Insidious Forms of Bullying

None of the many forms bullying takes could or should be considered mild.[1] When school is over, people keep finding all manner of abuse. One of the ways adults ill-treat one another is through passive-aggressive or covert bullying (gossiping or joking at someone’s expense, causing embarrassment and insecurity on purpose, giving someone the silent treatment, and so forth).

If a colleague bullies you behind closed doors whilst they present a starkly different façade to others, or if what strikes you as inappropriate behavior (a too-curt tone; frequent rude eyerolls; sneers and condescending, intrusive stares) goes unnoticed, you may wonder if you are being paranoid. But, even without any evidence to back up your inkling, if something feels off to you, something probably is off.

A Health-Damaging, Widespread Problem

One of the reasons I decided to write about social rejection at work is that, although it is a ubiquitous, many-headed phenomenon affecting us all to varying degrees of bad, it feels underdiscussed or mishandled.

Ostracism is, also, a great source of pain (feeling ostracized activates the same part of the brain that registers physical pain, as psychological sciences professor Kipling D. Williams explains[2]) and an actual threat to our health. Cognitive impairment and a weakened immune system are but two of the myriad ill effects that witnessing or being on the receiving end of uncivil behavior causes.[3]

Furthermore, the impact of social exclusion on our emotional landscape and mental health lingers for a long time. As it turns out, “[m]emories of painful emotional experiences linger far longer than those involving physical pain.”

Research by Prof. Kipling D. Williams has shown that only 2-3 minutes of ostracism can cause lingering painful emotions. So, you can imagine how damaging long-term ostracism can be. According to Williams, because we experience social exclusion in three stages (being excluded, coping, resignation), “the life of those painful feelings can be extended for the long-term.” In addition, because ostracism is “an invisible form of bullying that doesn’t leave bruises”, we often underestimate how serious this social injury is.

I felt compelled to write this post for personal reasons as well. I know what it’s like to be micromanaged and talked down to and to feel like a fish out of water at an organization. To find it difficult to integrate as a new recruit because the colleagues with whom you have to work closely every day exclude you from their tight-knit group and withhold proper training from you. For anxiety to slowly creep in and start pervading your life.

“The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secrets elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won’t bother me,” Greta Garbo is quoted as saying. I too, at some point during my school years, became a master at hiding. Except I would hide not because I exerted a fascination on people, an unsought attention I wanted to escape, but because my friendlessness felt too visible and shameful. My aloneness was sticking like a sore thumb and I thought I had to hide it, remove all evidence of the failure I thought I was.

Eating lunch in the bathroom at school or spending a big chunk of time at the library was, it dawned on me later, like a rehearsal. Here I was, a decade later, feeling so out of place at work that, during lunch breaks, I’d eat outside, or in unfrequented places within the building. I’d have vertigo at times, and headaches. Morning, noon, and night, I’d feel queasy and jumpy, my stomach in knots.

In truth, I had good friends then and have good friends now (one of my best friends I’ve met in a professional context) but, when we feel crushing loneliness nonetheless, it’s not easy to see beyond our immediate environment and current circumstances. My hope is that, if you’re feeling lonely, reading this post will help you feel a little less so.

NB

Some questions I’ll put on the back burner and won’t delve into here but are well worth exploring:

– Although I have witnessed or been directly affected by men abusing their power or indulging in improper behavior more than once, I can’t say I’ve experienced social ostracism by them: In my experience, women ostracize more than men in a you’re-not-welcome-to-our-lunch-table way. Do we ostracize differently according to our gender? Female groups were found to “engag[e] in social ostracism more than male groups did” and to consider “groups aversive and seek to reduce their size via social ostracism,” as this paper by Joyce Benenson et al. reports: “Human Sexual Differences in the Use of Social Ostracism as a Competitive Tactic”. It might be interesting to look at other such studies

– It seems we have more empathy and compassion for people belonging to the same ethnicity: During my language stays I observed that many students looked for their own kind, forming groups with people of the same nationality. In a similar way, in a work setting, we tend to divide even small teams into cliques. While there’s nothing wrong with that per se, it has me wonder: Are we as tolerant as we claim to be? How can we better handle big groups? How can we redefine equality and equity in the workplace and in general?

Why Compassionate Leaders Are the Most Effective Leaders

A safe and caring work environment is fertile ground for greater productivity, creativity, and engagement, as well as for better performance, and makes for happier and healthier employees. That’s why it is important that management promotes a culture of safety within the organization, rather than a corporate culture of fear. If an employee’s underperformance meets with compassion and curiosity, the employee’s loyalty and trust will increase, as will their willingness to improve: “the more employees look up to their leaders and are moved by their compassion or kindness […], the more loyal they become to him or her.” By contrast, taking too tough a stance and routinely showing anger or frustration erodes loyalty, as Emma Seppälä Ph.D. points out.

That bosses care to build a good relationship with the employees at a lower level in the hierarchy of authority is beneficial to the whole company, not just to the parties immediately concerned. Says Dr Robert Brooks, “we will work harder and more effectively for people we like. And we like them in direct proportion to how they make us feel.”

To prevent bullying among employees, rather than respond to its consequences and try to repair what’s already broken, leaders and managers might want to refrain from making choices that reflect favoritism and from encouraging competitiveness and division. Instead, they could emphasize the interconnectedness between the different staff members and instil a sense of kinship in them.

How to Help Yourself If You’re the One Being Excluded

Letting Go

Being ostracized and having to come to terms with the sense of injustice that comes with it is a terrible experience to go through. In her post “Ostracism: Social Exclusion in Adulthood”, Jules Dixon writes that, at a gathering, despite doing “everything technically and socially appropriate”, she “felt the wrath of what seemed like the ‘mean girls’ club.” Sitting by herself in a room full of people was “like ha[ving] a tattoo on [her] forehead saying ‘Not worthy of interaction or attention.’”

The first step, as is often the case when it comes to transformative journeys, is to recognize that, understandably so, you are not fine (there’s no shame in failing to enjoy your present life as much as you wish you would or think you should), and that action needs to be taken for the situation to improve.

If, despite feeling like you don’t belong at work, you find the job engaging[4] and empowering,[5] can make progress and sustain your motivation, and have regular interactions with people who are kind to you, you may decide to make adjustments aimed at securing your place within the company and making the air there slightly more breathable (e.g. by speaking with the human resources team).

However, if your efforts to make unresponsive people appreciate you are in vain, the best course of action may be to learn to let go:

sometimes people truly don’t want to meet new people and sometimes they’re absolutely and vehemently opposed to even being friendly. […] If you decide to let it go, then do just that. Find a place of serenity inside yourself and make it clear to yourself that you will not allow multiple acts of ostracism or bullying, but you are willing to put the incident behind you to move on with your life. […] You are special. You deserve polite and respectful treatment. You deserve to belong and to be heard.[6]

In some cases, in addition to finding and cultivating inner serenity, finding outer serenity is necessary. To figure out what your idea of a serene enough workplace is, you need to work at getting to know yourself better and make profound changes to effectively remedy the situation you’re in.

Not All Flowers Grow Out of Cracks in Concrete – And That’s More than Okay

If you were invariably among the last ones to be picked in gym class, if several experiences have left you feeling inadequate, you may believe that, because the common denominator is you, something is fundamentally wrong with you. Yet what if those situations were the result of a conflict between your genes and an ill-fitting environment? Something fundamental might be involved here, but it’s not a character flaw.

Researchers have looked into the interplay between our genes and our environment and found that the very genes that underlie despair and difficult behaviour could also underlie optimism and resilience.[7]

Dandelions are capable of flourishing in any circumstances they find themselves in. Yet, not all flowers can grow out of cracks in concrete. Orchids, for instance, need a specific amount of water and sunlight to survive and bloom. In a similar way, some individuals are resilient to the extent that they experience low sensitivity to whatever environment they’re in, while others were born with “an exceptional susceptibility to both negative and positive social contexts”. They blossom “in nurturant, supportive circumstances, but sustain disproportionate numbers of illnesses and problems when raised in stressful, adverse social conditions.”[8]

An orchid child is especially vulnerable to “the quality of parenting they receive” and quickly withers in a neglectful environment. However, in a supportive, nurturing environment, an orchid child grows into “a flower of unusual delicacy and beauty”, as human development specialists Bruce Ellis and W. Thomas Boyce put it in their 2005 paper “Biological sensitivity to context”. This innate sensitivity is thus a double-edged sword. Studies have shown “genes linked to a particular enzyme or brain chemical receptor, if combined with family stress or maltreatment, can lead to […] outcomes like delinquency, substance abuse, and mental illness.”[9]

This is precious information to take into consideration, if you decide to look for a new job. Choosing a work environment in tune with your nature and, therefore, honoring your truest self, might mean seeking to surround yourself with people who make you and your world expand, while reducing time spent with those whose energy have you restrict movement and speech, around whom you hardly dare to talk or move freely for fear of making a fool of yourself. It might mean saying no to a fast-paced, high-pressure, work environment where the tasks you are to carry out make the workday seem interminable, or to an open-plan office full of gossip.

In her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain uses Professor Brian Little’s term restorative niche:

It can be a physical place, […], or a temporal one, […] You choose a restorative niche when you close the door to your private office (if you’re lucky enough to have one) in between meetings. You can even create a restorative niche during a meeting, by carefully selecting where you sit, and when and how you participate. […] We would all be better off if, before accepting a new job, we evaluated the presence or absence of restorative niches as carefully as we consider the family leave policy or health insurance plans.[10]

How can we create restorative niches or hideout sessions in our daily life? “Research from a field known as ‘person-environment fit’ shows that people flourish when, in the words of psychologist Brian Little, they’re ‘engaged in occupations, roles or settings that are concordant with their personalities.’” (Quiet, pp. 253-254)

Instead of forcing ourselves to fit in an environment that is ill-suited for us, we could choose to build a life that’s in harmony with our personalities. Many things can be changed but some things, such as what is part of our nature, are here to stay.

Never Stop Putting your Pain into Words

It’s worth remembering that all our emotions – including the ones we might not deem endearing, like anger – are to be acknowledged, felt, digested, and given a means of expression. In an interview with Dave Chappelle, Maya Angelou said, “You should be angry. […] You must not be bitter. […] Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So, use that anger, […], you write it, you paint it, you dance it, you march it, you vote it, you do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.” Words hold tremendous power. They can be destructive, but they can also serve as balm to the worst-stung hearts. So, speak your pain, and find an ear that will listen: One of the best ways to help yourself is to let others help you.

In return, read and listen to other people’s stories of adversity and to people whose sensibilities and wounds remind you of yours. I wasn’t aware of how prevalent adult bullying was and of how similar to mine fellow orchids’ struggles were, until I read up on these topics and asked around me. In an interview singer Alanis Morissette speaks of us all as “human ships”. As a Highly Sensitive Person, she’s very sensitive to interactions she has with others, including seemingly benign ones: “Whether it’s a momentary glance in an elevator, or a deep philosophical conversation over dinner, or a brush-by in a café, I feel (sometimes exhaustingly) attuned and affected by the subtle exchanges that pass seemingly benignly between us as human ships.”

Think of language – not silence – as protective. Why not pour the contents of your heart and mind onto the page? “Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation,” said Toni Morrison during her Nobel Lecture in Literature. Meditating on things and the very act of trying to name seemingly unnameable things can prove therapeutic. Also, I find writing by hand anchors you in the present moment, and you can find calm in feeling the handmade warmth, in hearing the pen tip caressing the sheet of paper, even as tears may fall onto the sheet of paper and smudge the ink. Writing thoughts down is likely to help you gain clarity as well and figure out where you stand.

You might resent having a debilitating sense of dread on Sundays at the stomach-churning thought of starting yet another work week. You might fear that standing up for yourself will make things worse and out you as an outsider, as the strangest of birds. Yet your fears show that you are a person who feels things deeply and make you more moral. Also, the painful, very human, experiences you’ve lived or are living now are nothing to be ashamed of. They have made you a more reflective and compassionate person and a deeper thinker.

Everything which has happened to you is part of your unique and complex life story. As a quote attributed to Florida Scott Maxwell goes, “You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.” And the world is full of stories affirming that you are not alone – an oft-forgotten truth while we are going through a tough time and trying to make sense of it all.

Letters

In the following letters and testimonials, the authors share and reflect on their experience with bullying. Three of these letters address you, while three of them are notes to self.

I’ve never been a fan of Monday mornings, it’s normal I guess. But in my previous job I started to hate Sunday afternoons because that’s when I prepared for Monday morning. If I’m honest I didn’t enjoy Saturday very much either.

Monday morning was the slot for our infamous team meetings. The scene for recriminations, insults and arguments. The stage for our boss to impose his dominance and prove his superiority over seemingly the entire human race. The chance to play people against each other and divide and conquer.

I started in March, within 12 months everyone else was gone. Everyone. If it wasn’t them it would have been me, I was just slower to find a new job.

Suddenly he needed me. His job was hanging by a thread as our Board asked questions. He became charming, friendly and cooperative. I was promised change, a new culture, a brave new world of unicorns and rainbows. And I did something stupid, I turned down the interviews I’d organised and stayed to recruit a new team and help start again. 

I realised I needed to get to know this guy. If I was a psychologist I could write a thesis about it. I guess it would include some or all of the following words: narcissism, sociopathy, histrionics and empathy (lack thereof). 

I tried to see the world from his point of view, work with whatever personality traits he had and that somehow justified and humanised whatever new bullshit he created each day. He was of course intelligent, engaging and insightful when in a good mood. But somehow every good mood was just waiting to collapse into the next crisis. Nothing could be calm. Nothing could just be fine.

All of this came at a cost of course. In my case anxiety bubbled inside. I tried to push it away, but it comes out in weird ways. I started to eat trash and gain weight, the internal struggle became very visible externally too. From being an excellent sportsman a few years ago, I was totally overweight.

The new team arrived and we had a few weeks of unicorns and rainbows. He needed this to work after the disaster before. And then it became obvious, the one person in the room he could attack was me. He needed to do it to someone, it’s just part of him. I’d already forgiven so much, he figured he could get away with it. All my loyalty and efforts to understand betrayed. The fact I probably saved his job? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was in charge and he needed to prove it.

It started small and grew until one day I received a five minute torrent of humiliating abuse over something virtually inconsequential.

I organised a meeting next week to quit. Of course the magical unicorns and rainbows appeared again. Then it was obvious, this would be a never ending cycle and he would never change.

I didn’t quit that day but I did put a timetable on when I would leave. I worked hard, organised myself and made sure to leave on good terms. No-one thanks you for that of course. 

Once I put it all in perspective I gave myself some rules: 1) Always try to have savings to make sure I could quit any job at any notice. 2) No boss or job is worth ruining your personal life, you’re better than that, quit and move on, it’s worth it in the long-run. – Anonymous

—

I was running the department on my own with the clients. For that reason, I felt safe. The boss targeted other employees. He would use them as scapegoats. Over four years, seven people came and left – there were ten employees in total.

The Heads of the company made financial promises they failed to keep. My clients gave them several years. Nothing changed. Finally, they confronted them. They expressed their worries about the financial decisions and the lack of transparency. The Heads denied all responsibility, which prompted my clients to resign.

This marked a turning point. I became the scapegoat. My boss insinuated I had manipulated the clients. According to his logic, they had resigned because of me. He said someone was going to have to be held responsible, I would have to pay, I had lost all credibility, and I could no longer be trusted. This was all done through WhatsApp calls on my personal number. He never wrote his threats.

Despite the controversial results and the significant turnover of the company, he was never questioned. He knew what to say, how to say it, and the executive committee had no clue of his mistreatment of staff nor of his dubious work ethic and practices. He convinced them I was problematic.

I felt terribly alone, isolated, ostracized really. I felt I could not tell anyone, certainly anyone at work. The independence I had once enjoyed so much had turned into a tool for harassment. Ultimately, with deep sadness and a harrowing sense of injustice and loss, I fought to terminate my contract.

To anyone going through this (including my former self), I would say that your job is your job, only that, and only within working hours. If you are refused the means to do it in the amount of time at your disposal (which was the case for me), do not cover, compensate, make up for the mishandling of affairs or for your superiors’ shortcomings or lack of professionalism. The threats are just words: talk to your clients, even if you fear they do not want to hear anything.

Last but not least, if you are harassed, I recommend leaving and working on yourself. In subsequent job interviews, pay attention. How high is the turnover? How long have your potential colleagues been with the company? Do you have to be flexible? What do your tasks entail? What are the means to achieve them? Identify indicators. Ask questions. Have honest conversations about what you are willing to provide. Share your boundaries. How do the interviewers react? Do you see yourself working there? I assure you; it pays off. – Anne-Emilie Arnault

—

When I think back to when I felt left out of a social context, I feel like my past self could have found a way without it. It might sound harsh but, thanks to that confrontation with negativity, I found a way to deal with it. That moment came when someone who I saw as a friend started breaking me down emotionally. He already used to do this often but, before that point, I always accepted his destructive behavior as a fact that was grounded in my faulty character. This was how our relationship went until the day his demands became obviously harmful. That was the day I stopped accepting everything he said with blind faith. That was the day I knew that I didn’t need him, that I could be who I wanted to be. That was the day I started loving myself for who I am.

Dealing with negativity can be a difficult task because, as an emotional person, you obviously feel the need for others to accept you as part of the group. The way you might deal with this is by trying to prove yourself to others, to show them how you can be acceptable. But in the end, you should not change yourself to fit the demands of others. In the end, the only person you can truly always depend on will be yourself. And for that it’s important to accept and love yourself for who you are. Because whatever others might say, you are worthwhile, and you carry with you stories and experiences that make you you. And that is special.

Just like Camus pointed out: life is a constant absurd struggle, but it is in fighting against this that we can find happiness. This is a difficult lesson to learn, but one that is findable only through your own power. Whoever you might be or become, you can be sure that you have one strong person in your corner, and that is none other than yourself. So be sure that this person always gets the praise and attention he/she/they deserve/s! – Adriaan Verdonckt / adriaanhoudtzichbezig.wordpress.com

—

Dear A,

I’m writing from the future to give you some encouragement for weathering the toxic workplace situation you’re currently mired in. It still pains me to look back and remember this awful time. Every single day you dread going to work (with true terror, not just reluctance) because you know that as soon as you enter the office, you’ll cower in the corner (literally as well as psychically) waiting for the arrival of P—the coworker who outranks you by a mile and pulls her rank to bully, scapegoat, and use you to do many tasks you are neither responsible for nor licensed to perform.

When you ask questions, she refuses to answer them, and yet she demands that you do much of her job for her. When she procrastinates a major assignment until the last minute, she dumps the work on you and pressures you relentlessly until you finish, although she often leaves the office before the deadline, refusing to be available by any means—phone, email, or carrier pigeon—for questions or concerns you may have about completing the work. When no one is around, she yells at you, and when her boss is nearby, she keeps quiet but continues to torment you on the sly. She belittles you with angry invectives in one breath, and in the very next breath she answers a client’s phone call with so much syrup in her voice that you feel like spitting out the cloying taste in your own mouth.

No wonder your heart pounds against your chest like a captive bird thrashing its wings against a birdcage every time you anticipate P’s volatile temper may flare up. And yet, though you feel almost as much terror as a rabbit who knows it’s been sighted by a hawk, you can’t run away. You need this job. It’s all you’ve got right now.

I am so sorry for your pain. I am so sorry for your powerlessness, both real and perceived. I’m not going to lie and tell you this will all blow over soon. However, I do want you to know that what your friend told you in a recent phone conversation turned out to be true: “Maybe she is your sensei.” You didn’t understand then what I do now: that often our most instructive teachers are the unconscious actors in our lives who teach by what they do, not by what they say—regardless of their intentions, scruples, or lack thereof. These teachers show us what we value, what we care about, and what we fear. They are our mirrors. P will prove to be this kind of sensei for you in time.

Please don’t hear what I’m saying as insensitive platitudes. I’m not giving you advice; I’m giving you a lifeline, a token—something for you to tuck away in the folds of your mind until finally, one day, you are ready to store and treasure it in the chambers of your heart.

You can’t possibly believe me now, and I completely understand your disbelief, but I’ll tell you anyway: eventually, you will have a reckoning with P that resolves in peace—not through her spoken apology (which never comes, so don’t wait for it), but through yours, and your unspoken yet embodied forgiveness of all that she has done and said to you. An unseen yet almost palpable presence of love, light, and grace will fill the room around you as you ask P if it’s OK to give her a hug, and she tearfully accepts.

After such a life-changing moment of growth and healing, no one will ever treat you like this again. At least, I’m doing my utmost to make sure of it, as far as it is in my power to do so.

With much love and empathy,

Your future self

—

Dear Younger Self

What a little scrap of a wee girl you were.  All wild auburn hair and a wide, toothy grin.  Full of joy, smiling at the camera.  Shockingly, there was a time in my life when I didn’t recognise those early photos of you.  I didn’t remember being that happy, that carefree.  But your innocence and sense of fun were cumulatively drained from you by the anger and bitterness of others.

It started when you were three, with that nursery manager who was so angry with you for not sleeping when she wanted you to.  You weren’t disturbing anyone, just not conforming to her rule.  Then there was the class bully at primary school, her bulk three times your scrap.  She locked onto your sensitivity like a missile finding its target.  Next was that awful teacher at secondary school – her bullying culminating in humiliating you in front of your peers and screaming in your face in a room no bigger than a cupboard.  It was the talk of the school.  Shattering.     

So, when it came to work, you expected to be entering another lion’s den.  And sure enough, there were bullies and, again, they were other women.  What is it with women picking on other females?  Psychological torment, a particular horror for you as a highly sensitive person.

Two bosses whose dripping contempt knew no bounds bookended by someone who started out as a dream team member you chose and then turned into a nightmare you didn’t.  The bosses were unchallengeable and when you challenged the team member, you became her target.  She made your life hell for a year but she didn’t break you, as you later found out she had others.  She was the one to move on…and create drama elsewhere.

Then, in another workplace-related environment, there was another bully, another woman.  You witnessed her vulnerability in a shared moment, and she never forgave you.  You made the mistake of asking to meet with her to discuss what was going on.  Result – you had a bigger target on your back.  Such a powerful figure, she gathered a wolf pack around her.  I am so proud of you for making it through that group bullying.

Because that’s what you’ve done – withstood bully after bully – including the longest-standing of them all, your older sister.  The one who has never forgiven you for being born, never recovered from losing all the attention she had for six years before you arrived.  

Through it all, you believed there was something fundamentally wrong with you, that you must have deserved it.  You were, after all, the common theme in that list of bullying.  But, as I’ve often said to clients, if you look at each instance you can see what was going on – someone else’s problem and insecurities became yours.  I think something in you always knew that but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with at the time, did it? 

I want you to know that things will get better than you can ever imagine.  You’ll be pushed to your limits and decide you can’t take any more.  Strangely, this will be the turning point. 

You’ll hear words in a poem that will make you feel less alone in an instant.  You’ll let go of all the reasons why you shouldn’t make changes and decide that you need to do what has always been your passion.  You’ll discover that your sensitivity is your gift not your shame. You’ll leave someone who loves you and find your way back to them when you have taken time out to be true to yourself.

You’ll do work you love, even if you’re paid a fraction of what you previously earned.  You’ll have your own successful business – I know, hard to believe! You’ll connect with the most amazing people and have the best friends you’ve ever had.  And everything will be based on what you feared would never be accepted – the real you.  That doesn’t mean there won’t still be trials and tribulations, but you’ll be able to manage whatever comes because you’ll have found your place in the world.  You’ll do this by keeping being curious, learning and following your heart.

I want you to know that I got my grit, integrity and resilience from you, my precious younger self.  Along with my empathy, compassion, and ability to help others.  I wouldn’t have wished you any of the pain you suffered.  And I’m so sorry you felt so alone so much of the time.  But I’m here with you now, as you are with me.  Let’s head into the future together…

With love, respect, and gratitude

Sally

—

For as long as you can remember, you’ve had this sense of belonging elsewhere, without knowing where that elsewhere is. Somehow, you hardly ever seem to feel like you’re in the right place, as if at birth you landed on this Earth by accident.

At times, when you’re in a group but feel alone, daydreams come upon you, in big, pushy waves, and you take leave without announcing it. It’ll be just a momentary absence, a kind of lapse of participation: Your body will stay here but, looking through the window, you’ll let your thoughts roam free outside the building, in the park or up in the clouds.

It still haunts you, dear one, I can tell. Only yesterday, you came back home, took off your jacket, your shoes, and the weight of the day you’d been carrying around on your shoulders. Scrunched in a ball on the sofa, you buried your head in your hands, and for no apparent reason burst into tears. Later, after you removed your makeup, you wailed as the water was rinsing the microfiber cloth and muffling the sound of your crying. It was a sound coming from your chest where old, deep-buried sadness has lived for too long and won’t leave.

Because you weren’t given any explanation for your being left out, you found your own: You are not beautiful enough to be liked, much less loved. Despite the countless photographs of yourself you’ve thrown away – making sure you’ve scribbled on your face and torn the paper beforehand –, you can’t erase your memories and the persistent belief that you are ugly and unlovable.

Sure, you make wishes, but you feel undeserving of the things you dream of, putting your dream boards in a hiding place when guests come over. Looking at pictures of this or that perfect woman, you try to imagine what it feels like to have her life, her outlook, what it feels like to sit on that sofa, to look at those tastefully selected objects adorning such a gorgeous house, to be so loved.

Today, I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, that oft-tyrannical object. Cosmetics, a headband, hair ties and pins scattered about, all along the edge of the bathtub: You battled with yourself again this morning. I decided not to survey you, not this time. I just looked you in the eye, with all the kindness I could muster, but you had trouble holding my gaze. I tried to hug you, but you froze, tried to call you beautiful but, to you, it didn’t ring true. At some point in your life, you got so comfortable being looked through you forgot how to let yourself be looked at.

Good thing you don’t hold others to the same high standards you set for yourself! You can’t bear the thought of treating anyone unfairly and making them feel small. You have compassion for everyone.

You sometimes wish for a thicker skin, a cast-iron skin like those statues’, ever unblinking in public parks. Please don’t: Your sensitivity is perhaps the best thing about you. When you see someone cut a lone figure, you care enough to wonder, Why are they alone? Do they have someone to hold them tight? To love and protect them? Do they have a home to come to?

Here are other things I like about you: your strong affinity with nonhuman animals – perhaps especially wild, untamed ones, for they belong to nobody; your willingness to reassess and better yourself as a person; the way you pause to watch the sky and find beauty in it, whatever its guise (you adore the clouds, whether they are diffuse and fluffy or resemble whipped cream; you adore the sky, whether it’s smoky pink, violet and smudgy gray, like a sketch drawn hastily, or boasts a glorious sun beginning its setting against a vibrant orangey sky); you are imaginative and have a capacity for unfettered joy.

Most days you are aware that the tiny treasures are enough to make up for whatever few disasters may have befallen you, and you don’t want to give up on life – you love it too much – but you’re like a sweet-toothed child sneakily trying to reach for a forbidden box of cookies: You have this hunger for life but feel shy about it. Other days, you are joy-drunken, and feel like jumping around and cartwheeling across the room.

In Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton writes that a rare thing, real joy, shone from Louis Armstrong, and suggests that those who communicate an inclusive joy with “no smugness or self-righteousness in it”, a joy that “comes close to prayer”, are always people who have had a hard time. So, please never let past hurts stop you from smiling with honesty and generosity, with your whole face. When you catch yourself laughing, don’t see your laughter as abandonment of your past self. On the contrary, when you’re consumed with and express joy, you give the scared kid within permission to bloom. It’s a merging rather than an erasure: Present you, past you, and future you, are one and the same – none is left on the sidelines.

The reflexive gestures you resort to as ways to pre-empt social judgment (taking a strand of hair from behind your ear to conceal a blemish on your cheek, trying to look busy to avoid looking awkward while waiting for public transportation to arrive or an event to start – by holding a book, reaching for your phone in your bag, or pretend-checking something –, what have you) are a waste of your attention. Look up, and around you: Please notice the beautiful things that beckon you to see them.

Like Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God who in a passage lies under a blossoming pear tree, communicating with things outside observation, be open enough to hear “[t]his singing […] that ha[s] nothing to do with [your] ears.” What’s your pear tree?  What stirs you mysteriously, enchantingly? Occupies your mind both in waking moments and in sleep?

When you read something truly good that goes straight to your heart, touches on what it’s like to be human, you almost let out a sigh of nerdy pleasure. So, keep reading (that said, may I remind you of your ever-growing reading list and your pile of books about to collapse? We need to be more frugal next month) because it’s a source of joy for you and because you could do worse than be a book nerd.

Anyway, you’re itching for me to wrap it up. But, before I do, let me just say I want you to love your life, even when it is empty, lackluster, or sad. On one of those days you wish away, wishing it were tomorrow already, I hope you can share the sentiment behind the last lines of Raymond Carver’s poem “Tomorrow”: “My bowl is empty. But it’s my bowl, you see, and I love it.” Please try to love your days and face even when they cloud over, love your changing moods and emotional expressions, the way you love the versatile sky – or at the very least don’t hate them.

I will keep caring for you, however clumsily, however imperfectly. When life gets too much, we will take a moment to breathe, my hands on your heart until the beats become spaced out and calmer. I am here for you, always and always.

Love,

Surya

Thank you for your time. I’d love to hear from you: Please feel free to leave a comment below <3

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[1] Some differentiate between bullying and ostracism, but this blog post regards ostracism as a form of bullying.

[2] Amy Patterson Neubert, “Professor: Pain of ostracism can be deep, long-lasting.” Purdue University https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/110510WilliamsOstracism.html (accessed June 18^th, 2022).

[3] Christine Porath, “An Antidote to Incivility.” Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2016/04/an-antidote-to-incivility (accessed June 18^th, 2022).

Please note that ostracism affects the ostracizer, too, but this won’t be the focus of this post as its main objective is to make anyone who has ever experienced social rejection feel seen and comforted.

[4] According to the Job Characteristics Theory (Hackman & Oldham), 5 factors can help make work more engaging, thereby increasing job satisfaction: autonomy; completion; variety; feedback; contribution. – via @haypsych

[5] The Psychological Empowerment Theory, by Gretchen Spreitzer, suggests that the meaning we get from our work; the tangible impact we experience of it; and the levels of competence and autonomy we enjoy to do our work contribute to psychological empowerment in the workplace. – via @haypsych

[6] Jules Dixon, “Ostracism: Social Exclusion in Adulthood.” Medium https://medium.com/@julesdixon/ostracism-social-exclusion-in-adulthood-8764ea1a4003 (accessed June 18^th, 2022).

[7] You might want to listen to “Orchids, dandelions and an intriguing set of genes” (See also “Orchids and dandelions: How some children are more susceptible to environmental influences for better or worse and the implications for child development” by Eilis Kennedy).

[8] W. Thomas Boyce, “Why Some Children Are Orchids And Others Are Dandelions” Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/articles/201901/orchids-and-dandelions (accessed June 18^th, 2022).

Tulips, or medium-sensitive individuals, would be in the middle of the spectrum (cf. “Dandelions, tulips and orchids: evidence for the existence of low-sensitive, medium-sensitive and high-sensitive individuals”).

[9] APS, “On the Trail of the Orchid Child” Psychological Science https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/were-only-human/on-the-trail-of-the-orchid-child.html (accessed June 18^th, 2022). See also NYT’s “Orchid Children”

[10] Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (London: Penguin Books, 2012), p. 219. All references are to this edition. Further cited in the text and shortened to Quiet in the quotation.