On Tuesday, I was sitting at a stop sign after picking up my chick from school. A horn blew beside me, and the teenage boy sitting next to us flipped me the finger and then sped away. “Why’d he flip you off,” my kid asked. “You didn’t blow the horn.” I rolled my eyes and shrugged as the horn blower, another teenage boy with his giggling girlfriend beside him, pulled up beside me and also flipped me off and sped away.
“What the hell,” my daughter muttered.
Yesterday, I was driving down the street with my mother. Coming toward us was a white pickup truck that looked like it had a lot of stories to tell about mud bogging and Busch beer. The driver, whom I wasn’t able to see because his truck was lifted so high, yelled “Holy f*ck, you’re f*cking fat” at me as we passed. My mom asked what he said, and I lied and told her that I had no idea while looking in my mirror at the truck’s window cling that bragged about beer and boobs.
On Monday, a member of my family was discharged from a mental health facility. I spent a week mulling over in my mind when the problems started. The problems started in elementary school when the computer lab gave kids access to printers; printers which were used to print out cute pictures of things like a hippopotamus; a cute picture of a hippo that would be shoved in unsuspecting girls’ lockers between class periods as a reminder of their body size.
The problem started when I couldn’t miss work to keep my kiddo home even though her “stomach hurt.” The problem started when I didn’t get that “my stomach and throat hurt” was code for “they make my life hell.” The problem started when truancy was always looming in the back of my mind. The problems started when I wanted to talk to the principal but was begged through tears to not do that because it would “only make it worse.” The problem started when, after days of tears and “I hate it here”s, I did go talk to the principal who, in turn, talked to the boys in front of everyone at sports practice; the boys whose taunts changed the next day into “snitch”; snitching was bad because my child was responsible for protecting them from getting in trouble and everyone liked them; everyone liked them because not liking them was dangerous and left you vulnerable for things like having a picture of a hippo shoved into your locker (oh wait, that was two years earlier).
We’re conditioned to believe that the victims are the ones who need an intervention. Instead of the parents of the bullies receiving letters, the parents of the victims receive truancy letters and phone calls. Instead of the parents of the bullies being called, the victim is put in a room with them and told by staff to “be kind to each other”; “be kind to each other” is the theme for the group conversation the following week because of bullying online; bullying online that started because the bullies would be mad about this week’s conversation.
Because we’re conditioned to believe that instead of addressing the problem with the bullies, we need to explore what happened in the victim’s life to make them unable to cope with their peers’ constant aggression and mental abuse; constant aggression and mental abuse that are acceptable because kids need to “toughen up;” toughening up that doesn’t refer to the scars on leather skin from self-harm.
Because we’re conditioned to believe that bullying happens because there’s something wrong with the victim, my kid is telling me that everyone she met in the hospital was gay or trans or black or a survivor of sexual assault or all of these; all of these kids who need emergency help while there’s not one bully spending time in “the unit.”
Because we’re conditioned to believe the victim’s being a victim is the problem, they are asked to question things about themselves; things such as if their parents abused them or if they were failing classes due to an undiagnosed learning disability; failing the classes that they sit in with the kid making puking noises at them; puking noises that are followed by comments about a body shape that “makes (him) want to throw up; a body shape that is the only thing the victim is thinking about now, leaving no room for information about volcanoes in North America to be retained.
Because we allow the systems to not address the bullies, victims will spend years of their lives juggling prescription refills and therapists; therapists who will work on coping skills; coping skills such as journaling and deep breathing and “I don’t wanna talk right now”; I don’t wanna talk right now because I am going to hug my kid…because I can’t stop thinking about a man in a white pickup truck.
Mental health matters,
Amy Jo
YESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!!! AMY!!! My son is CONSTANTLY picked on at school my one aggressor who is the “popular” kid.. and he asks me things like, “do you think I’m worthless?”, “what does f*gg*t mean?”, “why can’t I be a good reader like the other kids” all while stepping on the scale every day and obsessing about the number because he is called names like “Fatty McFatster” and “Santa Fatty”. My son is ten years old. There’s no excuse for the way that he is treated in a school that he should feel safe in. I constantly tell him to ignore it, and to remain kind, but you’re so right.. it’s NOT on him. I don’t know what to do to make any of this easier on him. f*ck these bullies.