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Author Topic:   Bullyonline: Drama queens, saviours, rescuers
juniperb
Knowflake

Posts: 591
From: Blue Star Kachina
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 12, 2010 04:10 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
With the recent events and the media along with so many prominent people speaking out on bullying, this aricle came to mind.
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/attent.htm


This is a list of types of bullies. The link leads to the complete and interesting article.

Attention-seeking behaviour is surprisingly common. Being the centre of attention alleviates feelings of insecurity and inadequacy but the relief is temporary as the underlying problem remains unaddressed: low self-confidence and low self-esteem, and consequent low levels of self-worth and self-love.

Insecure and emotionally immature people often exhibit bullying behaviours, especially manipulation and deception. These are necessary in order to obtain attention which would not otherwise be forthcoming. Bullies and harassers have the emotional age of a young child and will exhibit temper tantrums, deceit, lying and manipulation to avoid exposure of their true nature and to evade accountability and sanction. This page lists some of the most common tactics bullies and manipulators employ to gain attention for themselves. An attention-seeker may exhibit several of the methods listed below.

Attention seeking methods

Attention-seeking is particularly noticeable with females so I've used the pronoun "she". Males also exhibit attention-seeking behaviour.

Attention seekers commonly exploit the suffering of others to gain attention for themselves. Or they may exploit their own suffering, or alleged suffering. In extreme forms, such as in Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, the attention-seeker will deliberately cause suffering to others as a means of gaining attention.

The sufferer: this might include feigning or exaggerating illness, playing on an injury, or perhaps causing or inviting injury, in extreme cases going as far as losing a limb. Severe cases may meet the diagnostic criteria for Munchausen Syndrome (also know as Factitious Disorder). The illness or injury becomes a vehicle for gaining sympathy and thus attention. The attention-seeker excels in manipulating people through their emotions, especially that of guilt. It's very difficult not to feel sorry for someone who relates a plausible tale of suffering in a sob story or "poor me" drama.

The saviour: in attention-seeking personality disorders like Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP, also known as Factitious Disorder By Proxy) the person, usually female, creates opportunities to be centre of attention by intentionally causing harm to others and then being their saviour, by saving their life, and by being such a caring, compassionate person. Few people realise the injury was deliberate. The MSBP mother or nurse may kill several babies before suspicions are aroused. When not in saviour mode, the saviour may be resentful, perhaps even contemptuous, of the person or persons she is saving.

The rescuer: particularly common in family situations, she's the one who will dash in and "rescue" people whenever the moment is opportune - to herself, that is. She then gains gratification from basking in the glory of her humanitarian actions. She will prey on any person suffering misfortune, infirmity, illness, injury, or anyone who has a vulnerability. The act of rescue and thus the opportunities for gaining attention can be enhanced if others are excluded from the act of rescue; this helps create a dependency relationship between the rescuer and rescued which can be exploited for further acts of rescue (and attention) later. When not in rescue mode, the rescuer may be resentful, perhaps even contemptuous, of the person she is rescuing.

The organiser: she may present herself as the one in charge, the one organising everything, the one who is reliable and dependable, the one people can always turn to. However, the objective is not to help people (this is only a means to an end) but to always be the centre of attention.

The manipulator: she may exploit family relationships, manipulating others with guilt and distorting perceptions; although she may not harm people physically, she causes everyone to suffer emotional injury. Vulnerable family members are favourite targets. A common attention-seeking ploy is to claim she is being persecuted, victimised, excluded, isolated or ignored by another family member or group, perhaps insisting she is the target of a campaign of exclusion or harassment.

The mind-poisoner: adept at poisoning peoples' minds by manipulating their perceptions of others, especially against the current target.

The drama queen: every incident or opportunity, no matter how insignificant, is exploited, exaggerated and if necessary distorted to become an event of dramatic proportions. Everything is elevated to crisis proportions. Histrionics may be present where the person feels she is not the centre of attention but should be. Inappropriate flirtatious behaviour may also be present.

The busy bee: this individual is the busiest person in the world if her constant retelling of her life is to be believed. Everyday events which are regarded as normal by normal people take on epic proportions as everyone is invited to simultaneously admire and commiserate with this oh-so-busy person who never has a moment to herself, never has time to sit down, etc. She's never too busy, though, to tell you how busy she is.

The feigner: when called to account and outwitted, the person instinctively uses the denial - counterattack - feigning victimhood strategy to manipulate everyone present, especially bystanders and those in authority. The most effective method of feigning victimhood is to burst into tears, for most people's instinct is to feel sorry for them, to put their arm round them or offer them a tissue. There's little more plausible than real tears, although as actresses know, it's possible to turn these on at will. Feigners are adept at using crocodile tears. From years of practice, attention-seekers often give an Oscar-winning performance in this respect. Feigning victimhood is a favourite tactic of bullies and harassers to evade accountability and sanction. When accused of bullying and harassment, the person immediately turns on the water works and claims they are the one being bullied or harassed - even though there's been no prior mention of being bullied or harassed. It's the fact that this claim appears only after and in response to having been called to account that is revealing. Mature adults do not burst into tears when held accountable for their actions.

The false confessor: this person confesses to crimes they haven't committed in order to gain attention from the police and the media. In some cases people have confessed to being serial killers, even though they cannot provide any substantive evidence of their crimes. Often they will confess to crimes which have just been reported in the media. Some individuals are know to the police as serial confessors. The false confessor is different from a person who make a false confession and admits to a crime of which they are accused because of emotional pressure and inappropriate interrogation tactics.

The abused: a person claims they are the victim of abuse, sexual abuse, rape etc as a way of gaining attention for themselves. Crimes like abuse and rape are difficult to prove at the best of times and their incidence is so common that it is easy to make a plausible claim as a way of gaining attention.

The online victim: this person uses Internet chat rooms and forums to allege that they've been the victim of rape, violence, harassment, abuse etc. The alleged crime is never reported to the authorities, for obvious reasons. The facelessness and anonymity of the Internet suits this type of attention seeker. [More]

The victim: she may intentionally create acts of harassment against herself, eg send herself hate mail or damage her own possessions in an attempt to incriminate a fellow employee, a family member, neighbour, etc. Scheming, cunning, devious, deceptive and manipulative, she will identify her "harasser" and produce circumstantial evidence in support of her claim. She will revel in the attention she gains and use her glib charm to plausibly dismiss any suggestion that she herself may be responsible. However, a background check may reveal that this is not the first time she has had this happen to her.

In many cases the attention-seeker is a serial bully whose behaviour contains many of the characteristics listed under the profile of a serial bully, especially the Attention-Seeker. The page on Narcissistic Personality Disorder may also be enlightening, as may be the page on bullies in the family.

Feigning victimhood is common to serial bullies and this aspect comes to the fore in most cases once the bully has been held accountable and he or she cannot escape or rely on their support network. The tactic of denial followed by immediate counterattack followed by feigning victimhood is described on the serial bully page.

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

- George Eliot

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firecracker
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Posts: 290
From: all places
Registered: Nov 2010

posted December 12, 2010 04:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for firecracker     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
would you consider it a form of attention seeking narcissism?

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StarrofVenusGirl
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Posts: 1147
From: Down the Rabbit Hole
Registered: Jun 2009

posted December 12, 2010 04:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for StarrofVenusGirl     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

Thanks Juni. Lots of bullying in the media these days, especially among adolescents. Who are often so fragile they take things to the head and contemplate even killing themselves to escape persecution. It really aggravates me when parents and other adults in the community act like it's a common thing for kids to experience and blow it off. Usually they realize too late how serious it was.

Interesting connection between bullying and narcisstic disorder also. There's a thread on LLC about Narcissistic Disorder that got recently bumped: http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/007304.html

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juniperb
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Posts: 591
From: Blue Star Kachina
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 12, 2010 04:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I think it would be safe to say attention seeking is a form of narcissim. BUT the key to online bullies, is report them then stop all interaction with them. They will tire and move on to another field to bully.

Simple but not easy yet the only way to fend off an online bully.

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

- George Eliot

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StarrofVenusGirl
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Posts: 1147
From: Down the Rabbit Hole
Registered: Jun 2009

posted December 12, 2010 04:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for StarrofVenusGirl     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I agree Juni.

Luckily, I have not had too much experience with online bullying (most of the places I frequent are really peaceful and don't attract those types) but the few times it did plague a community I was in, the only solution was to ignore him/her/them.

"Don't feed the trolls" was always the motto. Don't make anything more powerful that you want to get rid of.

Psychology of cyber bullies = ignoring them leads to escalations of behavior that exposes them for what they are which ultimately leads to exit from the community (voluntarily or by force).

In the real world, I wish it was that easy. It's hard to ignore someone who gets in your face. Bus stop bullying, etc. The best thing you do is report it to the appropriate authorities and hope they do something about it. I always feel sorry for kids who did everything they could to stop being bullied and no one listened

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MoonWitch
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Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 12, 2010 08:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for MoonWitch     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Is there a thumbs up emoticon?

AH HA!!

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Ami Anne
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Posts: 3893
From: Pluto/house next to NickiG
Registered: Sep 2010

posted December 12, 2010 08:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ami Anne     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I don't know if this is your first post in Sweet Peas, Juni, but welcome if it is

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SunChild
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Posts: 1459
From: Melbourne. Victoria. Australia
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 12, 2010 08:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for SunChild     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Attention seekers... it must be a sad state of being, desperately trying to fill a gaping whole within... what caused such a condition? Neglect, abuse as a child..? or is it their true nature, unhealthy soul? I best avoid all those types as it is zapping.

It is said how a child plays is translated to how they think as an adult, artificial play= is artificial thought, wholesome play is wholesome thought later.

Sad it is.. and now with internet it is more rampant than ever.

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“It’s an interesting thing. Seeing Kuan Yin relating to a flower so intently. She's not just looking at it; she's interacting with it…I’m seeing how the act of relating to a flower appears to be so simple. Yet, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to make such a “simple” act important. Now, the lotus is floating away.”

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charmainec
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Posts: 1011
From: on the other side of the rainbow
Registered: Apr 2009

posted December 13, 2010 03:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for charmainec     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I agree,don't feed the trolls.Ignoring them will let them expose themselves for who they really are.

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quote:
Being loved by all is little fun
Unless you're also loved by one.
~Robert Brault

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