Tag: mental illness

What You Should Say When Bullies Try to Convince You to Commit Suicide

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There have been many cases where bullies have tried to convince their targets to commit suicide, and many have succeeded. It’s a shame that bullies are this heartless and cruel but it’s heartbreaking when their targets are brainwashed by these monsters and finally surrender, under pressure, to do the bullies’ bidding.

I’m sure most of you remember hearing on the news, a year or two ago, about the case of Michelle Carter, the 23-year-old who was convicted of manslaughter in Massachusetts after convincing her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III to commit suicide by text.

Several days before this young man took his life by rigging his car with a hose to fill with carbon monoxide and sitting inside it until he was dead, Michelle Carter sent numerous texts to him, urging him to go through with it after he planned his suicide. In a few texts, she is reported to have told him, “Just do it, babe, “and “Put up or shut up.” She also reportedly told him to get back in the car and do it. These texts were the evidence that got her convicted.

Now, I don’t know the circumstances surrounding this or why she did what she did, however, I do believe that what she did was murder. But realize that bullies will the same thing to their targets, and they have done it. In my not-so-humble opinion, they too should be tried and convicted of murder. Not manslaughter, but murder!

If nothing else, I want you to understand this! Anytime you are a target of bullying and your bully or bullies either tell you to take your own life one time, or repeatedly try to urge and pressure you into suicide, they want you dead. They want to kill you but they’re too chicken to do it themselves because they know they’d land their butts in prison for the rest of their lives.

Again, they would love nothing more than to kill you but don’t have the stomach nor the balls to do it themselves because they know that, if they went to prison, they wouldn’t survive there.

I want you to see these people for what they are- cowards!

More importantly, I want you to realize that you have value and that your life matters just as much as the next person’s. I also want you to realize that you deserve to live on this green earth just as much as the next person does.

Remember that bullying is abuse, which means that your bullies are abusers! Never allow an abuser to convince you to take your own life! Never give an abuser that kind of power because it’s not theirs to have. Only God can determine whether you should live or die. A bully can never have that power- the power of life or death over you unless you allow them to have it.

So, when a bully or bullies tells you to “kill yourself,” here’s what you say to them:

“You first.”

I love this little two-liner comeback because it’s short, sweet, and to the point. It mat stun the bully into silence and also has the potential to make the bullies to do a little back-peddling.

Know your rights. Moreover, know your worth. Your life matters. You matter! You are loved and you are a great person. You have a right to life- to live. Never forget that.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

The Vicious Cycle of Bullying

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Sometimes, and with many targets, the bullying they suffer is a vicious cycle. Now you might ask, “What do you mean? How can bullying become a cycle?”

It can become a cycle in many ways. However, there’s one cycle in particular I’d like to discuss.  I’ll describe it like this:

1.The target is bullied relentlessly, and she holds up for a year or two, trying to be strong and brave, trying to remain calm and cool, and seemingly doing quite well at it. However, the bullies are relentless, so, they escalate the attacks, and the abuse becomes more frequent and intense. It is as if they are trying to bring her down.

2. Finally, so many of her peers have bullied her so much for so long that they finally succeed in driving her to the breaking point. The target either attempts suicide or has a breakdown of some sort. Maybe she breaks down crying and her sobs are so deep and so uncontrollable that she can’t stop crying. It’s as if a dam has burst and the raging torrent of tears continues to pour forth. She’s crying so hard her entire body shakes, quakes, and writhes.

3. The target is admitted to a treatment center for severe depression. She stays in the hospital for a couple of months and while she’s there, she is making progress. She’s able to open up about the bullying she suffers, and people listen there. In the treatment center, she is safe.

She makes friends out of the other kids there and of the staff as well. They all support her, and she begins to feel good about herself again. It seems like she’s beginning to heal and get better.

A couple of months go by and for the first time in the two months she’s been in the hospital and away from the bullying environment at her school, she feels like herself again. She feels re-empowered.

4. She’s finally released from the hospital. But she has to go back to school and she has no choice but to go back to the very environment and to the people who made her sick in the first place.

Depression Concept with Word Cloud and a Humanbeing with broken Brain and Heavy Rain

5. As soon as the target goes back to school, although the others at school can’t prove where she’s been, they have it figured. Now there’s the mental health stigma hanging over her and the bullies instantly use it against her and only pick up where they left off. They begin mobbing her again and even a few teachers and the principal look down on her, just like before.

6. The principal warns her aloud, in the crowded hall, as she’s changing classes, “I’m going to be watching you closely.” He tells her. And he tells her this in front of the other students where they can overhear.

7. The target does well and is well-behaved. However, the principal, a few teachers, and the student body, view her with even more suspicion. Instead of acknowledging and encouraging her success, the principal and teachers continuing let her know that she’s on their radar.

8. Although the two months away in the treatment center was intended to help her get well and regain her confidence, self-esteem, and her life and returning to school was meant to be a chance to start over, the target is branded a troublemaker or a mental case by the school, some of the teachers and the principal, knowingly or unknowingly, are now in the process of undoing all the progress this girl has made.

What they should do is pull her aside and tell her in private that they are watching her, but that they admire her for getting help and trying to turn her life around.

However, their justification for their treatment of her is that it’s to protect the other students who fit in to what’s “normal” and who obey the rules. This justification is often used to defend the emotional abuse they inflict on the target and single her out for humiliation.

This is when the school is willingly participating in destroying a human being. The girl’s “loony bin trip” now follows her around like a stalking wildcat. School officials either don’t realize or don’t care about the impact their attitudes and prejudices have on young students.

Understand that this is the cycle. Bullies break the target down, the target goes somewhere and gets help, the target gets better and gets released, the target then must go back to the very place and to the same people that make them sick. They bully the target again… the cycle continues, again and again.

In cases like this, targets must be allowed to either transfer to a new school or home school, otherwise, the cycle only continues.

Bullies Hate Differences of Any Kind. What is Hate Transfer?

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bullying bullied victim hard

You’ve heard of addiction-transfer- when an addict replaces one addiction with another (for example, the addiction to food is replaced with an addiction to alcohol). But what about hate-transfer?

Here’s an explanation. I’ll use my school bullies as examples.

Many of my bullies in high school were stone-cold racists. However, they couldn’t express that hate to minorities because even during the ’80s and early ’90s, open racism was taboo. So, they simply replaced that hatred with that of the mentally ill and disabled, the indigent and out-of-town people.

I know they were racists because, on many occasions, they bullied me because having been a military brat and been around people of all races and creeds, I had no qualms with associating with people of all races. I accepted everyone because I’ve always believed we are all one race- the human race!

However, in Oakley, Tennessee, people frowned on this and not only people of my race but others as well.

hypocrite hypocrisy double standard

I also overheard many private conversations among girls in the bathrooms. They’d make disgusting racial slurs and put down other races among themselves within the privacy and secrecy of their group, then in public, smile and give a friendly pat on the back to the very people they put down earlier. Sheesh! They would act like they were their best friends.

But wait! There’s more!

However, they were openly hateful to the kids in the Special Ed classes, who they referred to as “the retarded kids.” They also publicly bullied kids who were dirt poor and kids who weren’t originally from Oakley. And if you were gay back then, you never let it be known at Oakley High School.

You see, people such as these have to have someone to bully. If they can’t bully other races, they will bully the poor and destitute. If they cannot bully transexuals, they will bully the mentally disabled.

bullying bullied victim

But wait! There’s more!

However, they were openly hateful to the kids in the Special Ed classes, who they referred to as “the retarded kids.” They also publicly bullied kids who were dirt poor and kids who weren’t originally from Oakley. And if you were gay back then, you never let it be known at Oakley High School.

You see, people such as these have to have someone to bully. If they can’t bully other races, they will bully the poor and destitute. If they cannot bully transexuals, they will bully the mentally disabled.

That is what hate-transfer is.

It’s having a hatred of anyone different from you but staying in the “safe zone” by only discriminating against those who aren’t as “protected.”

Prejudice against anyone should be illegal, and it is. However, bias against the poor or mentally disabled isn’t near as evident as bias against someone from a different race because anyone from any ethnicity can be poor or mentally incapacitated.

And skin color can be seen with the eyes. Poverty and mental disability are sometimes invisible to the eyes. You can be poor or have a mental disability. People can even know or suspect you may be poor or mentally disabled. But you don’t necessarily have to look that way.

bullying scapegoat victim bullied

Sadly, to have legal protections, your uniqueness to the majority must be seen with the eyes, and even then, it’s no guarantee you’ll have those protections.

Understand that most seasoned bullies hate anyone different from them. But they only harass the groups who have less legal protections and are “safest” and more socially acceptable to bully!

The more you know.

Bullying People Perceived to Be Mentally Ill or Neuro-Diverse

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It’s comparable to racism.

Discrimination is discrimination, and prejudice is prejudice. It doesn’t matter who’s dishing it out or who is receiving it. The mentally ill and mentally disabled are still a minority; it doesn’t matter their sex, race, religion, or orientation. Even if you think that person is “crazy” and they happen not to be, you’re still guilty of discrimination, prejudice, and bias.

The mentally ill and disabled are favorite targets of bullies for several reasons:

1. They are different.
2. They are least likely to have the ability or know-how to defend themselves.
3. They don’t have the same protections as other minority or oppressed groups (racial minorities, women, LBGTQ, elderly, etc.).
4. Others flippantly disregard the mentally ill and disabled and do not see them as human.
5. They are least likely to be believed or taken seriously if they report abuse and victimization.

All the above leave the mentally ill and disabled most vulnerable, and bullies take full advantage! It’s no different than being a racial minority, a woman, a member of the LBGTQ community, or being a senior citizen.

In fact, it’s worse because other oppressed groups have more legal protections under the law than the mentally disadvantaged. Therefore, if you are a bully and you target these people, or you stand by and watch it happen without speaking out, you are no different than a card-carrying racist, homophobe, or misogynist!

There’s a term for this kind of bullying. It’s called Ableism!

Here’s something I’ll bet no one has thought of. If a person bullies these people, they probably are a racist, etc. They only hide it because it’s politically incorrect and against the law, and it’s not considered by society to be as evil or illegal to discriminate against those who are or are perceived to be mentally disadvantaged. The mentally ill are safer victims to bully, so they’re who bullies target.

Therefore, it would be safe to say that most bullies are racists and sexists at heart because bullies don’t accept anyone who is not like them. It doesn’t matter what the difference is.

The more you know.