> Is it sad that I saw this post and immediately thought, "Well, that doesn't reflect well on programmers..", thinking that our status as a group is already quite low.

Hm, I never thought of programmer status as being that low, although as an American living in London I definitely noticed that it is lower here than in the States (especially Silicon Valley obviously). But generally programmers can bring tangible value in a way that few professions outside of sales can do, so I never felt a strong need for alpha behavior and posturing to acquire status. What is needed is to work in a company that understands how to leverage technology, and the rest should take care of itself. Programmers are in such high demand now that companies which don't know how to use them and fundamentally value them will get stuck with the bottom of the barrel, leading to a negative feedback loop.

And non techies seem surprised when some of us react so aggressively to the trustifariajn bus protestors those are the kids that bullied is at school.

One word: therapy.

It's your baggage. Either you own up to it and continually work on it, or you let it fester and run your life. I meet so many people who are terrified of being the type of person that goes to therapy despite significant issues. And it's sad, that's pride and potentially narcissism running your life.

Why is therapy necessarily the only, or the best solution?

Maybe therapy has an undeserved reputation. Maybe people who should og to it but don't are just prideful. But maybe conventional therapy just isn't the best way for people to deal with their problems? Maybe therapy, as a field, just hasn't lived up to its aspirations?

I'd agree that the GP has to do something about it. But I'm not sure about what, specifically.

> And it's sad, that's pride and potentially narcissism running your life.

And that looks like a lack of empathy and/or projection. You can't reduce people's motivations to a small, neat set of emotions and/or intentions.

What are other modes of treatment? Genuinely curious.

I don't know about treatment specifically. But outside of therapy and psychology, there are a lot of schools of thought, methods, authors, etc. that have to do with this kind of thing. You might dismiss this as no good because there is no science behind, perhaps nothing scholarly, or no professional accountability. But even so - is there necessarily anything better? Therapy has failed to convince the public of its utility. Self-help also has a bad reputation, but that might only cost you the price of some books, as opposed to expensive sessions with a licensed professional.

Self help might be a farce. There might be no viable alternative to therapy. But most don't have any grounds to judge these kinds of things. We think that people know too little about physical health, but holy shit we laymen don't know anything about mental health. The only (false) dichotomy we often see is "talk about it" vs "don't and let it fester".

I don't know much myself. But I've preferred - so far - to keep it a private matter, between me and my diary or various other techniques I use for processing things and self-reflection.

> if anyone has successfully overcome this please reach out!

I was bullied a lot when I was younger. I was small to begin with, but I skipped a grade and consequently hit puberty about 18 months behind all of the other kids. Growing up in a rural area, I endured a lot of abuse and violence on a daily basis, and like the typical story goes, teachers saw most of it and did nothing.

The physical abuse stopped at the end of eighth grade. We had a year-end party and all of the jocks were bullying me as usual. This other kid, who was the only one about my size, decided that he would join in the hazing this day. I guess he had his own reasons for wanting to fit in. TL;DR I snapped and beat the piss out of him. Surprisingly, I wasn't disciplined or punished for this at all, which would probably never be the case in "zero-tolerance" Canada today. The teacher was very nice to me (I was crying and shaking for what felt like an hour afterwards) and drove me home herself. I think maybe she felt bad that she hadn't intervened earlier.

I moved away after the next year, but the few friends that I had back then (the other outcasts and nerds) told me much later that things got better for them in the following years. I guess most kids get over bullying once they get a little older. These episodes left scars on me that will probably never completely heal, but I feel now that as a 34-year-old man I've long since moved past it. I'm relatively well-adjusted and socially-aware now (this took years of work in my late teens and twenties, you don't get a chance to develop critical interpersonal skills when you're a group hazing target), and I haven't let myself be permanently handicapped by the bullying that happened to me. So: things can get better.

As for how I did it, honestly the biggest thing is "fake it till you make it". Pretend to be the confident person that you would like to be, even if it feels forced or fake, or like a role that you're playing instead of your loathsome putrid self. People do respond to charm and confidence -- if you play the role well then things become less difficult over time, and you realize that the only thing that was holding you back was fear before. Over time you can really change the way that you feel about yourself, and you won't need to pretend anymore. It's possible! Amy Cuddy gave a well-regarded TED talk on this topic (http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes...), it's worth viewing.

The other thing I did that I feel really helped me was to increase my level of physical exercise. When you're bullied all you want to do is withdraw into yourself behind a protective shell. Lots of bullied people end up living in the mind for this reason, I know I did (and boy am I glad for it in retrospect --- those Commodore 64 programmers' manuals didn't read themselves!). Not a great strategy going into adulthood however. You inhabit a physical body moving through space and getting better at doing that has knock-on effects that improve lots of other parts of your life, besides just looking better: stamina, mood, posture, body language, etc.

Sorry for the mega-post.

Cool, this helps. I was out on this HORRIBLE date tonight.. we saw a movie. In the theater I was stressed the whole time but afterwards, talking, I felt great! And then she ran away as fast as she politely could.

I saw the TED talk that you suggested and it got me thinking. In the theater I was really sitting in a low-power pose. So maybe what I will try is monitoring myself for those poses and then consciously correcting.

The thing is, when I was younger [in college] I used to posture a lot. And everyone disrespected it. :( A particularly scarring incident was when the beautiful girl I was ostensibly "friends" with told me directly, coldly "if I act confident, it's because I am".