Category Archives: Bullies

Bullies and Intimidators = Haters

Bullies

When asked to describe myself, my go-to response is:

You may not like what I have to say, but you’ll always know where I stand.

Which can often be a relationship-changer, and not always in a good way.

Expressing myself through words—written and spoken—has required immense resolve, and courage. As a result, I have my fair share of haters, mostly because they tried (and failed) to bully or intimidate me.

I’m not sure whether my haters actually hate me, secretly respect me, or are merely afraid that I will expose them and the truth.

Or maybe all of the above.

I have no choice but to push back against haters, mainly because I promised myself that my days of being bullied and intimidated were over a long time ago.

Now I have no choice but to stand up for what’s right—LOUD and proud, so that bullying or intimidating me will backfire on anyone who dares to try.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out that bullies and intimidators = haters. And haters = chronic fault-finders who bully and intimidate others because they are insecure, jealous, and feel “less than” in their own lives.

As a result, when the bullies and intimidators, i.e., haters, try to come for me, I deliberately deploy my words to level the playing field. My intention is not to wield power or hold it over anyone, but to protect myself from those who try to wield power over me.

At my age, my thinking is threefold:

  • The haters can bully and intimidate me only if I let them.
  • What do I have left to lose that I haven’t already lost?
  • I can out-roar and out-charge the best of them.

I learned the hard way that being vulnerable in my words and actions can only take me so far. And sometimes people mistake my willingness to be vulnerable for a weakness—at their peril.

My courage to share my vulnerable side does not equate to timidity.

Rather, it is the opposite.

Yes, my courage helps me open up, be vulnerable, and share my weaknesses, but it can also bring out the charging bear in me.

You come for me and mine, and I come for you 2.0.

Don’t poke the bear.

Protecting myself and my loved ones with my voice and words is my forever armor, so bullies, intimidators = haters, beware.

And let’s be honest, no matter what I say or don’t say, haters will always try to stir the pot. That’s what they do.

So let them take their best shot. Let’s see how it works out for them. And if they choose to roar, they should brace for a thunderous echo.

Because the cost of hiding behind a carefully managed self is no longer an option for me, and hasn’t been for quite some time.

And anyway, I want to be the kind of writer—and woman—who isn’t afraid to write—or speak—about who I am, how I feel, and what I will and won’t tolerate.

I want to be remembered not only as a woman who uses words to expose my fragility but also as a warrior who uses them to challenge the hierarchy.

The kind of Teri-truth-telling that risks being vilified for using my not-so-nice words to put people who are legends in their own minds in their place, both written and spoken.

Not because I think I’m masterful at it, but as a raw, visceral presence, like “Don’t F with me because you’re not as tough or important as you think you are, which is why you have no power over me.”

Proverbs 28:15 warns that a wicked ruler over a poor people is like a roaring lion and a charging bear.

2020 Cedarhurst Sidewalk Sale: I Was Fired for Seeking the Truth

Bullies, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yes, this blog post headline is sadly real.

I was fired on July 21, 2020, for seeking the truth about whether or not holding this year’s Cedarhurst, New York, sidewalk sale would be legal.

At least, I think I was fired. I never received a termination letter or anything in writing.

Nevertheless, I’m definitely out of a job, thanks to Cedarhurst’s Deputy Mayor, Ari Brown.

For over ten years, I was the Executive Director of The Cedarhurst Business Improvement District, and the centerpiece of my position was the annual Cedarhurst summer sidewalk sale.

Last year, close to 85 merchants participated in the four-day event, every parking lot in the village was packed, and thousands of shoppers participated.

Year after year, it was an event I had always been proud of organizing, promoting, and running.

But to bring thousands of people to Cedarhurst smack in the middle of a pandemic and an array of emergency laws and executive orders established as a result?

Not so much.

And unless the event was legal and permitted, I wanted no part of it.

Do I need to explain why?

To be fired for doing my job legally and responsibly?  Well, that’s just flat-out WRONG.

To be fired for seeking the truth? WRONG.

To be fired for wanting to ensure that the Cedarhurst Business Improvement District and the Village of Cedarhurst didn’t sponsor an illegal public gathering? WRONG.

And get this one:

I get fired, and a few days later, the Cedarhurst Business Improvement District and the Village of Cedarhurst then decided NOT to move ahead with the August Sidewalk Sale.

So WRONG on so many levels. But based on the questionable character of some of the players, not surprising.

We are fighting against a deadly virus.

I mean, seriously, do I need to remind anybody of that?

Health officials have warned against large gatherings. The larger the crowd, the greater the chance that someone in it will have the virus. As the size of the crowd increases, so do the chances of COVID-19 exposure.

Duh.

When I was instructed to start work on the annual sidewalk sale in early July 2020, I didn’t know whether the event was legal or not.

Under the present circumstances, it sure didn’t seem like inviting thousands of people to descend upon a quarter-mile shopping area was the safest idea.

So, I got permission from my boss to make some calls to New York State and Nassau County to get a written statement as to the legality of the sidewalk sale.

Seemed like a no-brainer, right?

Call your state and local government during a PANDEMIC and get the go-ahead. Or not.

Well, so much for a no-brainer.

Over a two-week period, I made at least twenty attempts to get someone in the State or County government to put something in writing.

No one wanted to put anything in written form.

Heck, no one wanted to give me their last names.

I had plenty of people willing to tell me verbally that the event was not allowed, would be reported, and a fine would be issued.

But not one of those government officials had the guts to put it in writing.

Why not? I didn’t get it. Were they afraid of certain Cedarhurst Village officials? And if so, what were they afraid the officials would accuse them of?

It seemed that the only one who had the guts to put anything in writing was me.

And once I sent a written report to Deputy Mayor Ari Brown about my findings, things got u-g-l-y.

Heartbreakingly ugly.

I heard a lot of nasty lies and rumors spread about me by Deputy Mayor Ari Brown. He spread false rumors about my mental health, lied when he claimed I was unwilling to do my job, and falsely accused me of redacting and tampering with my workplace databases.

As if that weren’t enough, Deputy Mayor Ari Brown also made false claims about my being fired from my Executive Director position years earlier, as well as accusations that I lied about what state and county representatives told me regarding the 2020 Cedarhurst Sidewalk Sale.

Seriously?

BTW: ALL UNTRUE. And all of which I can prove to be untrue.

And as incredible as it may sound, Deputy Mayor Ari Brown also made accusations against my daughter (yes, my daughter) concerning what I will refer to as Zoomgate.

There’s even supposed to be a taped conversation between a certain Cedarhurst store owner and Ari Brown proving that despicable and untrue things were indeed said about me by the Deputy Mayor of Cedarhurst.

According to the store owner who taped him, he allegedly promised to give her my job, which she ultimately got.

Unseemly, right?

I didn’t see anywhere in my Executive Director job description that said it was okay to kill people.

Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. Or maybe it’s not.

Because it’s no stretch that increases in new confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in 43 states this past week. And hospitalizations from the disease also increased. And COVID-19 deaths rose for the second straight week.

So why wouldn’t I question whether throwing a sidewalk sale party was legal or not?

Apparently, questioning the legality of the event was not allowed.

And refusing to work on the sale event unless I knew it was legal was also impermissible.

And that’s why I lost my job.

Honestly, I really didn’t want to write this blog post.

But the character assassination by the Village of Cedarhurst Deputy Mayor Ari Brown against me was devastatingly vicious and wholly untrue.

To be clear, I would have been willing to let the false accusations go if Ari Brown would have apologized.

But Ari Brown had no intention of apologizing. He wanted me out. Plain and simple.

Anyway, it’s too late to apologize.

Because Ari Brown went out of his way to engineer my removal as Executive Director with untruths and false accusations.

For certain men, their actions aren’t a matter of principle. Their actions are a matter of power and of winning—at any cost.

Even if it means trying to ruin someone’s reputation, in this case—mine.

My grandmother would always say that the only thing you have is your reputation and your good name and to never let anyone take that away from you.

That, my dear deceased grandmother, is easier said than done.

But I’m working on it.

All I can do at this point is be proud of having done my due diligence.

And I can tell my grandkids that during the pandemic, I sought the truth in order to protect a village, the merchants, the shoppers, and the community at large.

And for that, I was fired.

I’ll take it.

I’ll proudly wear that badge of honor.

Why Bullies Trigger Me

Bullies,

I am continually asking myself:

Why do I allow bullies to trigger me?

Long ago, I should have learned that bullies have no power over me. And most importantly, that bullies have no power at all.

But trigger me, they do.

I was bullied for way too many of my younger years.

Bullied because I didn’t have a father.

Bullied because my mother was a child.

Bullied because I came from a broken home.

Bullied because my mother was excommunicated.

Bullied because my grandmother was excommunicated.

Bullied because I wore boy’s shoes.

Bullied because I was too tall, too skinny, awkward, scrawny, and homely.

Bullied because there was nothing special about me.

There I said it. So what?

There are millions of bullied kids out there with far worse problems.

And okay; so what if I wore boy’s shoes?

I had big feet.

And anyway, that was what was left in a bag on our Huron Street doorstep, fresh from Salvation Army.

Be thankful, was what my grandmother said.

So yeah, when I’m bullied, I lash out.

And I often go from zero to 100—just like that.

I have no tolerance for bully behavior.

And between us? I often feel regret for my aggressive response.

But then, I don’t.

I feel vindicated.

I feel like I’m making up for all those years that I was torturously bullied.

I decided a long time ago that I could be the heroine in my story.

Sometimes the story works out, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Gaslighting

Bullies

Hands down, the most popular post I have ever written is: Bullies Are Cowards and Why I Refuse To Turn the Other Cheek.

I have received over twenty thousand page views for that one post alone and hundreds of emails from people who have shared heartbreaking bullying experiences with me.

But a recent incredibly hurtful and personal experience, immediately followed by a comment I received yesterday from a man named Jack after he read my “Bullies Are Cowards” post prompted me to write about gaslighting.

“I never said that.”

“It’s all in your head.”

“You’re too sensitive.”

“I was just joking around.”

“Oh, stop it.”

“Why are you taking things so seriously?”

“You misunderstood what I said.”

“That never happened.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“You don’t need to get angry over a little thing like that!”

Misinformation, disinformation, alternate theories, alternative facts, distorted view of events, outright lies.

Did you ever wonder why someone you trust would rewrite history?

And after listening to them tell their version over and over and over again, did you ever question that maybe it didn’t happen the way you thought it did?

Or second guessed yourself, and even doubted your own sanity?

If you’re nodding your head yes, don’t worry. You’re not going crazy. It’s not you. And it’s happened to the best of us.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt bullied, discredited, victimized, minimized, and alienated.

As a result, I was often left with questions about myself, wondering if I was being overly sensitive, silly, neurotic, or downright unhinged.

Gaslighting is a manipulative attempt to plant seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make those targets question their own memory, perception, sanity, and order of things.

Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, gaslighters attempt to destabilize the target and delegitimize the target’s beliefs.

The term comes from a 1938 London play, about a sadistic husband who is trying to drive his wife insane, titled “Gas Light.”

The drama popularized the term “gaslighting” where the narcissistic abuser manipulates the mind of a victim by presenting fiction as fact, causing the victim to question reality.

Gaslighters come in all forms: Family members, friends, spouses, teachers, health professionals, bosses, authoritarian regimes, government officials, and yes, even the President of the United States.

There is some good that can come from all of this altering of reality and facts though.

The liars and deceivers who gaslight will eventually be exposed for who and what they are and/or slip up.

But don’t wait around for that to happen.

Here is what I’ve learned over the years, and sadly, more recently, when a friend of a friend attempted to gaslight me.

The only reality you can control is your own. Distance yourself as much as possible. Walk away if necessary. Don’t engage. Don’t let anyone wear and tear you down. Don’t give into lies. Stay informed. Trust your instincts. Never give up on the truth. Resist and persist.

And above all love and believe in yourself.