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Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CCS414
If you have to prompt someone for an apology then likely their response wont be heartfelt. A true apology comes from a source of embarrassment, integrity and accountability.
Exactly. An insincere apology is worse than no apology.
Nothing's going to change the way you feel after you've been on the receiving end of bullying. It hurts and it's unfair. Apologies only do so much. Not repeating the behavior works as good as anything. That's someone you may be able to resolve things with.
But it helps to develop some behavioral skills for dealing with it at the time it's happening. With the internet we have loads of good psychological information for that today. Also it has really helped me to understand that most people who bully are, likewise, victims of bullying. They never learned healthy ways to cope with the memory of it. It turned them into something I don't want to be.
So for me retaliation is out of the question. No one is going to make me do something I don't want to do.
Ooooooh! I see what OP's talking about. Searching for a free version (we NEVER give money to The Hollywood Lie Machine - EVER) of the movie, I read enough descriptions of the plot, on IMDB, to see that the movie had a horrible ending. (horrible, in that viewers were led to believe that apologies matter, and that bullies are redeemable)
In real life (in my personal opinion, based on decades of experience, and on decades-long friendships with mental health professionals, who've confided way more than they should've), bullies are sociopaths/psychopaths/narcissists. The movie is accurate, in showing that bullying/sociopathy/psychopathy/narcissism can have heritable components. Personality traits are highly heritable, although it is increasingly forbidden to acknowledge this.
If I'd grown up in rural Minnesota, or in some extra-English part of the English countryside - someplace where people are hard-wired for Altruism, I might think that apologies from bullies could have positive outcomes.
But I grew up in a place about like this:Jackson Jambalaya: Junior Goons? (Updated) (only way poorer and way browner and in a region where encountering a traffic light and "uh Wendy's", meant you were in a big city: our county had no Wendy's, although there was a yellow blinkylight at "Thuh Main Intersection". That said, locals swelled with pride, to note that our county was adjacent two counties, each of which had its own real three-color traffic light, and "uh Wendy's".).
But back to Rankin County, in the video: The New York Times has discovered the place. National and international media are investigating "The Wolf Pups Daycare Scandal", the video's adolescent bullying scandal, the Sheriff's "Goon Squad" (who torture and murder druggies operating outside the aegis of the local Cartel), a spectacular BaseballHero/Bodybuilder/Swinger/WealthManager's extra-brutal beating of his wife, and much, much more. Rankin County bullying, starts in daycare, and continues throughout life.
That's how it was, in my childhood county, too. I lived-through plenty of beatdowns like the one in the video. I'd get sent to the office, if I was bleeding too much. Most of the office staff were born without the capacity for empathy, and just sneered: "HER, again...". (about that time, my 'Cousin Crazy' watched, as office staff in the Memphis school where she was a novice teacher, ignored a male teacher lying on the floor, bleeding and dying from a head injury. They weren't going to bother calling an ambulance, and if SHE hadn't....)
But it was OK, actually, because I was a girl. Two of my fey male classmates were bullied-to-death. Girls, we knew intuitively, occasionally got chances, and life could become bearable. You could get knocked-up enough times, and have a career as a welfare mom. Or you could hook-up with a long-haul trucker. Or you could go to work as a maid, for people in one of those rich counties with a Wendy's (most of the houses in Mississippi towns, were pre-1925, and had one-room lean-tos off their garages, built, originally, for chauffeurs. Dreams of such luxury, kept me going.). For boys, though, as those boys sensed, it only got worse. They're dead.
Bullies intend to harm. They derive pleasure from doing harm. They derive validation, somehow, from harming/belittling/controlling/gaslighting/destroying. They tend to come from people and value systems and folkways where such behavior is normal - desirable - EXPECTED. For such people and cultures, it makes you MORE of a person, to subjugate, control, and destroy others.
Asking for an apology from a bully, outside Hollywood's dreamworld, only returns that bully's attention to the person doing the asking. You don't want a bully thinking about you.
It is also vindictive and frankly, juvenile. Two wrongs don't make a right. I'd rather not stoop to the bully's level, thank you very much! IMHO, "payback" only needs to happen in your own head. You get it by living a great life in spite of having been bullied. Knowing the bully no longer has any power over you is quite enough.
I've never been bullied myself and my sympathy to those that have experienced that type of hardship. Ideally it would be great if a former bully reaches out, owns up to their past wrongs and apologizes to their victim.
What if that doesn't happen and the former bully is unremorseful (even still tries bullying you as an adult), should they be forced to apologize? Is it right for the former victim to demand an apology, knowing very well that it's going to be forced and insincere in the end?
I got inspired after watching the movie You Again 2010 by Kristen Bell. The movie was about a HS girl that has been bullied for 4 whole years by a popular cheerleader (JJ) and her friends. The victim literally gets thrown out of the school building and locked. Her older brother is clueless about it. Then 8 years later (she's now 26), she learns her brother's fiancee is the same cheerleader that tormented her back then. When they meet again after all these years, JJ pretends not to know her because supposedly she's too embarrassed of what she did back then and doesn't want to talk about it at all. However, the victim continues pressuring for an apology and even said '' Hey I wanted a real apology and I DESERVED one'' and JJ replies ''That was HS (still unrepentant about it)''. In the end, JJ apologizes but this was after she loses everything and is only sorry about getting caught and no longer getting married. She never properly apologizes. The victim never got her real apology. After all what type of apology is it if you had to demand it? The woman clearly sounded like a narcissist.
What do you think? If you know very well they're unremorseful, would you still insist on getting your apology? Should they still be forced to apologize even though it's going to be fake by then? They aren't feeling it at all.
Personally, I wouldn't care so much about the apology but admittedly I'd get a bit of satisfaction seeing karma catch up with the bully. In this instance it looks like it did. The thing with karma is that you don't have to do a thing except watch, if you care to. And then go on with your life as though they never existed.
Exactly. An insincere apology is worse than no apology.
Yup. It's sad the character was obsessed with getting her apology, failing to comprehend that a narcissist or sociopath like that bully can fake the apology. She only wanted to hear those worthless ''I'm sorry'' words, while ignoring actions following it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GrandviewGloria
Ooooooh! I see what OP's talking about. Searching for a free version (we NEVER give money to The Hollywood Lie Machine - EVER) of the movie, I read enough descriptions of the plot, on IMDB, to see that the movie had a horrible ending. (horrible, in that viewers were led to believe that apologies matter, and that bullies are redeemable)
It was indeed a horrible ending. In real life, the victim's caring family would've kicked out the bully out of their lives and there would be no wedding. The bully would likely also get charged with assault. Throwing dishes at the victim's direction and then throwing a guacamole sauce (as an adult who supposedly is into nursing school), yeah that's psycho, crazy behavior that no real brother would just get over someone doing that to their baby sister.
I was disappointed in the ending because it didn't just teach how an apology is needed and fixes it all but also that you can bully your victim for as long as you want to and as long as you say sorry after getting caught and nearly losing everything, all is worked out and you guys are magically best friends, lol. Even better, not just best friend but the victim is then the one walking you on your wedding; while the bully did nothing redeeming to deserve all that. OMG LOL.
Personally, I wouldn't care so much about the apology but admittedly I'd get a bit of satisfaction seeing karma catch up with the bully. In this instance it looks like it did. The thing with karma is that you don't have to do a thing except watch, if you care to.
I doubt a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath (an unrepentant bully belongs to either of those categories) would even care too much in the end if they still got what they wanted. The bully still got married in the end so she won. It would've made sense (a realistic ending) if they had remained broken up, the victim's family kicks the bully to the curb and we see how the bully suffers ever since the break-up and her reputation completely destroyed.
A healthy adult would have moved past it. If someone is still feeling some kind of way about a bully from their past, especially one they know is unremorseful, they should seek therapy, not an apology.
The few bullies I had can go suck it. Their apology would only make THEM feel better.
I'll just have another beer by the pool while they're off working their azzes off because their social security isn't enough to "get by on", while I retired comfortably at 54.
A good apology is like an antibiotic. A bad apology is like rubbing salt into the wound. “The Last Lecture,” by Randy Pausch
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