Bullying in Group Support
It has come to our attention that there is bullying going on in the support chat rooms. This is really sad to hear. 7 Cups is an emotional support network. We are all here to support you, and we expect you to behave supportively and with kindness towards others while youre here. Thats what were about.
⛔️ BULLYING NEEDS TO STOP IMMEDIATELY.
What is bullying?
Bullying is hurtful behaviour that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. It can happen online or offline. It can happen once, or it can be an ongoing behaviour.
Types of bullying:
☞ Making threats
☞ Ridiculing
☞ Gossiping
☞ Spreading rumours
☞ Attacking someone verbally
☞ Excluding someone from a group
How can I avoid bullying someone?
Treat everyone with respect. If youre about to say something that might be hurtful, put yourself in the other persons shoes and imagine how your words would feel. If you think you have been unkind to someone, you can apologise.
We have many vulnerable guests and members. Most of us on 7 Cups are struggling in some way. Thats why were here for support. Some have special needs and may not know how to behave appropriately. In cases like this, you need to be extra compassionate. Assume the best of others. Know that everyone is doing the best they can. If being kind doesnt help the situation, you can use your own personal mute button. Alternatively, you can take a break from the chat room.
How does bullying make you feel?
If youre involved in bullying, it might help you to feel cleverer, stronger or more superior than another person. You might find you quite enjoy bullying and forget to consider the harm that it causes to others. There is a danger, especially if part of a group, that youll begin to truly believe that the other person isnt worth as much as the rest of you. This is wrong.
What to do if youre bullying someone?
Stop immediately. Remind yourself that you can do better. Reach out to a listener and talk through why you might be behaving in this way and how you intend to put it right. If you dont feel comfortable talking about it, make a list of what you get out of bullying. Then make a list of how youd feel if you were that person. Be brave. Apologise to the person you were hurtful towards. You can also tell any friends engaging in this behaviour to stop. Remind them of the harm it causes. If they do not listen, it would be a good idea to find new, kinder friends that dont need to belittle others to feel better about themselves.
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
- Jim Rohn
How does being bullied make you feel?
Bullying can make you feel scared, upset, embarrassed or hopeless. Its important to know that nobody has the right to make you feel this way. There are people who will like, care about and support you. 7 Cups is full of them. If you are being bullied by anyone in the group support rooms, you can mute and report them. You can also reach out to me directly via PM.
Zero tolerance policy
Here on 7 Cups, we will not tolerate bullying. Let me say this again. We will not tolerate bullying. Anyone who is found to be engaging in hurtful behaviour will no longer be permitted to participate in group support chat. Those who continue to find ways to hurt others outside of group chat will be removed from the site completely.
Dont be that person.
@joyfulDreamer37
A (report a bully button) would be a great idea..... however I would think there would have to be enough "Mods or Admin" around to see the complaint if someone needed responded to immediately. In which case if a mod does respond, then it is in a sense already being reported. It should be up to the mod at that point to make sure if a person is "bullying" that they are handled "accordingly". If you were suggesting something a little different, please feel free to elaborate here or enter the idea in the "Suggestions box" as well. 
Listener
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1klLqfn1ipgbudpxDQsk2tlBxhsOL44z5hnWU865Tig4/viewform
Member
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1r6iPcT_CNA89vhl_cbj4CxZt3bfa5hp7NP45DGxX35M/viewform
@politeOcean93 I see, your right.
@politeOcean93 I wish there was a way to prevent bullying on here 100%.
@PoliteOcean
Hi. A good mod will intervene, but rooms have no mods at times. Easy for a bully to change rooms in search of a mod-less one.
Agreeing with you and @joyfulDreamer37 that a bully alert button would be great. Those of us who are members but not Listeners or Mods don't always know what to do.
As 7Cups becomes more known and grows, the percentage of cruel people who will bully or troll will likely grow accordingly too. Ironically many of them are probably mentally or at least spiritually ill. Great changes in attitude can come about from chats, but not from the act of bullying.
I've been in a room or two with you and appreciate your work. :)
@redKite4725 True. Although sometimes mods lurk unseen, which is actually kind of nice for situations like that.
Great to see that 7 cups is helping spread awareness and make the site a better place for all kinds of people! Thank you!
I dont see any bullying in the support chats im in so idk why people address a problem I dont see.
@EmpRonin48 Bullying occurs on here whether we see it or not. They would not make a post on here about it if it was not happening.
@joyfulDreamer37 Well why dont we try to stop it
@EmpRonin48 That is why they made the post, to try to solve it. :)
thanks to share this posted. peace, helpful, support and encourgement!
@UrielAngel2015 How do you define a bully?
@AffyAvo
I had personal life experience of workplace bully and my own daughter also had bully experience at her elematry school that she was bullied by her school teachers , following statement by Dr. Olweus quote defination
"A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself."
This definition includes three important components:
1. Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves unwanted, negative actions.
2. Bullying involves a pattern of behavior repeated over time.
3. Bullying involves an imbalance of power or strength.
More over I also add few helpful links and resources about bully issues
https://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/definition/
https://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/B/Bullying.aspx
https://bullyonline.org/old/workbully/defns.htm
https://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/recognizing_bullying.page
@UrielAngel2015
There are those though who will continue to hold their hands up high saying that they bullied someone because...
"I was just bored..."
@UrielAngel2015
That definition is a person is bullied not a bully is
Some people can show bullying behaviour in one situation and not another. Are we going to apply the information in your post to anyone who has ever bullied someone else?
Was this for everyone or only certain members? If it was for only certain members I was wondering what this was regarding....
@AliceX3 - i think it applies to everyone insofar as if you are being bullied we want to stop that and protect you, if you are bullying anyone we want you to stop doing that and maybe let us help you find relief for your own issues in more constructive ways, if you are neither bullied nor bullying we want you to be aware that it can happen, that we are concerned to minimize it, and that you may need to speak up at some point if you see bullying going on.
Everyone, I ask that you all try to brainstorm ideas on how to eliminate bullying on here completely. It seems difficult to achieve right now, but if we all put our ideas together then it may be possible one day. I hope to hear your ideas everyone.
@joyfulDreamer37 I honestly think the only real way is for modding to be reinforced but with logical reasons and warnings. There were members that shouldn't have had their accounts deleted in the past and then there are bullies that have sustained their accounts because they blame on everyone else or pretend to be nice when mods are around and instead other people observing like me get warned to be supportive when really, we're already very friendly, until the bully comes along and insults for no reason.
@calmHemlock64
Sighs. So true. In the very least, it's somewhat of a relief to know that someone else is aware of such a thing going on here (as much as it does happen in real life.)
Even though it means... more people are going through heck...
@calmHemlock64 [edited for unsupportive content - by @cristiana33]
I am really glad we as a community brought bullying to a post to remind everyone that it is not fine...not okay for ANYONE under any CIRCUMSTANCE to go through it , sadly and unfortunately it happened in our support rooms ,but thanks to this post that should totally remind us of our real roles and purposes here.
@gracefulSong70 pretty sure if you are promototing child abuse and rape you need to be told about it.
Yeah it seems that those who are pro child abuse and pro rape are always allowed to post... but when I protest there seems to be an issue.... interesting.... thank god I do what I do.
@AliceX3, I haven't spent time in all the chat rooms, but there are a few I visit regularly. And I've seen the mods quickly delete any post that is pro-violence.
And then if the improper posts continue, the poster disappears from the room, so it seemed they were warned and then banned for a while.
Also, I think it's important for us to remember that one of the strongest tools that we ALL have to stop bullying in a chat room: we can mute the bully.
We just hit the Mute button for that person, and then we can't see his/her posts, makes them invisible.
One morning there was a person being really nasty in a chatroom, and there was no moderator to silence him. So all of us in the room muted the person -- it was GREAT. None of us could see his posts, so it was as if he wasn't there! We banded together to stop the bullying by muting him! It was very cool.
We learned that, instead of arguing with him (pointless, that's what he seemed to enjoy), or trying to reason with him (pointless, because he was not a reasonable person) -- we could all do an individual mute. It was amazingly effective!
@Annie I LOVE that everyone muted the person being mean! I think that is the coolest thing ever to be honest ♥
@Annie - brilliant... this is the resiliency of a web or net of folks who have built ties of trust with each other. together we can resist (or better yet ignore [or best of all, soften the hearts of the bullies])...
@Annie loved reading you all did that :)
Thank you for this post Heather! I've seen the early days of group support, and nowadays in group support. The early days were so much more relaxed. People showing support and compassion to one another all the time; it would be an extremely rare event to see a bully or troll in the chatroom.
Nowadays, its a rare sight to get everyone following the rules. There always seems to be some sort of drama/gossip spreading around in the rooms. In addition to this, not a major issue but can still be hurtful, some people can be upsettingly rude. I felt hurt the other day when I said hi to a member with a smiley face, and someone who I knew/had met before asked me if they could have more hearts in a friendly jokey way, and this member just said 'Tell me about it *members name*, all I got was an ugly smiley'. That slightly hurt me in many ways, firstly I felt as though maybe I had done something wrong but not realised it and secondly, all I did was say hello and greet them, which I did out of my own personal friendliness.
I am a fan and have been since the launch of Group support, I just think some things need to change and slightly stronger rules should be enforced to ensure saftey for our members/listeners and guests.
@SimonTheGr8
Ironically, the Compassion Hearts are being used or even just the effect... in a not so compassionate way. While this is a support site, one can't just simply say "heart my story/comment, if you don't, it means you aren't genuine, you aren't here to help, your AREN'T helping me, you are IGNORING ME, you are HURTING ME."
Surely I've said some extremes, I'm sure you guys catch the drift. I'd say it in an even less 7-cups tone (even though that tone is still more respectful and nice than most on youtube or on the net..) But it might just be taken wrong.
There are people both new and regulars who often feel like even just a minute of having no reply is actually purposely already IGNORING them. Surely it's one of the side-effects of how chats fly, and not to mention how fast one's life may seem with all the harshness whipping them to run... Sitting and waiting seems be more agonizing...than a virtue at that point.
You... and no one should have to be made to feel that way for some "hearts" ---still seriously ironic... While part of it is caused by how you think and feel, part of it is on them because of their words.
@SunsetMorpho I totally agree, being 'rude' in the rooms can sometimes be down to how one is feeling, but then again breaks the supportive atmosphere. The compassion hearts issue crops up regularly, and something may need to be done about this, however there are some things which urgently require attention.
We must also make sure newcomers are welcomed, a reccuring issue. Not even just a welcome, new members/guests deserve praise for having the courage to join our community. Same goes with new listeners who deserve praise for helping to change the world :)
@SimonTheGr8
I miss those days. I hope that the spirit of old days can yet be salvaged.
@SimonTheGr8 he was joking when he said about the smiley
@generousCat7326 Well yes he may have been joking, but I am autistic and sometimes I take jokes like that literally. If I joke like that here on the support website which is 7 Cups, I will end my joke with an 'XD' or sticking out tongue emoticon. I'm sorry if I sound hypocritical, but I can't help having aspbergers.
The coolness of listeners is very important. I think we should be schedule ourself, when we feel enough cool and calm to listen
