You have no power over me

On the illusion of bullies' control, and the moment the spell breaks

One thing I’ve learned is that bullies’ power is not real. It’s an illusion, as the movie Labyrinth illustrates, and their control is only sustained as long as it’s believed in.

I like to think of myself as an optimist. My own approach to respect is that it is given automatically, then you actually have to work hard to lose my respect.

One manager totally lost my respect when he tried to assert undue control.

Many years ago, not long after I got my eyesight problems, I worked at an office where, one day, I had to send a letter. We used two different colour envelopes, brown and white. White was preferred for general correspondence, and brown for bills. Not finding any white envelopes because of my poor eyesight, I put the letter in a brown envelope. Using my initiative!

The bullying manager went through the outgoing mail the next day (not even a task in his remit) and pulled me aside into his office to belittle me for using the wrong colour envelope. After nearly twenty minutes of stammering my defence, I realised that this was a ludicrous and laughable situation.

It was a power-trip for him, about asserting control, so I stopped defending myself. He wanted the battle, and I no longer offered a fight. He faltered as I relaxed. When I got a word in edgeways, I calmly explained that all it needed was to take the letter out and pop it in a different envelope, if he felt so deeply about it. I told him that the conversation was going nowhere and it was ludicrous to get so upset as he did over an envelope, and walked out of the meeting.

At that moment, he lost his power; the glass shattered into a thousand pieces.

He tried to regain it by escalating my alleged insubordination to HR, but when I explained that it was all over the colour of an envelope, and with my poor eyesight (I can’t tell some colours apart easily) it could end up being a disability discrimination issue, they backed off. It was not about the wrong envelope; the manager wanted to assert control.

The next day, the bullying manager shifted his focus and was shouting at a temp who was gay, slating him for wearing a dull yellow shirt that was “too flamboyant”. He actually wore more pastels from that point on, and also challenged the manager to define “flamboyant”. The manager could not, not without crossing the line and openly revealing his homophobia. He moved onto berating someone else the next day.

It is not always possible to immediately escape from bullies: idiots on a bus or domineering figures in a workplace. My feelings for my home city are mixed, formed by years of bullying there.

Bullies sometimes try to force their dominance in different ways: some are loud, physical, intimidating. Sometimes they work quietly, sabotaging from the sidelines with belittling remarks about career, hobbies or aspirations. But they are emotional vampires, cloaked in frustration and sucking your attention.

I have always been a writer, but for a while, I listened to people I shouldn’t have trusted. I gave them respect from the start as I do with everyone, and they abused my respect. They berated my writing, told me I was shit, and repeatedly told me to give up, because I would never be J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. On reflection, I certainly wouldn’t ever want to be anything like Rowling. Whilst I love King’s work, I realised there was only one writer I could be like, and that was me, myself.

I wonder what their motivation was. They were unlikely to ever be writers themselves, and never read books, so their advice was worthless anyway. But I think the real core issue is that they saw me doing something I loved, something I enjoyed, and they couldn’t control it. They were jealous of my happiness.

Sometimes bullies try and explain things away something in jest. Once, when someone was attempting an action that was potentially career-damaging against me, it was laughed off: “If he can’t take a joke, that’s his problem.” The authorities didn’t agree with the bullies and sided with me in that situation; it isn’t subjective. When analysed, cruelty does not pass for humour.

Every December on the day of their company Christmas party, the aforementioned bullies (who wanted me to be like Rowling or King) got drunk and used to make freaky phone calls, calling me up with apps to disguise their voices, and make threats at me down the phone, etc. I assume it must have been a sad, pathetic Christmas party ritual for them. The first few years I was worried, but then I was irritated, now many years later I am almost amused and I pity them. I fortunately have not met them for many years, but still I apparently am taking up space in their heads.

The pattern for bullying is clear. Bullies demand reaction, compliance, fear, anything to feed their vain idea that they are in control. The illusion only survives if it is fed. Without it, their world falls down.

Labyrinth is a masterpiece of cinematography and narrative. It isn’t about defeating a tyrannical ruler with force or wit. Sarah defeats the Goblin King not with an attack, but with a refusal: “you have no power over me.”

She says: No.

Belief is withdrawn. A boundary is drawn. The illusion shatters.

And the spell breaks.