Last summer, a young man stayed with us for a few weeks whilst he recovered from the after-effects of being horrifically bullied.
He required somewhere safe away from his hometown, to try and work out how to rebuild his life after his previous one had been stripped from him.

The other day he asked me to mention his story on my blog in the hope that it helps someone who is going through a similar ordeal.
I will refer to him as ‘Stan’ from hereon to protect his identity.
This is his story, albeit very condensed.

Stan had worked for the same firm for over ten years, loved his job, had great workmates, loyal friends, owned his own home and was in a fledgling relationship with a young woman.
With one lie, his world came tumbling down.
At the beginning of this year, he had an appointment in the city,  an hour’s drive from his town, so he took a day off work to attend it.
On his way into the city, by sheer chance, he spied a workmate,  walking out of a house, in a loving embrace with a woman who wasn’t his wife.
The workmate looked up and saw Stan drive past.Stan didn’t give it a second thought and carried on driving.

But the next day at work Stan knew something was wrong when his workmates shunned him as soon as he walked in.
Shortly after, his boss called him into his office and asked him outright whether he was a Paedophile.
Stan thought he was joking and laughed.
His boss then shouted at him and told him how his workmate, the one cheating on his wife, had witnessed Stan with his arms wrapped around a young teenage boy in a compromising situation in the city the day before.
Stan was stunned and told him it was a lie and then tried to explain what had actually happened but his boss kept shutting him down, yelling at how disgusted he was with him and would fire him if he could, but his hands were tied because of his job contract.
It was a master stroke by the bully; isolating your victim is the first rule in the “bully handbook”, as once isolated, it is very hard to get the truth out there.

His friends were angry that Stan was being lied about  and  said they would stand up for him.  They didn’t follow through as they were terrified of the bully, as he had a name for himself as  being a nasty piece of work under the guise of a jocular man.
To make things even worse, Stan’s girlfriend walked out on him.

After two weeks of being ostracised at work, he knew he couldn’t go on so left the job that meant so much to him.
His parents took him to the Doctor, where he was put on anti-depressants and was advised to get away for a few weeks to calm his nerves.

When I picked him up from the airport, I found a traumatised young man, a man who had never suffered a day of depression in his life.

Quite simply, the bully had broken him, and furthermore he had been betrayed by everyone except his family.

Our home  is often referred to as a ‘retreat” as it is enveloped in a private garden so one has complete privacy which is exactly what Stan required to heal his mind and soul.

On Week Four of his stay, I asked him whether he would mind if I called his ex boss for a chat. 

He told me it would be a waste of time but “go for it”.

I was determined to sort this boss out once and for all.  

I doubted he would take my call but I was willing to give it a go so imagine my surprise when I found him receptive!

I cut to the chase and explained, ever so calmly,  the whole sordid situation in depth, exposing the bully’s affair and how Stan had witnessed the bully  in an intimate moment with this woman and how he used him and his workmates to help destroy Stan’s credibility should he decide to tell the bully’s wife as to what he saw.
As the conversation progressed his ex boss started putting it all together and then out of the blue, with a few expletives attached, he exclaimed how he had been gullible.  I agreed.
I then went on to tell him how I had used ‘Google Maps’ to locate the house where Stan had seen the bully. I gave him the location and to my utter amazement it was the address of a woman who once worked for him.
Stan hadn’t recognised her.

By then he was feeling more dreadful, so I told him that all bullies operate one way.
They recruit bystanders, folk who they believe they can manipulate, and then they feed them whatever they want them to believe knowing full well they will repeat it.
How sad is that, innocent folk being sucked into a bully’s world.

He offered Stan his job back and asked me to pass on his apologies to him, and made  it clear that the ‘bully’ would be shutdown from doing anymore harm in the workplace and he would talk to all the other workers and tell them the truth of what actually happened.
To his credit he was a man of his word.
Within hours, workmates and friends began ringing  Stan to apologise.
His ex girlfriend didn’t but that didn’t worry Stan as he saw a different side to her when she dumped him.

Stan stayed with us for another week and the day I took him to the airport I knew he would be okay as he was back to his old self; not that I actually knew his old self as I had only met him for the first time when I picked him up from the airport five weeks prior.
And by the way the bully walked out the minute his boss exposed him to the rest of his workmates. He knew his goose was cooked.

Justice!

Stan’s story has a happy ending; trust me, not all end like this.

                                  Peace and love always