Difficulty distinguishing bullying from legit concerns?

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Do you guys out there have difficulty distinguishing pure bullying from the more legitimate expressions of anger, indignation, or dissatisfaction, etc.?
I know that the two can overlap, of course - I don't think in black and white as the stereotypical Aspie as I know that socio-emotional interactions can be quite nuanced.

I think the give-away is the pettiness of it...adult bullying can still happen in the workplace, where it's more sneaky and passive-aggressive, where a boss or manager (or colleague) will pick on seemingly trivial things, when THEY are the ones who don't seem to take notice of the bigger picture (oh how the tables have turned on the stereotypes). Or sometimes there will be "cry-wolf" behaviours with made-up concerns to rattle you.

The difference, at least I have found with bullying behaviours as you get older is the menacing person uses more anger, either direct or indirect (the P/A behaviours I mentioned). Whereas bullying in younger days is more sarcasm, ridicule, laughter, etc., but rarely direct anger unless the bully feels the need to make threats. Obviously, none of that is a legitimate concern. But for the more "adult stage" bullying, it's more nuanced so we tend to wonder if we actually did something that irked the belligerent person, or maybe they have a point, or we really did rub them the wrong way and they're not making mountains of out of molehills... or maybe some of us get Stockholm syndrome where we might feel bad for them and try to find out more about their "concern" (which is fabricated just to rattle us )

I've gotten better at it over the years, but back in my 20s it threw me for a loop for sure, and I even had a couple of WTF moments in my 30s - but that was when I dealt with a master manipulator in the workplace so I got out of there first chance I got. Unfortunately, such "people" still lurk out there

Although I am not good at it, you can disarm a bully by being overly polite, and since being polite is also the best answer to someone who has a legitimate grievance, or is just angry, possibly about something that has nothing to do with you, then you can just use the same response either way, at least in theory. I don't find it easy to be pleasant and polite when someone is harassing me or is mad at me.

Yes, I see being angry as a bullying technique only on my workplace (likely I suspect my previous bosses to instruct other colleagues. It is a chain of former bosses: boss A instructs boss B to bully me in that way; boss B instructs boss C; boss C instructs boss D, although I start to think, with diminishing effects).

Being angry is one way, there are other tricks: not sharing information, questioning my learning capabilities or intelligence (giving too detailed instructions, although I remember details because I did that task in the past, too), gaslighting, cherry picking, micromanagement, discrimination, lying, deception, fraud, slandering (I will soon take steps against these things). I have seen everything on my workplace (mostly from management and bosses; and from few other colleagues, but others do like me, consider me extravert and social, which is true). It is very rare, non-existent outside (I don't remember the last example outside my workplace). There is way more respect.

I have talked about this to my father and to one of the other team managers.

What they said doesn't totally surprise me. They say: "The management is very afraid of you. You scare them intellectually." Not because I would be a physical threat, threatening other co-workers physically, but I am an intellectual threat. So they do everything to stop me from advancing. I am a threat to my previous boss (she has a diploma of Executive Secretary, but I have a "higher" diploma) and to two other administrative co-workers that I consider very good at their jobs. I could be the addition to that boss and those two co-workers; because I could gather all knowledge from these three, when I would have the chance. I think I could do after a few months of examinating things, talking to them, looking how everything works, what the procedures are, I could know a real lot of things. I think they find that unpleasant, and see me as a threat.

Only if I were also angry, fearful or just as unmanageably agitated myself.

If I were simply triggered by any of those,
I won't be able to distinguish between condemning and judging me, from someone wanting me to improve and expect better from someone,

The same way with, say, unable to distinguish between someone's anger meaning destroying their relationship and full on threat with life changing consequences, from just mild inconvenient irritation but very forgivable and forgettable fault.

The former is likely imaginary, especially when it happens again and again yet that never truly happens.



I think how to get past it is either to do with emotional regulation itself and able to put it aside at every moment -- preventing from overthinking or not being influenced by overthink, or having said emotions yet never will be colored by it -- never have to overthink.

Or never having to deal with said trigger and unconscious associations in the first place.


At least that's in my own point of view.
A lot that my emotions spews does not align with what I believe and what I've seen so far.

And I fricking hate it.
To a point that I'm planning to get meds solely against having evasive emotions evading my thoughts, how I think, what I perceive, my will, my progress...

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In my 40s I still couldn't tell if my director was ignorant, "typical" or a bully. All of the above I guess.