November 4

Bullying Leads to Committing Suicide

by Karen S.

 

In October 2006,  Megan, a 13 year old teenager, hung herself in her bedroom closet. She struggled with attention deficit disorder and depression, as well as issues with her weight. About 5 weeks before her death, she met a 16 year old boy named Josh Evans to be friends online. They started talking regularly, even though they had never met. In mid-October, Josh suddenly became cruel to her and sending her vicious messages, and then it became worse when her classmates and people from school also started being cruel to her. This was called the Megan Meier case. Twenty minutes after she left her computer looking at those terrible comments, she had hung herself in her bedroom closet. This is an example of how bullying can take people’s lives very easily. There are many types of bullying and ways to deal with each type of bullying.  

The first and most common type is verbal bullying. Some examples are name-calling, taunting the victim, insulting  them. This is a type of direct bullying; direct and in front of the victim. In addition, the big problem about this type of bullying is that it is usually mistaken as teasing. However, there is a clear difference between these two things: with teasing it involves a sense of play, done with not bad intentions. Bullying, on the other hand, is an intended way to hurt someone. The first and the easiest way to deal with this type of bullying is to ignore it. Verbal bullying is usually said to the face and right at you. The best way is to laugh at it and not care. If it is possible may have a quick response to show you really do not care.

The next type of common bullying is covert or hidden bullying. Unlike verbal bullying, this sort of bullying is hard to recognize. The usual main purpose of this type of bullying is to humiliate the person. For instance, lying or spreading rumors, nasty jokes, and encouraging other people to exclude a person. This is a complicated type of bullying. Because, it is not direct, it is indirect. This means that they don’t show their identity but they are hurting you. Dealing with covert bullying can be very complicated. When you don’t really know who is in charge of spreading all these rumors, you should talk to a parent or a teacher. Try to find out who is doing it and starting the rumor. Rumors will be around until you destroy it so do it as fast as you can.

The last type of bullying is cyber bullying. This type of bullying is common because of the technology we have these days. This can happen anytime. The hard thing is you can’t see the bully because you can’t see them directly. It’s just through the screen.

The first step is to block the senders. The main thing is you need to cut them off of your social media. If they still coming back, the most smartest way is to delete your account. The most important thing is to keep evidence of the what the bully online said to you.  No one is going to believe you with you just claiming that he/she did it. So, remember to print out  (or take a screenshot of) what was written to you by the bully. Be sure to collect enough evidence and then go talk to someone. Having evidence or proof is a very important thing when you are reporting it to your parents or your teachers. 

We do not need anymore cases like the Megan Meier case. We need to protect and look out for each other to see if anyone’s life is in danger. It is our responsibility to help one another and to seek help if we are the victims of bullying. Remember, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” Things will get better; never give up.

 

 

http://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/

 

 


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Posted November 4, 2015 by karen in category "Uncategorized