MY OPINION
(thank god I have one)
ON THE BULLY DEBATE

Bullying vs teasing…. NOT THE SAME!!! To many people think it is and go waaay over board.  Let’s not confuse the two. The word bullying has been overused, misused, and misunderstood.

Do not misunderstand me though….I do know there is a horrendous amount of it happening and it MUST be dealt with!! But, let’s be part of the solution, not part of the problem and deal with it at face value.

I feel “the powers that be” need to take a step back and THOROUGHLY analyze this awful situation. Call it what it is…a true bullying situation that needs swift attention so to keep everyone involved safe and use it as a learning experience, or another one of life’s tough lessons that NEED to be experienced as you will certainly need it again in life.   Teasing, mocking, kidding, or joking has more than one connotation…do we agree on that? Bullying…HAS ONLY ONE…INTIMADATION!   The label of bullying has become muddied in translation and we truly can’t come together on a solution if we don’t understand the words!

I have raised two fantastic children!!! Let me tell you, I have, as a Mother, dealt with all of the above and come close to snatching a child or two bald headed for bullying my them!!! Remember we are still talking about my opinions here so please don’t think I am advocating (bald children)! We did however, have lots of conversations on how to handle the bully…..or even if…it was a true bully. Side note….one boy was just totally obnoxious and out of line….because he had a crush on my daughter….he wasn’t a bully, but (almost bald) J Lesson learned on that one!

Let’s get back to teasing. Think about this; how many times have you teased, joked ya know, truly was just playing with a family member or a friend and you thought you were dang funny??? Well, turns out you embarrassed or hurt their feelings but they never told you that. Nooooo they instead, went to other people and voiced their feelings of hurt or mad and repeated the scenario (possibly embellishing a bit)….see the snowball effect?? So, the next time you see this person…you still have no idea they “took” you wrong…you repeat the “funny thing” and they still don’t voice how that is hurtful and the cycle is full swing now and you….are labeled a bully for continuing to hurt this poor person….Of course if you KNEW…you would cease and desist and apologize!

These kind of experiences must must must be taught to our children! If they can’t handle the good the bad and the ugly of life they are destined to live lonely and scared and ill-equipped.  We need to teach them to have a back bone and a funny bone to get along in life. Parents, educators, lawmakers and society as a whole need to be part of these life lessons.

Mommy that person is staring at me…or the adult…what’s that dudes problem staring at me, what a jerk. Another one….everyone stares and me in my wheelchair…..everyone ignores me in my wheelchair. Sometimes you can’t win for losing! Staring doesn’t mean a negative! It just might mean a “look” or maybe you resemble someone else. Or….you might have something attractive on or you might be just good looking and people want to stare!!! I have encountered the wheelchair scenario a few times. I know people in wheelchairs so when I give a second glance it’s to check if that’s my friend. I am truly sorry if you have been picked on before but, please know, I was just looking. When I recognize that I got caught “staring” I always smile and say “I’m sorry you look just like someone I know” That always seems to work.

“Judging” seems to be another buzz word that gets a lot of negative attention. We pay people big money to “judge” people.  To me….I will judge you in the same way I will have an opinion about you; that doesn’t mean I will ONLY be negative!!! I might judge you to be the happiest person I know and I want to spend more time with you….or the meanest and I don’t want anything to do with you! Either way, it is my opinion. Thank God I have one I hope to use it wisely!!

The purpose of this post was not to ramble on and on, but to hopefully make you THINK before reacting negatively in a given situation. And to get an ongoing  conversation as to how we, as a society can help raise strong, caring and productive children that have enough esteem instilled in them to be able to pay it forward.

I don’t have all the answers for sure, on how to handle all of the degrees of bullying. I just know that they all can’t be dealt with the same way.  This is not a one size fits all situation by no means.

I run the gambit of experiences with dealing with bullies starting in Kindergarten. That was small stuff compared to being 18 years old and losing my Mother to the ultimate bully who shot and killed her.  Every lesson I taught my children about consequences was, in part, about this awful tragedy.

One of my very good friends was the school bully for years.  Her childhood story is sad and unique but still with some very typical parts of a bully back ground. The great news is she grew up to be a very good proud Mother with a great sense of humor and has a lot of love to give.

I was the child that got into fights sticking up for the ones that got bullied. Oddly enough, that is how I started to become friends with the friend I just told you about. These experiences have taught me lessons that I am glad I learned. I am strong and have a well stocked “tool box”. When I run head on into a difficult situation, I have the right tool to use.

One last thought…well maybe.

As parents, we teach our children to look out for cars and to move so they don’t get hit. We teach them to duck a ball thrown at them…or to catch it so they don’t get hurt. Right?? That seems like normal stuff to teach a child. Well, we need to remember bullies and the bad stuff…. ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!!! Give them the tools to handle it…..might have to try a few different tools, but keep trying!!!

Ok…really one last thought J

Young parent’s today have to deal with so so so much more than I did raising my kids. The crap and the negativity and the down right mean-spirited people on TV is shocking to me. Even news anchors are getting their “jabs” in. To pick on some celebrity for their hair or dress choice or even the size of the dress is just sending the message that it’s ok to be that way…..even funny. Well it’s not!!! The comedians hide behind their job title like its ok to be mean. I have a great sense of humor but when it’s at the expense of some one’s feelings it is just wrong!

My family and friends have heard these rantings for a long time now. It was time to put pen to paper and get my thoughts organized….which will only lead to more posts, stay tuned and go give a child some esteem.

~Suzi S

What’s the answer? At one point in the article, his daughter, after he tells her of a recent tragedy tells him that “It’s Not Going To Get Better”, changing the current catch phase of the anti-bullying movement. It is a sad, but honest article of  some of the current cases of bullycide and victimization due to bullying.

In the article, Mr. Kugler shares a story of Amanda Cummings, who recently committed suicide due in part to bullying. He shares:

“On Dec. 27, a 15-year-old high school sophomore named Amanda Cummings walked onto the main boulevard in her neighborhood and, according to witnesses, threw herself into the path of an onrushing bus. She died from her injuries six days later. Police say that at the time of the accident, she was carrying a suicide note in her pocket. . .

She had beenbullied relentlessly at her school, mostly by other girls. She had suffered a failed romance that brought her into conflict with a female classmate. She had reportedly sunken into a fog of drugs and alcohol. And most sickeningly, even as she lay dying in the hospital, the bullying continued on her Facebook page. To make matters worse, police investigators have yet to rule the suicide a result of bullying, citing lack of evidence. . .

. . .According to the Children’s Defense Fund, one child or teen in America commits suicide every five hours. Additionally, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 attempts. And a review by Yale University finds that victims of bullying are two to nine times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims.”

The article talks further about how his daughter comes in soon after he finds this information out and as he talks to her, he shares her reaction, which as expected is not very positive. The article asks if bullying is a problem without a solution. Is there really any cure to bullying that can be implemented and work?

I have asked this same question and while I believe awareness and good anti-bullying programs are very important and worthwhile, they are NOT a cure. If someone chooses to be a bully, they will find a way to be a bully to someone at some time. And the fallout of someone choosing to bully can have cascading consequences, as the article also points out.

Another recent story, which by far shows the bigger problem with bullying is the recent suicide of Kevin Jacobsen. His story is one that shows just how deep the damage from bullying can go. He wasn’t the bullying victim, but the father of a boy who killed himself due to the bullying he experiences. Mr. Jacobsen lost his 14-year-old son, Kameron, last year due to bullycide. In the following year, Kevin Jacobsen became one of the leading anti-bullying activists, creating an anti-bullying website and appearing with Marlo Thomas to discuss the issue. But his son’s tragedy took a toll on him and his family and he chose to end his own life as well. What can be said here for this tragedy following on the heels of another? What answer is there to this?

Mr. Kugler ends his article with a statement saying his article is without a solution and asks “does anybody have one?” After reading his article, I’ll have to think longer about an answer to his question. What do you think?

From their list, I think that Scut Farkus (I always thought it was Scott, but looked it up and it is Scut. That name almost make it worse.) from “A Christmas Story” is representative of elementary and middle school bullies (at least as I remember them). Bestonlinecolleges.com describes him as:

The infamous bully with the yellow eyes is a classic example of a neighborhood ruffian, terrorizing the smaller kids with his trash-talking minion by his side. While the wolf’s theme from Peter and the Wolf may not have literally played whenever our old antagonists appeared, it’s certainly close to the menacing theme song we imagined. Farkus makes Ralphie and his friends cry “Uncle,” stalks them on their walks home, and nails them in the face with snowballs, but just like many real-life bullies, he’s not above crying when he gets a taste of his own medicine.

As for girl bullying, as I wrote about previously, the movie “Easy A” shows what many girls experience as bullying, particularly in middle and high school. Bestonlinecolleges.com describes the bullying in this movie as:

Bullies come in all forms, and even people who feel like they’ve got good intentions can turn into tormenters. In Easy A, a girl lies about losing her virginity and an overzealous (student) named Marianne spreads the rumor and ruins the girl’s reputation. Though this character is a little over-the-top, she serves as a reminder that bullying someone because they don’t follow your religious beliefs is still bullying and there are better ways to save someone than trying to run them out of your school.

As I wrote about in my review of “The Fat Boy Chronicles”, sharing movies and stories about bullying are helpful in showing that others have experienced bullying in their lives and that no one is alone in having to deal with bullying. These movies and the ones on the list and not on the list help us to understand and sometimes see solutions to dealing with bullying. To view the other eight movies on the bestonlinecolleges.com list and their comments, you can go to http://www.bestonlinecolleges.com/blog/2012/the-10-most-believable-movie-bullies.

This is a “must-see” movie for those teens and young adults who deal with this kind of bullying every day. The story follows the character of Jimmy Winterpack through his first year of High School. When we meet Jimmy in the movie, he has already suffered through the younger years of bullying during elementary and junior high. The ramifications for him are that he is now quiet and reluctant to make any friends, even when another young overweight boy tries to talk with him on one of the first days of school.

During the course of the movie, we see Jimmy deal with some old and some new bullies, including the jocks of the school. But we also watch as Jimmy realizes that he likes one of the other new girls in the school, one who has also dealt with difficulties in her life that had consequences for her. We also watch as Jimmy’s one good friend also has to deal with his life and family issues, helping show how different youth deal with different issue of bullying. A preview of the movie is posted on YouTube and you can watch below.

Through Jimmy’s journals and words you can feel the isolation and pain that he feels due to the bullying he has had to deal with. As the movie builds, Jimmy has an epiphany during a doctor’s visit that he needs to make a life change. Jimmy is also lucky to have both a loving family and strong faith that help keep him grounded and able to seek and get the support and help he needs. This theme in the movie is one that establishes why Jimmy might be able to move forward and overcome the torment from his bullies.

Christopher Rivera does a commendable job in the lead role as Jimmy. I would think it takes a lot of courage to take on this role as the overweight kid being picked on. All of the actors make you believe that this could be happening to them and the bullying moments are close enough to real to make many people cringe watching them. But in the end, the movie has an uplifting theme about our own inner strength and character and that, if you want, you can overcome the things that other people cause us to feel in our lives. I certainly recommend that this movie be shown in schools, in religious institutions, and in communities where bullying is a problem. It can help teach and influence youth to adjust their behavior or reaction to others to both help prevent bullying and help overcome bullying. In truth, we need more books and movies like “The Fat Boy Chronicles” to be made and available to watch and learn from.

You can purchase this movie or book through Amazon or other local retailers and discover the story for yourself. To close this post, here’s a nice interview done on a FOX affiliate with the director and star of the movie.

THE SUN

I walk to school smelling the fresh air.
Then as I sit down,
the Suns powerful and harmful rays hit like a stream of lighting during a storm.
They hit quicker and quicker,
calling me names,
insulting me like I was a star,
weak, puny, helpless.

But I, a helpless star,
am a very important part of our solar system.
I am larger than you see me to be.
I’m a bright shining ball of plasma,
and I shine stronger than any.

You are the sun.
You are big and powerful and try to get me to do as you want.
You are bulkier,
you burn in a fiery ball, waiting to mimic more helpless stars.
But we burst out in flames.
We defend ourselves from you`re insulting, and strong rays.

We grab our shields and block ourselves from being hit.
We won`t take pain.
We are stronger and better than you.
You just don`t belive it

~Shayna

So, as I sat and read this article, I thought that I would share it with you, because I found myself in much of what this article had to say and correlated this to the long-term effects of bullying and how it plays into personality traits that I harbor to guess many of those that deal with this past share. The article defines passive aggressive behavior as a self-test in the following way:

What is passive aggressiveness?
I act in a passive aggressive way when I:

• hide my hostility by seeming to be nice to someone I dislike, and am unable to be honest with the person.
• say I agree with something but don’t follow through because I really don’t agree with it.
• act opposite to what others are expecting.
• quietly manipulate to get my own way after voicing a completely different opinion, just to keep the peace.
• seek revenge by agreeing and looking “good,” but never following through on my promises.
• tell people what they want to hear, even if I don’t believe in what I am saying.
• try to please people by agreeing to their plan of action, yet actually doing the opposite.
• act one way, which is true to my inner feelings, yet say another.
• am out of touch with my inner feelings; the only way to know how I feel about something is to observe my behavior, don’t trust my words.
• hate something or someone but am afraid of letting my true feelings show.
• feel pressured to act or believe in a certain way when I really don’t want to.
• avoid conflict at all cost by giving in to others, then procrastinate and never do what I agreed to do.
• am angry but afraid to show my anger, so I quietly take my revenge by doing the opposite.

I think there are some interesting items here, such as the “avoid conflict” issue and “afraid to show anger” issue as well as the “seeking revenge” items.

What are the typical reactions to my passive aggressiveness?
When people recognize my passive aggressiveness they:

• are surprised.
• get disappointed.
• get angry.
• are confused by my behavior.
• confront me on my actions.
• realize that I lied to them.
• get frustrated by the inconsistency in my behavior.
• begin to do battle with me, resulting in a conflict greater than the one I originally tried to avoid.
• get upset and fly into a rage and this damages the relationship.
• no longer trust me.
• resent me for being dishonest.
• act in a similar way with me and our communication winds up at a standstill where neither of us “wins.”
• feel challenged by me and in their competitive reaction become more adamant in seeking to achieve what I had originally verbally agreed to with them.

Here I feel there are many telltale signs to why a person who has had to deal with bullying might develop passive aggressive personality traits. The idea of conflict avoidance and then unrealistic anger reaction are key elements to my belief that these traits come from years of trying to change behavior to deal with the conflict that comes from bullying. The next section, I believe, is even more telling.

What irrational thinking keeps me being passive aggressive when I disagree with others?

• I must avoid an argument, fight or conflict at all costs.
• I never “win” in confrontation.
• There is no use in opposing them, they are much more powerful than I am.
• I must please people by telling them what they want to hear.
• I never get anywhere by showing my anger openly.
• It’s bad to get angry.
• No one wants to know how I feel.
• No one will understand how I feel.
• My problems are unique; I need to hide them since no one would understand.
• I am a loser and failure anyway; why try to defend my position?
• I will never “win” in this situation; why try?
• I enjoy seeing people get blown away by my agreeing with them and then my doing the opposite of what I agreed to do.
• I’d rather back down right away to minimize the damages a fight could bring rather than tell people how I really feel about things.
• It’s so hard to be honest with people about how I feel when what I feel is counter to what they want me to feel.
• It’s important for people to like and accept me and I say anything just so long as they like me.
• It’s not what I do or how I act that is important to people, it is what I say that influences them.
• People will never know I’m angry and disagree with them.
• I hide my feelings well from others.
• Feelings don’t count. It is better to deny my feelings than upset another person I am in disagreement with.
• I’d rather lie than get into an argument with someone.
• If I lie about how I feel, others will never know the truth.

The first of these items definitely struck me as a trait that is built from past bullying. The idea of avoiding confrontation certainly begins to grow as you recall being confronted during bullying. The idea of never winning is also a common trait. In fact, the majority of this list, I believe, ties to thinking that many who have dealt with serial bullying feel or develop similar feelings around. While this article lists them as irrational thoughts, the idea behind it is very much a common trait of victims of bullying.

If you go to the article, it continues to talk about how then you can recognize and confront others that are passive aggressive with you. But, I want to share the part that talks about correcting the self from passive aggressive behavior. The article discusses why you should correct it and how to do it. This is an important part of what I believe would be working to confront and improve the damage done to a self from years of bullying. The article gives this advice:

If I find myself being passive aggressive, how can I correct this?
To avoid being passive aggressive with others, I can:

• try to be assertive, open and honest with my negative feelings or anger.
• warn people to “read” my behavior rather than my words if they want to know my feelings.
• confront myself with my inconsistent behavior and challenge myself to explain it.
• take the risk to confront my anger assertively and “on the spot” so that I can bring my behavior in line with my feelings.
• work at making my behavior consistent with my feelings.
• change the way I interact with people and make my relationships more honest.
• admit that I have been a liar.
• work at being more honest with people even if it results in a conflict.
•  identify the irrational thinking that prevents me from confronting people when I am angry.
• learn how to become assertive with my negative feelings.
• accept that it is OK to have conflict and disagreement.
• learn to compromise and come to a “win-win” solution.

Why is it useful to eliminate my acting passive aggressive?
By eliminating passive aggressiveness when I am angry, I could:

• have deeper, more honest and longer-lasting relationships.
• feel less stress, anxiety and depression in my dealings with others.
• learn to be clear and consistent about my feelings.
• reassure others that they will no longer have to guess how I “really feel.”
• stop resorting to lies about my feelings.
• develop self-respect, self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth.
•  have more energy because I would no longer be defending myself from powerful, intimidating people.
• have clarity of focus and purpose, working on the things I want rather than what others want for me.
• have fewer people venting their rage on me.
• experience a sense of harmony in my life.

Tips to Overcoming being Passive Aggressive
Tip 1: Tell the person immediately how I am feeling, even if I am angry or in disagreement.
Tip 2: Allow the other to express feelings openly as well.
Tip 3: Ask the other to allow for a compromise “win-win” solution.
Tip 4: Ventilate feelings, then jointly brainstorm solutions.
Tip 5: Arrive at a solution in which we both “win.”
Tip 6: Act on solutions in which we both “win.”
Tip 7: Make sure my actions are consistent with the agreement.
Tip 8: Make sure my behavior is consistent with my feelings and what I said in the agreement.
Tip 9: Give the other person permission to point out when my behavior deviates from our agreement.
Tip 10: Monitor my emotions and renegotiate our solution if they aren’t consistent with our compromise.
Tip 11: Let the other know if I get upset over the compromise with no masking of my feelings.
Tip 12: Confront intimidation openly and honestly.
Tip 13: Ensure that our relationship is based on honesty.
Tip 14: Accept the uniqueness and individuality of others, allowing each of us to be ourselves.

Personally, I found a lot of good knowledge and advice in much of this article and believe that many of us exhibit passive aggressive traits, whether bullying is part of your history or not. But for those that were victims of bullying, I think it is easy to fall into passive aggressive behavior due to the past. What do you think? I’m interested to hear from those that were victims and if they feel the same. Let me know your reaction to this article and idea that a long-term effect of bullying can be a development of passive aggressive behavior as a coping mechanism.

A reporter successfully sued to have the documents released recently and they show just how much the bullying can cost the perpetrators and schools that do not take action.

CNN reported that Phoebe Prince’s parents, Anne O’Brien and Jeremy Prince, received the $225,000 settlement sum after filing a complaint with the state’s Commission Against Discrimination in 2010, arguing that South Hadley Public Schools failed to address hazing that preceded their daughter’s death.

The local government didn’t want the settlement reported, but could not keep it confidential. This is a major amount won in a case of bullying leading to a suicide and certainly sets a precedent that schools and districts need to be vigilant to now allow rampant bullying in their schools and communities.

While money can never replace the life of a human being, the price of ignoring bullying needs to have some value in the courts. Hopefully this can lead to some good in the future for this area.

This is my personal story. Before, I only knew that bullying is actually some kind of abuse that uses violence, but not after I found this blog from my friend. And I just realized I’m also a victim of bullying. So here’s my story.

I’m a bit overweight. Not really fat but fatter than my friends. My close friends call me ”fatty” or anything else related to my body size. And I never take it serious because I know they’re just joking. And actually I’m a kind of girl that doesn’t really take simple things seriously. Sometimes I call myself  ”fatty” too, for fun.

So I went to college one day, out-of-town, and I found a friend at my dorm. She’s a close friend. I’ve suffered from high level of stress, and it’s a problem that I still can’t get rid of. Because of that, I’m so often got sick . I got sick really often. One day, this friend asked me about why I got sick really often. I said I’m tired, a lot of activities or something else. But I just said it because I don’t want to tell everybody that I’m stressed. I mean a real stress, not a joking funny stress that people often talk about. She said,”You’re fat, but you’re sick so often.” I don’t know what her goal was to say that but me, listening to what she said, broke my heart a lot. After that I entered my room and cried a lot. I mean, why does it matter if I’m fat? So fat people don’t get sick? The illness is not even because of my body size but my stress level. She doesn’t know the real thing but she talked like that. I’m just disappointed about why she would even take the topic about “fat” to relate it to my sickness. I’m really, really upset, I cried all night because of that.

And about this friend. She is thin, really thin. I sometimes have envy about that. I usually have dinner with her, and when I asked her, she often said,”I’m in diet. See? I’m fat.” “Umm I’m so fat.” She often said it in front of me. I don’t know if I’m being so sensitive, but listening to that word, in fact she’s a half of my weight, but she’s saying it in front of me if she’s fat. If she’s fat, so what does it makes me? A giant? The fact that she’s criticize her weight for being fat in front of “fat person” like me hurts a lot.  I cried about this too.

Another story is about my name. In the country I live, parents usually gave names with meaning which means a prayer, for their children to be. There’s a belief in local area that sometimes parents gave the child too-heavy name, which makes it so the child can’t “lift” the name and fulfill the hope and that they often get sick for a long time because of that. If that happens, usually when the child is about 1 or 2 years-old, the parent change the name to a “lighter” one. And my name’s meaning is like “honorable person”. Like I said first that I often got sick, and sometimes missed classes. And because my missing classes, my friends were worrying about me, and asking why I’m so often sick. So there is one friend, at college, while my classmates talked about my absents (in that time I wasn’t there because I was sick), she was giving a serious-like hunch. Like she’s the one that knows everything,”Her name is too heavy.” When I presented in my class in the other day, another friend told me that “one friend” said about my heavy name. At that time I was so angry…so so angry. She don’t even know anything about my sickness and she dare talk about me having a heavy name. It’s like saying that my parent gave my a wrong name, like criticizing  my parents! “Who are you anyway?!” And for her information, my sickness is nothing related to my name, at all. I mean why she’s being so know-everything-girl while she doesn’t! I cried every night for like a week just thinking about this. But thank God, because of this I know what kind of friend is she.

It’s so hurtful when people starts relating something unrelated to your sickness. It’s sickness, it’s not used to be fun. How do you feel when people make up the reason about you being sick?

Maybe anyone who read this may not feel the anger like me, except for you who feel the same thing, but at this time it’s what I feel. And it hurts, a lot. Please stop bullying!

~Rahajeng

Growing up, I experienced much bullying that affects me to this day, even though much of what has happened is a blur. And bullying’s profound effect on me has not simply been because I was bullied, but why I as bullied and how it was handled by adults.

Growing up, it was not only my peers I felt bullied by but also adults, who could not understand my differences in learning and behavior and they often would call me lazy, unmotivated, spoiled, bad, unmotivated, immature, self-centered, doomed to failure, and much more. And when I was bullied, I felt that they sympathized with my bullies because I deserved to be bullied or I “got myself bullied” because of how I acted.

I can’t remember exactly when I began getting teased, which is how my bullying experiences started out. I spent two years in a church-based school, where my experiences included being called names, including the unprintable, as well as being teased because I walked differently and thought differently.  Because I was un-coordinated, I was always chosen last in team sports.Though this teasing and bullying was fairly bad, it was not the worst bullying I would experience. I do recall that once I was walking downstairs. A couple of girls mimicked my walking, snickering, “I’m hurt! I’m hurt!” Another time, as she sometimes did, one girl who was praised by our teacher for being a caring girl who wanted to help others, tracked me down in the halls. She hit me; I remember this particular girl managing to hit me or call me names, when she saw that no one was looking but she managed to be “teacher’s pet.”

During this time period when I was in my early teens, I recall two incidents when I was on the opposite side of bullying. One when I was in the church-based schools’ Cadette Girl Scout’s troop. One evening, during a meeting, because I wanted to be “cool” and “fit in,” I joined with other girls in teasing a girl who, like me, was different. I composed a poem that mocked her and I think I threw it out. But that is beside the point. I had participated in bullying. The second time when I was at an all-day camp and the girls were teasing a quiet girl who was sitting at a front table. Her camp counselor had scolded her and while I felt sorry for her because I couldn’t see that she had misbehaved or anything, I said nothing but succumbed to “the bystander effect.”

It was when I started middle school that the bullying grew vicious and grew really physical. My bullies seemed to know when to find me, whether it was walking to and from school or going from one class to another all over the building. My bullies took note of my differences and called me names like retard, stupid, ugly, slow, dummy, and more, including the unprintable. According to mom, though I don’t remember it, there were two girls who did take pity on me and would try, to little avail, to stop the unremitting bullying. My bullies were slick. They knew exactly where they could catch me, unawares and without any witnesses, and they would hit me, kick me, punch me and trip me as well as snatch my money and even my school books. This bullying was so intense and so frequent that the incidents are a blur and run together. I feared reporting it because I was afraid I would not be believed or because things would get worse.

One incident does stand out in my mind, when I was preparing to leave school and two girls pushed me, hit me, beat me, took my money, and snatched my books and threw them on the ground. I finally was able to go home and when my parents later learned about it, they took me to the police station and wanted action taken to hold the two girls accountable. But the cop said no to my parents, citing the girls’ bad home life and that he felt sorry for them. That was fine of him, but the message I got was that bullying was not a thing to be taken seriously because it was considered a part of growing up.

The reason bullying had such a lasting effect on me even to this day, is not so much the bullying itself but why I was bullied and how it was handled. Because of the circumstances of my conception and birth to my then-teenage mom and the manner of her delivery, I was born with a cluster of behavioral, learning  and neurological issues that I believe add up to undiagnosed autism. If the concept of the autism spectrum had been around in the 1960’s and 1970’s, I think my educational experiences and outcome would have been far different. As a child, I was diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy, epilepsy, emotional and behavior problems and, in adulthood, learning disabilities. Anyway, getting back to my bullying experiences in middle-school, they eventually attracted the attention of school authorities, who, according to mom, contacted her and told her I would not be able to return to public school because they could not protect me there.

The following Fall, at age 15, I found myself in special education. I did not really feel safer there, as I was a withdrawn girl placed with primarily aggressive peers. Growing up, I spent most of my school years in special class settings, but thanks to my severe bullying middle-school experiences, I spent the rest of my teen years in special education. As the setting was such that our deficits were emphasized at the expense of developing our strengths, seeing teachers and educators constantly tell me what was wrong with me, preach to me to “take responsibility for your actions,” to “learn to pay attention,” and to “conform to society,” coupled with all my bullying memories, including constant adult misunderstanding, just instilled in me a profound sense of a shame-based identity, guilt, fear, social anxiety, resentment and a deep sense of distrust of people in general. Having given birth to a daughter who is officially diagnosed with autism and who is high-functioning and currently on the school honor roll, has provided me with some sense of closure and self-understanding. However, I still feel the effects of my growing up years and whenever I experience any form of bullying, rejection, unfriendliness or even perceived slights as an adults, the feelings I grew up with surface and threaten to overwhelm me.

Even today,  whenever I hear one more story after another about children taking their lives because of the bullying they suffer and the way that it seems that bullying is taken seriously only AFTER these senseless “bullycides,” I experience not only sadness over these lives lost so tragically. I also feel outrage that bullying is seen only as a serious matter when such “bullycides” occur; I grow frustrated when I feel that others minimize my own bullying experiences and that of others among us adults who grew up before the digital age. Perhaps if bullying had been taken seriously all along, bullying would never have evolved into forms resulting in “bullycides” either because bullies have become more violent as well as because many of them have taken their dirty work to cyberspace where they can hide behind their computer screens. The effects of my past will probably always stay with me but if through my advocacy, I can help a few people, I feel it will be worth it.

Yes, the effects of my bullying experiences are permanent and I think that this is why I’m passionately motivated to advocate for all kinds of people, anyone experiencing injustice because they are being marginalized or discriminated against. Thankfully, though my daughter and her generation have more to deal with in this digital age, in the arena of bullying and some other issues, because this is the age of many new discoveries and progress and awareness, they have many more resources and supports to deal with it all.

~Lisa D.

Lisa D. is a wife, mother, activist and advocate who considers herself a voice for anyone in need. Because of her own life experiences, she advocates frequently about autism, epilepsy, poverty, social and economic justice and religious freedom issues. She now maintains a blogspot as well as a Facebook page; these are an extension of her passions. Her blogspot can be found at http://ldesherl.blogspot.com/ and her Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/#!/ldesherl.

The first thing I would like to say is I am glad I found this website because after what happened to me today, I felt like I needed to get my feelings and thoughts out somehow.

I have always been the skinny girl in school. I get looks, comments (usually not so nice ones), and I know people talk about me behind my back. I wish I could just get it into their heads that I do not have any type of disorder (psychologically or biologically) and this is just how I am. The teasing started in 8th grade when a teacher actually told one of my friends to talk to me about why I’m so skinny. It escalated in 9th grade when a girl who was obviously worried about her skinny looks would always ask me how much I weigh so she could make others realize that I was skinnier than her. Also in 9th grade, a boy that had always picked on me since he moved to our school called me out in class one day and said that I should eat more. he proceeded to eat a Reese’s cup and explained to me exactly how to eat so I could learn. I left the room crying and never feeling so horrible about myself in my entire life. No one understands me and only my close friends knew that there was really nothing wrong and I am just the way I am because that’s how God made me.

But the story that led me to this blog today made me feel much more worse than Charles and his Reese’s cup ever did. It snowed all day today so I decided to walk out to my car to start it up so I could leave right at 5. It was getting close to time and there were a few customers left, but a group of teenagers (a boy and 2 girls) had just got into their car and were backing out. I minded my own business, brushing the snow off of my car, when a girl stuck her head out of the back seat window and asked me what my name was. I kind of just ignored her because i didn’t know who she was and i figured she was with her friends and was just going to say something to make me looks stupid. But she called out and asked again. So I told her. and she called back and said “oh. Your name should be Anna. Anna Rexic” and they drove off. The only thing running through my mind at the time was how mad i was because they didn’t even know me. i had never seen them in my entire life. at this point i was shaking and as they drove by up the road i gave them a sign that was very anti-Christian, and of course, they all gave it back to me. If I could find them right now and apologize for that gesture, i would. There is no way I ever want to be anywhere near their level of horrible. I just shook. I was so upset. i went inside and cried as i told my boyfriend what had happened. I cried all the way home. And the entire time i was at home until my boyfriend came and picked me up. I cried for about 5 more minutes in his arms until I calmed down enough to explain to him that what they did was so low.

I honestly don’t know what these kids think is okay. How do they sleep at night? Don’t they know that people who actually do have these problems kill themselves over little things that happen like that? I told my boyfriend I could never imagine doing anything like that to someone. i would never want to hurt someone like that. the fact that I don’t have a disorder is not even relevant. They said something to me that could have harmed someone who was not psychologically stable. and they didn’t even think twice about it.

I just want everyone out there to know that any kind of bullying is not okay. People have problems behind closed doors that they may be hiding and you would never ever know. I’m almost thankful that they targeted me and not one of those people that are potentially unstable and suicidal. I know that I will eventually rub it off my shoulder because they will have their judgment day. Just remember: don’t ever do or say anything that you wouldn’t want anyone to do or say to you; how would it make you feel?

~Kelsey

I bring this up because, once again, I was shocked to find that one of the people I wrote about in my blog found it and found their story. I have said many times that I never intended this little blog site to be read that widely and it was never there as a means to be found or for those who shared my experiences to read them. I guess I naively thought that it would always be anonymous and just a place to share my stories, the stories of others, and information on bullying.

So, it was quite shocking the other week for me to see one certain story I wrote start to get a lot of views and then comments started popping up on the story. The comments were from people who knew the other person in the story. Some of the comments were nice and others were more directed at me and a question of why did I feel the need to share these things. I fully admit to being in a bit of shock at that moment and then also spending a night contemplating the comments and the fact that the person I wrote about in the story must have found it and shared it. Out of all my personal stories, this was probably the one I didn’t want to have to revisit. Because this was my story of me as the bully.

If you have read the story, then you know that it is one about when I went to religious school, they didn’t know about the bullying that I experienced outside of there, so they treated me well. I, in turn, did not treat one boy well when we were 12 when I was there. I shared this experience to show that bullying isn’t always black and white and also that it could be that, when you are bullied, you may take it out on others, like in a cycle of violence. It was a minor story, but one I wanted to share to show both sides and as a cathartic release. With that done, I promptly put it behind me and moved on.

…Until the story was found by the other person the other week. Ironically, I later learned that they learned about my website at the 25th year High School Reunion in my childhood town. It seems my little site and me are known by some of the kids that I grew up with. Some had found it and told others at the High School reunion that I had a blog on and write about bullying that took place in Lexington, MA. Someone even referred to me as a bullying expert. I take that as a compliment, although my expertise is only in my own experience and the collective experience of others. Of course, the person who knew me and was in the story was told about this and became curious about what I wrote about.

See, it seems I was not alone in what happened to me in Lexington, MA. There are others that experienced heavy bullying there as well. So, this person went to my site, recalled when we knew each other, found their story and themselves in it, and then promptly put it up on their Facebook site, telling their friends they were the bullied of the kids that were bullied themselves.  Then their friends started commenting on my blog about knowing this person. And then I found out and I must admit that my first reaction was one of sadness again, for what I had done when I was 12 years old and for knowing this person also read about it and relived it again. Even though it was 31 years ago, I knew I needed to reach out and try to apologize.

I admit that I slept little that night. The next day I emailed the people who commented on the site and asked them how they found out and tried to get information on a way to contact the other person in the story. One of the people told me about Facebook and also gave me the information needed to contact the person in my story. I was very nervous about talking to him. It had been a long time and you never know what reaction you’ll get. My childhood confidence fears were all back. But this was an opportunity to have closure, maybe for both of us. So finally, the next day, I called him at his office. He picked up the phone, his name is David.

I said hi and told him who I was. I’m not sure if he was expecting the call, but my first reaction was that he was glad I called. When I first heard his voice again I could recognize it immediately. He and I had shared many  years together in religious school, so I remember him well. Memories flooded back to me in waves as he started to talk. He was immediately warm and positive. It set the mood for the rest of the conversation. Before I could get many words in, he told me about how he found out about the story. He told me about others from Lexington who also suffer from the long-term effects of bullying and that I was not alone. He told me about all that happened to him as well and how he dealt with it. While he didn’t recall my story as a major issue, he did also deal with cruel kids.

Finally, I got to say something as well. What I wanted to say was that I was sorry. Not just for the story shared, but in some way for his finding the story and having to read about the incident all over again. I don’t know if that’s strange, but for me, I just never expected to have it read and then to have to deal with the ramifications of that happening. But in the end, the closure, I hope, is good for all, including me. So I apologized, which he said wasn’t necessary and then we talked some more, and some more. We moved on and then, through this phone call started to rebuild a relationship. It’s hard right now to say where that will go, but we want to meet up at some point soon and continue the conversation.

He also allowed me to friend him in Facebook and see his original posts. I would say that took some courage on his part as well. Since he linked only to the story of me as the bully on my site and not the ones of me being bullied, it was interesting to see what his friends had to say, some about me. I was OK with all of it because, if I was one of David’s friends, I would have also been angry to find out about a time he was bullied. I would have defended my friends as well (as we all should). I consider his adding me to his Facebook the beginning of adding me back into his life and possibly moving time closer together to become friends again. While we live states apart, we can now talk again as if we were both in Lexington.

I made one final request of David before we hung up the phone. I asked him, since this story was about me as the bully, if he would share his perspective of the story from the other side. He agreed that he would like to do that. I think it would be great if he would and that shared experience was documented. Even though I didn’t expect it, his finding the story has led to some closure and hopefully a positive ending. I think, for me, the most fascinating part of this experience was to find out that I was discussed at the 25th High School Reunion and that bullying was a subject of discussion. It tells me that, maybe bullying was much bigger than me in Lexington (at least in the 70′s and 80′s) and that there are people who read this. Maybe even those who were the bullies that bullied me. Wouldn’t it be interesting if my phone rang one day and they called me to tell me they found the site and read the story about them…and that they were sorry too.

The words came unexpectedly, harsh and sneering. Mean words. Cutting words. As in a bad dream. But this wasn’t a dream. It was daytime. School time. Fifth grade. And the words were directed at me—by boys who I’d been in school with for two years. Boys I thought liked me. Boys I thought were my friends.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? Ha! The words withered my confidence, stole my joy. They hurt more than sticks and stones. They hurt my heart. They hurt my soul.

“Who do you think you are?”

“You think you’re so smart.”

“Look at you. Wearing a brown coat and WHITE shoes!”

My shoes? They were picking on me because of my shoes? I was proud of those shoes. They were new and I’d been excited to wear them to school for the first time. After all, they were “white bucks,” the same shoes made popular by the singer Pat Boone, and I was the first in my school to get a pair. Now I wished I’d never heard of Pat Boone and his stupid shoes.

The day before, I had been accepted, popular, sought out by my fifth grade classmates. Now, it seemed as though a conspiracy had sprung up overnight among the boys. GET KAREN!

I attended a county school that drew students from miles around. Even so, the enrollment was small, likely fewer than two hundred, with only one fifth-grade class. It was impossible to fade into the background with so few classmates. And I didn’t want to. After all, I was smart. I was cute. And I was popular.

Other kids got picked on and taunted. Not me. I’d been known to throw a verbal jab or two, as I describe in my Bully at Ambush Corner blog entry Yuck! Cooties!, but I’d never been a target. Until now.

As the day passed and the taunting went on, rather mild in words, but stinging in tone, and shocking to the inexperienced 10-year-old me, I felt smaller and smaller. Recess was a nightmare, class time not much better. We were working on projects that sent me to the back of the room, where the boys could isolate me and hiss their biting remarks at me without the teacher overhearing. I prayed she’d notice and step in, but that didn’t happen. I became a bundle of nausea, anxiety, and confusion, longing for the day to end. I’d always been a tough kid, a tomboy. Now it took every bit of my strength to keep the boys from seeing how badly they hurt my feelings, to keep from bursting into tears.

Apparently I wasn’t much of an actor, because when school ended, one of the boys approached me. He was alone, but as I braced myself for one last volley, he simply looked down at his boots and said, “I’m sorry.” He was the boy whose mother had recently died. A boy who knew pain and had recognized mine, even as I stoically tried to hide it.

Naturally, I didn’t mention the bullying to my mother. For some reason I felt embarrassed by the day’s events, as though admitting I’d been picked on meant I couldn’t stand up for myself, meant I’d lost my standing with my classmates. Meant I was no longer the popular girl.

I dreaded going back to school the next day, dreaded what new taunts might be waiting. But it was over. As quickly as it started, the bullying ended.

I never learned why my classmates turned on me so suddenly and unexpectedly. Surely they weren’t jealous because I had new shoes. It had to be something more, some sort of pack mentality. Whatever the cause, it left me reeling.

The boys and I were in the same class for another three years before my family moved and I changed schools, long enough for youthful crushes to wax and wane, long enough for first kisses, and, unfortunately, long enough for them to have another go at me in a much more shocking fashion.

My experience in fifth grade wasn’t the first time I’d been affected by bullying, simply the first time I’d been the target of my classmates. Eventually, I’d use my encounters with a bully in first grade and with the boys in fifth grade as inspiration for my book, Bully at Ambush Corner, an e-book about bullying for middle grade readers. My blog, Bully at Ambush Corner, goes into detail on how I came to write the book.

Once upon a time—back in the 1500s—the word bully was a term of endearment, meaning sweetheart or good friend. By the late 1600s, it had come to mean a tyrannical coward who terrorized the weak, today’s current definition. Apparently not everything improves with time. But with rising public awareness and condemnation, perhaps bullying, like its original definition, will fade away. Here’s hoping.

~Karen Mueller Coombs
  Author of Bully at Ambush Corner

Author’s Bio

On Karen’s bulletin board is a quote from Emerson: “May the work that you do be the play that you love.” It’s a perfect statement of the way she feels about writing—at times, it seems more like play than like work. She is an award-winning author of nine published books for children and young adults, including her latest, Bully at Ambush Corner, an e-book for middle grade readers.

Although born in Wisconsin, Karen grew up in the Northern Alberta town of Grande Prairie, where the Aurora Borealis flickered and shimmered across the night sky. The winters were long and cold, so cold her nostrils stuck together when she breathed too deeply, so cold her legs turned blue if she were foolish enough to go outside without warm stockings or pants, so cold she could hear the ice on the slough snapping and popping as she lay in bed at night. Winter days were short. It was dark when she left for school in the morning and dark when she came home. No matter how cold, she ice skated and played hockey, often by moonlight. When she was older, Karen curled, her favorite winter sport. She wishes curling had been an Olympic sport when she was younger, because she would have loved to try out for the Olympic team.

In the summer, the sun rose very early and darkness didn’t arrive until nearly midnight. Days seemed endless, wonderful for a child who loved to wander the countryside, either on foot or by horseback. And both the long nights of winter and the long days of summer were perfect for a child addicted to reading.

After graduating from high school in Grande Prairie, Karen attended the University of Alberta, first in Calgary and later in Edmonton. She taught first grade for a few years, then studied journalism at the University of Utah. There, a class in writing for children unearthed her passion.

Now living in Southern California, Karen is thrilled that she can ice curl in a local league and play golf when she isn’t reading and working at “the play that [she] loves”—writing.

For more information about Karen, go to her website at www.karencoombs.com or check out her blog, Bully at Ambush Corner.

But none of them could have probably pictured it’s use in the video below by a young man who has dealt with some bullying. Be warned, there is a little bad language, but he is making a point worth seeing.

Check out my new YouTube Bullying Stories companion channel to this website at: http://www.youtube.com/user/Bullyinglte

Mr. Castillo gives an overview of how battered person syndrome leads to PTSD, which has a lot of parallels to how bullying can lead to PTSD as well.  He says that when battered person syndrome leads to PTSD, it consists of the following symptoms:

1. A Re-experiencing the battering as if it were recurring even when it is not
2. Attempts to avoid the psychological impact of battering by avoiding activities, people, and emotions
3. Hyperarousal or hypervigilance
4. Disrupted interpersonal relationships
5. Body image distortion or other somatic concerns
6. Sexuality and intimacy issues

Because of this, the victim may develop an irrational belief system to justify their situation. They may adopt feelings that the violence is their fault, always fear for their life, and that the abuser is omnipresent, aka…everywhere always.

I think that you can easily substitute the work bullying for battering above. Mr. Castillo then asks if, like in the book, a bullying victim could then be acquitted of charges pressed against them if they retaliate/beat up/hurt their bully/aggressor on the grounds of PTSD or battered person syndrome. I’m not sure if the case has happened yet, but I have discussed this several times on this website. I think a person can have a mental break due to the effects of bullying abuse. I do believe that the PTSD can cause these people to react to their bully aggressively. What do you think?

Click here to read past articles on bullying and PTSD

I talked to Michael via email and he included a Q&A about his book, which should be released today. You can get it or see more information about the book at Amazon by clicking here.

Q: What is A Thinking Man’s Bully?

Michael: A Thinking Man’s Bully is my debut novel. I grew up in central New Jersey in the 1970s and ‘80s and use this as the setting for the book—but the book is not autobiographical. The narrator and main character, Matt Duffy, is defined by two events: The suicide of his best friend from high school and, twenty years later, the attempted suicide of his teenage son. The near-death of his son forces Matt to re-examine the boy he was and the father he’s become. A Thinking Man’s Bully dissects the teen bully a generation later, as a parent. He knows his attitudes are considered inappropriate, but he’s not entirely sure why.

The book unfolds in a series of stories in which Matt discusses the most important people and events in his life—particularly his difficult teen years and key moments raising his son. Matt and his therapist, Lisa Moscovitz, they analyze each story and their sometimes friendly, often tense banter close each chapter. A reviewer has compared Matt and Lisa’s give-and-take to the scenes between Tony Soprano and Dr. Jennifer Melfi in The Sopranos. The comparison may be helpful in understanding how the book unfolds.

Q: What made you write this book?

Michael: Several years ago, my older son was bullied by another boy. I confronted the bully’s father. The man said the right things, but also patted himself on the back for raising the toughest boy on the block. I was sickened by the realization that I might have behaved the same way if the situation were reversed. That week, I listened to a public radio program about bullying: None of the commentators discussed the most obvious cause of the problem—ignorant fathers (and sometimes mothers too) passing down bullying to the next generation. A Thinking Man’s Bully was born.

Near the completion of A Thinking Man’s Bully, my much-loved nephew, Eric—a young man whose slacker wit is all through this book—took his own life. That event made aspects of “the Bully” painful, and I seriously considered walking away from the project. But with the encouragement of my family (for which I am truly grateful), the book was re-tooled and finished. While I would do anything to reverse the loss, A Thinking Man’s Bully is a better book because it is informed by tragedy.

Q: What points are you trying to make about bullying?

Michael: When we see bullies depicted in movies and other stories, they are usually big, dumb, and superficial. They are props that a clever and sympathetic hero must outwit and eventually defeat—like those big boys in the Karate Kid movies or Nelson Muntz from The Simpson’s. I wanted to turn that around. My book looks at the world through the eyes of a bully, a bully dealing with the consequences of his actions a generation later, as the father of a bully, and a suicidal bully at that.

I want people to understand that bullies are rarely dumb. They’re smart, sensitive, troubled, and bored. They fall into bullying when their energies are not constructively channeled.Growing up, I observed bullies of different shapes and sizes, but the common ingredient was always too much unstructured time.

Q: Bullying is a hot topic in the news today. How did all of the coverage impact your book?

Michael: The media attention sharpened my focus. But much of the coverage is sensational and inaccurate when it suggests bullying is a new or growing problem. While cyber bullying, for example, might be new, bullying is timeless. Like many of our primal behaviors, bullying is in our DNA. Watch a National Geographic program about gorillas or wolves or lions and you’ll see a lot of bullying within the pack as the animals establish and maintain rank order.

Of course, humans try to be better than this. But bullying is part of us—like greed, lust, or any other vice. Zero-tolerance bullying rules in schools are helpful in suppressing bullying, but as long as we have troubled kids interacting with other children, bullying will occur. We can suppress the number of incidents, but we cannot remove it from our DNA.

Q: That’s a sad conclusion; is your book a downer?

Michael: I don’t think so. Matt is a sympathetic character and readers root for him. By the book’s end, Matt may not be redeemed, but at least we know he’s not a lost cause.

Also, A Thinking Man’s Bully is a comedy of sorts. Matt is a funny guy. His sharp sense of humor is all through the book as he wisecracks about the last thirty years of American popular culture. We laugh about O.J., Brittany Spears, Mike Dukakis, and Tina Fey’s imitation of Sarah Palin all over again. Fans of what I call the comedy-of-discomfort, the type of humor used in The Office or Borat, will find this a funny book. Since I wrote most of the book in the middle of the night, I needed to keep myself laughing.

Q: Besides writing through the night, is there anything else people should know about you?

Michael: I am a pretty typical suburban dad, married near twenty years and father of three boys. I’m treasurer for the local Cub Scouts and coach flag football in the northern Virginia suburb where I live. By day, I am a health policy wonk on Capitol Hill. After the kids go to
bed, I moonlight a little as an historian. My demographic research on the American Revolution has been published in national scholarly journals and won various awards and
honors. But I’ve loved writing A Thinking Man’s Bully and look forward to writing more fiction.

I tell people I write because TV bores me and I need something to keep me out of the bars at night. But, truth be told, it is a very fulfilling hobby and I am humbled that people like what I ‘m doing enough to support it.

To learn more about Michael and his books, visit www.michaeladelberg.com or his publisher, The Permanent Press of Sag Harbor, New York, www.thepermanentpress.com.

The story of Stephan Jones is one based in hate and prejudice. As described on Publishers Weekly, the story synopsis is:

“Greene tackles the subject of prejudice in a small Southern town as she explores the sentiments of a social outcast who dares to stand up for her beliefs. This book, however, is set in present times and features an older heroine, 16-year-old Carla Wayland. The daughter of a liberal-minded librarian, Carla is disturbed when her all-American boyfriend begins harassing two homosexual men who have recently moved to her community. Blinded by love and fearful of losing Andy’s respect, Carla hides her compassion for the victims until Andy’s bigotry leads to murder. It is only during the aftermath of tragedy that Carla finds the strength to speak her mind and fight for justice.”

The new ebook, which is distributed by “Open Road Integrated Media“, offers a new way to gain access to this story. You can learn more about this story and Bette Green by at this link. Below is a video about Ms. Greene and her reason for sharing this story.

“It tells the story of Nicolas, a quiet kid pushed to the limit by a pair of older bullies. One part adolescent love-story and one part cautionary tale, the film is a look at the cruelty of children and the cost of revenge. The film is a short, incredibly visual take on pre-teen bullying, and a stark reminder of the dangers of emotional abuse. Child’s Play is starring Tony Award-Winning actor David Alvarez as our lead, Nicolas—and is shooting on location at a NYC Public School in Morningside Heights that is supporting our film.”

Matt shared with me one of the reasons why he is making this film. He is the son of a lesbian couple and, due to that, experienced first-hand the intolerance and cruelty that kids in school and the community at large had to him. Matt wrote the film to explore and address these issues in contemporary America. He has a Tony award-winning actor playing the lead role and is working to hopefully secure rights to one of Lady Gaga’s songs. Matt plans to take the short film to the film festival circuit in 2012. He created a short video with information about the film that you can watch below. As Matt says, he hopes the film will serve as a reminder of the tragedy of teens taking their own lives and hopes the message of “it does get better” is also received through the film.

The title references a question the boy in the book asks himself and shows him in his mind what possibilities this brings. He discovers something important during his exploration that changes his circumstances. You can learn more about the book by clicking here.

Below is a video trailer about the book as well.

“For several years I struggled with poor self-esteem, depression, anxiety, panic attacks. It took me many years and countless hours to come to grips that my personal battles were directly tied to being a survivor of Bullying.

I have decided to write a book for the following reasons. At a deep personal level, it has made me feel more calm and in control the more that I write. I also want to share my story and experiences with students, parents and teachers. Hopefully, my interactions with the kids will facilitate a better understanding of how to deal with Bullying and who are the key people that they can go to for help.”

He is presenting his story to school kids and wanted to share a chapter from his book here. I am happy to share it with you. I wish Mike good luck with the book and hope he continues to talk and make a change to help stop bullying. ~Alan Eisenberg

 Bullied
Freshman Year: Daydreams and Nightmares

The daily routine from hell was back in session. It was mid-March, as I glanced at the clock and prepared myself for another journey through panic, fear and anxiety.  I worked really hard, as I did every day, to look positive until we got through lunch. My smile had worked well that morning and my practiced masculine “How ya doing”? elicited three responses before lunch. After that, it was about preparation and survival. The last period of the day always dragged as my mind waffled between absorbing the teacher’s information and designing the strategic stealth plan. I was up on the second floor, a good distance from my locker. I knew that I would have to think quick, move smart and keep my head down as usual.

In one swooping motion, the hands of the clock hit 2:20, the teacher’s voice trailed with assignment reminders as I rocketed from the chair. I hit the door quick beating out the majority of the freshmen and made a clean turn to the right dodging the onslaught of my peers. My eyes focused, the legs fired, and I cleared the stairs without a hint of stumbling. The lobby and main staircase at Bishop Guertin High School resounded with historical perspective, philosophy and the ornate points of view of the Catholic faith. There was no time to embrace these spectacles now as I darted down the stairs towards the locker room. My goal had to be achieved; getting to the bus before anyone else.

As I approached the bottom of the main staircase, I turned sharply to the left and faced the most challenging piece of my daily flight. Ahead lay the narrow, sharply descending stairs cluttered with bodies of numerous pubescent boys. Not all were faced with my dilemma. Many of the guys were relaxed, laughing and taking their sweet time rambling down the stairs. Today was more stagnant than normal from both a kinetic and aromatic perspective. I wanted to scream, “Get out of my way, let me breathe and allow me some peace”. Finally when it seemed like the bottleneck would not cease, I spilled out into the cafeteria framed by khaki green cement blocks.

Seconds were cerebrally interpreted as minutes as I sprinted towards the left back corner of the café. Woven within the cement blocks, 700 lockers lay in waiting. In one deliberate motion, the right hand hit the combination lock as my left arm hurdled out of my corduroy sport coat. Three muscle memory turns, and the locker creaked open as my right arm cleared the confines of my coat. The nylon blue paisley tie, absurdly wide in width, was removed in a fraction of a moment and tossed on the hook. It shared time with the brown and yellow striper and the mega-sectional red, white and blue edition. I grabbed my so seventies winter jacket, brown with the fox fur collar,  leather gloves and psychedelic stocking hat and booked it for the exit.

The intensity of attaining my immediate objective had to maintain balance with the long-range goal of looking cool and calm at all times. I caught myself as I passed through the doors leading to the parking lot and shifted into a calculated and brutally contained cantor. I was struggling to breathe and could feel my heart pounding. Ahead of me, spread out over a large parking lot was a cornucopia of transport vehicles. Standing tall and gleaming brightly among the sedans, (SUV’s and minivans waited twenty years in the future) the yellow chariot called my name. Picking up speed, I galloped towards the bus and hit the stairs hard and fast.

I swept around the corner and slid heavily into the first seat on the right. Finally, I gave myself a chance to take a breath of air and experience a second of relaxation. Phase one of the afternoon obstacle course was complete. Several seconds passed before the next student jumped on the bus. This gave the bus driver, John, a moment to say hello. John always called me John because he said that I looked like John Lennon. As the kids pushed and stumbled onto the bus, I prepared myself for the fifty minute phase two of the journey. The tension again built up in my shoulders and stomach as I placed myself in the position. It was a tremendous struggle every day to become invisible. As the bus began to traverse forward I opened my book, focused all cerebral neurons on my hearing, and deadened my eyes.

In a corner of my brain I held on to the hope that after three months out of site, the focus on terror would have ceased. The possibilities swirled. Would it include being pulled to the back and getting beaten up, igniting my books on fire, having cigarette ashes dumped on my head, or having my personal belongings destroyed?  Therefore, you can see why every trip was a dangerous and panic laden trek for me. As I deadened my eyes my saving grace, daydreaming, took hold. On this day, my dream carried me to my dentist’s office. I was sitting in the chair enjoying a conversation with the dental hygienist, Doreen.

We traveled without incident along our route from southern New Hampshire through several northeastern Massachusetts towns. At each stop another bully would prepare to exit. Maintaining my place in dream world, my breathing would come to a halt. As the antagonist meandered down the stairs, a sigh of relief would be accompanied by the thought that one less idea of torture existed on this particular ride. The return home was going as well as could be expected, until the rumbling began. I came out of my dream state when I heard the meshing of words that included “Big Bird”, “faggot”, “runt” and, “spit”. Eventually the words blended into the sentence, “Let’s spit on Big Bird when he gets off the bus”.  Anxiety, anger, embarrassment, assessment and preparation all became entangled in my thought process. My stop was approaching and now it was clear what the plan was. There were ten kids still on the bus. Two were leading the charge, three others followed without blinking, two jumped aboard to protect their reputations and three sat and looked away. John, the bus driver heard everything and did nothing.

John enjoyed stopping the bus on a dime and we were jolted forward by the quick pump of the brakes. I grabbed my bag, barely able to breathe as I initiated my launch to safety. I figured that if I jumped from the bottom step of the bus I could take two quick leaps and be out of spittoon range. Unfortunately, it had been raining and the snow banks were slushy and soft. My first jump landed me in a foot of water causing me to slip and bend backwards. I pushed forward hoping to hit the top of the bank and roll to the other side. As I hit the crest of the bank, I could hear the interfacing of gears as the bus moved forward. I also heard the taunting and the laughing as the cruel action took place. When my foot impacted the wet snow, I sunk to my knee in slush. My momentum carried me over the wet mound of snow and I rolled into a bitterly cold puddle on the other side.

I stood, slowly, as my ears and nose still captured soft laughter and diesel fuel dancing on waves of sound and smell. I felt numb, not from the frigid environment but from the internal humiliation. I knew that I had been hit and I also knew there was nothing I could do about it. I checked and found that one lugee had caught me in the back and the other was disgustingly seeping into the cotton fibers of my hat. Picking up my soaked school bag, I turned to walk home with a sad grin protruding from my face. I quickly headed into my house, dumped my wet clothes, went into my room, and traveled back to my safe haven. My day-dream continued until mom and dad got home. Small talk ensued, but I expressed nothing to suggest that bullying was part of my daily life.

 ~Mike S. (Author of Bullied)

A few examples from the article include:

Michael Phelps (Olympic Swimmer)
In 2008, Michael Phelps earned respect worldwide for his performance at the Beijing Olympic Games, as he earned the title of greatest Olympian ever with his all-time record for most individual gold Olympic medals, a total of nine. And although he has been called “amazing,” “incredible,” and even “Sportsman of the Year,” Phelps was branded with much different terms as a kid. He was taunted for his “sticky-out ears” and lisp, as well as his long arms, which ultimately took him to greatness. It seems that the taunting Phelps experienced encouraged his greatness as well, with coach Bob Bowman reporting, “Michael is the motivation machine — bad moods, good moods, he channels everything for gain.” Including, we presume, childhood taunting. Phelps is apparently able to take any adversity and turn it into a reason to train harder, going so far as to train during Christmas. His story is one of particular inspiration to bullied kids everywhere, showing that you can not only survive taunting, but turn it into motivation to be amazing.

Emma Watson(Harry Potter movies)
Bullying doesn’t just happen in grade school, and even the rich and famous take hits now and then. Emma Watson, one of the stars of Harry Potter, is the unfortunate proof of that. This year, Watson dropped out of Brown University, claiming that she wanted to focus on her acting career, but it is widely believed that she left due to bullying. According to fellow students, Watson was frequently mocked in classes, with students chiming in, “Three points for Gryffindor!” and other taunts when she answered questions in classes. But Watson has decided to give school another go, announcing that she will be taking part in an exchange program with Worcester College, Oxford, and completing her studies at Brown University.

You can read about the other 13 famous people and these stories above at the onlinecolleges.net website at: http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2011/11/02/15-famous-successful-people-bullied-school/.

Sometimes we just need to see the good stuff too.

“I’m 76 years old and I still remember it.”  Sylvia Craig had seen an article on my young adult novel, Eaglebait, whose theme is school bullies.  She called me to talk about her memories of being bullied as far back as first grade.  “I’m short and skinny and I had to stand up on the school bus because nobody would sit with me.  I was called ‘midget’ and ‘dwarf’ and ‘short stuff’ and a lot of worse names all through school.”  At a wedding many years later, she found herself seated near one of her worst school bullies.  “He wanted to make nice with me, but I just turned my back and refused to talk,” she said.  “I’m still short and skinny and I still hold a lot of hatred in my heart for the bullies—a grudge.  I just wanted you to know.”

As a 30-year educator, 15 of which were in middle school, I observed every sort of bullying incident imaginable, and found myself wondering, ‘Why do some kids survive, and others cave?’ So I wrote a novel dealing with a 14-year-old, habitually bullied kid who learns to build self-esteem with the help of family members, a mentor, and his pursuit of science, at which he excels.

Some people think bullying builds character in the victim.  This is not found to be true in cases of chronic bullying over time according to Dr. Catherine Bradshaw, Associate Director of Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence.  Studies show that people remember the details of bullying incidents long afterwards—what they wore that day, what was said, what happened in detail, long after other memories have faded.

The definition of bullying is: repeated intentional tormenting in physical, verbal or psychological ways.  Dr. Pat Santoro, psychology professor at Frostburg State University in Maryland, points to evolution.  “Bullying is a natural pattern in animals and we have some of that residual tendency that is restricted by our socialization.  But for some people, the socializing gives way and the urge to bully wins out.”

So—evolution, human nature, hatred—there’s a lot to consider when trying to solve such a universal problem as school bullying.  Most states have some type of anti-bullying program in effect, but what I’ve discovered during the course of my writing and teaching career, is that the best solution is a continuum of interventions, including therapeutic restorative justice (bullies must make amends to victims).  The Bully Police, a national organization of parents working together against bullying in schools, analyzes and grades each state’s efforts. Virginia, where I’ve lived and taught most of my life, gets an A++ grade—most likely because some 90 state school systems utilize the Olweus program, which emphasizes prevention.  Swaying students against bullying requires professional development for schools, including teacher training.  Students are offered the opportunity to talk and community input is utilized.

In September I organized a panel discussion made up of educators from middle school, high school and college, which presented information for a local audience.  Andy Bliss, assistant principal of Forest Middle School in Bedford County, Virginia, offers an acronym for tips for parents and students to avoid or “survive” bullying issues:

Be proactive – Don’t let a situation start affecting your child’s life (at school or home) before seeking help

Use the resources (teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, SROs) at school to help.

Look for witnesses who may be able to help (students) if a situation arises.

Learn to limit what you (as a student) say about others when they are not there in order to limit conflict.

You, as a parent, are your children’s best resource.  Talk, educate, support them.

Though many states have voted in anti-bullying legislation, not everyone is on board.  Some call the anti-bullying movement a violation of 1^st Amendment Free Speech.  (The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights says not so), while a former Georgia representative to Congress had this to say:  “Anti-bullying legislation is the nanny state run amok again.” While society debates, the negative impact of bullying will continue to disrupt the school environment and wreak havoc on sensitive students and their families with both short and long-term effects.

So—where do we find middle ground on the issue of school bullies?  A body of research is building for the development of interventions.  States may use a reporting mechanism or require a paper trail where parents, students, administrators and teachers document incidents. Maryland does this.  A New Jersey Anti-bullying Bill of Rights required deadlines for action under a coordinator of programs working with the state Department of Education. In Virginia, the Youth Violence Project worked with the legislature to produce House Bill 2266, in which the Virginia General Assembly called for schools to report bullying to parents and to integrate bully prevention into existing character education programs.  It was signed into law by Governor Mark Warner.

On the other hand, so-called “Zero Tolerance” installed in some schools may boomerang when victims and witnesses, even teachers are afraid to report because of retaliation.  Schools may use suspension as a penalty for bullying, but sometimes the victims are suspended too.

What the best anti-bullying programs recommend is that kids not fight back.  At a young age, students need to be taught the difference between aggressiveness and assertiveness.  Victims frequently do not know how to be assertive and must be taught how to stand up to bullies without fighting. The lasting consequences of not being assertive can be severe. There are even documented cases of post-traumatic stress disorder requiring medication in adults as a result of chronic school bullying.

I will admit that one of the perks to having created this blog/website is the opportunity to make contact with and learn about other people around the world who are also involved in the anti-bullying movement. When I first started this site, I certainly felt alone as an adult who still felt like there were long-term effects from bullying. I have learned now, almost 5 years later, that there is a world full of us and that many others are also trying to make a difference. Jeanne Bannon is certainly one of those people. She has written a book called “Invisible“. The book gives a very good portrayal of the suffering that girls in particular go through with female bullying and asks the question of what if you had the power to become invisible? Would you take revenge on your bullies with this power? I asked Jeanne to share her childhood story of bullying as a guest blog and she has graciously done so below. ~Alan Eisenberg

Everything Happens For a Reason.

Hmmm, that’s the saying, isn’t it? I wrestled with this one for years asking myself, if this is true, then just what is was the reason for the two years of hell I went through in grades 7 and 8? For those days where I refused to get out of bed and face my day; pretending to be sick rather than deal with the threats from the bullies who were awaiting me at school.

Just shy of my thirteenth birthday we moved; mom, dad, me and my little brother. We’d lived close to the city of Toronto and my parents felt our neighborhood was getting too congested and a little unsafe. We’d had a man open our front door and walk right into our house. To do what, we luckily didn’t find out. Our family dog, Candy chased him back out onto the street in a hurry. So, with this episode our future was written…off to the suburbs we’d go.

The house my parents ended up buying was large and roomy. Finally we’d have more than one bathroom. We went from just 1,200 square feet to over 2,400. I wasn’t happy to be leaving my friends especially since I’d just started junior high and I loved my school, but the new house was kinda cool.

The town we moved to was called Woodbridge and consisted of mainly Italian immigrants. It was 45 minutes north of where we used to live but felt like the middle of nowhere. I went from junior high where we had lockers like the kids in high school back to the way it was in elementary school – one classroom with one teacher. There was no moving from classroom to classroom, no lockers, no elective courses to chose and for me, no friends.

Although my mother is Italian, my father is of Irish ancestry and as a result my last name, Bannon, marked me as an outsider. I was called “mangia cake” – a derogatory term used by Italian Canadians to describe people of Anglo descent. It means ‘cake eater’ and is a put down as to the type of food they figured Anglo-Canadian’s ate, such as those high in starchy white flour and sugar. And even though I do have Italian blood, I wasn’t Italian enough for the kids in the neighborhood.

Verbal abuse was hurled at me on a daily basis. I was no good because I was not Italian. Some of the kids said they were going to think up a cruel nickname to stick me with and not call me by my given name, Jeanne. This was the horror of all horrors for my then 13-year-old self, as there was one other kid in the school who’d suffered such a fate and she was shunned…a pariah. I’d rather take the beatings that were threatened.

I had kids chase me home a least once a week, threatening to beat me. I never took the bus because I’d be in a small space with too many haters. One day a fellow classmate stomped all over my brand new white Adidas running shoes while we waited in line after recess. So I found a way not to go out for recess. I volunteered in the library and did so every day for two years until I finally escaped my torture and went to high school.

During this time in my life I was in constant fear. I told no one because I thought it was my fault. I wasn’t good enough. After all, I was inferior. I wasn’t 100% Italian. I deserved the abuse and besides if I told, I’d have to face my humiliation. Others would know I wasn’t any good…teachers, my parents, the rest of my family. It was too much to bear.

I went through a depression, but of course, didn’t know it. I could not have put a name to those dreadful feelings and the anxiety that churned in my stomach on Sunday evenings when I knew school was coming the next day.

Another horror I had to live through was the constant threat of someone hurting my little brother. I stood guard over him in the morning before the bell as my classmates had threatened to beat him up too. Again, I told no one.

After what felt like a small eternity, high school finally came and I was free. I chose to go to the public school rather than the Catholic High School where most of the kids from my elementary school were going and as a result, found a group of friends from varying backgrounds, Italian included, who accepted me for who I was.

As an adult looking back over those two horrifying years, I see the lasting marks. Occasionally they surface in the form of low self-esteem or feelings of rejection. But with the passing years also comes wisdom. I’ve learned that the bullying was not my fault. I did nothing wrong. I didn’t deserve such treatment. But it took some therapy and a lot of years to come to this understanding and to really believe it.

Now, does everything happen for a reason? I think the answer for me is yes. Although my years of bullying were painful and stayed with me for a very long time, I can now tell my story and in the process, perhaps help others who are going through what I went through.

In telling my story, I wrote a novel titled INVISIBLE in which the protagonist, 17-year-old Lola, is picked on because she’s overweight and extremely tall. She wishes she could just disappear…and one day she does. Though this newfound superpower seems, at first, a way to avenge all the wrongs done to her, Lola learns that she must stand up for herself and face the bullies head on, despite the temptations and possibilities of her newfound ability.

Writing INVISIBLE was cathartic for me but I wrote it in the hopes of helping others; kids who are in the shoes I once filled. If I can inspire and give hope to one kid through my novel, then my time as a victim was not spent in vain.

~Jeanne Bannon

AUTHOR’S BIO
Jeanne Bannon has worked in the publishing industry for over twenty years. She started her career as a freelance journalist, then worked as an in-house editor for LexisNexis Canada and currently works as a freelance editor and writer.

Jeanne has had several short stories published and won first place in the Writes of Caledon Short Story Contest. Her novels, The Barely Boy and Dark Angel were finalists in the 2010 and 2011 Strongest Start Contests. One of her short stories “Thom’s Journey” is part of an Anthology entitled A Visitor to Sandahl and is available at Amazon.com.

Invisible, her debut novel, is about a teenage girl who isn’t happy with herself and wishes she could disappear. And one day she does. Invisible is available on Amazon, Smashwords, and the Solstice Publishing website.

When not reading or writing, she enjoy being with my daughters, Nina and Sara and her husband, David. She is also the proud mother of two fur babies, a sweet Miniature Schnauzer named Emily and Spencer, a rambunctious tabby, who can be a very bad boy.

Let me start by saying that I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus (or in laymens’ terms “water on the brain” ) Because of it,my head is bigger than normal. No one made a big deal about it until junior high (7th grade) I was called “Frankenstein” ,”retard” , “Martian”, “deformed head” , the list goes on and on.

So I figured I’d explain WHY my head was bigger than normal. (Knowledge is power, right? ) I was in a slower learning group of students.(one step above Special Education but one step below regular classes) So I explained what hydrocephalus was. The teasing was made MUCH worse! “Water brain” was included to the taunts. An overweight boy teased me as well. My parents knew of the teasing. So my father (with his great sense of humor.) told me I should ask the overweight boy,”Who makes your pants…Omar the Tentmaker?”Unfortunately it backfired because the boy responded,”No. Why? Does he make your hats?”

I was also pushed, shoved, had my locker broken into. One afternoon (without my knowing it.) one of the boys put a pencil up his rear end. He told me to smell it (claiming it was a new type of flower scented pencil) So (stupidly) I smelled it and everyone laughed.

On the last day of school a rotten egg was thrown at me. It was then that the teacher for most of my classes, a social worker ,my guidance counselor,my parents and I got together for a meeting and discussed that I be mainstreamed for 8th grade. (This couldn’t have been done DURING the year when I was going through hell?!) A slightly happy ending though. The overweight boy apologized 3 years later (To me ,he shouldn’t have said anything anyway. But I accepted his apology).

I just wish bullying hadn’t been tolerated YEARS ago! The bad memories of 7th grade will ALWAYS be in my mind. In September, my 11 year old niece will be going to middle school. Thank goodness she isn’t handicapped in any way. But I’m still scared for her.

Thank you for reading this.

Kathy H.

Statement for Councillor Hubley on the passing of his son James

This past Friday, our family suffered one of the worst experiences that can happen to a family when we lost our boy – Jamie. To make this even more difficult, his death was a result of suicide.

I would like to thank all the family and friends that have been helping us get through these very difficult days. Very special thanks to everyone that came out in the rain to walk every foot of our community to look for our boy. The outpouring of support has shown us that our angel was loved by many and we were not the only people to witness his beautiful spirit.

Jamie was for most of his life a very happy and confident child. He was a compassionate person always looking to help others and didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Jamie often worked with me on community events and our many efforts to help others were made more effective with his ideas. From a very young age he wanted to make a better community and a better world.

He was a championship figure skater for years and was just beginning to excel as a singer. He enjoyed acting as well. He had a wide circle of friends and was involved in many different clubs and groups both in and outside of school. James’s family and friends unconditionally supported and accepted him for who he was and whatever direction he wanted to go in life.

James had been suffering with depression and was receiving care from doctors at CHEO and counselors. These professionals, along with James’s family and friends, were trying to help him learn to cope with his depression and other issues one of which was his struggles with his sexuality. He struggled with the idea that people can judge you harshly even when you are trying to help others. Jamie asked a question no child should have to ask – why do people say mean things to me?

Although James had a great many people who loved and supported him, something in his mind kept taking him to a dark place where he could not see the positive side of life, which lead him to this drastic and tragic decision on Friday. Jamie is free of his pain now and there is a new angel but we have paid too high a price.

There are some reports in the media and on social media that James was bullied. This is true. We were aware of several occasions when he felt he was being bullied. In Grade 7 he was treated very cruelly simple because he liked figure skating over hockey.

Recently, when Jamie tried to start a Rainbow Club at his high school to promote acceptance of others, the posters were torn down and he was called vicious names in the hallways and online. We had meetings with officials at the school and were working with them to bring an end to it but Jamie felt it would never stop.

We will not say that the bullying was the only reason for James’s decision to take his own life but it was definitely a factor. As his family and friends or even if you never met him but want to help, we must do whatever we can to wipe out bullying for any reason in our society and especially in our schools. Young people are very vulnerable and have enough pressures in life to have to deal with aside from the stress of being bullied. My family’s wish is that no more families have to suffer the unbearable pain of losing a child. No child should have to deal with depression or feel hated because of their beliefs – that is not the Canadian way of treating others.

Bullying doesn’t always take the form of physical violence. Especially today with cyber bullying on the Internet, children often feel there is no safe place to go; even when they are at home they can still be victims. Earlier I mentioned his posters being taken down. Many friends have offered to stand by the posters to ensure children that may want to meet and talk about issues that don’t harm others will be given the chance to do so. The school has made a promise to me that they will ensure the posters are protected. We hope from our tragedy others will become more active in stopping this cruelty towards children.

To this end, after my family and I have had some time to come to terms with the loss of our beautiful son James, I will be working hard to use my energy and public position to help bring awareness and resources to those groups working to stop the bullying and find a treatment for depression. Wendy and I have asked that all the people wishing to make a donation in Jamie’s memory can direct them to Youth Services Bureau’s Mental Health Walk in Clinic.

Over the years I have tried to help a lot of people and I was very proud that my beautiful boy was also learning the joy that comes from helping others. I need time to deal with the pain of not being able to save my precious boy and will speak more on his life and these issues later.

Kanata South Councillor
Allan Hubley

Source: Thestar.com

Kevin shared his reluctance to let anyone know he was being bullied. This is such a common problem as Kevin writes.

“So what’s my story? For the first time in my life I am going to talk about it. Like most of the kids I write about I kept the bullying a secret from my family and friends and never once reported it to a teacher or an adult in authority for fear that things would get worse. Perhaps, I now think to myself, if I only knew then what I know now I could have made it better for myself. Maybe…Maybe not. It was the 70s and attitudes were much different back then.

Okay, so here we go. As the 6th-grade was coming to an end in 1969, I had my first brush with death when two years of sexual abuse began at the hands of my friend’s father. I was 10-years old. What made things very confusing for me was that I already knew that I was gay. I mean I knew what was happening was very wrong, but I also knew that if it ever came out that I was engaging in sexual acts with a man, my family would send me away forever. I must insert here that I have a wonderful family. They were very loving and they went above and beyond to make sure their children never went without. I was fortunate to come from a family that taught the one thing I constantly preach today – respect.

The bullying began in the 7th-grade and continued through to the day I graduated the 12th-grade. Although I didn’t come out of the closet until I was 35-years old, I was constantly ridiculed and called names including fag and fudgepacker. No matter how hard I tried, from going to school dances to dating girls, I was always seen as weak. I sang in the school choir and I was active in various clubs, which was seen as gay. Despite my participation in these activities I was a pretty shy kid. I wasn’t very good at gym and I was always picked last for games. I was excited when I discovered tennis and made the tennis team. But, alas, tennis, the bullies claimed, was a gay sport. I couldn’t win for losing! It didn’t help that most of my friends were girls – although, as it turns out, it was those girls that were the very people who kept me from going over the deep end. Those girls saved my life.

I can still remember those days when I wondered how nice life would be if I were no longer a part of it. (I waited until I was 30-years old before I made that suicide attempt. But that’s a story for another day.) You see, it wasn’t just verbal abuse, it was also physical abuse as well. There were many occasions when I was pushed into lockers, tripped and even punched. I never fought back. I was too scared. On those days I would hide and stay at school long after everyone had left the building until I felt okay enough to go home. Even back then I had discovered the magic of make-up to hide any visible black and blue marks on my body.”

Regardless of sexual orientation, the bullying and the feelings that come from being bullied are all the same. Never fighting back is such a common theme. There are just those of us that DON’T WANT TO FIGHT. So many advise to fight back, but it is never that easy. I believe that a person who is emotionally sensitive doesn’t want to hurt another, even if it means ending the bullying. And I believe that many of those of us that were and are bullied are emotionally sensitive. Thanks again to Kevin for sharing his story and creating another good site to help let others know that it is still with us, but does get better.

With the issue of bullying becoming a serious problem nationwide, it’s a
good idea for parents to ask their children questions and be an active
part of their child’s life. Not only do parents need to be concerned about
their child becoming a bully, but they also need to be concerned with
their child being bullied themselves. There are no identifying factors
that determine the make-up of a bully. Bullying is not specific to any one
religion, race, income level, family structure, etc. Bullies come in all
shapes and sizes and have all different intelligence levels.

In an article titled, Not My Kid: What to Do if Your Child is a Bully,
Jill Perter lists the steps according to Olweus, an international program
that offers an approach to bullying prevention, that parents need to take
to prevent their child from bullying others. There are five key steps,
which include acknowledging that there is a problem, being a hands-on
parent, decreasing violence at home, teaching positive behaviors and
seeking professional help if it comes down to it. Most importantly,
parents cannot ignore the problem, or they’re putting their child in
danger, as well as the other children attending the school. By taking
these precautions, parents can terminate their children from ever
developing into a serious problem.

Bullying affects schools across the United States, and it is the
responsibility of the parents to be involved and aware of what’s going on
in their child’s academic and social lives. In the same article as above,
Jill Perter writes, “There are many reasons why children bully. For some,
it’s power and control. For others, it’s a reaction to being bullied
elsewhere.” By talking to their children, parents can sense signs of
bullying, and put an end to it immediately!

About the author

Kathryn Rinaldi writes for the Plus Plus Tutoring education blog. Plus
Plus Tutoring is a private K-12 in-home tutoring service in the
United States.

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

So now I put up his twelfth grade picture and realize that he did not have the experience I did. He did not get bullied. He was lucky. While there was certainly some times when friends weren’t exactly friendly, he never dealt with a bully and he always stayed positive throughout. I wonder what it was about him. Certainly he is a laid back kid. He always was. Things just roll off his back and he doesn’t get emotional about many things.

Also, he was willing to talk his mind to people and not let them get to him. He was always willing to defend his opinions with confidence. Maybe these were the things that worked for him. Maybe his personality helped him where it didn’t help me. I know for him this was a good thing and I am happy for him, but at the same time I am sad for some of his friends that didn’t have it so easily.

I remember stories he shared of friends that were being picked on. One time I helped mentor one friend and hopefully he felt better afterward. I guess in some ways I am just glad that the end of High School is near for him without incident. But not a day goes by that I don’t think of the others that I share this site and stories with. Those that didn’t have an easy time. Maybe one day I will interview my son to see why he thinks he was so lucky. But for now I will put the last picture in his “School Days” frame and be happy that I can look at it and know that his school days were not like my school days.

Bullying in the workplace is a serious issue that often goes unaddressed – the person being bullied often doesn’t report it, as bullying only happens in high school, right? Not so. Bullying must be addressed, whether we’re thirteen or thirty-three. Using example to stop bullying in its tracks is one of the most successful ways to halt it, so let’s take a look at how we can use example through action to peacefully rectify adult bullying.

• Distribute Responsibility – One of the chief reasons behind workplace bullying is insecurity in performance – the bully feels that she/he isn’t performing as well as others or isn’t given as much responsibility as the next team member. As a manager, identify your employees’ strengths and weaknesses, and publicly distribute responsibilities throughout the team. Your bully will see that she or he is being given increased responsibility, right along with the rest of the team.
• Get Out Of The Office – Ever notice the difference between team members in and out of the office? Take the bullying team member out to lunch and see how she or he acts. Try to connect on a personal level – the negative behavior may be stemming from office stress or issues at home. Show interest in the team member’s life to establish camaraderie, and you may just learn a thing or two about what’s causing the behavior.
• Regular Performance Reviews – Performance reviews should never come as a surprise. Hold quarterly reviews for your employees – it helps the bullying team member regularly see how they are performing, which can reassure them that they are performing at an adequate level (thus eliminating the insecurity), or are on the path to performing better. This is also a perfect time to address the bullying behavior, but be sure to always list specific examples and corrective action.
• Lead By Example – Management must always, always lead by example in the workplace. Statistics show that the majority of workplace bullies are actually in management roles, so for managers to effectively cut bullying out of the workday, this behavior needs to be stopped. Employees look to their managers for performance and behavior, just as kids look to their parents for life lessons. Follow this philosophy as a manager: Act the way you want your employees to act.

Bio: Bullying in any form is a serious issue, and it’s up to all of us to spread the message of bullying prevention. Here at SpyTown.com, we’ve helped many a business choose the right covert surveillance cameras and cctv security cameras to install so they can keep an eye on bullying in the workplace – after all, showing a bully exactly what she or he is doing is a very effective way to stop the behavior!

I received this story from Linda, a woman who wanted to share her story of being invited back for a reunion at her school where the memories of being bullied haunt her years later. She brings up a great topic of the school reunion and how it feels to get notification to go to a place where you know many of the people you might see were the same ones that taunted and bullied you as a kid. My 25th High School reunion was recently held. I did not think about this, but do recall how many of the people there wouldn’t even have known me. Now I can see them chatting on FaceBook in the High School group area, but I rarely if ever engage them. I had my group and the ones who go to the reunion for the most part were not the group that I hung out with. Linda chose to respond to the school, letting them know that she wouldn’t attend and why. The school responded back and Linda wanted to share both of these correspondence, which you can read below. Did you not go to your reunion for the same reasons? Did you go just to show everyone what you have become? I’m curious to see how you would respond to this. Names of school and school officials are withheld to respect their privacy. I’m interested and I’m sure Linda is also interested in how you feel about this as well. ~Alan Eisenberg

The School Reunion

Dear Mr. (name withheld):

I graduated from (name of school withheld) Academy in the Class of 1968. When I returned home last evening, there was a message on my answering machine regarding an event on October 12 headlined by (name withheld) family members. The message came from a member of your Board of Trustees requesting a response. I do not express myself well in the spoken word, so I resort here to the written word to explain my response.

So here is my response: The six years I spent at (name of school withheld) Academy (1962-1968) were by far and away the worst years of my life. Many things weren’t spoken about in public in those days, including what happened to the Jews of Europe between 1933 and 1945 (we didn’t even coin the word “Holocaust” to describe those events until later than 1968). My parents came to the US in 1940 having escaped Nazi-occupied France with nothing but the clothes on their back. They were trained physicians in Europe and had to recertify themselves to practice here in the US. Three generations grew up together in our home. My world at home, a completely French-speaking world, and the world outside, were so different that the culture shock when I began at (name of school withheld)  Academy in 1962 was more than any 12-year old should have to bear. Prior to that time, I had gone to a private elementary school in Queens which had many children in it like me. My parents believed that the best way to a future in this country was through a good education. They didn’t have a lot of money, but saved every penny so that we could get what they believed would be a superior education to what was offered in NYC public schools. We resided in Queens, my brother (10 years older than me and born on the ship my parents took to the US as refugees) attended a private school in Jackson Heights. By the time I was ready to go to school, that school no longer existed. So they found (name of school withheld)  Academy. I began at the age of 12. I was taunted every day and bullied, not physically, but emotionally. What I remember most was being asked by the girls where I got my clothes and how much they cost. Since they were all hand-me-downs from older cousins and they never fit very well, I was the source of a great deal of ridicule. I was teased relentlessly. When I complained to the Middle School Head, I was told that was part of growing up and I should deal with it. By the time I was in the 9th grade I really wanted to get out of there so badly that I wilfully cheated on an English assignment hoping I would be expelled. Little did I understand at the time that a private school wants and needs money above all else to survive and that was the last thing they were about to do. My father, having talked his way out of a Nazi POW camp, was one tough guy and certainly wasn’t about to have his children influence his decisions. He wouldn’t allow me to leave. So I stayed. About a year later, the one history teacher I really adored (from middle school) had twins and, within a year of their birth, committed suicide, no doubt from post-partum depression. I realized she wanted out, too and I hoped that I would see her soon in the next world. My best memory at school was the death of JFK, because we got to stay home for AN ENTIRE WEEK and I escaped the bullying for that much time.

By the spring of 1968, the country was imploding and my brain was imploding as well. In April, after the RFK and MLK assasinations, I went into every medicine chest in our house (full of good stuff) and took everyting I could find. I woke up in the recovery room at Long Island Jewish Hospital, with the chief of psychiatry caring for me.

Boys who are bullying victims often turn to violence against others. Every day of my life I feel for the boys who perpetrated the Columbine violence. I know their pain. I know what they did is horrendous, but I also understand them very well. Girls (and, as we well know now, gay boys) who are bullying victims turn inward and either attempt or succeed at suicide. I never went back to school at (name of school withheld) , but I received my diploma nonetheless. I spent most of that summer in upstate NY at a wonderful place for troubled teens taking care of farm animals. In the fall I began school at (name of school withheld) College. Then began the best four years of my life. The contrast with high school was overwhelming. At (name of school withheld) I found plenty of girls just like me; I no longer thought I was weird. For certain, I continued my mental health care and the school was quite aware and watchful. But after (name of school withheld), I resolved two very important things for my future: one was never, ever, ever to live in a suburb and the second was never, ever, ever to have children. I love children and it breaks my heart to know how painful childhood can be.

I have lasting scars of my pain from (name of school withheld). While I speak five languages fluentlly and have a masters degree in international affairs, I was never able to get through a professional job interview successfully. Adolescence is the time kids learn to deal with their peers and how to interact in society. I never learned that. I learned to stay away from EVERYONE, except for my family. I never married until I was 39; and that only because I had a subscription to a concert series at Carnegie Hall and the person next to me slowly, slowly, very slowly began to invite me for a drink after the concert. He himself was an immigrant to this country, an Iraqi Jew, and we finally married. He was willing to honor my desire not to have children.

For the past 15 years, I have worked at one of New York’s most prominent law firms, as a researcher and admisitrative assistant, hardly reaching my full potential, but leaving me in a very pleasant environment with plenty of smart people on a daily basis.

So, after reading this, why would I ever attend an event sponsored by you? I assume that since a member of your Board of Trustees called, this must be a shakedown for cash. I will never forget my father screaming at the top of his lungs to Mr. (name withheld), the President of the Board of Trustees while I was a student, refusing to donate money to the building fund. It really was a shakedown and my father was having none of it.

I am a very active alumna of (name of school withheld). I have even endowed a scholarship in my name and my aunt’s (she attended (name of school withheld) after getting off the boat) for an immigrant or child of immigrants. You lost out as an institution from my largesse, but you certainly don’t deserve my money from me.

I am sorry to have to write you all of this, but I thought someone ought to know. I am impressed, after seeing your website, that you refer to an article on bullying. I hope you take this problem more seriously today. I also hope you try and have a diverse student body (by that I don’t mean one kid from Africa on an AFS semester abroad). There was no diversity at that place in the 1960s; it was a bunch of snobbish, superficial, naïve, nouveau-riche Jewish kids who had no concept of the real world. That’s not a place where any kid should be educated.

I wish you luck in finding funds from others, but you are wasting your time and energy with me; it wouldn’t even be financially worth it for me to show up, have a drink and eat the hors-d’oevres. I don’t do that sort of thing anyhow; even today I purposely avoid places where I have to interact with people I don’t know.

Respectfully yours, Linda

THE RESPONSE FROM THE SCHOOL TO THE ABOVE LETTER FROM LINDA FOLLOWS BELOW

Dear Linda,
Thank you for your e-mail.

I expect never to hear from you again, and so will take this opportunity to congratulate on your work with (name of school withheld)–an endowed scholarship is truly a wonderful gift (the average Academy student today receives 20% scholarship/financial aid).

I ask only that you watch the brief video I will produce next week and show at our October 12th event, a copy of which I would like to mail to you at (address withheld). I recommend watching it on “mute” (you need pay little attention to the words) so that you may more easily see that this is not the Academy of “one kid from Africa on an AFS semester abroad.”

I believe this may offer you some peace.

I wish you a very happy New Year, and an easy fast.

Sincerely,
(name withheld)

“BULLYING IS FOR LOSERS”

It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been raised in a different neighborhood, or was sent to a different elementary school.  The problem had more to do with WHERE I was raised than HOW I was raised.  Middle class parents all across America raised their children the same way my mother raised me.  The problem is, we weren’t middle class, and once I left the safety of my home, I was surrounded by people who didn’t care anything about middle-class values.  It took until about 4th grade before I noticed that I was really the only person in my class, and definitely the only boy, who got good grades all the time.  And it took about as long to realize that the other kids didn’t care that they didn’t get good grades.  This wouldn’t have been a problem if not for the fact that for some reason, they DID care that I got good grades, wasn’t good at sports, and wasn’t aware of the right clothes and music.  It would have been nice if they minded their
own business instead of bothering me every day.

I wish my vocabulary was more advanced, or that my mother was more understanding.  It was some time during the 5th grade that I had gotten tired of the teasing and bullying enough to where I asked her if she could put me in another school.  Her answer was that she was not going to pull me out of a school that goes up to the 6th grade while I was in the 5th grade. So I was stuck for another year and a half, knowing exactly what I was going to face every day, feeling like nothing I could do would make it stop, not a new haircut, different clothes, trying to do better in gym, nothing.  What I needed was to be around different types of people who didn’t consider you weird just because you were smart.  I knew that there were places where if I were there I would be more normal and more accepted, and I wondered why I couldn’t be in one of those places instead of where I was.  It was every day, multiple people, nonstop. And because it was elementary school,
we stayed in the same class all day, so there was no escape as long as the school day was going.

I thought that once I got to high school that I would be away from the types of kids that picked on me in elementary school, because you had to pass a test to get into my high school.  But one of the biggest disappointments of my childhood was getting to high school and finding out the same types of kids were there too. So I resigned myself to just getting through high school and college would be better.  For most of high school I just went to school and went home and didn’t talk to many people.  It wasn’t like getting teased every day, but I still hadn’t figured out how to make friends.

When I got to college it started to become obvious how much I missed out on by not having friends.  I missed all the hanging out and dating, so I was behind and still don’t know how to catch up.

I thought I would be able to get my social life handled once and for all when I graduated college.  I expected to land a decent job, get my material situation taken care of, then embark on how to have a social life.  Little did I know I would be sending hundreds of resumes, not getting any interviews, and having to settle for part-time and temp jobs. That isn’t why I went to college.  I went to college so that I could leave my past behind, instead I am stuck living with my mother in the same neighborhood more or less than I grew up in, hoping this second stint in college will finally open the door to some kind of career success, and finally having the life I deserve.

~Robert

I shared with them videos from the “It Gets Better” campaign on YouTube and shared some of the positives as well. It was really a great session of sharing and talking about the issue with a group that was both compassionate and also eager to learn and hear about the issue.

But today, yet another story of Bullycide has made the news. Jamey Rodemeyer was only 14 years old and was one of the teens who created an “It Gets Better” video on YouTube. He was struggling with his sexuality and dealing with young people who bullied him daily. He found himself relating to Lady GaGa and her messages and lyrics. But, for him, he did not find the strength to really believe it would get better. For him the bullying seemed never-ending. He is not alone. From a report by the Center for Disease Control, teen suicide is still a large issue in the U.S. More than 35,000 suicides were reported in the United States in 2008, and of those cases nearly 4,400 these were young people ages of 10 and 24.

So Jamey Rodemeyer took his own life, even with all the work that was done for the “It Gets Better” campaign to give hope to those younger folks dealing with bullying in their lives. He still had to deal with constant bullying and just couldn’t wait for it to get better. Unfortunately he, and many like him, cannot find the light that will be at the end of the tunnel and don’t feel that those around them can protect them. It is always very sad and, in this case, just a bit sadder because of the videos he shared and the hope for him that did not come true.

Last night, Anderson Cooper covered this story in a lengthy piece, highlighting the continuing issue of bullying and trying to help find resolutions so we don’t have to read about another Bullycide victim. Below is the video for you to watch and share:

Go to www.mastersincounseling.com/50-best-blogs-on-bullying to see the full list.

CustomInk, an online t-shirt creator is involved in the “Be Good to Each Other” campaign. CustomInk created the CustomInk Three Hearts Initiative, a charitable giving and public service arm of their company, as a way to create t-shirts that actually try to help do good in the world.

T-Shirts are being created and offered through their stop bullying campaign and can be found on their website at: www.customink.com/stopbullying. All profits made from the sales of these shirts will go to “STOMP Out Bullying”, which is promoting their Love Our Children USA program. You can design your own shirt or purchase a shirt designed by one of a number of young celebrities, including Joey King (Ramona and Beezus), Oleysa Rulin (High School Musical 3), Willow Shields (The Hunger Games), the band Y i YELL! (STOMP Out Bullying™ School Advocates) and internet sensation Payton Rae.

Visit the Customlink site for more information about their program for anti-bullying month and to see their shirt and shirt program.

My name is Sarah. I’m 20 years old and I am a victim of bullying recovering from all that’s happened over the past 10-12 years.

It all started back in elementary school, when I started kindergarten at Campbell Elementary in Arvada, CO. I had friends and awesome teachers but there was one particular teacher who had something against special education students. I have autism and that was my main problem. That particular teacher told my mom AND my grandpa that I wouldn’t do any of the following because she thought I would be too retarded to do them: read books, ride a bike, write, rollerskate, take regular classes without having someone there for me, graduate high school, go to college, and many more. Well, I proved her wrong! My mom had me transfer to Fairmount Elementary in Golden, CO for my first grade year. Things were okay in the beginning up until we had our first fire drill of the school year. I cannot stand strobe lights but it was bad in elementary for me unlike now. I ended up locking myself in the girls restroom and refused to come out until the school had brought in my grandma. After that, that’s when the taunting started. I was called names like “Bucky-tooth beaver” and “freak” everywhere I went.

Throughout elementary, everybody came up with an excuse to make fun of me. Only a select few who were not in the special ed program were there for me. Jessica S, Jessica G, Veronica T, and Naomi M. These four girls helped me learn that I should stand for myself and that I’m beautiful the way I am. I felt that I should at least try to be myself around everyone. The only way I could do it was through Ice skating. That didn’t last long though because in 2002, I moved to Longmont, CO with my parents and my little sister, who was 3 at the time before her summer birthday, and started at Longs Peak Middle for my 6th grade year. New School, Fresh Start. That fresh start was all I needed.

That only lasted a few months until one thing turned my life into heck. One person took note that I hung out with special education more than the others because that was my comfort zone at the time. They then told their friends that I was a “freak” and a “loser” because I hung out with special ed. That spread like wildfire. I could barely walk through the hallways without someone saying something like “freak,” “loser,” “you’re nothing,” etc…. They even found out that my parents had divorced after winter break 2003-2004.

Every time I went to lunch, I got nervous to the point to where I ate my lunch in the girls restroom. BUT that was nothing compared to high school….. With all the name calling, pictures, etc., I thought that they were not going to give up. They actually gave up for the first few weeks of freshman year at Longmont High. I thought that with high school, things will change for me. I was half right and half wrong. Every time anything came up, I ALWAYS went to the counselor. The name calling got worse. It escalated to names that I refuse to place here. I even got threatening messages on Myspace, Facebook, in texts, emails, phone calls. I almost got to the point of suicide by the time I started my Junior year at LHS. I remember my sophomore year in LHS when I wrote a story on Bullying for the school newspaper as a project for one class and people took notice of how I felt about bullying in school.

The bullying didn’t die down until Senior year 1 (I stayed an extra semester [senior year 2] in order to get a 1/2 credit for English). In Junior year, I broke up with my then boyfriend of almost 3 1/2 years, Mick. I got text messages and voicemails from a so-called “friend,” who had decided that I was a freak and that I needed to die by calling me and saying things I’d rather not mention for its too painful to bring up. My best friends stopped talking to me because that “friend” told them lies about me talking s*** about them. I ended up going home and almost took a half bottle of asprin when my mom stopped me. She didn’t realize that the bullying had escalated to that point to where she was going to lose her oldest daughter of 2 if she didn’t do anything. I almost told her to switch me to a different school because it was that bad.

By the time senior year started, I was so withdrawn that I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I resulted to smoking, drinking, and avoiding conversation with most of the student body. There was one particular person who helped me out more than others and that was my counselor that I had since freshman year, Mr. B. He then helped me find programs to help me quit smoking, sober up, and then placed me in a therapy group to help me socialize again. Ever since I graduated Longmont High May 2010 (instead of May 2009), I became a little more sociable. I got a job with the school district, I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, May 2011 and I have been loving it since, and I have a bright future with the Medical System.

~ Sarah

All it took was an apology, and the healing began……..

Thank you AM for sharing.

The law requires all New Jersey schools to enact strict anti-bullying programs and a grading system will be publicly available to report on how schools are doing. Special jobs have been created for schools to man these programs as well. While this all sounds good, many school administrators are unhappy with the feeling that they have to police the community and supply resources to the issue with little current support systems in place by New Jersey.

The law also puts the schools in a legal spotlight with the possibility of having to deal with lawsuits from the community directly. This is putting a bigger burden on the schools. While some feel the pressure within the system, others are more positive about it. In an article in the New York Times, a few professionals has more positive feelings about enacting a strict law.

“The whole push is to incorporate the antibullying process into the culture,” Lucila Hernandez, a school psychologist, said. “We’re empowering children to use the term ‘bullying’ and to speak up for themselves and for others.”

Certainly any additional programs, particularly those with funding are a good thing. But the fear in creating strict laws is that laws are typically “black & white” and can be abused. The debate on this new law was featured on a segment of Fox News:

What do you think? Is the new law a good thing or is it opening the door for lawsuits against schools and school personnel? Should we be more active in policing ourselves in the community or do we need more laws to make bullying more of a crime?

This video told everything without needing any other visual information. The story was picked up by CBS on “The Early Show” and they shared with a teen panel some discussion around Alye’s message:

…and then others shared with and for Alye and the rest of us how they felt about her message. I’ll end with just this one and end with again being reminded, YOU ARE NOT ALONE:

Last year was a breakthrough in the awareness of bullying and the level of interest in (at least in the United States) about the issue of bullying. Our President held a conference day on bullying and started a new government sponsored website on the subject called StopBullying.gov (http://www.stopbullying.gov/).

Several court cases were heard on the subject and the legal aspect of bullying was taken more seriously. News outlets covered the subject in more detail, including a “What Would You Do?” segment on our NBC national station. Most schools and counties in the United States created a formal program around bullying and bullying awareness and are starting to put laws on the books.

And for me, I wrote a play for high schoolers to perform on the subject of bullying in conjunction with students and the drama teacher at my old High School. I also spoke to many groups on the subject of bullying, sharing my personal stories. This year, we are putting together a touring company of young men and women to perform the play “Standing By” and plan to “take the show” on the road so it can be performed for a larger audience.

But, I still ask how much are we making a difference? I know that this year will still bring stories of bullying and even extreme bullying. Some will suffer with post incident trauma and we will ask the question “why” over and over again. It takes a village to make a change. By village, I mean that it is the community, and not the school to focus on next. Schools for the most part got the message. I am not always sold that the communities surrounding the schools get it as well. Many kids are bullied aways from school. Now many are cyberbullied at home, on their mobile devices, and everywhere they go.

This year, let’s make awareness bigger than just the school. Start to focus on our community as a whole. I certainly hope that this school year is one where we see a reduced number of bullying and more bystander and community support. I do believe a difference is happening. I hope if you are reading this that you will do your part to help STAND UP and not STAND BY.

MTV and Firecracker Films are making a powerful and groundbreaking film that explores the universal stories of young people all over the world who have been affected by bullying, and gives a voice to those who want to make a stand.

So, if you’ve been bullied, are being bullied at the moment or have a story that will give others hope then please get in touch with them, as their experienced team would love to hear from you. There is absolutely no obligation to take part – they would just like to tell you more about the project and see if it’s something you’d like to be involved in. All correspondence will be dealt with in total confidence.

MTV and Firecracker Films believe this project is important and unique in giving a voice to those who have fallen victim to bullying and your help will make a difference.

They are currently looking for people between the ages of 14 to 24 to take part. If you would like to be involved in this project or just learn more, you can contact the producers at Christina.wilby@firecrackerfilms.com or yourstory@firecrackerfilms.com or call their international number at +44 (0)207 349 3492.

The photographer, Jen McKendrick, cancelled their photo sessions and wrote an email to the girls and their parents explaining why she wasn’t taking their pictures. She then shared on her blog why she did it.

“If you are ugly on the inside, I’m sorry but I won’t take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside!”

She also shared in another blog post the following:

“I have received emails from those of you from all over the world (literally) who mentioned how you were in your adult years and that the bullying still effects you. I’ve received emails from current high school students thanking me and calling me a their “hero”. I honestly don’t know how to process it all. I mean have you SEEN how many comments there were? Yesterday it was a full time job keeping up with everything. Some of your stories about bullying were just heartbreaking.

I’m not claiming to be an expert in bullying and as a matter of fact when asked by the few people that called, NO, I don’t have a first hand experience with bullying. Of course during my middle school/awkward years I’m sure there were some name calling but it was never really that bad that I didn’t want to go to school. And certainly not as bad as some of the individuals that emailed in. So I can’t stand up here and say I had been bullied, because I wasn’t. I liked to think I was friends with everyone. BUT I don’t think one has to have gone thru being bullied to stand up to it. I would like to hope that all of us could speak up if we ourselves witnessed it happening with our own eyes.”

By taking a stand, Jen is helping all who have suffered and still suffer with the cruelty that is bullying. It is not about who was bullied, but that the community take a stand against it. Jen is one player in the community. What do you think? Did she do the right thing? You can probably guess my answer. And as Jen ended one of her blog posts, I too will say. . .mean is UGLY!