22d (edited) • 🤬 Bullying
Adult bullying continued...
One of the strange things about adult bullying is how rarely it feels dramatic.
Most of the time, it feels confusing and easy to dismiss.
It’s the conversation you walk away from and replay to later. The strange tone shift in an email. The joke that lands a bit too sharply, but not sharply enough to call out without feeling awkward. The subtle change in energy when you enter a room. The way your idea is brushed past and then praised when it comes from someone else.
Individually, none of these things seem “bad enough.” Together, over weeks or months, they start to change how you show up. You become more careful. More reserved. You speak less. You doubt yourself more. Not because of one big moment, but because of a slow accumulation of small ones.
That’s what makes adult bullying difficult to talk about. There’s often no single event you can point to and say, “This is it.” So you start questioning your own perception instead.
And because adults are supposed to be “mature,” we tell ourselves to just push through, be professional, not take things personally, rise above it… even when something in us knows it doesn’t feel right.
I personally feel that the healthiest response isn’t to understand the other person better, explain yourself more clearly, or try harder to smooth things over. It’s simply to notice the pattern and take it seriously.
It might start with not laughing along. Not explaining yourself as much. Not volunteering extra information. Not over-apologising. Not rushing to smooth over tension. You're building your self-respect back up in small doses.
The bully usually notices this before anyone else does. They feel the loss of access. The lack of reaction. The emotional door that used to be open is not there now. When you do this the dynamic changes, because you’re no longer trying to manage their emotions for them. It doesn't have to be dramatic. A boundary doesn’t have to be an argument. It can be as small as shifting how much access someone has to you. How much you share. How much energy you offer in return. You are deciding and taking control. They’re no longer someone who gets the same version of you, and you don’t need to win anything for it to be a healthy choice.
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Adult bullying continued...
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