If you don’t have access to any form of media, being paper or electronic, then you clearly haven’t heard about the increase of suicides which were induced by an onslaught of relentless bullying. I’m not just singling out the LGBT community, but in all areas of society, this unfortunate circumstance has become alarmingly relevant. Reading about the individual cases, and what initially led to that person’s death, because they were so hopeless that they felt that the only thing left to do was to take themselves out of the situation, permanently, just sickens my stomach. It literally brings tears to my eyes because I too can relate.
A quite ridiculous incident that took place my Freshmen year of high school, would come back to haunt me my Junior year at a completely different school. And boy, I had NO IDEA what I was in for. What specifically happened my first year of high school went something like this:
I was getting ready for school, going through my daily routine which consisted of taking a shower, brushing my teeth, fixing my hair, putting on lip gloss, pulling on my Catholic school uniform, grabbing something I could eat in the car for breakfast and finally, waiting for my aunt who would drop me off in front of the building. Only that day, I didn’t get past putting on my uniform. I was upstairs changing when I heard a great commotion coming from the family room down stairs. I ran down to see that my younger sister, who was in grade school at the time, had let our Golden Retriever, Buttercup, out to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, as she let our dog out, a skunk came scurrying across the driveway in front of the garage and Butter took off after it. She of course was sprayed and my sister in the meantime was screaming frantically to let her back in the house, not knowing that the foul liquid had come in contact with her fur.
Butter instinctively ran inside and started dragging herself across the couch, trying to rub the toxic oil out of her coat. She happened to graze all of our book bags on her way. Within seconds, it was impossible to breathe and my mother hurried us out the door into the front yard not knowing that we too had become tainted with the smell.
She did what any normal parent would do, and sent us off to school so that she would be free of us in order to take care of the disaster that was now our dog and family room. My Aunt showed up on time, I hopped in her car and she immediately made a comment of how bad the skunk smell was. I told her what had happened and we figured that it was burned into our noses since it happened in such close proximity to the house. We continued on to my high school, all the while she kept bringing up the fact that the smell shouldn’t be so bad since we were now so far away from the house. She wondered if I should go back home but I insisted on going in since we were already here and I had homework to turn in and didn't want to fall behind. She shrugged off her initial feeling of taking me home, let me out in front of my school and told me to have a good day.
As I walked around the building, I finally made my way to the back door and took the 3 flights upstairs to where the freshmen lockers were located. In the mean time I noticed how badly the smell was burnt into my nostrils. It was fresh even after all the time that had passed and was starting to make me both nauseated and dizzy. I then realized that people were making comments about how a skunk must have sprayed outside the school. People ran down the hall cupping their hands over their nose and mouth and I was instantly horrified. I stood frozen in place and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to just run out of the building because my house was almost 5 miles away and I didn’t have a cell phone at the time (yeah I’m old). I also didn’t want to ditch and ruin my clean record. So I waited in a vacant doorway until the halls were empty after the first bell had rung and then I rushed down to the first floor straight to the front office.
Upon entering, everyone snapped their heads up and then covered their faces. I heard one secretary say “Oh my God, that’s where the smell is coming from!”. I gave the other secretary my name, phone number and she called my mother, but not until she told me that I should probably wait outside by the gym for her to come pick me up. I again peeked into the hall to make sure no one was coming and then high tailed it outside. A few people noticed but luckily didn’t say anything as the smell hit them.
My mom picked me up, along with my 2 sisters and cousins who were involved in the tragic Stench Incident of 2005. She apologized all the way home and tried to calm Erin down who was crying over the whole thing. We spent the rest of the day experimenting, with every remedy known to man, to get the smell out. 5 hours later we ended up finding a miracle concoction that came in the form of a TINY bottle of liquid that took the stench out of everything.
Forward 3 years later and I was a Junior at a public school, with the skunk incident completely logged away in the Useless Information folder located in the back of my head. My schedule that year consisted of an afternoon drafting class which contained a boy from the Catholic school I had previously attended. I had never talked to him my Freshmen or Sophomore year but he sure knew who I was and didn’t let me forget it 2 weeks into that class. He, and another boy, sat 2 rows behind me at the long drafting table which they shared. I honestly didn't know more than 2 people when I transferred over to the school and figured people would be friendly or just flat out ignore me. I couldn't have been more wrong.
It began one day with a quick little comment, loud enough for me to hear, as the boy I recognized, mentioned to the kid next to him who enquired who I was, since I was the new girl, that he knew me alright. He piped up and laughed saying, “Oh, that girl! Keep away from her, she smells!” The other boy said that he didn't smell anything as he took a quick whiff of the air. The other one cupped his nose and said, be careful, if you try to hard you will smell skunk! My stomach instantly dropped to my feet and I turned the deepest shade of red as I hid behind my hair and slunk into my seat.
Thinking back on it now, it was so stupid to be as horrified as I was over the recognition. But it was enough to create a year of HELL for me. The comments came the next day as the 2 boys snickered again and started to say how much I stunk. I instantly became paranoid, not that I smelled like skunk, but that I might have smelled of B.O. or anything, even though I showered every morning and always put on clean clothes. I was terrified that there was the slightest thing wrong with me or out of place that would give them fuel to continue to make the comments.
The third day rolled around and I slowly made my way to the drafting classroom and took my seat, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. I had bargained with myself that I would ignore them completely and hoped that if they thought they weren’t getting to me, that they would stop. This didn’t work. On the contrary, the comments came even more frequently and then they began to throw things at my hair, which is naturally curly and the perfect texture for things to stick in and me to not feel it, while the teacher’s back was turned. Weeks of this went on and I began to dread the school day more and more, giving myself anxiety to the point I didn’t want to go to school or couldn’t eat lunch because I knew what was coming right after.
The teacher, one day took notice that I wasn’t participating like I usually did. He was right. I went into class, after having taken a few days off due to being “sick”, and kept my head down and never answered just so that the two wouldn’t have anything on me to torment me with. The teacher then kept tabs after a week and a half of my not answering questions during class participation and that my grades were dropping. He then noticed a comment made by one of the 2 boys, telling them to be quiet or he was going to write them up.
The teacher pulled me aside after class and asked me what was wrong. I told him nothing was wrong, because I was so afraid he would say something to the boys, getting them into some kind of trouble and them in turn having fodder to lash out even more. He saw right through me and the next day I found out that he had tracked both of them down and yelled at them. Of course, things got worse as I had expected. More items were thrown at me, sometimes pencils hit me and stabbed into my skin, drawing blood. More inane comments came that were degrading and made me feel completely worthless. They even started to heckle the teacher who would try to defend me to the point that they were in trouble almost every week. You would think this would stop them but it became some sort of relentless sick game. This made me even more nervous since the teacher couldn’t even control them.
The only thing that got me through this horrid situation was when I finally made friends with 2 other classmates. They found out what was going on and began to stick up for me. 3/4ths through the year, the 2 boys finally slowed their bullying until by the end of the school year it had completely stopped. One other comment was made my senior year as Bully #1 passed me in the hall, but I ignored it and never heard from him again.
I was extremely lucky that I had support and the will power to withstand it even though there were MANY times that I wanted to give up. I couldn’t justify a good explanation why they would single me out and how someone could gain any sort of pleasure from torturing another human being. It really made me feel like I was nothing.
This account may sound vague and not that severe, but it was enough to send me home crying every day driving myself insane over what was wrong with me. I also didn’t know what to do to resolve this since I had finally confronted them which in turn made them make fun of me to my face. After the confrontation I let it be and eventually others stepped in to help.
I can understand why these unfortunate victims of harassment and bullying have taken their lives. It is a constant onslaught of negativity which then turns into paranoia, anxiety and over all depression, knowing you have to face it each day and that you feel there is nothing you can do about it.
But know that there IS something you can do. You CAN and SHOULD talk to your teachers, to your parents or even to other students. Making people aware of the situation will 1. Help you to not feel alone in, since that is the biggest crime of these incidents, the being singled out aspect of it all. 2. If higher authorities don’t do anything, then go to an even high source. Do not be embarrassed of feeling weak in doing so. There is no reason that anyone should have to experience this, and the person doing the bullying may have issues of their own that need to be addressed. 3. Do some research. Go online! Despite your cause or the reason you are a target, you will find support with others who are experiencing the same thing. Granted you may not find a skunk smelling anonymous group, but there are others who can give you positive advice on how to handle something like this.
I can't emphasize this enough but please know that there is hope. And you should never feel that the only situation is death, even if you feel like it is, because it truly is NOT. There is help out there if you want to find it.
I hope that my own embarrassing story, which isn’t as severe an incident as what people of the current headlines may be experiencing, will help people to realize that things do get better. That they aren’t alone and there are people who care and wish for the bullying to stop and will try to make put an end to it.
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