...there are squirrels in my head...

I think it’s safe to say that we all pretty much get bullying = bad.

What we don’t get is what to do about it.

Bullying is one of those topics that is, unfortunately, near to my heart.  I dealt with it as a child and, unfortunately, I've dealt with it as an adult..especially over the past few years.  Many of you have seen the effect of that here in my Livejournal, which used to be a lot more public until the bullying began and folks in category B below (also called 'sycophants') started frequenting my blog.

That’s a sobering graphic.  It shows, very matter-of-factly, that it’s not just the act of bullying that’s the problem…it’s how we react to the bully/the bullying that contributes to the situation.  In my experience as being both a child and as an adult that’s been bullied, there are way too many people in categories B, C, D, E, and F.  The pain of being bullied often has more to do with those categories than the one bully ringleader.

So we’re told to ignore the bully and the situation will stop, and those of us that have tried that know it doesn’t work.  A good bully has all those other sycophants participating, consciously or not, in the hurt, and the more you hurt? The more they enjoy what they're doing.

What does help?  Being willing to say, “That’s not ok," and standing up to bad behavior.

And that’s a large part of what the Don’t be a Monster campaign is all about.

You can find this campaign on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dont-Be-A-Monster, or online at http://www.dontbeamonster.org/.  Drop them a note if you want to help them succeed, or if you’d like more information.