Why would anyone in Texas care about him? If whatever Texas' governor came to Florida, I would be like, "Who is this guy?? And why is anybody listening to him?"
I think I could help with this since I lived with an adult bully for about 1.5 which was a horrible experience, but I took it as a major learning lesson and promised myself that I would be a support and advocate for victims. So, here's what I learned.
Bullies are predators that look for what they think would be the easiest victim. They need to bully because they are extremely insecure, yet the bullying makes them feels superior in their heads. So, know that their weakness is insecurity, and they see a weakness in you. Using this info, you can work on their weakness to show you're not an easy target by protecting yours, and they won't get the sense of superiority out of bullying you.
Tips:
Do not play their game.
They are the experts on this. Once you recognize someone is trying to bully you, know that they have started to work on you for a while now. Thus, if a bully throws you the ball, don't throw it back. Put it down. If they start a conversation with you that you don't want to have, say, "That's interesting, but I'm focused on something else right now."
Have very solid boundaries.
Know what they are, verbally state them when appropriate, and stick to them 100%. They will search for where they can violate this, then capitalize on it, so do not let one thing slide. You have every right to leave if you feel that someone is being antagonistic or offensive. You can even leave if you feel uncomfortable and want to recollect. If anyone forces you to stay, that's a major red flag.
Be grounded in your truth.
Bullies will try to define reality for you. For example, "It's not that they are abusive assholes because they're so insecure; it's that you are weak and deserve it or they're just playing." Nope. That's their delusion. Stay planted to your reality. It may help to write it down as a reminder for yourself.
Greyrock. Greyrock. Greyrock.
That means to have no noticeable emotional reactions to any of their bullying. They feed off of reaction, whether it is good or bad. Do not show that they are affecting you in any sense. This makes them feel insecure, so their strategy of bullying you isn't working.
I-statements.
You can say whatever you want as long as you don't mention anyone else by name or pronoun. So rather than saying, "You are insulting me." Say, "I feel uncomfortable right now." That is 100% acceptable and no one can argue how you feel since it's generally considered a jerk move. If anyone does argue your feelings, they're gaslighting you because they're telling you to trust their reality over yours.
As adults, they are playing a social game.
They are trying to paint you as the bad guy, paint themselves as either strong or the victim (depends on the immediate setting, but think of how Trump is always either strong or a victim), isolate you, then creating alliances with others to start bullying you, whether the others know it or not. For me, this is the hardest of the areas to work on, but basically I remember that they are focused on the immediate moment. You need to play the long game. Stay stable and don't start with gossip, trash talking, or whatever. You need to demonstrate through your behaviors that you are not what the bully is telling everyone else you are. Also, do not believe anything the bully tells you about others. That is a manipulation strategy. For example, they may tell you that, "Person A is such a bully to Person B." This will trigger your sensitivity, get you to isolate from Person A, and start trusting the bully a little more since they are apparently against bullying. It's all a game they play. As long as you understand that they are delusional, you can accept to not trust a thing they say, even is many of their statements are littered with half-truths. Remember, everything they say has a manipulative purpose. Eventually, the bully will either get sick of trying to bully you and it not be effective, or they may actually lash out enough for you to take more concrete steps, such as legal, contacting HR, or whatever.
Do not speak poorly of anyone else.
They will use this to trash your reputation with them, especially if it is something that other person is vulnerable about. They can prompt it by going, "I don't mean to be mean, but I'm kind of concerned with Person A's health...they just look a bit too overweight." You, trying to relate, respond, "Yeah, they do seem a bit overweight, and they're not helping themselves eating Chic-Fil-A for lunch. Maybe they don't know how to eat healthier." Later on, they go to Person A, "Hey, I want you to know that I am just trying to be a caring person and don't like any drama, but I thought it was rude what someone told me about you...Lettruhut was talking crap about how you shouldn't be eating Chic-Fil-A because of your size." Person A then gets justifiably offended and can even confirm the half-truth by coming up to you and asking, "Hey, do like Chic-Fil-A?" You unconsciously remembering the previous conversation respond, "No, it's too much for me." That's it. You just confirmed what the bully implied.
Do not share anything personal with the bully.
If the bully comes up to you and says, "You know, I feel bad about taking home pens from work sometimes. It feels like I'm stealing." Do not try to console them by being vulnerable, such as, "I don't think that's a big deal. One time I really needed just a few staples, so I took some home from the office because I didn't need a whole box." In this example, you just admitted to the bully that you steal. The bully will immediately start spreading that info unto others. They may tell a manager, "I'm a bit concerned that Lettruhout is stealing because I saw them taking home office supplies. I'll show you what I mean at the next meeting by pretending that I'm doing it, you play along, and we can see how they react." Next meeting comes along, "Hey everyone, I want to know what you guys think...I'm a bit embarrassed about this, but I've been taking home pens from the office, and I wanted to know if you think that's a big deal?" The manager says, "I mean, something so insignificant, that's fine. If it were a computer, then of course that's a problem though. What do you think Lettruhut?" You responded, "Oh yeah. One time I took home a few staples. I was really nervous about it, but I'm glad you guys are sensible. I was actually worried that you guys would see it as stealing." Boom! You just admitted that you stole, while the bully has an alibi for what they told you they stole. When you get punished for it and try to accuse the bully of it, you now look like a liar as well, and no one will believe whatever you say about the bully from there on out. Anyway, as long as you don't share anything personal with them, they will see that you're not an easy target and prey around for someone else.
If you see them bully someone else, become a source of support for them.
Don't tell them what you saw, but ask them to tell you how they experienced it and be a supportive sense of validation grounded in reality. This shows them that you are healthy and also that their recollection and interpretation of events are valid.
Know that as long as you are not dealing with a lethally dangerous psychopath, you have already won.
You have won because they are playing an antagonistic game based on fantasy. You are living a collaborative life based on reality. Since you are aiming to be collaborative, you limit the amount of antagonism you create. In fact, it is others that create the antagonism which you may fall victim to. However, their entire lives are antagonistic, so they are more likely to mess up and have a longgggg history of terrible relationships and records. Being based on reality, you've already won because you share the same world with everyone else while they have to not only manage that information, but also have to develop and coercively disseminate their delusional interpretation of it. You only have to remember facts. They have to remember facts, delusions, lies, and the specific manipulation strategies they use on each individual involved. That means that you have much more mental resources available to focus on the problem than they do.
If this is a person threatening your safety, then you need to collect evidence and get authorities involved.
Not only keep track of your interactions, but find a way to mount evidence. What I did with my bully when I was kicking them out of my life (a dangerous moment because they act more intensely since their about to lose their insecurity drug), I would put my phone on record and in my pocket so that I had evidence to share with people if I needed to. While that particular example wouldn't be admissible in court in my state, I could still share it with police, medical professionals, or lawyers so they know I am being truthful. In retrospect, I could have tricked them into giving me consent by starting the recording in my pocket, then saying, "So if what you're telling me is right, you wouldn't care if I recorded it?" They would have to respond, "No." Then I would go, "So I have your permission to record this?" They would say, "Yes," assuming you're not recording, so then you can say, "Ah, never mind. It's not worth it to go get my camera." Boom! Just got consent and bonus, they now think you believe their BS even more because you didn't follow through to get the camera.
I haven't, but I have a relevant experience that might help you. I used to get horrible migraines starting around 7 years old. They were so bad, I would have been okay with dying during them. They would start coming on sometime in the early to mid-afternoon, and by night time, I was a complete mess. I would have to find some sort of odd position with my neck bent, cover my eyes, limit all noise, and not be cold at all. Light was especially painful. There was no medicine I had taken that would stop it. Around 1a-3a that night/morning, I would vomit, and within 15 mins, the migraine was mostly gone. I would then sleep like 12 hours. This would happen around once every three months, and I never recognized any triggers.
As I aged and was able to access healthcare on my own terms, I tried all sorts of medicines in the US. Tryptans just made me feel weird during the migraines. Prophylactics didn't do anything besides give me side effects. One time, I was hospitalized for another condition and got a migraine. They saw how bad it was that they straight up gave me a heavy IV shot of dilaudid. I threw up immediately, and the migraine went away. On a few occasions when I got migraines in Cuba while visiting, I would go to the local clinic. There they would inject me in the butt with diphenhydramine (Benadryl), dimenhydrinate^1 (Dramamine), and diazepam (Valium). My migraine would reduce in intensity and I'd be sleepy enough to pass out despite the lingering pain, then wake up the next feeling fantastic.
Eventually, I was referred to a neurologist that would inject botox into certain areas of my face, neck, and scalp every 3 months, and that seemed to work pretty well as a prophylactic, though the injections were moderately painful enough for me to be reluctant prior to the appointments. If I did feel a migraine coming on, I would take ibuprofen, and it would go away. I got these injections for about 2-3 years and was basically migraine free, but due to bureaucratic error, I fell off of their caseload and was too busy with school to try to fight my way back. When I got my next migraine, I felt it coming on and took 800 mg ibuprofen. It went away within 30 mins. I started experimenting, and noticed that from here on out, if I take 200 mg when I feel one coming on, it goes away within 30 mins. If I don't take the ibuprofen soon enough though, I will get a migraine. Now, I have ibuprofen everywhere I go. I don't know what happened, but that just started working. Perhaps the botox treatment for a few years was a necessary step for ibuprofen to start working, or maybe there was some other lifestyle change that somehow worked yet I'm not aware of. Regardless, I haven't had a true migraine in about 7-8 years, so I consider myself practically cured from migraines.
Hopefully, this can help you somehow!
tl;dr: Had horrible migraines. Only thing that would work were IV/IM drugs. Ended up getting botox for 2-3 years, then ibuprofen started to magically work if I took it quick enough.
1: They called it something like "globanol", but told me it was the same as dimenhydrinate.
There's like a 95% chance I would respond similarly to the one in blue without an iota of awareness that it might come off as rude. Instead, I would probably feel proud of my authenticity and accuracy.
Mine is similar: to make the world a better place, you have to be better than the world. It gives me motivation and guidance when in crappy situations where I feel like fighting back, but doing so would only continue the cycle of anger.
yooooooo! Before I found out I'm autistic, I asked a friend if I had any toxic traits/patterns/behaviors. He said that the only thing he could think of was that quite often, people can't tell that I'm joking. According to him, people have to get to know me for a while until they recognize my humor. If they didn't know me, then I would come off like a complete jerk. This is probably why people would call me an "asshole" so often at parties.
I got this from a few friends lol. Apparently, it's pretty obvious that I'm autistic, but I had absolutely no self-awareness. I have a natural tendency to choose other autistic people to socialize with. I would think they were normal, authentic, interesting, easy to communicate with, and accepting. Meanwhile, I thought most people were inauthentic, shallow, hard to understand, and judgmental. Now that I know I'm autistic, I understand that:
inauthentic = social conformity amd social construction of reality
shallow = small talk
hard to understand = speak using "polite" indirect implications and social cues
judgmental = upset that I "ignored" their indirect politeness and broke social norms by speaking directly. Ironically, I was being judgmental of them, too.
I still prefer autistics because they're just my people and we get along much better, but have more understanding and acceptance of NT behaviors. Anyway, when I found out I was autistic, a some of them were like, "We thought you knew...it's pretty obvious."
omg, don't get me started! The pirates were sooooo interesting! They were revolutionary for their time. One of the things they would do is assault slave ships and free the people that were enslaved. Then, those people could join the pirate ranks. They formed a democratic republic in the Bahamas. Then, individual ships would elect Captains. Outside of live combat, the Captain could be replaced by a simple majority vote at any time. The majority of them really preferred to avoid hurting others, so they tried to employ fear tactics that would cause the ships being assaulted to surrender without a fight. One time, a group of them mounted a ship completely naked except for their weapons. The other ship was so terrified, they surrender without any fight. Can you imagine a pack of pirates mounting your ships ready to fight completely naked?? lol
My perspective on that as an autistic adult is that it makes no sense in hiding things. It just seems like things would be a lot easier if everyone was straight forward and truthful. I also have trouble understanding NT social standing/hierarchies, so it's hard for me to grasp why being truthful could affect anyone's social standing unless it's pretty damning info. I know that NTs see it differently, so I really hold on to truthful information until I feel confident with the person, which lately has been taking me about 12 months of frequent interaction to achieve.
However, I've more recently started using a boundaries concept of thinking of people as a sound mixer. Each dial represents a person's reliability on a domain of trust (e.g. finances, secrets, emotional stability, etc.). This has helped me develop a "spectrum" of trust with others. It's a lot of mental work because I have to analyze things more, but looks promising.
That's 16 shots to whomever loses. No joke, I'd be drunk for 2 days if I had that many.