Bullied to Death

[deleted3782]

The New York Times today reports:

Charges were filed Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led a freshman to hang herself from a stairwell in January.



The charges were an unusually sharp legal response to the problem of adolescent bullying, which is increasingly conducted in cyberspace as well as in the schoolyard and has drawn growing concern from parents, educators and lawmakers.
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This case has attracted national media attention due to its legal resonse to bullying.

In the uproar around the suicides of two students subjected to harassment, the Massachusetts state legislature stepped up work on an anti-bullying law that is now near passage. The law would require school staff members to report suspected incidents and principals to investigate them. It would also demand that schools teach about the dangers of bullying. Forty-one other states have anti-bullying laws of varying strength.
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Is our world of Simon Cowell criticism, Donald Trump belittling, Bridezilla ranting, and reality television docum-drama teaching us how to be more effective bullies? Are we teaching ourselves that bullying (under some circumstances) is acceptable? What have been some of your personal experiences with bullying and how did your role (as bully or the bullied) change due to action or reaction (or inaction)?

 

[D_Andreas Sukov]

I used to get bullied alittle because of my very unfortunate surname (if you wanna know it, than PM me and i might tell you ) in early secondary school around the age of 12-13

I was fortunate to have a group of friends who liked to playfight. We were sorta outcasts in the school and it didnt bother me one bit. We started going to free Kung fu lessons at school, 3 times a week, and needless to say this boosted our confidence. I drew out a "no shit policy" as i called it and it pretty much stopped.


Other times i have been fortunate enough to have friends to stand up for me if i cant myself.

It sickens me when i hear of people being forced to extremes to cope with bullying. It saddens me more so, as IMO when it is large groups, some of the more outside people dont realise the extent their small jibes make, and sometimes its the small ones that break the camels back and cause people to do things like suicide.

Alongside cutting Bullying, we should spend more time to teach our students that their actions do have concequences and they need to think before they act.

 

[nudeyorker]

You make some very good points regarding media. I really need to gather my thoughts on the issue. When I was in school I was neither a bully or bullied. My partner on the other hand had a difficult time in school because of bullies and I understand from his experiences the pain it caused him at the time. Luckily he had a great family for support, sadly I don't think as many as we would hope have this as a safety net.
On the other hand when I was a teacher our school had a no tolerance policy for abuse and harassment; so it surprises me somewhat that this is such a new concept in the school system now.
Again I have to think about the issue further, but I feel that somewhere this sort of thing needs to stop and if that means that if someone or a group push someone else over the edge I think that they need to be held accountable.

 

[deleted3782]

We started going to free Kung fu lessons at school, 3 times a week, and needless to say this boosted our confidence. I drew out a "no shit policy" as i called it and it pretty much stopped.

Ironically, bullying is often ended with a return in force. If they know you will hit back somehow, it ends.

On the other hand when I was a teacher our school had a no tolerance policy for abuse and harassment; so it surprises me somewhat that this is such a new concept in the school system now.

Teacher supervision is tricky. It can't look like the adults help bail the kids out...otherwise, nothing is learned (on the part of the bullies)

 

[nudeyorker]

I'm watching the report of this on CNN right now, and have spent about an hour with someone on the telephone regarding the matter answering criminal legal issue questions... I still need to sleep on this tonight because right now I don't have a fair answer.

 

[Skull Mason]

I bullied cats long before Simon Cowell was on tv

 

[Gillette]

Ironically, bullying is often ended with a return in force. If they know you will hit back somehow, it ends.

This was my experience. A girl in our school (junior high) who had previously bullied a friend was back to mouth off at her again. I told her off and her attention shifted to me. Joy.

She stalked me between classes, grabbed my face (I fucking hate that) and announced we'd be fighting after school. I hate a make up French oral after school. Throughout the test one of her lieutenants paced outside the door waiting for me and hauled me outside the building the moment I emerged from the room. Stood with my back against the wall surrounded by her cronies I was scared. She hit me, my head slammed against the brick and I heard ringing. I kicked out instinctively. Happily she was standing on a patch of ice and spun off gracelessly, falling.

A teacher appeared to break it up and lectured us on rules and being suspended if it happened again. She was let go first but we lived in the same direction. I was terrified of being suspended so I ran to catch up with the intention of begging her to leave me alone. When she saw me running after her (now that she was alone) she took like a bat out of hell. It stopped me dead in my tracks when I realized that she was afraid of me.

Thereafter when I'd see her I'd hold eye contact until she dropped her gaze and skulked off elsewhere. Oddly I was even approached by some of her crew, congratulated, given fighting advice and from one, the nickname 'Slugger'. WTF?

Two things I took from that: Bullies are cowards at heart & a group of bullies have no loyalty to each other.

 

[camper joe]

I was bullied a bit in high school. I think the reason this particular guy took a dislike toward me was that his girl friend had taken an interest in me.
I had known this guy and his family for years, in fact he had a sister who was a classmate of mine. In my sophomore year of high school I made the acquaintance of this guy's girl friend, we most chat with each other during classroom breaks. Both of us smoked and would meet up while sucking down a ciggy. It wasn't until this girl started dating this guy that he begin to give me grief. He went out of his way to let me he didn't care for me and often I was harassed by him or one of his mates.
Looking back on those days, I honestly believe the only thing that keep him from beating me up was that I was a good friend of his older brother. Both of these guys where feared by a great many in our school. And both where often in trouble with the teachers while they was in attendance.
What I was later to learn was that these kids came from a more than difficult family. That their dad was a alcoholic and was very cruel to these boys. Their dad's behavior really messed these kids heads up, from my understanding both have been in and out of jail and have had several failed marriages. Both have suffered much for the bulling they received at home.

 

[lopo2000]

I never liked my high school exactly for this reason. I was not exactly bullied in physical way, but the humiliation and the verbal mocking, oh man, it could make you want to jump off the roof... As a gay, and as people who live in a society who don't accept homosexuality, I acted a little bit different back in school and those people reacted so badly to the difference. I wasn't effiminate, I was like the other boys, it's just the fact that I don't like football, I was 'soft', I was the only one who didn't expressively like a girl, etc. made them feel like they had the right to just embarrass me. I still remember until now one of them said, "Hey, do you know when we get erected, we locate our dick upfront, wait, you don't understand because you don't have one right?. Then the whole class laughed... The word faggot was always shouted at me everyday...

Now I'm getting emotional...Excuse me...

 

[Gillette]

Lopo, I'm so sorry you had to endure that.

While it can't change the past for you I hope it helps to see that attitudes are changing.

CBC News - Nova Scotia - Bullied student tickled pink by schoolmates' T-shirt campaign

Take part.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=90578283589

 

[ferfed]

very sad

 

[crescendo69]

A bully, Chuck, in 6th grade started taunting me on my walks home after school. He would call me *****-baby, a play on my last name, and say mockingly, "Did you wash behind your ears, today?". Since I was always with a friend, I felt a little safe but very perturbed.

Once, he said, "You know, *****-baby, I once beat up your older brother.", who was two years older than I. I then remembered when I had chipped my older brother's tooth the last year in a fist fight instigated by the neighborhood kids, sending him crying to Mom and Dad.

So I replied, rather matter-of-factly, "So did I." Chuck never bothered me again.

 

[TheRob]

no one can be blamed for the actions of another
no matter how severe the bullying you can't blame the bullies for the bullied person commiting suicide
it's ok to have laws about not treating people like shit and what not, but you have to let people be responcible for thier own actions, not have as a fall back "well that person made me do it"

 

[nudeyorker]

no one can be blamed for the actions of another
no matter how severe the bullying you can't blame the bullies for the bullied person commiting suicide
it's ok to have laws about not treating people like shit and what not, but you have to let people be responcible for thier own actions, not have as a fall back "well that person made me do it"

This is exactly why I'm still sitting on the fence with this issue. Have you watched the television coverage on this story? It's very compelling in that it seems to have been almost non-stop, relentless verbal and physical taunting. Some of these sick little fucks are even continuing it on her facebook memorial page.

 

[lopo2000]

Thanks Gillette... I will take my time joining the event.

TheRob, yes, we shouldn't put the fault entirely on the bullies, but there is this cause-effect relationship that we should tackle here. The bullies are usually those others have perceived powerful, and the bullied are regarded as being at the low level of the social heap. Being bullied, being young, and almost friendless, lonely, reserved, how well do you think these people canb cope after being bullied? You can't just expect them to stand up on their on feet after being publicly humiliated or being severely abused, we're talking about fragile individuals for god's sake... These people are the ones who haven't experienced much in life and still need to learn more to understand the notion, "we have to be responsible for our own actions..."

The bullied can't all be like crescendo69 who can tell the bullies off, these people are lucky to have such capability to do that in front of the perpetrators. But, majority of those who are bullied still need to learn ways to cope, to counteract the bullying, to identify true friends and all, they are still young.

Oh my...

 

[ferfed]

you go crescendo

 

[petite]

There were a lot of tough kids who went to my school and gangs, drugs, and fighting were problems, even though many students came from very wealthy families, some of the wealthiest families in the city. There was a wide range of children from different socio-economic backgrounds who attended that school.

I was bullied by two people with a personal vendetta against me in the eight grade. I don't think they bullied anyone else. Fighting back did not make them stop and they always attacked me together. I believe that one of them was in a gang herself, the older one, who was just one year ahead of me in school, but two years older because she was repeating the grade. The other girl used to be one of my best friends the summer before when we spent 6 out of 7 days together, all summer long, but when the school year began she started hanging out with different kids and my friends and I no longer saw her. We never had a falling out. She just sort of disappeared. Four months after the school year began, they beat me up once or twice a day for five days, not stopping if I was on the ground. The older one would climb on top of me and grab my hair and bash my head against the concrete over and over again, so I figured out that I had to stay on my feet. After five days the older one brought a gun to school to shoot me. I believe another student who knew about the plan to shoot me alerted the police, but I was never told how they knew, I just guessed that. How else would they know? The morning of the fifth day, they did not beat me up, as they had every day. Sometime during the day at school, I was taken to the office where I was very briefly informed that they had discovered a gun in the older girl's locker during a "random locker search," a story I did not believe, and that they knew that I was the intended victim. Then my parents took me home. I guess I was supposed to be shot after school, but they didn't tell me what they knew precisely. Strangely, they did not interview me regarding my side of the story or even ask me any questions. They had already interviewed other students because at least 30 other students had witnessed the fights, and believed they understood what was going on and they didn't need my input. I never learned any of the details, such as how she got the gun, how they learned about it, or anything else because they were minors and such matters were handled differently for minors. They never needed any more of my input. I never really knew what their fates were although I heard rumors.

My parents moved me to a private school on the other side of town and we moved closer to my new school. Once we had moved, I never spoke to anyone from my previous school again.

When I was 16, I ran into the girl who was my own age, my former friend, and she loudly announced to the other girls who were with her that she had beaten me up and she enjoyed it. She wasn't in the least bit remorseful at all.

I think the biggest mistake was not interviewing me or asking me any questions, just treating me like an object. There was a lot more to the story. I probably could have also used a lot of counseling, but I didn't receive any. My parents acted like nothing had happened, and so did I. I believe that was also a huge mistake. More than 12 years later I told my father that I thought he grossly underestimated how much those events affected me during my teenage years.

 

[deleted3782]

I think the biggest mistake was not interviewing me or asking me any questions, just treating me like an object. There was a lot more to the story. I probably could have also used a lot of counseling, but I didn't receive any. My parents acted like nothing had happened, and so did I. I believe that was also a huge mistake. More than 12 years later I told my father that I thought he grossly underestimated how much those events affected me during my teenage years.

Thanks for sharing all that. I think adults often underestimate young folks' intelligence and ability to cope. I wonder if people had allowed you to engage in discussions about your predicament and help identify a solution...if you would have gained more power and coping mechanisms out of that experience. Young people also often feel alone...like they are the only one experiencing their situation. I wonder what would have happened if the young woman in the OP had been empowered to address her situation in some controlled way...and had learned that she was not isolated, if that would have precipitated a different outcome.

How quickly we forget whats its like to be a kid.

 

[B_Nick8]

Such a disturbing story. Although it's unlikely to change kids' behaviors, if anything good can come out of it it's that adults come to understand their responsibility to intervene and protect the "children" in their charge.

 

[lopo2000]

I'm really sorry petite. Bully story always makes me sad...