In this post I tried to share a parent’s exhilaration and gratitude at the sound of a toilet being flushed! I fully understand if you are confused and I invite you to step into my shoes by reading along…ACCEPTANCE!
Have you or your children struggled with the impact of school bullying? How did it impact your/their/your families life/lives? Can you recall the first sign of recovery and how it made you feel?
bravely said “I was bullied for being fat and nerdy and bad at sports. Thank God I could get away from the kids outside of school and escape into books and tv shows. I also found my own hobbies, such as needlepoint. But today, with social media, there’s no escape. That’s the worst ~ I can’t imagine the horror of never escaping the peer group.”
responded with empathy saying…
“I’m so glad for you Paula. It can be so frustrating to live the pains of bullying always, never being able to escape. And isn’t it a silent killer”.
My thanks to both Paula and Parikhit for prompting this post.
I can, from experience, confirm that bullying via social media is as noxious as poison gas, it is a silent killer!
One Christmas while we were enjoying a family gathering our daughter was suffering in silence in the midst of us, as bullies targeted her with vile and upsetting messages on social media. We were oblivious to this happening until our daughter could no longer contain her distress and broke down telling us. Even after the girls in question were reprimanded and made close their social media accounts, the bullying continued because they were able to create new accounts using fake identification.
Social media enables bullies to infiltrate the victim’s home; often the only safe space victims have. Online bullying is omnipresent, affecting children, adults and even Politicians, as we’ve seen during the United Kingdom’s Brexit attempts.
When bullying is frequent and continues over a protracted period it can cripple the victim leaving them distressed and confused. The implications can be life long, leaving them with low confidence and self-esteem, and can cause them intense dislike of themselves for being too fat, too thin, nerdy, shy or a miriad of other perfectly normal human characteristics just because a bully decided these traits were “unacceptable”.
Other sign of distress can include mood swings, anxiety, depression, insomnia, panic attacks, eating disorders, OCD, and finally but not exhaustively, self-harm until another innocent, tormented life could be lost to bullying.
Having witnessed the effect of online bullying I’d like to highlight to parents the distress children feel at, the horror of never escaping from this silent killer.” I’d also like to stress the lasting impact of bullying and encourage parents, adults & society to be vigilant.
Have you or your children been bullied? Did you/they experience “the horror of never escaping the peer group” because of the pervasiveness of social media? Did you watch this silent killer in action?
I wrote this post one morning as I really struggled to cope, to accept, to hope…ACCEPTANCE!
When I think back I can still recall how visceral my emotion was that morning.
We had struggled under the weight of both our children being victims of bullying and its short and long term consequences. We watched both our children suffer and we searched for answers to many questions…
With no avenues left to follow, sadly one day we were forced to accept that the situation was outside of our control. I recall the pain of frustration and of what felt like failure.
We offered it up to God, to the Universe, to the silent expanse of the countryside… We were exhausted, depleted and we knew we had to sit back and develop patience.
We tried to listen with love, we spoke with love and we encouraged with love. We learned to trust, to hope and to let go control. We let go our need to fix, our need for things to be as we thought they should be.
As I look back now, it’s amazing how acceptance, love and time changes things!
Hardly two years on, time has intervened…
With time, he re-tuned his body clock. He began to re-engage with life. His motivation to study slowly improved. He spoke of sitting his exams. We quietly encouraged him to do what he thought was best for him… And it worked!
He took back power over his own life. He regained his voice; the damage from bullying being slowly put behind him. He decided how he wanted his future to look…
Now reaching towards the end of his second term of college we see… that acceptance, love and time... was the key.
For our daughter, who continues to struggle with her mental health, a mischievous puppy named Andy may well be… the key!
If you’d like to follow their journey as Andy works to become the first Psychiatric Service Dog in Ireland and Emma resorts to training him herself, while continuing to lobby politicians; although losing hope that her months of requesting them to help her make this service available, will come to any fruition… then you can find them on Instagram @reallyhandyandy or on Facebook at Emma and Andy.
Has bullying impacted your life? What was the key to overcoming your challenge?
Time and the right conditions not only preserve but bring about something of beauty – Marie Clancy.
As hard as I’ve tried, I can’t paint the pain of bullying experienced by our son because the canvas is blank and will remain blank as our son, kept almost all of the painful details to himself.
What I can paint is what we as parents noticed at home, which included, his frustration shown through nasty comments and angry outbursts. His loss of interest in his hobbies. His withdrawal into himself. His sleep pattern changed dramatically, unable to get to sleep resulting in him sleeping longer into the morning and soon he developed insomnia. He was awake at night and asleep during the day. We slowly noticed a real change in his pleasant and warm personality. All these changes led to self-isolation and school refusal.
We stood by helplessly, watching our warm, outgoing, resilient child slowly disengage from all aspects of his normal functioning life.
This did not happen over-night. Being bullied was something that chipped away at his resilience and eventually over years, wore him down.
Every child, no matter their age, sex, nationality, colour or faith is entitled to attend school, to feel happy and included. They deserve to achieve, to the best of their ability, without the fear of bullying and its devastating effects.
The pain of his upset is still visceral as I recall and share these memories. It hurts because I realise, yet again, that the sheer frustration and powerlessness we felt came from feeling unheard in a broken system. This feeling of isolation compounded the impact bullying was having on our family.
Thankfully we have, as a family and individually, empowered ourselves to move forward whilst not diminishing the pain of the past. But instead wanting to put our learning to the service of others. You might like to read our son’s attitude, Bullying…”I am grateful for it all”…
Have you or your children experienced bullying? Did it wear down your child’s resilience? Did it render you silent and make you feel powerless?
I would love to hear your experience so that together we can let other families know that they are not alone.
Actually, I’d like to take a minute or two to thank everybody!
I won’t start naming Countries or individual names because you know I mean you, and all because you stopped in to visit and share such kind and encouraging words this past week, since Andy joined our family.
The thing is you will never know how much of a difference your words have made to both myself and Emma!
And of course to Andy…as you can see he’s under so much pressure!
I don’t know what we’d do without those frequent “dog-naps!”
Emma has just started an Instagram account and she would love you to visit her and Andy @reallyhandyandy where she will document and share their journey towards improved mental health and where she hopes to fulfill her dream and goal of paving the way towards the availability of Psychiatric Service Dogs in Ireland.
