Life of the Bullied

Life of the Bullied

By: Craig W. Tweedie

(Author of Demon)

It’s 7:30 in the morning and you hear the alarm clock buzzing. It’s time to get ready for school.

“Not today, God please, not today.”

Because you know what’s waiting for you there. You’re going to put up with a new round of laughter at your expense, as well as the teasing and taunting that has become your daily life. You will also suffer exclusion from your peers.

This is hell to a young person at school, and many suffer it.

How do I know? Because I was one of those kids. And at the age of 37, I can tell you that the effects are long lasting.

However, now, as opposed to back in the seventies and eighties, there is help available to kids—help that wasn’t there in my day.

What changed that brought this help about: the escalating suicides that accompanied bullying through the years. Bullying is a quiet killer that can slowly manifest into a climactic and tragic end. By quiet killer, I mean that many bullied kids say nothing about their ordeals, perhaps because of shame, but likely because of threat of violence. Ask any kid and they’ll tell you they probably heard this phrase from a tormentor: “You tell, and I’ll kill you!”

This is pretty convincing stuff for a kid who has no friends. So what choice does one have? None. You would simply keep quiet.

Now they have you, and they can ramp up their fear factor. It’s an all-win situation for the bully and a no-win for the victim.

So what did I do to survive this? I wrote out all those years of torment and aggression in my horror book, “Demon,” which is a fictional story about a bullied teen that becomes a supernatural creature to slay his tormentors.

For me, the long lasting effects of bullying created rage that wanted to kill. I used writing to channel that anger and get even.

Sadly, some acted on that built up anger and killed. No better example of this is Columbine High. Still, others, out of depression, have ended their own lives to stop the effects of bullying.

Remember… I said it was a no-win situation for the victim.

Many have succeeded at outliving the horrifying trauma of bullying, however, whether by therapy or creating within them a new mindset to end it. Bullying does not have to end in tragedy.

Parents and teachers have to get involved for a happy ending. But – to be successful – they have to “dig” to get the info out of their terrorized child.

The bullied child needs reassurance that the threat of violence will not happen if they tell. They need to know that it will be okay and that help is available to them. They need your support and intervention with a situation that – in their eyes – is a matter of life and death.

Bullying can be controlled, and adults need to get involved. Otherwise, we will continue to see the same tragic results, time and time again.

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Resources for Bullying on the web for both kids and adults: