There was a person who said that when people feel inferior to others, they take three types of actions. It might have been Adler.
- Working diligently
- Accepting
- Resenting, becoming aggressive, self-defense due to cognitive distortion
Abusing others seems to be included in the last type, resenting.
Therefore, there may be two types of bullying.
- Forcing others to agree by imposing one's own perspective (this is the original bullying that hurts people when they are forced to accept a biased perspective).
- Pointing out the truth to the person in the first category (this causes the person in the first category to be hurt, but it is not originally bullying).
The original bullying is when someone protects their own self-esteem by belittling others and forcing them to agree with that opinion. There are cases where someone who does such things (the bully) is pointed out the truth, and as a result, their self-esteem is hurt, and they claim to have been bullied. However, that is not the original bullying, but rather the bully is suffering the consequences of their own actions. However, for some reason, the person who was pointed out the truth is often treated as the bad guy. Alternatively, these two types may be intertwined.
Now that I think about it, I understand why the people around me used to have resentful attitudes towards me. It turns out that they felt inferior to me. And they made arbitrary judgments and forced me to agree with them, often mocking me for trivial reasons. Now I understand that this is a childish behavior, but some people continue to exhibit such childish behavior even as adults. It seems that some people have few opportunities to learn, and they continue the arbitrary behavior they exhibited as children. That is the appearance of someone who does not learn. It is truly pathetic, mean, and pitiful to belittle others in order to protect one's own sense of inferiority. When I was a child, I couldn't even imagine that such mean people existed in the world. Therefore, I couldn't imagine or understand that there would be people who would try to belittle others with such distorted views. However, now I know that there are many people who are distorted and resentful.
If that is the case, then what I should have done at that time was not to feel uncomfortable about those bullying acts, but simply to distance myself. As Buddhism also says, "Do not associate with immoral people."
At that time, perhaps if I had analyzed it from an Adlerian perspective, I would have understood the driving force behind such immature behavior.
In summary, it can be expressed as: "People may become aggressive when they feel inferior to others, and as a result, they try to defend themselves by imposing their own self-serving views on others. If it is only one's own view, it is a matter of cognitive distortion, but the act of forcing the other person to agree with that distorted view is bullying." This is not all that bullying is, but it shows one aspect of it.
Supplement: