Bullying & Patriarchy (Part 2)

Types of Verbal & Psychological Bullying

Types of verbal and psychological bullying include: put-downs, dismissive remarks, continual judgments and hypercriticism, repeatedly making the same accusations (including false accusations and slander), and manipulation. Of course, manipulation takes many forms, such as emotional blackmail, false praise, and gaslighting, to name a few.

False accusations are a form of bullying and can be tied into name-calling or manipulation.

For example, by the time I graduated from college, my mother falsely accused me of skipping meals to lose weight. When I lost ninety pounds in college (probably because I moved out of my parents’ house, so I had a change in lifestyle, including taking five flights of dorm stairs numerous times a day), my mother — with absolutely no evidence whatsoever — made that accusation (to someone else, in the third person, so it was also slander). I felt deeply shocked and hurt. During my first year of college, social anxiety associated with the cafeteria was the only reason I skipped meals, and that was only that one year. That aside, I didn’t skip meals unless you call not having lots of money to spend on food and not buying chocolate “skipping meals.” In fact, whenever I went to a party that involved free food, I pigged out. In my twenties, I developed a reputation for being a mooch…