Bullying can lead to suicide

Dear Nanay,

Allow me to share this story, which I hope can make us more aware of one of the problems some of our children and parents are facing.

Millie was my daughter’s best friend from kindergarten to high school. They were both honor students. She belongs to a well-to-do family. Someone who spent her summer vacations abroad, someone who has everything a teenager could wish for. She had her own car and driver sent to pick her up from school and take her everywhere she wanted to go. But despite that, she was a very down-to-earth girl. She was a friend and mentor to all of her batch mates in high school.

After high school graduation, my daughter lost touch with her as they entered different universities. Millie was all too excited entering college; after all she was accepted to her dream university. But the course that she wanted to take was already full so she shifted to another course and was accepted to a block section. Same in high school, she excelled and was at the top of the class.  This was normal for her for she is really an intelligent girl.

Unknown to her, her block mates resented it. They said she did not deserve to be at the top of the class because she did not actually belong to that block, being a “shifty.” And for that shallow reason, she was treated as an “outcast” and was bullied for that whole class year.  Everybody in the class hated her. She tried very hard to befriend and prove herself but no one listened, not a single one. The only classmate she thought she could rely on left her and joined the class in bullying her. 

She told her parents about it. They tried to ask for the help from the university but they did not listen.  Millie was so devastated.  The bullying was so much that it became a trauma to attend her classes and eventually her parents asked her to stop attending classes.

She loved school so much. She was happy having many friends. She had many dreams. Stopping school was beyond comprehension. In her mind, she was asking, “What have I done wrong? I just want to study and fulfill my dreams.”

Those thoughts never left her and it became a nightmare. She became a recluse and was afraid to see other people including my daughter, until it led to a deep depression. She became a different person. Gone was the happy, pretty and intelligent Millie. Her parents did everything to help her overcome the depression but the trauma and pain was so deep that Millie never recovered. Bullying tore her apart. It caused her lots of pain so that her pure heart could not take anymore. One day she decided to end everything. She was barely 18.

We were all devastated, especially her family. Why? How can some people be so cruel? There were lots of unanswered questions but only those people who did that to her can answer, maybe.

I pray for her, her family and friends, my daughter and for those people who hurt her so much. May God help us to overcome this tragedy and may those people who read this take bullying as a very serious problem in our society. May we all remember Millie.

God Bless. —LOVING MOM                   

Dear loving mom,

Without a doubt, bullying remains a big problem in our schools today.  Not only at the college level, but also even in high school and elementary schools.  This can take more traditional forms like name calling or physical bullying.  But in today’s high tech world, bullying has also manifested itself in social media like Facebook and Twitter.  This is what is now called cyber bullying, which can be even more difficult to monitor given the anonymity that the Internet provides all of us.

Unfortunately, there is often very little the school can do as they cannot monitor thousands of students at the same time, all the time.  The more proactive ones will at least make efforts to control the bullying but I am sure that many find the problem unsolvable and would rather just turn a blind eye to the problem.

Much has been written — books and articles — about the problem of bullying and how to solve it.  But I think in the end, the only solution comes down to the parents.  All the parents.  It is our collective responsibility to stop bullying.  Whether your child is the bully or the one being bullied, it is your responsibility to teach your children that bullying in any form is wrong.  That you may find some of your actions amusing or funny but that someone else’s feelings are being hurt.  We all need to educate our children about the importance of respect, friendship and camaraderie.  And the importance of respecting each other’s feelings and not having fun at another person’s expense. 

Thank you for sharing your letter and experience.  Although I am sure it was a painful memory to recount, it will hopefully help bring awareness about the problem of bullying and the responsibility we as parents have to prevent it.

Sincerely,

Nanay

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