"Fight your own battles" - an unwritten rule???

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For every cliche, there is an equal and opposite cliche. In this case, it's "United We Stand, Divided We Fall."

I always stood up for myself, always fought back, alone. Usually "won," but what did that earn me? Getting attacked more, and a solid case of PTSD.

Here's another cliche: "Violence begets violence."

I am unable to "fight my own battles". I don't know how and I'm passive, nonviolent, and have poor social skills. All I can do about people I have problems with is avoid them.

In school I got bullied a lot and the few times I tried to fight back I just got in trouble with the school and had the other kids retaliate with even worse bullying.

The whole thing about "not being a snitch" is just stupid propaganda from bad people that don't want to get caught doing bad things. I probably didn't actually snitch that much though because back when I was in school the school didn't care about that stuff, did nothing, and it was just your word against the bully and they usually believed the bully.

I believe that this is the most important of all the unwritten rules.

I believe that the "Don't be a snitch" rule is a good one, about some things. I think there is a certain degree of behavior that you have to turn someone in over. Extreme examples would be that I would not turn someone in for smoking pot. I would turn someone in for murder. I also think it has to be worth it to rat on somone. The level of harrassment you are getting has to be worse than the scorn you would get from others if you do that.

Frances

Why oh why do people always have to be at 'war' with each other. I sometimes wonder if the human race is really as evolved as it likes to think it is!

Personally I think it has a long way to go.

Life would be much nicer if people were supportive of each other instead of waging war on each other. It is very primitive.

"fight your own battles" is plainly absurd in the real world. Going to a third party to resolve a conflict isn't always cowardice. Sometimes it's just smart. I'm not a coward but I often have a lot of rage inside me if I feel victimized so I know that a direct confrontation could be dangerous. Horrible things could happen if I totally lose control. I had a physical fight with a jerky road rager once and it only made my mental issues worse for weeks afterwards. People in this culture only like to talk s**t and feign toughness. Only ghetto culture endorses that crap and one in ten of them end up in jail with no life. Actual fighting or making threats is just stupid unless you really want to risk getting a criminal record. I want to keep my record clean, thus if some as*hole is going to treat me wrong I have no choice but to remove myself from the situation and find some outside way to resolve the conflict without a nasty confrontation.

^- Agreed, marshall.

While I've never been bullied for having asperger's (as I'm recently diagnosed), I've been bullied for being different my entire life. I have to agree with you on it being okay to seek help in a bullying situation. I'm not sure if you have any mood disorders, but I do and if I fought my own battles it could end very badly, both for me and my bully. I have an explosive anger, I get reckless, and I lose myself in that rage. So, I call for some assistance because it's safer for everyone involved.

I've never understood why it's okay to hire people to build your house, fix your plumbing, perform surgery, or help with any non-social situation, but it's not okay for someone to help with a bully. I guess an alternative is to have a neutral party mediate the confrontation so that it doesn't get physical or things get heated.

I have had to deal with bullies throughout most of my schooling and more recently at work (I am not diagnosed). I have had some small successes and some horrible failures in dealing with them but I would never resort to physical violence and would always enlist some form of help in dealing with them. When I was at school I told my parents, who took it up with the school. When I was at work I would first try to politely improve the relationship with the bully, and when that failed, took it up with our line manager. Sometimes things worked and some of the school bullies ended up being freindly with me once they realised the impact their actions were having on me. Other times intervention made things a lot worse and I did move schools several times as well as leaving a job because I could no longer handle the stress and ended up having a major breakdown.

I don't know if there is a foolproof way of handling things, but I do feel that by telling someone and going through the proper channels I gained some support for what I was going through, some protection from any malicious allegations the bullies may make against me (since I was reporting back honestly everything that was going on), avoided escalating the situation by engaging in physical violence, had the possibility of a resolution with more experienced people to act as mediators, and still had the option to cut my losses and move on if I felt I needed to at any point.