(no subject)

[rm]

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/cnn-news/19141470/detail.html

BOSTON -- Sirdeaner Walker, 44, has been surrounded by family after discovering her son, Carl Walker-Hoover, 11, hanging by an extension cord in the third-floor landing of the family's Northampton Avenue home in Springfield.

Walker said her boy, upset yet again over another bullying episode at school, had committed suicide.

"They were always saying, 'you're gay, you must be gay, you act like a girl,'" said Walker.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

My experience, despite my parents witnessing my bullying, was to be asked what I had done to make people hate me.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Sigh.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

"ARE YOU BEING BULLIED AT SCHOOL?"

"Er..no."

"GOOD. THEN YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE FOR BEING CONSISTENTLY LATE. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER IN THE MORNINGS."

Yeah... smooth move there, Dad. Real perceptive.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

Thirded. Well-meaning mother asking, "What are you doing to these kids that makes them say and do these things to you?"

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

I was told I needed "to learn to be 'street smart'" like my sister.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I even had a little "behavior" report card that I had to have my teachers fill out every day. So that I would learn how not to be bullied.

This is not a joke. My parents sent *me* with a behavior report card. Despite the fact that I went to an incredibly small school (less than 50 kids) and they knew the parents of the actual perpetrators.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

"You know, you're your own worst enemy" was an oft-repeated phrase my mother really liked.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

I think parents can confuse 'being anti-social' with 'being yourself'.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a parent, that is...so wrong I can't even describe it.

Meaning wrong in the sense of "what kind of parents are those that are doing that?" It's pretty much the antithesis of what parenting should be.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

"well, you must have done SOMEthing."

That phrase makes me cringe even now...

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I could not have fit in if I'd wanted to.
That's not supposed to be an offence
At least my family got that...

[nickelchief.livejournal.com]

I don't think I realized until I read this thread how common that response is from authority figures. A guidance counselor told me in seventh grade, when I complained about incessant, violent, daily bullying from perpetrators who thought I was gay:

YOU MUST BE DOING SOMETHING TO INVITE THEIR ABUSE. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT MAKES THEM COME AFTER YOU?

LOOK AT YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR. YOU ARE LEAVING YOURSELF OPEN AND VULNERABLE.

THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. IT IS UP TO YOU.

I can't even begin to describe the damage those few words did to me. I was so fucking quiet and so fucking scared to begin with, I drove myself out of my mind trying to figure out how this was my fault.

It still hurts. I feel desperately sad for this kid.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

That makes me almost incoherent with rage.

No-one ever said like that to me — but that'd be because I didn't trust anyone enough even to let them know I was being bullied.

I still don't. I'm amazed when people act decently rather than abominably, because I don't expect it, because so few people do.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

My dad liked to quote Hamlet to me:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

In retrospect, not the greatest advice for a disturbed teenager...