Whether you’re a classroom teacher, a student, or parent – understanding an issue like bullying is incredibly important. This infographic by Nova Southeastern University’s Masters Degree in Education Program covers many key components of the bullying conversation and ways to address the issue:
Jen Martinson of Secure Thoughts contacted me with this very important and interesting infographic for cyberbullying that Secure Thoughts developed. I asked her if I could share and she also shared the below message with me for you to read. Thank you to Secure Thoughts for all the important work they are doing. Check out their website. ~Alan Eisenberg
A lot of us know what bullying feels like, but in recent years, an even more prevalent trend has been the onset of cyberbullying. This means using the internet—whether it’s social media, email, or another medium—to attack a victim, making them feel harassed, embarrassed, or some other nasty combination of feelings. It’s ridiculously prevalent amongst teens, with some studies estimating that 70% of teens will experience cyberbullying at some point…and yet most adults are unaware or unworried about this phenomenon, which can cause students to miss school, use drugs or alcohol, or even have long-term health problems or self-esteem issues! You can see an informative Infographic at Secure Thoughts.
Here are some things you need to make sure you’re doing:
But the real, number one thing you’ll want to make sure you’re doing is educating yourself—knowing what risks there are and working to prevent against them. For more information, let’s take a look at this infographic:
Three years ago, I fell into a depression. This should not have surprised me, as I started a website called “The Long-term Effects of Bullying”. Unfortunately, I knew that what I wrote was true, but thought that I had been recovered. But it wasn’t so. As anxiety and then depression overwhelmed my whole being, I truly realized, even 5 years after starting this website, that I still needed help myself.
I did have choices. I could continue to do nothing and blame my low self-worth and my anger and resentment on the bullying that happened to me as a youth. I could take medicine that would mask many of the symptoms, but never fully cure me. Or I could seek true help from both books, groups who deal with the same thing, and professionals who knew ways to help people like me.
I think you know that I took the third option. It was still a long two-year climb out of depression and anxiety, but it does and for me did get better. Of course the biggest challenge was to come face to face with the bullying that I went through and accept it was in the past and could not be changed. Then, and only then, could I move forward.
Today, I am happy to say that I have and will continue to realize my true dream, which was always to help bullying survivors to overcome and thrive in life. Is it a lot of work? Yes, of course, because every day we see the results of bullying in national news where another child has taken their life, or a county is being sued, or new statistics come out.
Before I fell into depression, I had set some goals for myself. Many goals I couldn’t realize, because I didn’t have the self-confidence to move along with them.
1. Start a real company to try to help bullying survivors recover
2. Write a book of my experience with bullying
I am happy to say, that you can turn bad into good and I have now met both those goals and am moving forward on this journey that I hope you will continue with me on.
In February, I started my company called Bullying Recovery. It will work on many ways to try to reach out and help both bullying survivors and long-term bully to find recovery and move forward to thrive in life.
I am also happy to announce that Bullying Recovery’s first product is my biography, called “A Ladder In The Dark”. It is my story of how bullying changed my life, the long-term effects (C-PTSD) that I went through, and how I found my recovery through the help of many people. My book is now available worldwide through Amazon and Smashwords.
So, I am here to tell you that dreams can come true and that you can get better and meet your goals if you let yourself find a way out of the hole. Three years ago, I thought my life and good days were over. Today, I believe that my good days are still in front of me and it feels amazing. It was very hard work (probably the hardest work in my life), but now I feel that I am truly healed of my bullying damage. There are and always will be some scars, but I hardly notice them anymore.
I also want to share another good thing that has come out of the bad of my bullying. Along the way, I have met a wonderful community of people who also share the vision to help deal with bullying issues. Recently I met Dr. Robert Wright, Jr. and Christine Wright, M.A. of the company “Stress Free Now”. They had found me through another group that liked what I was doing and interviewed me and wanted to do a Podcast with me. We talked through email the phone and realized that we enjoyed what each other was saying and doing.
They are both amazing people and I now communicate with them often and we share our visions. After we did the Podcast, they have continued to support and help me. You can listen to our Podcast called “Bullying: How to Heal the Hurt” through the following links:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/stress-free-now/id991567073
Stitcher Radio: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stressfreenow?refid=stpr
Podomatic: http://stressfreenow.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-19T06_25_34-07_00
StressFreeNow: http://www.stressfreenow.info/alan-eisenberg-discusses-bullying-how-to-heal-the-hurt/
I can’t even begin to explain how grateful I am to Bob and Christine and how wonderful it feels now to realize you are not alone and that a community is out there to support you or me or whoever needs the help. I am just one voice in this wonderful community of people who understand that bullying is not only wrong, but damaging and that we can make a difference.
Please consider reading my book, joining a discussion on my new business website and being a part of this community. If you are currently in pain, due to bullying, reach out and we will answer. You are never alone. I was never alone. After 8 years of sharing with you my thoughts and stories, I can finally say with all honesty that I believe it can get better if you let it and seek out the help you may need to overcome a tough mental challenge. Here’s to the future and the bright glow of a day when we can say we have made a change in the issue of bullying and the damage it does.
I am happy to announce that, after eight years of blogging about the long-term effects of bullying, doing countless speeches to groups on the subject, and fighting for the issue to be recognized, that I am adding author to the mix of learning. Ironically a new study in England shows that bullying does have a correlation to adult depression. I don’t call this good news, but just news that we needed to hear. Hopefully it will lead to further change.
But first, I am getting set to release in book Paperback and eBook format my book titled “A Ladder In The Dark: My journey from bullying to self-acceptance”. For long-term readers of this website, this book is not a surprise as I mentioned it at the beginning of the year.
So what is “A Ladder In The Dark” and why did I title it that?
Good question, the ladder is symbolic for the idea of being in a very dark place, which seems to have no escape, because it’s too dark to see. But for me, there was a ladder in this dark hole that I call anxiety and depression from youth bullying, but I couldn’t see it to escape. The book is about my journey of how I got to this hole and how I did finally find the way out. The book is a biography of what I went through and how I finally found my self-esteem years after the end of bullying, dealing with anxiety, and a dark depression.
For those interested, you can read and review the first chapter of “A Ladder In the Dark” at the Createspace site. I also have a video commercial for the book so you can learn more. I will announce here when it is released, planned for July 2015. I am very excited to share this announcement with you and look forward to your feedback:
Please share any feedback at the Createspace site or here on the blog site. Also visit my new company website at bullyingrecovery.org to learn about the other ways I am working to help change minds on the subject of the long-term effects of bullying.
~Alan Eisenberg
This is the second in my repeats of stories past as I have been writing my novel. I think many kids feared sewers, particularly after Stephen King released “IT”, certainly a book that tied to the fear of sewers. Since writing this story many years ago, I realize that things like feeling trapped or claustrophobic are common place feelings for people with C-PTSD damage from bullying or abuse. It is the idea of not being able to escape. To help confront this, I would force myself to sit in the middle at movie theaters, go to the barber and try not to panic in the barber chair and go to crowded places. Even though I wanted to run away at the height of my anxiety, I forced myself to stay through the panic attack and eventually, I stopped having them. There is only one way to go with anxiety, and that is confront it head on and go through it. Just as the kids who become adults do in Stephen King’s novel, IT. ~Alan Eisenberg
I have mentioned before how our brains have a tendency to put certain memories in the far backs of our heads. They are forgotten there, until sometimes a trigger can bring them forward.
Pretty much all of my stories I have told on this blog are from my days in Lexington, MA. But, something triggered me to remember the earliest incident I can recall the other day. I’ll call this the Sewer Incident. It’s more of a minor story, but still was an early bullying in my life. I don’t know why I had forgotten it, because when I recalled it, I realized how scary it was when I was only 6 years old in 1974.
We were living in Bowie, MD at the time. I was in 1st grade and took a long bus ride to school. I recall only fleeting memories of what happened, but my older sister was with me to help me recall more.
The bus stop was at a sewer. I was a pretty small kid and, of course, there were kindergarten to 6th grade kids at the bus. One of the older kids had taken the sewer cap off the sewer. Of course these were very heavy metal things.
For some reason they chose me that day. They put me down in the sewer. I can’t recall if it was a bet or just a forced concept, but they made me climb down there. Then they put the lid back on it.
It was dark. I yelled for them to let me up. Instead they sat on it and taunted me from below. I recall just crying and being quite scared. Years later, the author Stephen King made me realize I was not alone in my fears of the dark sewer in his book “IT”.
My sister was yelling for them to stop and let me up. When they didn’t, she started running home and told them she was going to get my parents to come down. Once they heard that, they changed their minds and let me out.
OK, not the worst story and probably more of a joke to them than true bullying, but still something that scared a small 6 year old. I recall years later being offered the chance to go down the sewers at my college for what was billed as a fun night of sewer running by my college friends. I respectfully declined the invitation.
Sarah Bends shared a wonderful infographic about Cyberbullying with me to share with you. For those that have been following the infographic movement, it is such a great and creative way for communication artists to share information in a graphical setting. I hope you enjoy Sarah’s great infographic as much as I do. While it is a tough subject, her infographic makes the information easy to understand. To see Sarah’s site and the graphic on it directly, go to: http://www.calera.biz/what-is-cyberbullying-infographic. Thanks, Sarah for sharing.
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Bullying Stories 