Three Cheers for "That Girl in Pink""

When Benni Cinkle was 13, she appeared in a YouTube music video that went viral, receiving over 200 million views.  At first, Benni was ridiculed by millions around the world for her awkward dancing, often referred to as “That girl in pink that can’t dance.”  They called her names and told her she should kill herself. A few of the printable names she was called were “lame, terrible, awkward, horrible, stupid, freak, loser, awful, worthless, annoying, fat and ugly, dumb.”  Other comments included, “She should probably look into suicide,” “Please just die” and “I’ll bet she wants to kill herself now.”

Did she let the jerks drag her down?   Did she lose her self-esteem and get depressed?  Did she commit suicide?

No.  Benni was a target, but she was not a victim!

Instead of reacting defensively, Benni didn’t take it personally.  She kept her spirits up.  She met their criticism with humor, honesty and understanding.  She was open and didn’t hide.  Soon, anonymous cyber bullies became fans and Benni's online reputation as an approachable, down-to-earth teen began to grow.  In the months following her unexpected popularity, Benni received tens of thousands of requests for advice from teens around the world.

Realizing she had been gifted with a platform that offered international reach, Benni decided to use her 15 minutes of fame for something positive. So she:

• Started “That Girl in Pink Foundation” as a non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of teen suicide.  TGIP focuses on any issue that may directly or indirectly lead to teen suicide, including: Teen Depression, Bullying, Cyber-Bullying, Teen Self-Mutilation, Teen Gay/Lesbian Support, Child Violence, Sexual Abuse, Teen Dating Violence, Eating Disorders and Teen Pregnancy.
• Authored “That Girl in Pink’s Internet Survival Guide,” offering teens strategies for handling life online.
• Organized a flashmob dance to raise donations for American Red Cross Japan Earthquake Relief.
• Organized a walk for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation that included hundreds of kids from 14 countries walking with her, virtually.
• Recorded her single, “Can You See Me Now,” and donated profits to TWLOHA and GLSEN.
• Visited schools across the U.S. delivering her “Don’t Just Stand There” anti-bullying presentation.

Let’s hear three cheers for Benni!

Find her at www.thatgirlinpink.org.  Invite her to speak at your school.  She’ll help you stand up to cyber bullies and stop bullying in its many forms.  She’ll inspire students to become defenders instead of remaining merely bystanders.

Can We Stop Bullies if We Love Them?

Many comments are similar on the articles:

• Get Away from a Controlling, Bullying, Abusive Husband
• Abusive, Manipulative Husbands Who Control Wives
• Top 12 Warning Signs of Controlling Husbands

Abused, bullied and battered women often end their comments with some version of:

• But I still love him.
• Sometimes he’s nice to me and I still think I can change him, if only I was good enough.
• He still says that he loves me.
• I’m afraid to leave because I’m worthless and won’t be able to make it without him.
• I’m afraid to leave because he’ll kill me.

Today, let’s focus on the idea that woman can’t dump him because they love him.  Of course the same reasons are true for men facing negative, critical, harassing, manipulative, abusive, bullying, battering women.

For a moment, forget what we were taught about love, especially the importance and moral value of unconditional love, when we were young – what it is, what it feels like, how we know we’re really in love and what we’re supposed to do when we feel that way.

Now that we’re adults, we can decide for ourselves what we want to call “love” and how we’ll act when we “love.”  Is love merely lust, or feeling complete or whole, or feeling that we can’t live without the other person?  Do those feelings mean that we’ll be happy because we’re mad for the other person or that we can work out how to live together?  If we feel those feelings, must we move in together and maybe get married?  When we love, must we believe what he says or accept whatever he does, must we be submissive and obey him, must we accept his reasons, excuses, justifications and promises, must we forgive or appease him endlessly, must we debate until he accepts our point of view..

As long as the answers don’t affect our lives, we might have fun speculating about those questions.  But even though love is usually accompanied by real feelings, it’s still an abstract concept that really isn’t a tangible noun, like a physical object is.

A more useful path is to choose how we want to be loved.  That is; what kind of behavior will we allow in our personal space, whether the actions are called “love” or “bullying” or “abuse.”

Also more useful is to choose which of our thoughts and feelings we want to follow in our lives.  Or, which feelings, if any, do we want to let blow us over or sweep us away.

Now that we’re adults with more experience, we can see that when we let some feelings sweep us away, we’re like a sail boat without a rudder or keel.  We’re blown whichever way the wind and current takes us.  We’ve lost control and we’ll never get where we want to sail to.  We’re at the mercy of external forces – his whims and actions at the moment.  Do we want to continue letting ourselves get blown away?

It’s even worse after kids come.  So many women make mistakes about which values are most important.  For example, they think that it’s most important that their kids have a father even if that father abuses and bullies them or only their mother.  Or they think that they most important value is never to say anything bad about their children’s father, even though their observations are accurate and especially necessary to reinforce what their children see and think.  People are being beaten and that’s being called “love.” Children must learn that they are seeing reality and they can trust their perceptions.  Covering up the truth or lying creates self-doubt and undermines their confidence and self-esteem.

I think that it comes down to knowing, in our heart-of-hearts, that we can’t let whatever feeling we call “love” take over our lives when that feeling keeps putting us and our children in harm’s way.  There are higher standards of behavior than that feeling we call “love.”  And that the word “love” doesn’t remove all the pain caused when narcissistic, righteous predators attack their targets.

If “love” means that we’ll never stop the perpetrator and never leave him, he’ll never stop bullying.  Why should he; he’s in control and gets what he wants.  If “love” means that the victim must follow the Golden Rule, never confront or upset the bully and only beg him to change, but never have serious consequences, we’ll never stop bullies.

On the other hand, if we love our spirits, our children and our high standards of behavior that are required in our personal space, then we can stop bullies or get away from their bullying.  The number one factor in changing the behavior of relentless bullies is serious consequences.

We know we must live up to our best aspirations and standards, we must demand only the best for ourselves and our children.  Don’t suffer in silence.  We must say, “No. That’s enough.  I won’t let our lives be ruined for that kind of love.”

Of course, it may be scary, dangerous and difficult to get away.  Of course, we may be poor and suffer at first.  But it’s the only chance we have to clear our personal space so that someone wonderful can come into it; someone who treats us good.  We must not be defeated by defeats.

Three steps are necessary:

1. Taking power for ourselves, and counting on the strength and determination that will come to us when we keep making good decisions by dumping the jerk.
2. Getting help to create a plan and carry it out with determination, perseverance, strength, courage and resilience.
3. Having a wiser and more mature sense of love and which feelings to pay attention to.  That means straightening ourselves out so we’ll love better people who treat us well.

Feelings and thoughts are like the bubbles of carbonation on a soda.  They’re always, always, endlessly bubbling up to the surface and then drifting away.  Some of those bubbles can smell pretty bad.  Pardon the crudity, but we’ve all had brain farts.  And like the other kind, we know that if we wait a minute, the stinky, scary, self-bullying fears, put-downs and “shoulds” will drift off on their own.  We can decide not to act on them and simply let them go.  We can throw ourselves into other thoughts or activities to speed the process.

I’ve focused on bullying spouses, but the same can be said about demanding, bullying, toxic family members, like parents, siblings and extended family.  They bully and say that we should accept the bad treatment because we’re “family.”  But requiring good behavior is a better standard than tolerating bad blood.

For some examples, see the case studies in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” available fastest from this web site.

Since all tactics depend on the situation, expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Stop Bullies Who Scold, Chastise

Most people think that if they made a mistake, broke the rules, weren’t good at something or did something wrong they deserve what they get.  So they accept being scolded, chastised and browbeaten. This attitude is so common that we have many words and expressions for these put-downs and abuse. For example, admonished, assailed, assaulted, attacked, bashed, bawled out, beaten, berated, blamed, castigated, chewed out, condemned, denigrated, disapproved, disparaged, dressed down, flayed, punished, rebuked, rejected, reprimanded, ridiculed, slammed, straightened out, taken to task, thrashed, told off, tongue-lashing, torn to pieces, upbraided, vilified, whacked.

I used my handy Thesaurus because I want to ask: “Which feels most familiar to you?”  That tells you who you’ve been living with.

Most people allow bullies to bring up incidents forever, whenever the bully feels like attacking them.  After all, victims and oppressors reason, they did wrong; facts are facts.

The real mistake is when we allow ourselves to be bullied, scolded and chastised.

This isn’t about pretending that a mistake wasn’t a mistake or that we were ignorant when we actually could have known better.  Sometimes a fact is a fact.  Sometimes we easily might have known better or done better.  Maybe we weren’t careful enough.  Often there were consequences.

This is about the “so what” if we made a mistake.

There’s a big different between reviewing behavior to see what could have been done better and being scolded or chastised.  There’s a big difference between recognizing our mistakes and determining to do better versus being beaten into submission, verbally or physically, in order to make a point.

You know how it feels when a predator gleefully pounces on you with, “I gotcha.  Now I can beat you.”

Some common examples:

• A bullying husband or wife who always points out every mistake with exasperated sarcasm and scolding – accompanied by attacks on their spouse’s personality and character.  Even if they don’t say the words, you can hear the silent, “You’re so stupid.  You always fail. You’d be nothing if I didn’t straighten you out.  Now I have an excuse for being as lazy, dumb, selfish or narcissistic as I want.”
• Older siblings who correct or tell on the younger ones relentlessly.  And demand fearsome punishment.
• Parents who pick on their children for every mistake, even if the children are too young to have learned the desired behavior.  You can hear the justifications, “I’m only trying to teach them right from wrong.  I want to make sure they remember the lesson.”
• In the workplace, bosses or co-worker know-it-alls gleefully and loudly pointing out every mistake.  Or sneakily stabbing some one in the back by revealing mistakes in confidence.
• Sarcastic, nasty, arrogant false friends who always know better and are better than you.
• Boyfriends or girlfriends who have to be right.

So the first action message is not to allow yourself to be talked to that way.  Period.  Not even “when you deserve it.”  If you catch it early it’s easy to end the relationship.

That method of negative self-talk stimulates self-bullying perfectionism as if, “If I’m not perfect, I’m worthless and deserve to fail and get beaten.”  Allowing yourself to be scolded and chastised increases anxiety, stress and depression, and leads to self-doubt and low self-confidence and self-esteem.  If you allow those nasty, hostile, personal attacks in your space you increase your helplessness and hopelessness.

People who bully this way simply from ignorance and habit can understand rapidly, even though breaking the old habit will take longer.  Allow as many chances as your spirit can take easily, but no more.

People who enjoy the feeling of righteous power rarely change.  You can’t reason, appease or forgive them or love them enough to change them.  The Golden Rule won’t help you.  Vote them off your island before they destroy you.

The second action message is don’t say things that way.

These messages train people to accept bullying and to become bullies.  Don’t train people to respond to messages phrased that way.  Don’t train your children or spouse that they have to be beaten before it’s serious enough for them to change or do better.  Don’t train yourself that you have to be beaten before you’re willing to listen.  Don’t train them that they have to beat you.

Get expert coaching to change these patterns for yourself and others.  Otherwise you create and reinforce an Island in which bullying must occur in order for change to occur.

Get Away from a Controlling, Bullying, Abusive Husband

Here’s an email I received from an abused wife, hoping her story helps other women recognize and get away from their controlling, bullying, abusive husbands before it’s too late. “I hope my story might help someone.  I have known my husband since I was 18 years-old.  We worked together and his sister and I were friends.  I was married at 16 to my first boyfriend, so my now husband was just a friend, although I always knew he had a soft spot for me.”

“Years later, when I was divorced, I went out with my now husband, but I didn’t have the feelings for him at that time that I do now, so I ended the relationship.  Eventually we ended up back together and he won me over.  He was a quiet man, very deep, didn’t say much, but was always very kind and nothing was too much trouble.”

“My sons who obviously had known him since they were little boys, but are now grown up and married, adored him.  We ended up getting married and I thought I had met the man of my dreams, but it didn’t last.  As soon as we got engaged it all started to change.  He has hit me, nearly broken my fingers, but the violence has stopped since I called the police.”

“He had never been married before and never wanted to, that I know for a fact.  He is very moody and often put himself in the box room for weeks on end and not speaking. I own my own home and have always worked full time.  I am very bubbly person and have lots of friends, where he has always been a loner.”

“He told me that I needn’t work full time anymore, so I took a 2-day-a-week job.  That’s when it really got bad.  He often leaves in the clothes he stood in and takes all of the bill and shopping money.  He would stay away for 3 weeks at a time.  It wasn’t about him being with women or anything, that I know, but he goes on drinking binges which he never used to do.  He spends all of the money and texts me all of the time, calling me names, putting me down and being very abusive.”

“I have started divorce proceedings as he is putting the home I have lived in for 25 years at risk, with him taking all of the money.  Because the house is mine and in my name, he said that my sons should pay the mortgage when he is not there as it is their inheritance, as he calls it.  Obviously I love him but cannot take anymore.”

“To anyone out there, these people will not change and are unable to change.  They will grind you down, just as I have been and you will end up feeling worthless.  I am a good person and I have a medical working background, so I have a pretty good idea what I am talking about.  I also have friends in the medical field who have advised me that these controlling people will never change.”

“I am at the moment trying to keep hold of my home.  He keeps sending me texts saying he is going to see me in the gutter.  Please don’t let these controlling people to this to us. I hope my story helps in someway.”

Notice some typical early warning signs:

1. He changed from charming to abusive, sometimes step by step.  When she put up with a step, he escalated to the next step.  Bullies don’t stop until you stop them.
2. Overt physical violence – they shove, slap or hit you; force you to have sex; force you to lie or drop the charges if the police were called.  In this case, she stopped the overt physical violence when she called the police.  Good.  Now there’s a police record.  But he then shifted to control and bullying, which wouldn’t get the police involved.  When she stayed with him, she gave him a green light.
3. They make the rules; they control everything – what you do, where you go, who spends the money and what it’s spent on.  You feel emotionally blackmailed, intimidated and drained.
4. Their standards rule – your “no” isn’t accepted as “no;” they’re always right and you’re always wrong; their sense of humor is right and they’re not abusing you, you’re too sensitive.
5. They isolate you – they won’t allow you to see your friends or your family, go to school or even work.  When she quit her full-time job and became depended on him, the control and abuse increased.
6. They control you with their disapproval, name-calling, putdowns, demeaning, blame and guilt – no matter what you do; you’re wrong or not good enough.

Bullies don’t take your kindness, compassion and sympathy as a reason to stop.  They take your passivity as an invitation to bully you more.  It’s the same at work, at school and in romance.

A few suggestions for then and now

1. Get away or get rid of him at the first sign.  Notice that she had signs when they were engaged, before they were married and there were also no children at stake.
2. Don’t think you can change him by staying.  The best help you can provide is getting away.  That may or may not be motivation for him to change on his own, but at least he’ll be far away from you.
3. Don’t let him control you.  Notice what happened when she quit her job.  Don’t believe him when he says you’re worthless and the problems are your fault.
4. Since he’s harassing you with text messages and has a history of physical violence, get a restraining order.  Keep a record of all the messages (including the threatening ones).  Call the police if he continues.  Cut off all contact with him.
5. Find allies and supporters.  Remove any splinters – people who don’t support you.
6. Be brave, determined and relentless.

Many women allow themselves to be bullied repeatedly because they don’t recognize and label the control and abuse as “bullying.”  When you recognize and label these bullies’ tactics and tricks, you’ll be empowered to resist them.  When you learn effective skills and techniques, you can resist them successfully.

Peaceful methods (understanding, tolerating, logic, reasoning, forgiveness, their sympathetic therapy) sometimes stop mild bullying.  But you need firmer, stronger methods to stop relentless, determined, bullying husbands.

Of course it’s usually not easy to stop the behavior or to get away.  There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.  Tactics must be designed for each situation.  Factors such as money, children, outside support, age, health, threatened increase in abuse to physical brutality and murder, and family of origin and cultural values can be extremely important in designing effective tactics.

But the first step is always for women to make an internal shift from acceptance or tolerance (even though you may hate him underneath) to a commitment and determination to end the abuse and bullying, no matter what it takes.  Without that inner commitment, women usually end up begging the husband to change and waiting forever.  The inner commitment is necessary to give strength and power to the right tactics in your hands.

You’ll find many examples of stealth bullies in my books and CDs “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up” and “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”  You’ll also learn practical, real-world tactics to stop these bullies or to get away safely.