Anyone who experienced a normal childhood probably has direct or
indirect experience with bullying. Some of us were bullied. Some
would admit to being bullies. Most would certainly agree it
was a very unpleasant, even traumatic, experience.
But as difficult as our experience with bullying may have
been, we survived it. Some of us might even argue
we took something positive from it, or at least gained
some insight into the dark side of the human condition.
We survived. We moved on. We grew up.
Dawn-Marie Wesley, 14 when she hanged herself, didn't. Nor did
Reena Virk, the same age when she was beaten to
death in 1997. Neither did Hamed Nastoh, also 14, who
jumped from a bridge after being relentlessly taunted with anti-gay
epithets.
The fact that most adults have some experience with bullying,
and surviving it, probably goes a long way towards explaining
why, at some level, many of us have trouble accepting
that it can be life-threatening.
But these stories, and others like them, don't lie. These
victims are dead, and many others are physically or emotionally
scarred far in excess of any sort of rite of
passage. What changed? When did bullying turn from a relatively
normal if not acceptable behaviour to this almost pathological abuse? Source.
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