behaviors are identified as acceptable or unacceptable by the context, bullying behaviors are not always true forms of bullying. Any bullying type of behavior that does not leave a person feeling bad are actually not a form of workplace bullying. One common example of this is certain types of playful humor — practical jokes which are found to be funny by everyone involved can easily become a form of workplace bullying if even one person considers the experience hurtful.

Have you ever experienced a situation where you did something or said something that, although you thought it would be funny, the other person didn’t understand or misunderstood your intentions in a negative way? Maybe it was the context you were in or maybe it was the wrong time or just the wrong kind of person to share that particular type of humor.

The key however is to remember that it’s not the bully’s responsibility to assure the other person is unhurt by their words or actions — in fact, it only becomes bullying at the point when the target informs the person that what they’re doing is a problem. After that point it should include input from both sides to find a solution.