Checking Bullies: Why Our Response Matters More Than Their Words

by Benson Agoha

Bullies are provocative, sometimes intimidating and despicable bunch. And it has the potential to become a scourge because it can be infectious.

Bullies often overlook their own short-comings, in their rabid desperation to intimidate or hurt others. Then, they claim it was all for fun. 'Just having a little fun here - looks like you take things too seriously', you could hear them say as they try to placate their way out of indictment.

Of the myriads ob bullies one can experience, the worse among them are mental health bullies. These group, with as much deficiency as anyone else, manage to mask theirs with a translucent veneer of complex they wear for garment, and try to project the opposite. It actually takes little to unmask them.

A few months ago, I met several new faces from the Greenwich Twitter community at this meet-and-greet session. But among the lot was a perfectly masked bully with a decadence that an observant person will recognise as a camouflage.

Camouflages are a trigger for alertness but when worn as a uniform, they become fashionable and appealing. If only we remember never to take camouflages at face value.

So this lady projected an image of a conditioned, cultured and well polished city girl who would regard anyone capable of hurting a fly with disdain.

By the time, I left them to it, I had formed an opinion, to 'watch' her. And remained doing it even though we communicated in the days following that first meeting. By the time she 'came out', I was neither surprised nor disappointed.

No one can say exactly what triggers bullying in people, because while some do it for fun, others do it in reaction to the environmental displacement.

When subjected to pressure or other forms of stressful situation, people have been seen to react differently. While some people are as sweet as honey when they have money - or hope to have it, and become monsters when they don't, others have sleep and wake up relishing bullying.

All these abnormal behaviours from bullies show that a normal person can actually behave abnormally and may consequently require a more urgent attention for mental health professionals. Yet, until they take themselves there or are reported, they will carry on, and be seen as 'normal'.

The Home Treatment Team at the Oxleas House have capable mental health professionals who access patients, treat them where necessary and or make necessary recommendations and referrals.

But on the inside wall is a poster with the inscription "Did you know that, as a proven fact, 1 in 4 persons, have mental ill-health?

Very interesting wouldn't you say? But the statement is designed to encourage you to be honest and face reality. It is also designed to provide a psychological boost against bullying.

If you are aware that he who was bullying you faced even worse condition, and still passes off as 'normal', would you take their bullying so seriously? Or simply give it back to them and move on?

Parents should teach their children to develop a strong mental attitude early, which is a potent weapon against the effect of an act that emanate from very cruel, evil minded, ill-conceived and degrading minds.

Teach them to have a sense of self-worth and self-belief. It is this combination that enables you to strengthen your inhibitions so that you are immune to hurtful words and acts of bullies.

The reality of our world is that everybody cannot be cultured - even if you taught them. So, since there certainly will be deviants, it makes sense to prepare children to expect them, and know how to deal with them.

I have received a fair share of slurs and bullying. And actually firstly, I think, heard the word 'wanker' thrown at me from bullies at a Wood Green based shop. I had to ask colleagues for the meaning, and then trivialised it by telling them the abuse was hauled at my back, and not meant for me.

As a Marketing Canvasser with a Home Improvements outfit in welling, I received remarks. Not from colleagues of course, but from a group of fun-seeking lads, presumably bored with nothing to do, chose to drive around after a good meal, and say something unkind to others. That too, I let fall off my 'none-stick' back.

Nothing prepares you better against bullies than knowing what to say back to them and when. And frankly, sometimes, it is not every remark that merits a response.

While visiting the French Southern Provence of Avignon, my host and guide once told me that surviving presence of 2000 year-old single lane Bridge, called St. Julien, was evidence that Europe was also colonised. But he said, they got over it and recovered to rebuild and become world economic and military powers. Then he asked, why can't Africa get over there's?

Of course he got no immediate answer from me, but his thought-provoking question did stir a wave of internal reviews that helped me develop into a more confident African.

But there is nothing good about bullying. It is an anti-social behaviour that insults and degrades people, and which has led to the untimely death of so many hurt souls, who lacked the capacity to tolerate it.

But think of it, why would you help a bully either by crying or taking your own life? Many of those who committed suicide in recent times have been children who have hardly defined their goals in life.

My son was more confident than I ever was as a child, knocked into a confident lad early on by a German Foundation school called SOS Village.

But you never grow up to your parents and everyday I ask myself whether there were things I should have told him, that I didn't. Teach your child the right things about bullies and help them stay alive longer.

The best and the greatest of minds, say they have been bullied, and that is with the statistics not withstanding.

The discovery of the Higgs Bossom was remarkable, but the theory was developed by a man who was bullied earlier on. Imagine if he had given up.

Professor Peter Higgs told the BBC Radio 4 programme that in the early days of his theory, "he was considered a bit more eccentric and may be cranky".

Ok, you may have to operationalise the words to place them, but I don't see anything different other than bullying if you are considered strange, weird or an outcast.

In the end, it is our response to bullying that really matters.

* Follow me on Twitter(follow): @bensonagoha and @woolwichonline.