In a day and age when stopping bullies is a HUGE topic in the news, it surprises me when I experience bullying by ADULTS.
I've been bullied much of my life - mainly because I was the only one with red hair in my class. (Kids who don't know better can be cruel to someone who is different ). It's really pathetic though when an adult who knows someone has a medical condition targets that affliction to be mean. That's what sufferers struggle with when debating about whether or not to tell someone that we have misophonia. If we're lucky, then the person we tell is compassionate and understanding of our discomfort. If we're not, then we risk having the person use that knowledge to deliberately torture us by triggering us more...
I mentioned in my last post that, after discretely asking one of my coworkers to stop clicking his pen because it was triggering my misophonia, he callously gave me a hard time saying that this is an open office environment and I shouldn't expect everyone to cater to my needs. (In my opinion, kind of an overreaction to my having made a simple request to him one-on-one.) Today, as I was starting to wrap up things for the day, that same coworker deliberately clicked his pen ONCE right by my ear as he walked past me. I felt like standing up and saying, "What are you, ten years old? Grow up!" I mean, over half of the firm knows of my condition - it's the reason why I was allowed to move to the newly renovated space - yet he's the ONLY one who seems to have a problem with my having asked him to stop making a distracting noise. Everyone else of whom I've made a similar request has been very understanding and compassionate.
I haven't quite decided how I'm going to handle it if he does it again. I could ignore him, but having been bullied in the past, ignoring usually let's the bullies know that they are getting to me and they keep on bullying. I know one effective way to stop a bully is to stand up to him - so I'm very tempted to politely, but firmly, confront him at the time of the act - even if the rest of the people in the room hear what I'm saying. (May even show him I am not embarrassed to stand up for myself.) I'm also contemplating going to HR and without mentioning any names, explain what's going on (hopefully the firm will be against bullying too). That way, if I do stand up to him, I could also say something like, "HR is aware of what's going on, so I *highly* caution against bullying me again!" Maybe then he'd think twice about what he's doing (since I doubt he associates his actions with bullying.)
(Sigh!)... For now, I'm just going to sleep on it... Maybe I'll be able to think more clearly after some mindfulness meditation and releasing stress at my physical therapy workout in the morning.
I've been bullied much of my life - mainly because I was the only one with red hair in my class. (Kids who don't know better can be cruel to someone who is different ). It's really pathetic though when an adult who knows someone has a medical condition targets that affliction to be mean. That's what sufferers struggle with when debating about whether or not to tell someone that we have misophonia. If we're lucky, then the person we tell is compassionate and understanding of our discomfort. If we're not, then we risk having the person use that knowledge to deliberately torture us by triggering us more...
I mentioned in my last post that, after discretely asking one of my coworkers to stop clicking his pen because it was triggering my misophonia, he callously gave me a hard time saying that this is an open office environment and I shouldn't expect everyone to cater to my needs. (In my opinion, kind of an overreaction to my having made a simple request to him one-on-one.) Today, as I was starting to wrap up things for the day, that same coworker deliberately clicked his pen ONCE right by my ear as he walked past me. I felt like standing up and saying, "What are you, ten years old? Grow up!" I mean, over half of the firm knows of my condition - it's the reason why I was allowed to move to the newly renovated space - yet he's the ONLY one who seems to have a problem with my having asked him to stop making a distracting noise. Everyone else of whom I've made a similar request has been very understanding and compassionate.
I haven't quite decided how I'm going to handle it if he does it again. I could ignore him, but having been bullied in the past, ignoring usually let's the bullies know that they are getting to me and they keep on bullying. I know one effective way to stop a bully is to stand up to him - so I'm very tempted to politely, but firmly, confront him at the time of the act - even if the rest of the people in the room hear what I'm saying. (May even show him I am not embarrassed to stand up for myself.) I'm also contemplating going to HR and without mentioning any names, explain what's going on (hopefully the firm will be against bullying too). That way, if I do stand up to him, I could also say something like, "HR is aware of what's going on, so I *highly* caution against bullying me again!" Maybe then he'd think twice about what he's doing (since I doubt he associates his actions with bullying.)
(Sigh!)... For now, I'm just going to sleep on it... Maybe I'll be able to think more clearly after some mindfulness meditation and releasing stress at my physical therapy workout in the morning.
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