Innspiration

"We are all in this humans race together and it's our job to make sure we all cross the finish line as one."

Friday, January 6, 2012

I Survived. These Children Did Not: Cyberbullying


She placed the delicately written note into her back pocket and made sure its folds touched the inner lip of the pocket seam so as to not have it dislodge. She looked to her left as she waited patiently for the bus to arrive. It was an unusually warm winter and she thought about the fresh air that caresses her lungs with each breath. She thought about her family, her brother, her boyfriend who just broke up with her and the mean things people have been posting on her Facebook page and Tweeting about her.

As the bus appeared down the block it was not scheduled to stop on her corner but she knew this corner would be her last stop and she stepped out into the street, released the air that danced in lungs and allowed the bus to relieve her pain, worries and fear and she was no more.

Her name was Amanda Cummings. She was 15 and a victim of cyberbullying. She was just the latest poster child for an all too familiar story going on in our society today. The neighborhood or school bully has gone viral and into the realm of the most cowardly stealth manner of attacking others. The days of the bully liberating us of our milk money and leaving us mildly bruised mentally and physically are gone.

When I hear stories like Amanda’s it sickens and saddens me to the point where I take it very personally. I curse “God” and ask where he was when these young hurt children made the final choice to be no more. I want to go to that child’s school and reprimand every child that took their cowardice fingers to a keyboard and tortured their victims. I want to step back into time and grab that child and hold them and tell them that that their survival is the deadliest blow to their tormentors because their strength and armor couldn’t be penetrated. They were better than “them”.

I think I take it to heart all too much because I was the victim of bullying. I was bullied at school for being absent a great deal due to juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and being far behind the other kids. I was bullied on the street by a thug named Fat Ally, who tortured neighborhood kids and held a reign of terror over anyone under 15 years old. I was bullied verbally by my father who constantly put me down by calling me stupid and dumb. I still carry with me the scars of all these attacks and they play out in therapy and they still haunt my dreams. But they are my scars and like any other warrior that survived a battle, I wear them proudly and a as a symbol of survival.

I fought back with everything in my arsenal. I learned how to use humor to deflect the attacks of the children at school and win them over with my jokes and imitations of them. But the sweetest revenge was when I wound up in remedial classes and wound up sharing them with my tormentors. They were just like me. But rather than embarrass them, I embraced them and offered help where I could with their troubled studies.

I fought back physically when Fat Ally was leading me to and a friend to an inevitable smack down and when my friend ran off I turned and laid into Fat Ally’s stomach and realized he was just a boy like myself. He could hurt others but be hurt too. From that day forward he always nodded as he saw me and moved along. 

My Father. That is more complicated. He was a funny, clever and nice man. He was also terrified of the deep emotional commitment to being a father. He didn’t know how to be a “dad” because his was absent. I grew older and fired back verbal assaults on him as fast as he could dish them. Eventually that was a battle I won.  Only because he had said he was sorry for his actions in his elderly years. I forgave him and I had won.

As I watch my only daughter grow from a toddler into a little girl, I now start to think about her arsenal. Her tools for combating the inevitable teasing that all children will do and help her to deal with them. My wife and I must begin to plan the lessons of not being the bully, which judging by her character; I doubt she would ever play that part. I get physically ill thinking about the pain of ever losing her to her own demons and insecurities due to a cyberbully.

Please. If you have children who are victims of bullying embrace them and hear them. If you know of children bullying, take a stand. Stop them by any means necessary short of violence.

There is a very darkside to social media. Let us bring our children into the light from this and their personal dark place. 

I survived. I made it through the rain.

Please watch the video I made. It's the faces of some beautiful children...

                            

For information on coping with cyber bullying contact The Megan Meier Foundation. Meghan was 14 when she killed herself and lead to the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act

And So It Goes...

9 comments:

  1. I wish this was played in every school so children are aware. It would be great too to create a program for children who are bullies to help them deal with whatever underlying issues are going on that they're trying to express.

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  2. Very courageous and heartfelt post, Ty. We share a good many scars. The losses of kids who were so isolated is heartbreaking. Thank you.

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  3. Roy and Emily I thank you for your kind comments my friends. Sadly this bullying is taking the lives of children as young as 10! When I was 10 and tackling my bullies I don't think I even know if I knew what suicide was let alone act on it. Heartbreaking indeed.
    And Emily I agree that videos like the one I made should be shown in schools. Put faces on the children and tell their tales. The bullies may find they have the same issues and rather than hurt those that remind them of themselves, embrace them and learn and share in their strengths rather than their weaknesses.
    Peace.-Ty

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  4. Thank you Ty!!! I agree with Emily, wish this could/would be shown in schools! My older Brother was a bully to me growing up - still is! Sometime people have to cut ties to toxic people and relationships.

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  5. Ty, I was deeply touched by your post, and I've spent several hours contemplating it before responding. You've written a powerful call to action to all adults, whether we are parents or not. But equally important is the message of hope your story gives to children who are being bullied. You show them that their future can be different - that someday, they will have the power to create the life they desire, like you did. I hope your post gets in their hands.

    I think it's good to know about others who are also deeply concerned about this very serious issue. Thanks to the link to the Megan Meier Foundation. I recently read an excellent post by Erin Schreyer that included a heart-wrenching video: http://sagestone.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/its-up-to-us-to-teach-our-kids-to-lead/ You might also like to know about The National Conference for Community and Justice http://www.nccj.org/ , a wonderful organization that is hitting bullying head on. I'm forwarding your post to them.

    Thank you, Ty, for your courage to address such an important issue, for sharing your own story, and for the beautiful video you made.

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  6. I also made it through the rain. My parents were supportive and always my greatest allies, but the system is flawed and the victim is always put on the defensive.

    I know a couple of years ago, my own son (4 at the time) was being punched in the stomach at nursery school by a bully who also was his friend (most of the time).

    What worked in that instance was a series of role-playing exercises with him that taught him to find his voice, use it loudly, and to stand up for himself. It was very successful and even at his tender age of 4, you could tell he was buoyed by his empowerment and the knowledge that he was allowed to say (to yell), "NO, you are NOT ALLOWED to do that to me. STOP IT NOW." I am hugely proud of him and me (considering I was bullied as a child) for finding our voices and using them when it counted.

    Thank you for your post. Biggest hugs, friend.

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  7. So many children are bullied it's an epidemic and to think it has gotten this intimate and personal an attack is horrible. Thank you Ty for this post, it has broken my heart, changed me and made me want to find a way to help these children. I am still shamed by the emotional bullying I received by some of the older boys in H.S. and while I can cry about it, it's very hard to discuss.

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  8. You're making me cry again. Thank you so much for sharing your story. As a parent, we want to protect our children and hope to raise them to be strong and not accept bullying of themselves or others. I see adults who allow themselves to be bullied by bosses and spouses. It's not just children. Hugs to you my friend for discussing this. Perhaps if we all talk about it more we can come up with solutions.

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  9. Hi Ty,
    My name is Yasin Silva. I am a professor at Arizona State University (ASU). My research team at ASU is developing an app that will notify parents when their children experience cyberbullying in Facebook. The app is called BullyBlocker, and BullyBlocker 1.0 will be available to parents FOR FREE next May...provided the project is supported through our ASU USEED crowdfunding campaign.

    I am personally vested in this initiative, not just because I am a researcher in this project, but because I have seen the damaging social, mental and physical consequences of bullying in my students and family members. This is such a hot media topic lately. Lots of talk, but now there is finally something we can do to put a stop to it--by empowering parents through BullyBlocker. Our crowdfunding campaign through ASU USEED will provide undergraduate student research scholarships and hardware to finish BullyBlocker 1.0. Crowdfunding for this app creation ends January 9th.

    This initiative has been all over the news in Arizona lately:
    CBS 5: http://www.kpho.com/story/24255888/bullyblocker-developed-to-prevent-cyberbullying
    ABC 15: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/asu-students-create-app-to-stop-cyber-bullies
    Telemundo: http://youtu.be/S3PvQu5LSDQ
    KTAR Talk Radio: http://ktar.com/22/1685633/Arizona-State-group-to-develop-app-that-identifies-cyberbullying
    ASU News: https://asunews.asu.edu/20131218-bully-blocker

    See the BullyBlocker promo video here: http://youtu.be/BSmSidmuc44. Learn about the initiative and save children from cyberbullying by donating here: https://asu.useed.net/projects/99/home and like BullyBlocker on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thebullyblocker

    I would greatly appreciate of you can help us out by spreading the word, or even sponsoring this project.

    Sincerely,

    Yasin
    ______________________________________
    Yasin N. Silva, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor
    Arizona State University

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