An article on "bullycide"

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As for all the anti-bullying programs in my experiance those were BS and just ended up getting used against the people that actually got bullied. For instance someone gets pushed to their breaking point punches the person who did it in the face and the one provoking them is left alone. So I yeah I think they need to really re-evaluate such programs because clearly they don't work.

Unfortunately, I have been there. I really wish that every time someone disagreed with me, they wouldn't assume it's because of a lack of personal experience on my part.

Yes, I've been bullied. Some of it went very far beyond the scope of what is usually considered bullying. I've had things done to me by other people that were, well, horrifying is really the right word. Things that, if they were done by an adult to another adult, would have the perpetrator locked up for decades. And I've watched those people get away with it.

Yes, I've had, and am still fighting with, depression. Yes, I have felt suicidal. I have attempted it once. And while other people might have contributed t o that mindset, if I had succeeded the responsibility for my death would have no one's but mine.

I've been bullied a lot growing up, and it made my childhood and some of my teen years miserable. It was terrible.

That being said, I would also like to say this. Teenagers and adolescents are very emotional. When someone kills themself over being bullied, the person is thought about differently. People start wishing they had been nicer to them, had gotten to know them, nothing bad is said about them anymore, the bullies feel bad or are looked down upon. That is a normal reaction to a death.

A kid who has had nothing in life except torture at the hands of other kids could conceivable look at all this and think "I wish they would feel bad about how they did me. I wish they felt about me like they did about <kid who killed themself>" and then even knowing that death is permenant, may go ahead with a suicide attempt to hopefully have people think about them dfferently. Not thinking it through fully.

Possibly, if a kid feels like they have nothing to live for anyway, they may feel that suicide and a note implicating the bullies can be a way to "get back" at them.

I do see where the guy is going in the article, and I can see both sides of his point. I don't know if I agree with him or not. I don't know if the bullying campaign actually helps stop bullying or it just pushes it underground. I would think a campaign for acceptance of others would be more effective than one about bullying though.

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I see it as the guy who is trying to stop bullying, not say it's okay for people to bully and he isn't saying it's your fault. I didn't like the part where he said it's not the bullies fault either and they aren't trying to do harm. I don't think I buy it. If they aren't trying to do harm, then why would they like to upset their victims? That is doing harm. He also made it sound like it's okay to be mean by insulting others and putting others down by calling them names and then he contradicts it by saying we all shouldn't go around insulting everyone all the time because then it might really hurt their feelings.

This article made me wish I could go back to childhood and do it all over again so I can get bullied again and try this on them. Some things he already said I already knew about but I didn't know that then in my childhood.


I have already known that bullies do get pissed when they aren't allowed to bully and if they don't want to get into trouble, why do it? That tells me they don't care if they get into trouble and then they contradict themselves when they get pissed about it. Online you can just ban them for their bullying and keep banning them when they keep coming back to troll.



This also makes me wonder if this is what my school principal may be saying when I was a kid but she didn't explain it well. Maybe this is what she meant by I had to toughen up. Telling a kid to toughen up is too vague, you need to be more clear with it like telling them all the steps to how to handle bullies.


I wonder how many NTs would agree with this article? I will find out.

I feel like it would be very bad if a suicidal adolecent or teen came across this article. so regardless of if fair points are made in it the language is pretty dangerous and in some cases totally unessisary. Just seems to invalidate any experiances and feelings of people who have to deal with bullying on a daily basis by basically saying they're asking for it for not being 'tough' enough or whatever.

The article and associated lessons have unrealistic expectations of kids being able to control their emotions. Kids aren't Zen masters and even adults have their limits. It puts all the responsibility on the person being bullied. Bully behavior should not be condoned or encouraged just because "it's natural." Teasing and joking between friends is one thing, but continuing to do it when the other person is obviously upset by it is wrong.

The techniques he describes will work. I think I unwittingly employed some of these tactics.

There were times when I would go over a conversation and realize that I had been insulted or picked on but didn't pick up on it. The effect was that I had the negative emotions afterward in private (the negative emotions were usually more about my inability to pick up on and react to this stuff in real time and less about what the other person did.) My lack of reaction, either going along and laughing at myself or getting angry, would put a stop to it pretty quick. It is probably one of the reasons these type of people end up not liking me. I'll have to think about whether that is a bad thing or not.

sweetleaf, sorry, it's just the second time in this thread my personal experience with the subjects being discussed, bullying and depression, has been questioned and I got a bit frustrated. That's no one's fault though, I should probably start my posts with my own experiences first, like most people seem to.

In response to a slightly later post of yours (sorry, I'm on an iPad and editing this post right now, so quoting you directly is proving impossible):

It's not saying they are asking for the bullying by not being tough enough, it is suggesting we help them get tougher so they can deal with it. There is a huge difference.

How about "Sh**, we can't stop this but we'll do as much as we can, plus we'll try to teach you how to deal with it on your own. They need to change too though."
And the article is definitely saying kids invite bullying by not being tough enough. He makes that point very clear.

*why did you cut my quote in mid-sentence?