One of the problems with children is that just when you’ve buried some past trauma/shame nice and deep, they go through something similar and you have to dredge it all back up again and DEAL WITH IT LIKE AN ADULT.

Urg.

The Big Small moved to secondary school in September. Inevitably, that has meant new and changing friendships as the social structure flexes and settles.

It has therefore also meant some Girl Drama.

I am familiar with Girl Drama. It saddens and actually slightly surprises me that SO LITTLE has changed in the last 30 years in terms of social structures, cliques, frenemies, and bullying.

There is still all of the eye rolling, the ignoring, excluding, undermining and mean little jibes. There’s still the gathering into ‘sides’, with self-preserving peers inevitably following the strongest social force.

But I don’t know why it surprises me, because it’s not even like I’m remembering all this from 30 years ago…

The last time I was bullied, I was at work.

ALL of the above happened – like it was playing out in a classroom.

And I did everything wrong.

What’s really difficult is that under this sort of situation, it seems the Big Small has similar, wrong natural instincts. It’s painful to watch history repeat itself. And despite having decades of experience on her, I fear I’m STILL not the best person to help her navigate it.

When there is conflict, I automatically assume I’m the one in the wrong. However angry or wronged I feel, it is short-lived, and I go very quickly into appease mode. So does she. We show our juggulars, try and ingratiate ourselves, flatter, bribe, grovel. We’ll go to great lengths to try and gain sympathy to make it stop.

But the more submissive you are the more you annoy your aggressor, and the more you act the victim, the more you get treated like one.

What happened to me in the workplace has taken a really, really long time to get over. And the hardest bit has been to forgive myself.

The fact is that not only did I not handle it well, I didn’t behave well. And I’m ashamed of both. In fact this is the first time I’ve ever talked about it.

Looking back with kindness, as I am slowly learning to do, I was struggling with my increasingly toxic marriage, with postnatal depression that had re-triggered my OCD and other long-standing mental health issues, plus miscarriage and fertility problems and the physical ill-health that was causing them.

I was not dealing with any of it healthily or successfully.

It clearly affected my work, my reactions to people and situations – my personality. I was oversensitive, over-reactive, in constant fight, flight or freeze mode. I wasn’t thinking in straight lines, in long terms – or very much about others.

And I’m sure I was very, very annoying.

But here’s the thing I now know. I know I was never actually failing to deliver the core things I needed to, even if I was no longer a rising star. And I was never deliberately cruel or unkind to anyone.

I KNOW, now, that I did not deserve to be treated the way I was treated.

I think the worst moment was coming in on mat leave for a meeting, steeling myself and going up to say hi to one particular woman. She literally rolled her eyes at me, did not respond, and turned her back to talk loudly to someone else in full view of the whole office.

Regina George eat your heart out.

I thought I was going to pass out with the sheer awfulness of it (which says something about the place I was in). I couldn’t hear, or see, and everything burned static. It was so public, and so humiliating – it’s still excruciating to remember it. And when I managed to pluck up the courage to mention it to my manager, who had clearly seen and was aware, she smirked at me, and said it would probably blow over. It was clear they had discussed me.

It remained heavy weight over the rest of my mat leave, and an early death knell to my time there. She had more seniority, connections and social power than me, and I was restructured out not too long after – something I now consider a huge favour.

The trouble, I have learned, with being a victim, is that no victim is ever perfect. You sort of become complicit in your own bullying or abuse, by whatever it was that caused you to be chosen, by continuing to take it, by reacting badly to it, by trying to control when and how it happens.

So here are the things that I’m still trying to learn about how to deal with bullying and/or difficult people, and I’m trying my best to pass on to my kids.

10 WAYS TO DEAL WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE – as an adult or a child:

1. Reflect

Bullying is NEVER your fault, but it’s worth stepping back to consider what’s happening, when, and why. Be honest with yourself – IS there something you should apologise for? Are there triggers for this person, or patterns that you can notice? Does the bullying happen when you’re talking about specific subjects, or using specific phrases, for instance? Are there things you can avoid, or ways to present information, so there’s less drama between you?

Just make sure you’re not compromising yourself. You’re figuring out how they operate and what they need from you so you rub along better – you’re not changing your whole personality for them.

2. Call it out

Try and call out problematic behaviour in the moment. It’s often useful to pretend you didn’t hear something, and ask someone to repeat it, or to pretend you didn’t understand, and ask them to explain it. If it’s openly unkind or awful, having to say it out loud again might make them rethink.

If they do say it again, be surprised. “Wow, okay” or “Wow, that was kind of mean/aggressive/extreme.” And follow this up with, “Are you okay?”. Turn it back to THEM to justify what they’re saying and why.

3. Stay calm

‘If you don’t react then they’ll get bored’ is trite bullying advice, but there’s something in it. If you’re not showing that you’re upset or angry, then you stay in control. Bullies are getting a dopamine hit from having power over you – take some of the pleasure out of it. And give them less material to use against you. Be factual, plain, emotionless, and concise.

If you need to, go full Grey Rock (scroll back to see previous blogs for more details on how to do this).

4. Have a direct, goal-oriented conversation

The next step is to have a direct conversation (I am still terrible at this). Get the person on their own, or take a friend with you to help. “Karen, I get the impression I’ve annoyed you. I didn’t mean to, and I want to set things right. Can you let me know what the problem is so we can fix it?”

Be armed with examples if they deny things. “Yesterday when I said X, you said X, and I just wanted to ask what that was about.” Sometimes, it can be helpful to keep a diary of the behaviour, partly so you know you’re not going mad.

If they do respond, be prepared to listen, and consider what they say. Be goal-orientated – it’s not about scoring points or righting wrongs, it’s about agreeing what each of you needs to do to interact more successfully in the future. “What can we do differently next time?”

5. Tell someone

However old you are, it’s so important not to go through bullying alone. If you have not been able to sort it out for yourself, it’s time to get someone else involved. That could be a parent, a teacher, a manager, or HR.

This is where it’s really useful to have that diary – make sure it includes dates and witnesses who were there at the time.

6. Remove yourself

If you are consistently having problems with someone, distance can help. If it’s possible, literally go off and do something else – with someone else. Some useful phrases:

“I don’t think this conversation is helpful, so I’m going to go.”

“Let’s come back to this later.”

“I need a bit of time out – I’ll see you later.”

“I said I’d hang with XX today – see you later.”

7. Find your tribe

Not everyone was made to be best friends, and that’s okay. Not everybody has to like you – that’s okay, too! And it doesn’t reflect badly on you if they don’t. Find your people – the ones that appreciate you when you’re all of your different yous – silly, grumpy, high and low. Lean into those alternative friendships.

8. BE YOU

Here’s the real secret to bullying. BE YOU.

If you’re less around someone, if you’re littler, quieter, feebler, if you’re in ‘victim mode’ around someone, then you’re not YOU. And that actually makes it easier to bully you.

Being you is your superpower. When you do it fully and unashamedly, it’s actually the thing that attracts people – and specifically YOUR KIND OF PEOPLE. And when you’re happy and fulfilled and doing your thing, the bullying affects you less, and often just drops away.

9. Try and understand

Bullying works in cycles. Happy people don’t bully others. So it might help to try and understand your bully, and that it’s definitely about them and not you. Maybe someone’s being mean to them elsewhere in their life. Maybe they have crippling anxiety or other mental health problems. Maybe they’re neurodiverse and just struggling to process the world.

You really don’t know what’s going on in other people’s lives, and putting the best possible spin on their motivations is probably a good starting point. There are very few evil people, but unfortunately there are lots and lots of sad and struggling ones.

I’m pretty sure my bully was going through her own trauma, which is why she had zero truck with mine or my failure to deal with it. And that’s why I wish her the best, now.

10. Break the cycle

You remember how it felt to be bullied. Now make sure you don’t do it to anyone else.

Not being mean isn’t actually very hard. You can set boundaries with annoying people, you can be firm, and you can totally avoid those who are clearly car crashes waiting to happen (the category I think I came under at this particular point in time). Just don’t throw more obstacles into their path, eh?

It’s also important you don’t WATCH it happen to anyone else without saying something to them, their bully, or someone in authority.

Finally, one of the best things you can do to break the cycle is to CHAMPION OTHER GIRLS/WOMEN, and encourage your daughters to do the same.

That means normalising celebrating each other’s successes, helping each other through our failures, forgiving each other our foibles – and boosting each other up instead of tearing each other down.

Because we’re not in the 90s and in Mean Girls. We HAVE to have learned something over the last 30 years (or 10 years in my case). And we have to pass it on…

We’re better than eye rolling and bitchiness.

And we’re better together.