Life and Death at Suicide High

[Swede]

An estimated 50,000 teens attempt to kill themselves a year; 5,000 succeed. Some 250,000 a month report having been physically attacked, and 30 to 60 percent say they have become prey of online aggressors.

Eric Mohat, a brilliant and quirky teenager, painfully thin at 6-foot-1 and 112 pounds, was an oddity at Mentor High and proud of it. The other kids called him “Twiggy” and he just laughed. They called him a nerd and it brought to mind Bill Gates, so he considered it a badge of honor. “He was an unusually secure boy,” his mother, Janis Mohat, explains. “He just let things roll off him. He did what he wanted, and when he was teased, he turned it into a joke.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-31/life-and-death-at-suicide-high/?cid=hp:mainpromo5

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. That last paragraph says it all.

"...unless the grown-ups pull them out by the roots, more and more kids will learn how to terrorize.”

When I was a kid, decades ago, when the situation was far better, I was involved in an incident - a little verbal spat got me and another sent to the office, and on the way there the other kid damn near knocked me out. When we did get to the office the VP commended me for 'not fighting back', and I was like 'are you fucking kidding me? I'm 5'6 and a 114 lbs - he's 6'2 and 195 if he's an ounce - he could hold me at arms length and pummel me all day long and I'd never be able to touch him - not fighting back, covering up was ALL I could do.

But he was jock, he was on the football team, and in a small school that meant a whole lot more than Drama Club. So the VP treated it as if we were equally at fault, and that was it.

It was only after that that I figured out how to deal with the bullying - go crazy. I was too small to fight effectively, but if I put all 114 lbs into whaling on the bully they'd remember it - even if they first mopped the sidewalk with me, they left me alone after that. And THAT was all I could do because the teachers either went blind or they approved of the bullies - there was no help coming from them.

[renate]

2. these stories are always so completely heartbreaking

The kids who get bullied are my absolute favorite kind of kids--sweet, quirky, sensitive--and I know I'm not alone in that. They are such delightful and wonderful people who go on to make the world a better place--when they do get to grow up, that is.

I wish we could bring them back to hug them and tell them how special they are and how much we treasure people like them. :cry: