October Is Anti-Bullying Awareness Month

Often I find it ironic that something that, decades ago, was considered a "rite of passage" and "just part of being a kid" and hence to be tolerated, is now a huge phenomenon and that there are many dollars, time, and resources being poured into raising awareness for it. Many nonprofits have been set up to prevent and end it. Websites, groups and pages are continually set up for it. And now an entire month is being set aside to focus on it. It was a big part of my life the determined, for the worse, what kind of education I would be fast-tracked into and made me feel robeed of a childhood and an education. I'm talking about peer abuse or what is most commonly known as bullying.

Yes, I do not think that bullying would ever come to have been taken so seriously and received so much awareness without the coming of cyberspace and cyberbullying and the high-profile cases of teens being driven to suicide because of bullying they experienced, often online. And the bullying among children is now taking place at younger and younger ages, is now being done to any children, and is being done through texting, emails, social networks, and other digital venues. Awareness does not seem, in my opinion, to be doing much to prevent or end bullying. We still hear the sad stories of bullycides and of bully survivors and their stories abound with tales of adults not taking their bullying seriously until, often, it was too late. Every time I read about or hear about one more story of another teen or even a child, taking their lives because they could not endure one more minute of being bullied, we get deeply concerned and outraged and we ought. We scream about preventing and ending the bullying. "Shame on these adults," we declare, "who do not take bullying seriously! It is THEIR FAULT that these bullycides happen! Shame, shame, shame!" And yet, this bullying does not stop or why or we still calling for more awareness events? And why does it always, without fail, take death and tragedy to get us to care enough about any human problem enough to do something about it?

Here is my bullying experience and even though the school bullying took place decades ago, I can assure you that since it is another word for peer abuse, this bullying left me with many of the same emotional scars that any other kind of abuse would leave. Abuse is abuse, no matter who does the abusing. I was a magnet for my bullies because of my differences. Adults tended to verbally or emotionally abuse me, no doubt in frustration, by making remarks such as: "You just don't want to learn," "You do it on purpose," "You will not make it in life," "You are mentally and physically lazy," "You do not have real problems; you are plain spoiled," and more. A few would lock me in closets to "teach me a lesson." My peers? They took the far more blunt approach. Many noted that in me they had a juicy target. Yes, I'm forever grateful that, along with so many in my generation and even younger, we had missed the digital age and so we did not have to deal with cyberbullying. Yet, and for the very same reason, the lack of awareness of bullying and what causes children to bully and to become the targets of bullying, added to the stress and trauma not only of the bullying itself but how adults handled it and the outcome of that intervention. Especially during my middle school years, my peers viciously bullied me. They called me names like "Retard," "Ugly," "Four-Eyes," "Stupid," Slow," and names not fit to be printed here. I spent one school year enduring this bullying on a daily basis. My peers beat me up, put cigarette lights to my hair, tripped me, grabbed my books and lunch money, and more. This all got so vicious that the educators at the school in question, in an age where there was no awareness of bullying, autism spectrum disorders, learning differences and others factors to cause children to be extra vulnerable, did not know what to do. Their solution? In consulation with my parents, they decided to place me in special classes, which I had already spent much of my childhood. Message to me? You are the problem, you need to be segregated with other problems and there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with you! Twice bullied!

And bullying is not confined, by any means, to schools or to the young. Bullying happens to adults and is done by adults. There is workplace abuse and bullying and a prime example of that is when employers scream at employees and even fire them for inappropriate reasons or the sexual harassment that can take place at the hands of co-workers or employers. I experienced something of this when, many years ago, I worked in a retail store for months and was doing okay there, until a new employer took over. I was certain that he did not like me and this was confirmed when, one day, he cornered me and declared, "Your services are no longer needed." He did give me his phone number so that I could use him as a future reference in a job search, which puzzled me. However, I learned later that most of my co-workers had not been "laid off" as I had and a few others had been. Those of us who had been "laid off" had "special needs" or issues and so I believe that this was discrimination. And cyberbullying happens to people of all ages who use social networks. About two years ago, I had applied to volunteer for an online nonprofit and was almost immediately accepted. I set up an official page for them and, within hours, the page was hacked with questionable material going out to my newly-added contacts in my name, material that I would never have sent anyone. The contacts linked with this nonprofit tried to do "damage control" for me. I made the bad choice of letting a family member get involved concerning how to fix the computer. However, the hacking continued and my rapport with those linked with the nonprofit began to deteriorate as they thought that I should find a way to get my computer fixed faster; then, they decided that I was not qualified to volunteer for them. I was told, "I spoke with the CEO and we have agreed that you will not volunteer for us because we need people who will help our nonprofit, not hinder it." The said family member, seeing that I was shocked and devastated by the nonprofit's (to me) abrupt decision, intervened and expressed anger at the volunteer co-ordinator. After that, a contact with the nonprofit stated that everyone with the nonprofit was ordered to remove me from their official Facebook profiles for the nonprofit. That happened as I saw that my numbers were going down more and more and I also saw that a number of these contacts had blocked me totally. No one had to tell me that some bad-mouthing of me had to have been going on for this all to take place!! On the eve of my birthday two years ago, I had reported an online sex offender who was brought to our attention and, minutes later, i received a friend request from him which I just ignored. That was not wise; I should have blocked him and marked the request as spam. On the morning of my birthday, I logged into facebook and posted my causes on group pages. Then I visited my homepage and was dismayed and anxious when I saw  this warning: "You are being asked to remove pornographic or other materials that are offensive to other users or else your account may be disabled." And I have seen numerous posts by adults in my networks about things that had been done to them online, hacking, impersonation, gossip, hateful comments and more, and have seen numerous hateful posts directed especially at politicians, not to mention hateful pages, websites and causes. Online bullying! It knows no age limit!

It is because of my awareness of bullying and efforts to try to avoid the appearance of bullying, including online bullying, that I get hurt when, especially in connection with my petition campaign and less often, seeking followers for this blogspot, I have been accused of bullying or peer abuse when I have expressed hurt or frustration about lack of support. Related to this, I have heard of accusations of online bullying where it seemed to me that the said individuals were venting frustration or expressing opinions. Bullying or peer abuse, like any form of abuse, actually occurs on a very broad spectrum and often wind up being very gray areas. Take the matter of spanking or any physical punishment, like putting soap in a child's mouth. Many advocates and nonprofits consider these to be a form of child abuse now, when these were very normal and even commended when I was growing up. Sexual harassment and lewd comments, made especially to a child or another vulnerable person, are considered sexual abuse today. Things like this were dismissed almost as "normal" and a "male thing" when I was growing up. I wonder if abuse, especially peer abuse, is so hard to address because often abuse is hard to pin down, define and, especially, to prove.

Then there is the issue of not merely bullying or abuse itself but of the bystander issue and what we do if we witness abuse, including peer abuse and even if, if just to fit in, we may contribute to bullying or abuse. Now, unless I'm missing something, I'm sure that many, even most of you reading this will hotly deny that you have ever been guilty of these things and have ALWAYS stood up to bullies and abusers. And you would NEVER, even to "fit in," ever have contributed to bullying! Not even as a child growing up! But I think that those of us who are more honest will admit that, being human, that there have been times, especially in childhood, that we have been bystanders, watching others being bullied but feeling powerless to stop it and so we did nothing even though we may well have felt sorry for the victim. So much bullying/bystander behavior happens because of insecurity and wanting to "fit in." I must make confessions in this regard concerning my school years. In a Girl Scout troop meeting for a church-based school (BEFORE my vicious public school bullying experience), I found myself in the VERY unusual position of, in the name of "fitting in" and being "cool," adding to the bullying of the girls who had been and who continued to bully me after the said incident. I wrote a poem disparaging the girl in question and, though it ended up in the trash and I don't think she had to see it, I still feel guilt and shame to this very day for my role in her bullying experience. All to "fit in"! And it did not keep me from further bullying by thse girls! An experience as a bystander happened when I was at a camp, possibly even BEFORE this time frame. All of us were in a pavilion doing artwork and then we ate lunch. As I recall it, a camp counselor was yelling at one of the girls and a number of my peers laughed at her. I felt sympathy for this girl but I must confess that I did not speak up in her behalf. After all, I did not even know the story but still, could this girl not have used someone coming to her defense? I still feel guilt about this, even today.

It is never ever pleasant or comfortable to even think that one's beloved, precious child can be a bully. It is bad enough to face the reality that your child may be bullied. But both must be faced as bullying is an epidemic and, at the end of this blog, I will provide the link to the Stomp Out Bullying website. This nonprofit exists to prevent and end peer abuse and the focus is exclusively children and teenagers, 17 and under. All of us who are parents and who have Internet access, would do well to explore this website, educate ourselves about bullying and cyberbullying and about how we can prevent and end it. This all applies to me now as a parent, for, as I write this, I have a daughter who is in middle school and who is vulnerable because she is on the autism spectrum. It is often said that abuse and bullying are best prevented and ended at home, by both modeling and teaching empathy, kindness and compassion. And as for those many of us who have survived or are being bullied or abused right now, there are forums and resources. I will privide a link to a site where bully survivors of any page can share stories of all types of bullying and abuse, find support and inspire others. For one thing about surviving abuse of any kind is that we can share our experiences and help, encourage and inspire others. This is often overlooked as a form of advocacy. But none of our life experiences ever are wasted if recycled to help others.

http://stompoutbullying.com/
This is the website for parents, educators, children and teenagers aged 17 and under. The site provides comprehensive information and many services for children and teenagers, to prevent and end all forms of bullying. They also link to a sister site with the Love Our Children USA and this sister site and nonprofit focuses on other forms of crime and violence against children. Stomp Out Bullying has a hotline and a live chat feature, though limited, where bullying victims can contact this nonprofit. However, when a victim is suicidal, they are directed to a suicide hotline.

http://bullyinglte.wordpress.com/category/personal-bullying
This is a website and forum for people of any age, from the youngest to adults, can share stories of surviving all forms of bullying, find support and support others.

http://www.rachelschallenge.org/
This site was set up by the father of Rachel Scott, the first shooting victim in the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. During the final years of her short life, Rachel expressed her deep Christian faith through living a life full of acts of kindness, compassion and caring, in school and out of it. Her father began this nonpartisan, nonreligious nonprofit, along with family members and others connected with Columbine. They travel all over the US and share Rachel's story in any setting where they are invited, passionately seeking to prevent and end peer abuse by spreading a message of living lives of love, empathy, kindness and compassion.

http://peerabuse.net
This is the one and only website that is devoted to adult survivors of peer abuse.

Autism Affects Us All: Please Sign & Keep Sharing The Petition

If you are one of the many thousands who are in one or both of My Facebook social networks, and have not hidden me in your Newsfeed, you no doubt are aware of my Change.org petition. I began this petition in early May of this year and as of this writing, this petition campaign is about six months old and I have over 1400 signatures on the petition itself. Many of these signatures come from those in my networks but a good number come from those outside my networks, who learned of my petition through others sharing it with them or through finding out about it through my posts of my link on group pages or fan pages. I cannot stress enough that I'm grateful to each and every person who has taken a few minutes to visit the Change.org site at: http://tiny.cc/mrsahw or at my widget at my website (under construction) at this following link: http://caringenoughtomakeadifference.com. I value your support, your signatures and especially, those of you who join me in circulating this petition and calling on others outside my networks to sign it!

As I have many thousands of people in my networks and not all the signatures have come from those in my networks, this means that probably some 1000 of the signatures come from those in my social networks; this means that the majority of those whom I have shared this petition with have not seen fit to visit my website or the Change.org site to sign the petition, much less to circulate it. I am not judging those many in this majority of thse people who have not signed this petition. I can only ask myself: What are they thinking? What are they missing? What do I need to do to motivate them to support this effort? And, especially, I ask myself these questions when those in the autism community itself, who would stand to directly benefit from the success of this petition, decide that they are not going to sign or circulate this petition. I have been given reasons as to why people in AND out of the autism community are not signing and others I have come up with through common sense and circumstantial evidence and observations of people's behavior.

1). I have signed many petitions; what good do petitions do anyway and do they REALLY make a difference? I fully sympathize with all of you who feel this way! I, too, am asked to sign many, many a petition on a daily basis. I have signed many of those petitions that I have been asked to sign and have circulated those which I consider to be vitally important and involve the well-being of people or individuals whose cases touch me most. Lately, though, with the current condition of the slow loading of my computer and the sheer volume of petitions that are posted on my Facebook, I now sign only a few. However, I sign petitions when personally asked and I think many other people are the same way. As for the question about whether petitions actually make a difference, take the example of the Change.org petition to a motion picture association to lower the ratings on the "Bully" movie. A 17-year-old girl has created this petition and she came to the attention of celebrities and the media; she appeared on four TV shows, including on CNN's Anderson Cooper. As a result of her petition "going viral" and coming to national attention, politicians paid attention and, as a result, the "Bully" movie has no rating; it is "Unrated." This is one example of a HUGELY successful petition. However, this girl's petition could not have succeeded without the support of many caring citizens. This is the case for any petition, campaign or cause.

2). This has no effect on my life or my family's life and this is not my passion or cause. I have observed, in person and online, that so many people have no desire to get involved in any cause and don't see how they can make a difference. And I have also noticed that many advocates are "hardcore," one-cause, one-issue advocates who do not support anything else that will "take the focus off" their causes or cases. Being such an advocate is far superior to not advocating for anything at all and from the standpoint of many causes, maybe such single-mindedness is needed. I have seen a number of people post things like, "Stop posting your causes or petitions on my Facebook. I'm here to finding missing people (or to solve a certain case) and your causes just take the focus off what I'm trying to do." One person has posted, "Stop posting your causes and petitions that I'm not passionate about." In the cases of such hardcore, one-issue people, I may invite them personally and attempt to relate my petition, if possible, to their cause or trying to educate them about autism and how it affects all of us. Sometimes this works and more often, these persons do not pay attention. As for those who desire no involvement in any cause, there is little that I see fit to do that can change their minds and I have mentally let go of any notion of getting the support of these persons in my social networks. If you are one who are reading this and wonder what difference you can make and would like to make a difference, you can! You can sign my petition at: http://tiny.cc/mrsahw or you can sign it at my website at: http://caringenoughtomakeadifference.com. You will make a difference!

3). Why autism and not any other disability group? I have been asked why I have not made this petition more inclusive and include ALL adults with developmental disabilities. I can understand the reasoning behind this one and why many would feel left out. But I focus on autism because it is a relatively new field and because adults with autism are often forgotten in the quest to help children with autism. And adults with autism are the most unemployed disability group of them all, over 70 percent. Even adults with Down's Syndrome or other intellectual or mental challenges have more support services and awareness. I wonder if this is why some disability advocates have not shown support for me in any way. I'm sorry for this but when creating a petition, it is most effective when it is specific and focused. I do not mean to ignore other disability groups but to focus on the group with the least awareness and which is tied into my own personal experience. And people with autism often have other disabilities, including epilepsy, leaning disabilities and even Down's Syndrome, among other developmental disabilities. For this reason alone, all disability advocates are wise if they sign and circulate this petition.

4). My child will are has "outgrown" autism; I'm trying to find a cure, so don't tell me that children with autism become adults with autism! I do not want to get into the politics and controversies in autism, only as I have seen that it affects the willingness of many in the autism community, parents with children especially, to sign my petition. One person has cited this as his reason for not supporting this petition. I have no doubt that early childhood intervention can help some children so completely that they show few or virtually no autistic traits as they get older. I have heard of a few of such cases. But there is evidence that most adults with autism, even if they are fortunate enough to have had and made much progress in early childhood intervention, still need services as adults for the rest of their lives. I can understand why many parents would like to think that their children will "ourgrow" a condition that they do not link with happiness, but the evidence is that autism is a lifelong, neurological condition and its "symptoms" can be modified and controlled, but they will not really be "outgrown" or disappear. Even if you are one of those fortunate parents/guardians whose loved one seems to have grown out of all autistic traits, would you begrudge the majority of other families the safety net of services for their grown children, to ensure their peace of mind? Would you begrudge society the benefits of the contributions of many adults who now live "on the public dole" and would much rather know the dignity of gainful employment or their own businesses? You, too, need to sign this petition because you are a part of society.

5). The petition creator (myself) lacks sufficient credibility because I lack an official diagnosis or am employing questionable tactics in promoting this petition (bullying, spamming): The content of a petition should be the reason for supporting a petition or a cause, not your feelings about the advocate or the petition creator. Yes, I know that in a way, it is impossible to separate an advocate from his or her work and I FULLY agree that any advocate ought to establish credibility. I have always sought to do this and with most, I seem to have credibility. A couple of weeks ago, a person in the autism community saw my status on my petition, posted in his Facebook group, where I was venting about lack of support and had capitalized a few words for emphasis. He challenged me to take an online survey of adults with autism and to ask them what they though of the petition. So I took this challenge and I posted my request to adults with autism to honestly share their concerns, thoughts and even objections, to my petition. I had thought that I would be asked to edit the content in my petition title or the letter. I was NOT prepared for the person who posted a request, saying something like: "You need to go out and get yourself an official diagnosis before telling your own story as anything you say is based not on facts or evidence but on your opinion or speculation" When I posted about my obstacles in getting that diagnosis, this person said: "Then you need to stick with facts and evidence. You should remove yourself and your own story from it and just present yourself as a parent with a child with the diagnosis and what this would mean for your daughter's future." This hurt me deeply as I felt that it said that my own life and story carry no value in helping others or redeeming my own life. And in the same thread, that evening, a person mentioned my bullying tactics and my "rudeness" in wording certain things the way I did or capitalizing words. On another day, another person agreed with my critic. I have been accused of peer abuse by two other persons, in my network on my second account, and have been told, "Good luch in gathering signatures!" Another person had complained, saying: "I don't like getting multiple invites." To all such people, I say: Yes, I agree that I should be a credible advocate. I am fighting to get an official diagnosis and have an appointment scheduled for early January and not just for this petition, but for myself. I try to avoid spamming and limit the number of invites I send to people a day in any format on any of my materials. And I have always gone out of my way to be helpful and accommodating to people and encourage, not scold or badger, anyone into supporting me; always, I thank my supporters when I learn that someone has signed and I am able to thank them. Yes, I know that I have no doubt made mistakes but I assure these persons that I'm doing the best I can and that they need to pay attention to my petition's actual content and why I have created it and its purpose, not my delivery style.

6). I'm not in the US, petitions hack profiles, I don't want my signature public, and so forth. I can understand all these concerns as Change.org automatically assigns each signer an account when he or she first signs a petition on the site. And they do request, among other things, each signer's address. And the option to sign petitions located in the US does not always show up to those outside the US. But, more recently, on my petition, the option for those outside the US to sign has been introduced for those outside the US who may be interested in signing and showing support. I have not, or have ever heard of, anyone ever getting their sites or their pages hacked because they have signed a petition at the Change.org site. Correct me if I'm wrong on this or am missing something. Anyone who is at least 13 and has a valid email address is allowed to sign petitions, at least at the Change.org site. Though you are asked for your address, your address is NOT made public. Only your name, the date you signed and your zip code are made public. But if you want to keep your name private, you can uncheck the box that says "Display My Name Publicly." And your information will not show; it will only be seen by the targets of the petition, who, in the case of my petition, are the US President, both Houses of the US Congress, my Missouri Governor and both Houses of the Missouri Congress. The only people, in my opinion, who truly have a valid reason or excuse to not take a few minutes to add their signatures to my petition, are those with no computer access, who have no email accounts, who are under age 13, or who are currently in life and death circumstances (medical emergencies, etc.). And if you really want to make a difference and show support, you can! If you have not signed my petition, you can visit the Change.org site at my shortened link: http://tiny.cc/mrsahw or visit my website and sign it on the widget: http://caringenoughtomakeadifference.com. Once you have signed or if you have already signed (thank you!), you can use the "share" options at the site or my site, and circulate my petition. For this is not really MY petition; it is OUR petition. It will not succeed with YOU!