How do I know if I'm a bully?

Applying your own power as a sense of being inferior to another individual. This includes having a lack of care of how your actions may affect another individual's feelings and having no respect or acceptance for who they are. There are many forms of bullying - it is not just picking on them after school, there can be verbal, physical and cyber bullying and there is help available for those who believe to be a bully or are unsure whether they are one. There is also help available to parents who may be concerned that their child is a bully.

You have all the freedom you want, as long as you don't hurt someone. When someone tells you that you hurt them, you don't get to say you didn't, or that their feelings are wrong. And if they don't say it to you directly, you can watch their reaction to your actions (arethey crying, does their laugh sound fake, are they laughing, do they feel embarrased, WATCH THEIR BODY LANGUAGE,...). When you see you hurt them in any way, apologize and NEVER repeat it again. You become a bully when you reapeat the actions of hurting someone in any way.

If you are hurting someone by hitting them or anything to the body that can cause them physical harm you are a bully. If you are posting mean and hurtful things on social media then you are a bully. When you say things to someone that breaks their self esteem or hurts them emotionally then you are a bully as well. Bullies are not always aware that they might be doing hurtful things to a person because most bullies were bullied themselves. If you know that you are causing someone harm on purpose then yes you are a mean bully.

Everyone's experience in life is different, so the only way to know if you're a bully to someone else is to ask them. In asking them you can have a conversation about it, and if they feel like you have been a bully towards them for some reason, you can decide then how you want to respond to that. I have found in my past experience that talking to people about something is the best way to really understand how I have had an effect on that person and it is usually not as bad as I have thought. If you need advice on this I recommend reading the Bullying self-help guide on 7 cups or by starting a conversation with one of our trained listeners.

If you notice you enjoy hurting or making people afraid, it is likely you are behaving like a bully. Feelings of power and control may dominate your mind when you hurt unassertive individuals, this should indicate it is time to think about your thoughts and behavior. Bully's usually experience the feeling of being out of control in their own lives (home/school) or even experience abusive situations. If you are exhibiting aggressive or harmful behavior to weaker people, then it is likely you are trying to subconsciously re-gain that power. Self-esteem and assertiveness can be taught, so changing aggressive or harmful behaviors and replacing them with more healthy responses/thoughts is relatively easy when you understand why you originally behaved and thought that way. If you are unaware of what fear looks like in others, a good indicator would be facial expressions. Do people avoid you? Do people always just agree with you? are they confident to challenge you? Have you ever asked someone you know to be honest and tell you what people think of you and how you make them feel? Bullying doesn't always mean physically threatening or harming someone. It can be ostracizing weaker members of your group (Children/adults). Social media is a prime example of bullying without touching someone. Excluding friends from group social media platforms or posting mean pictures supposedly representing the person being bullied, are all gross acts of harmful psychological bullying. If any of this resonates it may be a good time to address these behaviors and seek support in implementing change.

If you persistently and systematically bad-mouth, intimidate, name-call, insult, exclude, make fun of, make life or tasks difficult or delayed on purpose, or mistreat a particular person or group, you are a bully. More so if you are in a position of power such that it is difficult, risky or even dangerous to the victim or victims to defend themselves from you. A bully has a target. The target may be randomly chosen. Usually, they will accuse the victim of being somehow defective. The bully may sincerely believe that the victim deserves that treatment. The bully may also feel intimidated by the victim, the successes or good traits that the victim may have, in such a way that the bully feels the need to defend itself from the victim. They may, thus, feel envy of the victim, but it is also often not the case. The bullies often (not always) have low self-esteem, care a lot about the opinion that others have about them, find pleasure in getting attention from the victim or others and in feeling that they have such power that they cannot be confronted. Abusing another person makes them feel in control, release anger that they feel against another person (whom they cannot confront) and thus feel better about themselves or their situation temporarily. If you suffer from malignant narcissism, chances are that you are a bully. Bullies have little to no empathy for their victims. They are seen just as objects for gratification or a threat to be rid of. Bullies don't seem to often believe that what they do is wrong anyhow. They don't tend to see themselves as bullies. If confronted about their conduct, bullies may blame the victim and play themselves as victims. The victim can almost never become "good enough" for the abuser to decide not to abuse.

It’s hard sometimes to practice self-awareness and reflection if you haven’t gotten in the habit of doing so. My question to you would be, what makes you ask this question in the first place? Do you have experience verbally or physically abusing someone else for the purpose of making them feel worse? Do you target one person and repeatedly try to take them down a notch? Taking the time to find within yourself the reasons you may do something like this will allow you to grow as a person and mend your ways. We all have space to learn to be better humans! I believe in you!

You find yourself unhappy with your life, you treat others unfairly on a regular basis when they don’t deserve your unfair treatment, you find whoever you pick on or are unfair to have or look as if they have better lifestyles and relationships that you may be lacking which is why you feel better after knocking them down as your jealous or have low self esteem yourself and feel you have no other ways of making yourself feel better about yourself. If you feel like this or are struggling daily with things and feel like you treat others badly regularly you may be a bully.

I think the fact that you are asking this question is an answer itself . I would suggest that if you feel that you have bullied someone maybe you should talk to that person, ask them if you have done something wrong for them , what is that thing and how can you fix it .from that you can only become a better person either you are or you're not.try not to be in denial of the answer that you will be recieving , face it whatever it is and dont be ashamed or scared and always remember a person who can make a conversation is a strong person .

Think about the things you consistently say and do to those around you and ask yourself how you would feel if someone said and did the same thing to you. Put yourself in another person's shoes and ask "did saying/doing this hurt that person? Did it cause physical/mental pain? Have I made their day worse instead of better?" If you can answer "yes" to these sorts of questions, and you do so intentionally and regularly, then maybe you are a bully. If you unintentionally hurt someone on several occasions I would say you are just unaware of how you are making someone else feel and rather than labelling yourself a bully you should try to change. If you think you're hurting someone, ask them, you would make yourself and that person very happy. Always think before you speak or act. Empathy is a very powerful thing, put yourself in someone else's shoes and treat someone the way you would like to be treated. Always be kind to others.