Part II: The Power We Give Away, and How We Take It Back

By Iwan Ross

There are two kinds of people in this world: the bullies, and the recipients of their cruelty. Yet despite how different these two groups appear, they share one undeniable truth: both are fighting to survive.

It doesn’t feel fair.
It isn’t fair.

Bullies claw for control at any cost — the snakes in the grass — while their recipients learn to absorb the blows, adapt, and endure. To understand why this dynamic exists, we must first examine both sides of the battlefield.

The Bully’s Fortress

Look closely at a bully and you’ll see it:
A fortress built from insecurity.
Walls strengthened by fear.
A throne held together by intimidation.

Their aggression isn’t born from power — it’s born from the terror of losing it. Every insult, every raised voice, every calculated humiliation is a desperate attempt to keep vulnerability at bay.

The sad truth?

They bully others to avoid being reminded of how powerless they feel inside.

Meanwhile, the recipients — the quiet ones, the sensitive ones, the survivors — navigate the minefield created by someone else’s wounds. Their resilience is extraordinary, but too often invisible.

Do Bullies Know They’re Bullies?

No.
Not in the way you might think.

A bully rarely wakes thinking, “Today I will hurt someone.”
They justify.
They minimize.
They deny.

And when confronted?

They slip instantly into victim mode — a performance as old as time.

In the past, I used to describe this dynamic using the master–dog metaphor.
A desperate creature tolerates almost anything to survive:
the kick, the shout, the hunger, the neglect.
Survival demands submission.

But unlike the mistreated dog, you have something it doesn’t:

Choice.

And that’s where the shift begins.

Three Forks of Bullying — And How They Trap Us

From my own journey, bullying emerges in three main forms:

1. Verbal

The insults, the tone, the cutting remarks designed to pierce you faster than any blade.

2. Nonverbal

The silence.
The exclusion.
The slow, deliberate erasing of your presence.

3. Physical

The most obvious — and yet, often the easiest to identify and resist.

Bullies don’t pick one weapon and stick with it.
They rotate through their arsenal until they find your weak spot — the faint tear in the armor you’ve tried so hard to weld shut.

They are patient predators.
And they will keep probing until they find the part of you that flinches.

Why Some People Mistake Bullying for Affection

It may sound strange, but some individuals — shaped by trauma or loneliness — learn to equate bullying with attention.
Conflict becomes connection.
Pain becomes proof of being noticed.

But for most of us, the experience is far less twisted.
|We recoil.
We retreat.
We shrink.

And we ask the same question the bullied have whispered for generations:

“How do I defend myself?”

The Strategy Begins With Observation

Before you fight back, you watch.

When their insults fail to land…
When their manipulation finds no purchase…
When you do not react the way they expect…

A crack appears.

A tremor in their voice.
A tightening of the jaw.
A brief flicker of panic.

This is where their armor fractures.

You don’t attack.
You don’t lash out.
You don’t sink to their level.

Instead, you shift the battlefield.

You deny them the fuel — your visible pain, your outrage, your fear.
Without your reaction, a bully loses oxygen.

Their fire dims.

The Bully’s Power Is Not Theirs — It’s Yours

A bully’s strength doesn’t come from what they say or do.
It comes from how you respond.

Every time you:

• flinch,
• crumble,
• rush to explain yourself,
• internalize their words…

…you hand them a piece of your power.

Not because you are weak,
but because you were conditioned — from childhood, from trauma, from survival — to do so.

But now you know better.

Reclaiming Your Power Begins With This Choice

Will you continue to endure the sting of their barbs,
or will you choose otherwise?

The “otherwise” is not a single moment of bravery.
It is a series of choices, repeated quietly, consistently:

• refusing to absorb their narrative
• refusing to react the way they want
• refusing to give them your emotional energy
• refusing to accept their version of you

Slowly, you build an inner fortress — not of fear, but of worth.
heir venom reveals more about them than it ever will about you.

And when you finally understand that…

Their power dissolves.
Yours returns.
And the cycle breaks — not because they changed,
but because you did.

END OF PART II