Fragile Bully by Laurie Helgoe

Author:Laurie Helgoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2019-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

Shifting the Focus

Tarana Burke, senior director for Brooklyn-based Girls for Gender Equity, saw her own limitations in responding to a girl desperate to tell her story of sexual abuse. Though Burke directed the girl to a counselor, she wished she had said two simple words: “me too.” In discussing the words that became a movement, Burke later shared: “As a community, we create a lot of space for fighting and pushing back, but not enough for connecting and healing.”11

The spirit of the #MeToo movement was not about retaliation, and that may be the secret to its power. On October 15, 2017, in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted an invitation to women everywhere who had experienced sexual harassment or assault: “Write ‘Me Too’ as a reply to this tweet.”12 Within twenty minutes, she received 10,000 replies, and a hashtag was born. The Telegraph reported that, by early November, #MeToo had been tweeted 2.3 million times from eighty-five different countries.13 Burke’s two words allowed the world to see the vast numbers of women who share a history of sexual abuse. Those two words breathed life back into those dehumanized.

This movement followed a simple communication rule used by couples’ therapists: Use I (or me) statements. Fragile bullies absorb the focus even when the focus ends up dehumanizing them. By staying inside your own experience, you do not bite on the hook. You might see the futility in responding to that text and instead share your feelings with someone who understands. You might have the courage to tell your story to help someone else who feels alone. And in some cases, you might successfully invite the bully to set aside his fragility and to see you. Doing so with my father meant withstanding the anxiety that he would either fall apart or take me apart. Here’s the rest of that story:

I was stuck at first, fuming with anger but also emotionally captive to his vulnerability. Anything I said provoked a response that kept the focus on him. So I internalized my dilemma even as I was tortured by it—cue the Solo Dance of Chapter 11. But, in a later phone conversation with Dad, I returned to the issue. I tried to impress upon him how scared I was when I couldn’t find my son, when I recognized that he was lost and alone. Dad then shifted from focusing on his own ill feelings to calling me repeatedly, morosely guilt-ridden and apologetic, and pressuring me to reassure him and say it was okay. The focus remained on him. But I didn’t feel like reassuring him this time. I persisted in asking him to look at me and at the fear and trauma I had endured during those minutes when I looked for my son, as well as the immense frustration I experienced when Dad played the victim. I stayed the course, not hurling accusations, not protecting him from responsibility. Finally, something changed. Something changed in me.

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