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Thread: (Cyber) bullying

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    Belgium Avalon Member Violet's Avatar
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    Default (Cyber) bullying

    Last week Belgium lost a 13 y.o. child who was being bullied at school. The kid committed suicide. (full story, kindly machine translate )

    Today prominent in the news: a girl of around the same age was being attacked by female classmates at a bus stop and people were just standing by. (I chose this source, because the victim's father asked to stop sharing the video and various news sites - undeterred - provide the video along with the story. And Avalonians are not like that Oh, machine transl. needed. It's Dutch.)

    And this happens in all countries and online too (= cyber bullying).

    So, naturally, and sadly, when victims appear, the debate reappears too.

    I say re-appear because this anti-bullying awareness campaigns have been implemented since I was still in high school. So, efforts have and are being made but the question must also be: why is it not working? Obviously, long enough time has gone over it and there needs to be an assessment of approach.

    I can only give an account of how we reacted in class at the time when these campaigns came by. It wasn't taken seriously. The students all gave their opinion on bullying. Of course no one is going to say they are a bully or they approve. Suddenly in such class conversations, the bullies themselves, thought bullying was a horrible thing.

    It's typical for bullying. And also important, parents (both of bullies and victims), how should they be involved?

    I will make an extra effort to think along about alternatives to current campaigns. But in the meanwhile, I wanted to have it mentioned here, even if just as that light bulb that says: Oh, yea, bullying, it still exists, and it kills too...

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    Avalon Member Flash's Avatar
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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    A whole thread here on bullying with all kind of potential help if needed

    https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...light=bullying

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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Quote Posted by Violet (here)
    Last week Belgium lost a 13 y.o. child who was being bullied at school. The kid committed suicide. (full story, kindly machine translate )

    Today prominent in the news: a girl of around the same age was being attacked by female classmates at a bus stop and people were just standing by. (I chose this source, because the victim's father asked to stop sharing the video and various news sites - undeterred - provide the video along with the story. And Avalonians are not like that Oh, machine transl. needed. It's Dutch.)
    The second story is reminiscent of the bullying of another girl (called Kaylee, I think) at a bus stop in Roeselare -- same province, same country -- a few years ago. There too the aggression was filmed (by one of the bullies) and uploaded to Facebook.

    Quote Posted by Violet (here)
    And this happens in all countries and online too (= cyber bullying).

    So, naturally, and sadly, when victims appear, the debate reappears too.

    I say re-appear because this anti-bullying awareness campaigns have been implemented since I was still in high school. So, efforts have and are being made but the question must also be: why is it not working? Obviously, long enough time has gone over it and there needs to be an assessment of approach.

    I can only give an account of how we reacted in class at the time when these campaigns came by. It wasn't taken seriously. The students all gave their opinion on bullying. Of course no one is going to say they are a bully or they approve. Suddenly in such class conversations, the bullies themselves, thought bullying was a horrible thing.

    It's typical for bullying. And also important, parents (both of bullies and victims), how should they be involved?

    I will make an extra effort to think along about alternatives to current campaigns. But in the meanwhile, I wanted to have it mentioned here, even if just as that light bulb that says: Oh, yea, bullying, it still exists, and it kills too...
    I recognize the situation all too well. I too have always been bullied at school. Usually by older kids -- this continued on the school bus -- but up until I entered high school, I always had friends to hang out with, and people who would on occasion stand up for me when things got out of hand. Alas, when I entered high school, this was no longer the case. I was on my own, and I had nobody to turn to anymore.

    The bullying within my class group started by a guy with whom I had more or less grown up -- we were from the same village, and had attended preschool and part of elementary school together. He was (and had always been) an alpha male, and even though it was not my intent to compete with him, there was always somewhat of a race between him and myself in elementary school over who was the second best student of the class, and who was third -- the number one student of the class was always the same kid, and he was actually very nice. The alpha male guy however never was a friend of mine, even though he made it appear a few times that he was, but that was just a cover for his attempt to manipulate me and make himself look "the cooler guy".

    Either way, so when I entered high school, that particular guy was placed in my class group, and he immediately started working himself up as the leader of the pack, always sitting in the back row -- traditionally, that's the place of the classroom where you'd find the troublemakers. He started the bullying, and even though he left the school after that one year in order to attend a different educational direction, his best buddy -- a guy who in hindsight must have been afflicted with ADHD -- then took over as pack leader, and the bullying continued unabatedly.

    I tried every possible approach in the book, from ignoring them -- which is what my parents told me to do -- over trying to reason with them, up to using physical violence. After all, they too were physically violent towards me, albeit that the bullying was usually verbal, social, psychological and by way of "pranks". But nothing worked. My parents had their own problems, so they simply told me to "deal with it", and then conveniently forgot that the whole thing was even taking place, except of course when there were visible signs of what had happened, such as when I came home from school with a torn coat, or unable to speak because my chest had been pounded upon by four to six people during the last class hour of the day -- it was a chemistry class, which took place in the school's laboratory classroom, so seating arrangement was different, and the teacher was just an inexperienced temp -- one whom we had for only a single class hour -- because our regular chemistry teacher was ill, and that temp didn't dare stand up to those bullies, some of whom were taller than him.

    When my parents then called the school, they usually got to hear either that "This sort of thing does not happen in our school" or that "Your son is eliciting this behavior himself, and he is doing it consciously so as to be at the center of attention." Neither of which was true, of course. Commonly, the perpetrators weren't even punished. The school simply ignored it, and certain teachers did indeed accuse me of eliciting the bullying myself so as to get attention. And that latter part had a nasty side effect, because my parents unconditionally believed anything a teacher or principal would say and would automatically assume that I was not telling the truth. So then in addition to the bullying, I would be punished by my own parents. I was accused and suspected of so many things of which I was innocent that I started obsessively doubting myself, right at a time of my life where I should have been building up my self-confidence.

    There is a movie about this phenomenon, called Ben X -- I believe they're currently working on an English-spoken remake for the US market. There are several differences between the story of that movie and that which I myself have experienced, such as that the type of education was different -- for starters, my school was a boys-only Catholic school, and I was in an academic direction, rather than that we had welding classes or anything like that -- and Ben's family situation is different too. My parents were not divorced, and neither my parents, nor myself, nor any of the teachers, nor anyone else at the time for that matter, knew that I am autistic. Also, Ben has a girlfriend who truly cares about him and who has her own wisdom to contribute, while I did not at the time. I had nobody to turn to. Also, there were no such things as the Internet or cellphones in my time.

    Yet, there are so many similarities in Ben's experiences and in the way he was being bullied that when I watched the movie (now a few years ago), I burst out into tears. Strangely enough, some of those tears were not only because of my own pain, but also out of empathy with the characters on the TV screen, i.e. Ben, his girlfriend and his parents; I'm an empath, so I experience the feelings of the characters as if I'm the one experiencing that -- too many mirror neurons, I guess.

    Anyway, all I can say is that those bullies never knew what they were doing, of course. None of them realized that they were damaging me for life -- and they have, and it's one of the reasons why I'm disabled now. It isn't so much the memories of what they did -- even though I still do have nightmares about that on occasion -- but the effect it has had on my psychological development. I'm pretty convinced that my life would have evolved quite differently had I not been bullied like that in high school. And in their ignorance, my parents made it all worse even, because they were immensely strict with me -- more so than with my younger brother -- and they were constantly trying to control me, even after I had already long moved out of the house.

    The school has changed a lot since then, and the teacher whom I trusted and who turned around on me and accused me of being attention-starved and provoking the bullies -- whom he considered sympathetic kids -- is now the principal of the school. Or at least, he was up until a few years ago, when they last contacted me about attending the annual reunions. They even enlisted another guy from my class group at the time -- he was not one of the bullies, but he did hang out with them -- to contact the old "classmates" so that there would be enough of them for the 25-year reunion (a few years ago now), and the school had somehow gotten hold of my cellphone number, so he called me. I explained the situation to him, and he was surprised by my reaction, but he said he understood. He had after all witnessed it all.

    I have to this very day never set foot in that school again, and I don't intend to. I was also upset with my brother that he and his (now ex-)wife had put their eldest son in the school's dorm -- the boy attended another school a few blocks away, but that particular school did not have a dorm, so he had to sleep over at the school I had attended. I did ask him about his experiences with the school where he had to sleep, but he said they weren't negative. He actually enjoyed it there. I guess things must have really changed then.

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    Avalon Member Flash's Avatar
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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Truly sorry for that bullying you went through Aragorn, this is absolutely destructive. I did tried to have it stopped in regard to my daughter (children with neurological problems are always the target it seems) and I was so pro my daughter and a lion mom that i ended up being listened to just for the teachers to get rid of me lolllll. In fact, once the bullying went right in front of a teacher and she saw it, admitted it and tried to correct it, which I thank her for. But the school director was not believing me or my daughter at first, because she would not speak at all in school, because of fear. Also, a parent had her son telling him how she was bullied and the parent wrote the school director, which helped greatly. I wish you would have had the same Aragorn.

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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Quote Posted by Flash (here)
    Truly sorry for that bullying you went through Aragorn, this is absolutely destructive.
    It is, yes. It was also the reason as to why my high school results were nothing compared to what my elementary school results or even my middle school results had been, but the most significant impact of the bullying was the damage to my personality. And yes, I too did at a few times contemplate ending my life.

    Quote Posted by Flash (here)
    I did tried to have it stopped in regard to my daughter (children with neurological problems are always the target it seems) and I was so pro my daughter and a lion mom that i ended up being listened to just for the teachers to get rid of me lolllll.
    I think that this is exactly what's needed, yes. You did well. You stood up for your daughter. Unfortunately, my parents did not stand up for me like that. As I wrote, they would rather believe anyone else over their own son, and they wrongfully suspected me of lots of things I have never done and would never even do, and then they would "take measures to ensure that I couldn't do that". The teachers and the principal were always right, and I was always at fault. That trend would continue even later on, into my adult life.

    I did on a few occasions try to tell them about the bullying, but they simply told me "Deal with it. We have our own problems." And so from then on, I would simply not talk about it anymore, until of course there were undeniable traces of the bullying such as -- as I wrote earlier -- a torn coat, or my not being able to speak anymore due to the bruising of my ribs.

    Quote Posted by Flash (here)
    In fact, once the bullying went right in front of a teacher and she saw it, admitted it and tried to correct it, which I thank her for. But the school director was not believing me or my daughter at first, because she would not speak at all in school, because of fear.
    I can understand that fear. I had such an experience too.

    We all had an agenda book, which our parents had to sign off on every week. If and when a student misbehaved, the teacher would often (albeit not always) write a note in that agenda book, in red ink, and then the parents had to sign off on that. At one point, the bullies had fished my agenda book out of my book bag and had passed it onto the bullies at the back row, and they wrote a sexually offensive note in it, supposedly from a teacher, albeit that it was signed "Marie Huana". Ridiculous really.

    Now, given that my mother was a control freak, she would often go through my stuff without my knowing, and she had found that agenda book and the note within it. So then I had to explain to my parents that the bullies had lifted the book from my book bag and that they had written that note in it. So then my parents contacted the class tutor -- the teacher responsible for the class group -- and he in turn summoned the perpetrators. As a result, the perpetrators were waiting for me outside of the school building and began physically harassing and assaulting me while I was on my way over to the bus station. Among other things, I was head-butted, and my heavy book bag was kicked out of my hands by one of the bullies while he was riding his bicycle.

    Quote Posted by Flash (here)
    Also, a parent had her son telling him how she was bullied and the parent wrote the school director, which helped greatly. I wish you would have had the same Aragorn.
    Unfortunately, I didn't, and the school was way too concerned with upholding its "elite" reputation -- it's a Catholic school which once upon a very long time ago served as a training facility for Jesuits priests, and it was still being run by Jesuit priests at the time I attended high school -- but I appreciate and thank you for the kind words, Flash.

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    Belgium Avalon Member Violet's Avatar
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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Thank you so much, Aragorn, very moved by your story.
    As well, Flash's from the parents perspective.

    Perhaps that's the key. Bringing all perspectives together.

    I saw Ben x. Very real. The mother too, always telling her son to keep calm (Rustig blijven).
    Last edited by Violet; 25th February 2015 at 19:22. Reason: Adding about movie

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    Belgium Avalon Member Violet's Avatar
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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Aragorn, I just wanted to add this small note. I went to Catholic school too (Jesuits). The school itself was small-scale and basic, not elitist. When I had this difficult situation at home, during elementary, the nuns took care of me at the "internaat" (in the convent) (it wasn't really boarding school but there was an option like that). Only one nun, the head nun, was not so nice (maybe because I'm not Catholic/Christian ) but everyone else was really nice to me. It was a short, temporary stay, though I don't remember how short. One weekend, the other children went home and I was alone at the convent (because I still couldn't go home) and I have this memory of basically, loving nuns, feeling very sorry for me. I remember they allowed me in the kitchen while they were making pudding and I saw how they were transferring plates from an opening through the kitchen that gave out on the eating hall. A veeery long table with very quiet nuns. It sure was quiet in the convent. Back then that was a bit boring, but now, I've come to love that kind of silence. So, my experience was obviously more positive in that respect, also in general, in the school and with the teachers. I still know some of those teachers up to this day.

    And I would like you to not feel alone in that, me too I was bullied to the limit of despair that the daughter mentioned in post #4 once reached, my own parents also very immersed in their own problems, but your story is a good enough illustration. You said it very well.

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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Two grandchildren were being bullied and the little guy tried to stop them from his sister's taunting by the girls, but he was too young to do anything. Anyway, I taught them a few martial arts chops to the throat and a "step on the foot" push them and haul what (God gave you) fast as you can . I'm teaching them a move everytime I visit. My grandson is not a violent boy, he's adventurous, and plays mario cart. Who has time to be fighting when the fun is at home, eh. I'll be calling the school principle that I have the number to, however the best remedy when I asked 2 months later if it had stopped, was my higher self sending them help, and the children aren't there anymore. Perhaps their mother moved? All of them? I don't know, but I know it stopped when I felt helpless 100 miles away, and I asked God for help for it to end.

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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    For those who wish to see the movie Ben X, there is a low resolution version of it on YouTube. It's in Dutch -- more precisely, the Flemish dialect -- but YouTube offers English captions as an option.


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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Lizzie Velasquez is coming out with a documentary <3

    "The proof beauty really is only skin deep: 26-year-old branded ‘world’s ugliest woman’ in YouTube video when she was a teenager makes documentary charting her transformation to anti-bullying activist"


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    Default Re: (Cyber) bullying

    Very touching and powerful. I hope those kids were not bullied anymore. I was bullied very intensly and a lot...it changes you forever...I will always be an anti bullying activist and a pro love lover.

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