The following article deals with bullying in the home. I'm sure many can relate to this.
Love to you
Moongal x
Control is a common indicator of the serial bully at home - control of finances, control of movements, control over choice of friends, control of the right to work, control over what to think, and so on. All are designed to disempower.
A favourite tactic of the bully in the family is to set people against each other. The benefits to the bully are that:
a) the bully gains a great deal of gratification, from encouraging and provoking argument, quarrelling and hostility, and then from watching others engage in conflict, and
b) the ensuing conflict ensures that people's attention is distracted and diverted away from the cause of the conflict
Bullies within the family, especially female bullies, are masters (mistresses?) of manipulation and are fond of manipulating people through their emotions (eg guilt) and through their beliefs, attitudes and perceptions.
Bullies see any form of vulnerability as an opportunity for manipulation, and are especially prone to exploiting those who are most emotionally needy.
Elderly relatives, those with infirmity, illness, those with the greatest vulnerability, or those who are emotionally needy or behaviourally immature family members are likely to be favourite targets for exploitation.
The family bully encourages and manipulates family members etc to lie, act dishonourably and dishonestly, withhold information, spread misinformation, and to punish the target for alleged infractions, ie the family members become the bully's unwitting (and sometimes witting) instruments of harassment.
Bullies are adept at distorting peoples' perceptions with intent to engender a negative view of their target in the minds of family members, through the creation of doubts and suspicions, and the sharing of false concerns, etc.
The bully may try to establish an exclusive relationship (based on apparent trust and confidence) with one family member such that they (the bully) are seen as the sole reliable source of information; this may be achieved by portraying the target (and certain other family members) as irresponsible, unstable, undependable, uncaring, unreliable and untrustworthy, perhaps by the constant highlighting - using distortion and fabrication - of alleged failures, breaches of trust, lack of reliability, etc. The process is reinforced by inclusion of the occasional piece of juicy gossip about the target's alleged misdemeanours or untrustworthiness in respect of relationships and communication with people. Mostly this is projection.
The objective is to manipulate the family member's perceptions and create a dependency so that the family member comes to rely exclusively on the bully and see the bully as the sole source of reliable information whilst distrusting everyone else. Any person who is capable of exposing and breaking the dependency is targeted with venom and will find their name blackened at every opportunity.
When close to being outwitted and exposed, the bully feigns victimhood and turns the focus on themselves - this is another example of manipulating people through their emotion of guilt, eg sympathy, feeling sorry, etc. Female serial bullies are especially partial to making themselves the centre of attention by claiming to be the injured party whilst portraying their target as the villain of the piece. When the target tries to explain the game, they are immediately labelled "paranoid". Attention-seeking behaviour is common with emotionally immature people.
The serial bully is easy to spot once you know what you are looking at: Jekyll and Hyde nature, compulsive lying, manipulation (or emotions, perceptions, beliefs, etc), unpredictability, deception, denial, arrogance, narcissism, attention-seeking, etc - whilst always charming and plausible, especially when impressionable witnesses are present. For the full profile of the serial bully, click here. Everybody knows someone in their life with this profile - who is it in your life?
Serial bullies can be male or female - the main difference is that female bullies are more devious, more manipulative, more cunning, more sly, more psychological, more subtle, leave less evidence and will often bully with a smile. Female bullies will often manipulate a male into committing their violence for them. Male bullies tend to be less subtle, have a tendency towards physical aggression, and are generally less clever than female bullies.
Extract http://www.bullyonline.org/related/family.htm