I know people who treat people badly. Doing so makes them feel powerful, even if it only for that moment in time.
I know people who find pleasure in watching others squirm and flush or worse yet let go of their temper and let it fly or as a southerner will say - lose their religion - in response to their treatment. I believe they consider it loving.
I know people whose relationships are built on the idea of conquering, controlling and defeat. They live a war like existance where survival and being King/Queen of the hill is most important. Oh, they have friends and lovers and more often than not committed partners but what they lack is the intimacy true vulnverability and trust brings.
I know people who watch others slip and fall and reach out to their loved ones for support while they, those watching, still can't figure out how not to bite the hands extended to them. Instead of stopping themselves from attacking those who would help they lean against glass walls erected around their vulnerability.
I know people whose history of meanness and emotional or verbal abuse of those that dared to befriend or even love them force them to survive on half smile "hellos" and "good days" and greeting sent from safe distances.
I know people that are really lonely and sad because they behave this way and have no idea how not to.
Do you know people?
3 comments:
I know people who don't believe that their kid has ever done anything mean. So they don't confront them and explain why they should not act like that. Instead they construct dizzying excuses and expect everyone to make allowances for their behavior. I'm all for making allowances for kids making mistakes, but if they are not confronted about their selfishness or occasional mean impulse, then they grow up always expecting others to take what they dish out.
A cousin of mine was a bully. No matter what his mother and the aunts did he would not stop bullying others, that included us younger cousins. He also mistreated animals and inanimate objects. One day we, the younger cousins, gathered forces and beat the heck out of him. When he went crying to his mom, my aunt, she told him that he got what he deserved and made him verbally sort it out with us. When he was chased by a pack of dogs he was taunting my Aunt let him squirm just enough outside a locked door for him to be really afraid and then again, told him he got what he deserved - which included peeing on himself. When the girl he liked and tormented thru grade school grew taller than him and punched him in the face for bullying and intimidating her ..you get the picture..luckily he isn't/wasn't a sociopath..in the end he learned his actions has consequence. Perhaps her methods were harsh but the incidents were far enough between each other that they didn't crush my cousin's personality..
When my husband was in his graduate program, we lived in university family housing and witnessed quite an array of different parenting techniques. One very sweet, but at times seemingly delusional, mother kept inventing stories to explain why her three year old kept shoving and knocking down a particularly small four year old girl. The mother was convinced that her son was doing it out of concern for her because she was so little. He was just trying to satisfy himself that she was not as frail as she looked. Then he would not have to worry about her. Can you imagine?!?
On other occasions I would see him look furtively about and then do something mean to another child. Once I saw him digging and twisting his knuckle into the back of another child's hand while he looked around; I caught his gaze and he quickly withdrew his hand and put distance between himself and the afflicted child just as he started to cry. It seems only his mother believed him incapable of meanness. The other moms knew to look out for him.
Glad your cousin turned out fine.
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