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Thin Skin vs Thick Skin [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-22

Be warned my oddness is going full blown in this entry.

This is the case of mistaken purpose (hey warned you).

I’ve received a lot of advice on here about how to deal with my detractors. The most common one being to “ignore them” and I’ve addressed my stance on ignoring bullies several times. I don’t believe in it. I think it’s a failing strategy and I suggest people seek out the number of children who have unalived themselves because of bullying even thought they tried to ignore the bully. The myth if you ignore a bully they will “get bored” is just that a myth. Bullies do not get bored when you ignore them, they get more vicious.

You tell the victim to ignore the bully, they don’t tell anyone they are being bullied, the parents do not know the teachers do not know the friends do not know and then one day you find your kid in a closet having hung themselves because while they were ignoring the bully, the bully wasn’t ignoring them. (I read as much as I write).

The case for ignoring the bullies, has another drawback, other victims. It’s a case of kicking the can down the road when a bully does actually lose interest in a victim… it’s because they’ve found another one. And watching someone else being bullied instead of you isn’t the great liberating feeling one would imagine. See “survivor’s guilt”.

Another advice I’ve gotten is to grow a thicker skin… now I find that a bit funny, because as I answered someone (a bit tongue in cheek), my thin skin allows me to feel, so no I don’t want a thicker skin. The other thing about me replying to people that seek to provoke me or outright attack me, has nothing to do with the nature of my skin (I know it’s not physical skin).

The only effective means of dealing with a bully is to stand up to them. Once bullies learn that their victims will and can fight back they not only go away but they stop seeking other victims for they will not know who will fights back. And for heavens’ sake fighting back doesn’t have to mean physically fighting (in the case of school bullies), I found that mocking and derision are the best ways to disarm a bully both online and offline.

To respond or to ignore, that is the question

Which is the better part of valor?

To withstand the slings and arrows of passive aggressive attacks

or to wield the wit and might of words against our attackers

and by derision end them?

To smile, perchance to laugh

And laugh and laugh

So anyways I will reiterate my demands for not flagging those that reply in my entries, with less than honorable debate intentions. Reserve the flags for those vile, racists, sexists remarks… but someone just being a jerk on my entries? I can handle that and I don’t people to be scared of participating in exchange beneath my entries for fear of being flagged.

#TheAmericanHaitianPoet #Woke #SocialPoetry

Paypal.me/murielvieux (to help Haitian families in crisis)

Muriel Vieux – June 22nd, 2025 – ©All rights reserved

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