By Jessie Funk
When someone is hating on you, they’re trying to get a reaction out of you for their own personal enjoyment. It brings them some sort of satisfaction when you get mad or you get sad. Knowing that, the trick is to keep yourself calm. If you react without any emotion at all and respond in a way that creates confusion, I promise you will ruin the game for a hating, grumpy human. It’s no longer fun, they get bored, they get confused, and they don’t like how they feel. What does a hater want when they bully you? They want to feel powerful. If you refuse to play that little game, then they don’t get what they want. The satisfaction is gone.
If we understand the psychology of how human aggression and bullying works, it makes it so much easier to understand that it is not about you. It’s about the person doing the hating. They may have recently lost a loved one. Their parents may be getting divorced or perhaps they live in an abusive environment. They are trying to deal with some kind of pain or pressure and they don’t know how else to do it. Some kids choose cutting or develop eating disorders. Some use drugs and alcohol, pornography, food, shopping, gambling or even suicide – and some kids choose bullying as their drug of choice.
Understanding why people do the mean things they do can help us have some compassion for them. That doesn’t mean that we put up with their toxic behavior, but it helps us to understand why it exists. We can possibly help them learn how to deal with their pain in a healthy way.
