A Link Between Bullying and Future Mental or Emotional Disturbance?

Just two weekends ago, a bitter, rage-filled young man went on a shooting rampage, killing six people, injuring thirteen others and then completing suicide. In his chilling video, he details his perception of himself as a victim and lays out "my day of retribution." Before this, no one had any idea that this young man felt this rage at the world. Even his parents did not know this, until they found his tape and contacted police. Some twelve years ago, two boys took pipe bombs and guns to their school; they focused their killing spree on their school. They killed twelve students and one coach. Then they took their own lives. Reports cited their stored-up angers and rage at being bully victims. Their school was reportedly one with a clear pecking order and a social stratification system. They were outcasts and wanted others to feel their pain. Many young people have ended their lives because they could not take being bullied one more minute. Suicide and suicide-homicide. See a link between childhood bullying and later severe emotional disturbances?

What Is Bullying?

We need to be responsible in the use of the word "bullying." First of all, bullying is not a mere nasty remark. It is not good-natured teasing. It is not words of disagreement or debate or critique. Bullying a a pattern of behaviors, physical, verbal, or sexual, that are abusive of one's peers. A Facebook friend of mine is making it her mission to get it officially titled "peer abuse" so it will be taken as seriously as any other form of abuse. Though awareness of bullying has much increased over the past few decades, many reports indicate that still too little is done by some schools and the victims are blamed and treated as the problem. There was a high-profile incident where it was debated whether one news anchor was actually bullied or not. It involved a single incident, not a pattern of behaviors against her. Some opined, "She was not bullied; she just experienced one bad incident. We need to stop overusing the word bullying." I would say it also depends on the severity of a one-time incident. Some may prefer to talk about specific "bullying behaviors." There is some debate in how inclusive we should make the word "bullying." But there ought to be no disagreement on how bullying, especially severe childhood bullying, affects the victim!

Why Is Bullying Set Apart from All Other Abuse?

In the past several decades, much awareness has been brought to all form of abuse. This includes domestic violence and child abuse. We know that many victims of childhood abuse at home suffer from emotional disturbances and some end up as products of their environments. They end up abusing their children and partners or spouses. Even when we became aware of childhood bullying, we still officially classified it as "bullying" and not as a form of abuse. A person in my network is devoted to changing this and to make the term "peer abuse" the term, rather than bullying. The idea is that in classifying bullying as abuse of peers by peers, that it will be taken more seriously. This is much needed. It is clear that the emotional effects of severe childhood bullying are identical to the effects of serious abuse at home. Victims of any type of abuse, no matter what form it is in, often live with the same feelings of insecurity, shame-based identity, depression, anxiety, anger, confusion, fear, even rage. I know that many will argue that childhood bullying should be placed in a different category from all other forms of abuse because the offenders are minors. Still, what is the difference between bullying and all other forms of abuse?

What Causes Suicide?

We have become aware of bullying only with the advent of technology and the cyber-bullying-motivated suicides of some young people. Online bullying added another dimension to bullying, giving bullies more to work with. Before that, bullying was almost a "necessary evil" or a "rite of passage" that most children had to go through on the way to maturity. In these decades, suicides have greatly increased in another segment of the population: Veterans. When I was discussing this with my mom and her boyfriend recently, her boyfriend (a veteran of Korea and Vietnam wars) said: "It is because they are being raised differently today." Suicides are said to be rising among the middle-aged. Can it be that life has become cheaper, including our own lives? Can this make it harder to preserve the will to live when life falls apart? Can this decreasing value of life make it easier to turn to killing "to solve our problems" or give way to sheer jealousy, greed, or revenge? So, with ever-rising rates of suicide among other segments of the population, can we say that bullying itself causes suicide? If that is so, many more of our youth would be ending their lives! Studies show that it is not really the bullying itself that is the trigger, but how it is handled by family and educators. If that is the case, then we can make a difference!

My Experience

Growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, I experienced more than my share of bullying. That was due to the differences in my behavior, co-ordination and how I dressed. I experienced bullying in elementary and middle-school (back then called "junior high", but this bullying intensified when I entered a 9th grade. It was my first year at one local public school. Apparently, my peers picked up on my differences almost right away. My year there was a blur of one incident after another, where my peers cursed me, calling me names that aren't fit to print here. They hit me, beat me, spit on me, tripped me, stole my money, destroyed my school books, and put lighters to my head. This was done on the sly. My parents had tried to get the Law Enforcement involved once, but they saw my bullies' home life as too much of a factor justifying why they shouldn't get involved. Apparently it was brought to the school's attention. In response, who was removed from this school and sent to public special schools for the rest of her school career? Who had to wear the label "behaviorally-disorder"? I did! During the summer, I had to take testing for special school district placement and the following year, I found myself in a public special school. And my aggressive peers there were much like the students I was separated from. I was in smaller classes, but watered-down curriculum and stigma made the rest of my school career (and life) as miserable as that year at the "regular school." I was treated as the problem, and I felt that I was blamed as the victim! Because of not only the bullying but how it was handled, I entered adulthood with the emotional baggage of much social anxiety, obsessive-compulsiveness, depression, petty jealousies, and a shame-based, insecure identity. I was well-known for being "hyper-sensitive" and "touchy."

Simple Ways to Prevent Future "Bullycides" and Mass Shootings

Following all the news about bullying victims, how bullying is a reported motive behind so many suicides and some homicides, we can conclude some things. First, when children are not treated well, we as a society pay for it. Many families are left wounded because of "bullycides" of their children. Many families are left wounded by the mass murders of some people who have externalized their hurts and have taken revenge on society. Their lives will never, never be the same. The same principle is just the same as with other forms of abuse: The victim is at higher risk than others to become products of their environments, without proper counseling and healing. We all need to be kind and compassionate toward everyone, even toward those who are "odd" or "different." We parents need to teach our children to be kind and compassionate, through word and example. These simple steps can prevent future "bully-cides" and mass shootings through removal of any motive for people to do those things. How simple can that be?

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.

Abuse By Other Names

     If you have been following the news, I'm sure you are awareness of the firestorm of protests and controversy of a statement that the Rep. Todd Atkin had made, where he stated that women who are "truly raped" will not get pregnant because their bodies "turn on a mechanism" in response to this traumatic experience. And he is not the only "pro-life" person who has made such a remark, I have read similar remarks in life-affirming books to to prop up their case that abortion should not be available to women who get pregnant as a result of rape or incest. This argument does not hold up because many women get pregnant even in situations of great stress or trauma. I will not be getting into any discussion about life/choice arguments here; I only brought this up because of the efforts such statements make of calling abuse or crime another name or redefining it.
     Social networks have proved to be a wonderful networks for many, many people to share their experiences of abuse, crime or trauma and to give and receive support, as well as validation for their perseverence, strength and courage to weather their storms and to emerge as better people. "I am a survivor of abuse," many Facebook users and bloggers and other social networkers proclaim on their profiles. I cannot count all the posts and comments where people have stated, "I have survived abuse" and this simple statement and calling themselves "survivors of abuse" seems to garner support, sympathy, attention and validation for them for what inspirational people they are, to have suffered and to share about their abuse. I know that many people use social networks almost solely to receive support from others and to heal from pasts of abuse or crime, or at least it is clear that they are using social networks for this reason.
     I remember that, on my birthday two years ago, I experienced the shock of getting up, logging into Facebook to post my causes on group pages, when my eyes turned to my home page and I could NOT miss this warning, "Because you have posted pornographic material or other materials that are deemed offensive to other users, you are receiving this warning to immediately remove these offensive materials or your account may be terminated." I was startled! What?! But I knew who was behind this one. The evening before, I had reported a sex offender whose highly offensive profile photo, which was of a sexual organ, was up on his profile and his screenname was so obscene that it is unfit to print here. I felt that it was my moral obligation to report someone who was an obvious danger to the public, certainly to online users, including minors who use our networks! That evening, I received a friend request from the person whom I just reported, which I should have seen as a bright red flag, blocked and reported immediately. Unfortunately, I did not do that. I just ignored the request, hoping it would go away. I went to bed soon after, excited about my birthday but I found that I was in for a very rude awakening when I saw that warning that Facebook sent to me; clearly, this person had tried to add me, only to steal my online identity and report himself as a sex offender, impersonating ME!
     I was so upset that I did not know what to do. I was upset with how Facebook seemed so unresonsive to its users when they have complaint, and legitimate ones. And yet they take this online impersonator's compaint seriously! I posted on a group page about this, hoping to get a sympathetic comment. I visited the page, and soon another person, in response to the page status update about the value of people, said something like, "I don't trust anyone but those in my family. My boyfriend ruined my ability to trust people. He raped me years ago and so, as a result, I AM NOBODYS FOOL." And the person (s) who was running the page at the time, missed my comment about my cyberbullying experience and wrote a long, supportive and validating comment to the person whose comment "trumped" mine and said that their nonprofit would "be there for her" and render her support whenever she needed. I was indeed sorry that this person has experienced the trauma of being raped by a "boyfriend" and, judging from later comments, where she said she had "worked through the rape," she was doing okay and had made the transition from victim to survivor.
     I bring this experience up which I had on my birthday, because it shows that there are one form of abuse, whether it is done in person or online, that is taken less seriously than other forms of abuse and is never called abuse. Instead, it is called bullying and it seems that the very term suggests that it is therefore does not qualify to be called abuse. Was that why the administrator of that page picked up on that user's comments about an experience which everyone would define as abuse, and missed mine in the shuffle because her post was apparently compelled more attention because she was talking about what anyone would call traumatic? You have no doubt guessed that I'm talking about bullying, whether in person or online, being singled out not as abuse but meriting another name. And why? Is it not abuse because the abusive acts are much the same as are other abusve acts. In the case of bullying, whether the acts are being done by children to other children, or by adults to other adults, the acts committed have much the same impact on the victims as do similar acts of abuse committed by non-peers.
     Many years ago, a story of a 15 year old girl's rape was made public because of the controvasy surrounding it. Why the controversy? The rape was commit by her peers! Because it was done to her by some boys and they were claiming that "she had consented," her parents had much trouble getting her rape classified as rape and, with their daughter's brave permission, made this story public because they wanted rape to be trated as that even when it was done by one peer to another. Why does our society minimize abuse and crime when it is done peer to peer? I don't understand. About the only time violent acts by peers against peers seem to be taken seriously, are when people, young or older, react in pent-up rage to past bullying by striking back and "more than leveling the playing field" by taking their peers' lives. I wonder, would thse massacres have happened if someone had taken their concerns about being excluded, rejected and bullied, seriously?
     In my years on social networks, I have read many survivor stories of people have have experienced many different forms of abuse and there are many social networking sites, nonprofits and
websites set up for survivors of all different forms of abuse. Only recently have I seen anything for survivors of peer abuse, and there are far fewer resources for adult survivors of this form of abuse than there are for survivors of any other form of abuse. I think that many people, even now, see bullying as a "phase" and a "part of being a kid" and so it keeps being minimized. And, lest we forget, bullying is NOT just to by children and teens to other children and teens. It is also done by adults to other adults! For example, over two years ago, I experienced what I count to be cyberbullying, pure and simple, though the online bullies would certainly call it anything but! I had signed up to be a volunteer for a respected nonprofit because I had a number of their volunteers and staff members in my social networks already, and a few had taken a real interest in me. For about a week, things were okay, though dealings between this nonprofit, my family and me broke down and became a disaster. This nonprofit dismissed me as a volunteer, which was upsetting enough to me. But, what was much worse, I was told that everyone was under orders to remove me from their social networks on their official pages for the nonprofit. Some of their volunteers went beyond this and blocked me completely from their personal and official Facebook pages. I felt betrayed and deeply hurt and, as this was around the holidays, this saddened my holidays. What was hardest about it all was knowing that this nonprofit KNEW BETTER and, to this day, has many supporters who are in my network.
     I have often recounted my many experiences with peer abuse in my childhood and teen years because of my differences, and my sometimes experiences of emotion, and even physical abuse by adults, also for this same reason. It is said that certain children and teens are prime targets for bullying and they have the same traits of those who are extra vulnerable to other forms of abuse or crime. For thse same reasons and because abuse hurts, including when done peer to peer, it leaves the same type of emotional scars no matter who has done the abuse or no matter what form this abuse takes. Especially if this abuse is done to children or teens with developing self-concepts and growing bodies, it is especially devastating and has the most long-term effects on a person's self-concept and personality. Even today, I am still quite sensitive (many would and have said, "hypersensitive") largely because of my background. No matter what form (s) of abuse one may be a survivor of, one's scars will be much the same.
     There is a rapidly-growing, new Facebook cause called, "Let's Fight Against Peer Abuse," which has the mission of changing the term bullying to what it should be--peer abuse. The fact that this Facebook cause is growing rapidly is the recognition that people have is that abuse is abuse, no matter who does it and who it is done to. Abuse is abuse.