Everybody is bullied and there is no harm in it.

ON EDIT to minimize confusion, I add:

If you feel there is no harm in it:

I wish you would reconsider because everyone isn't like you.

People deal with things differently. Some internalize, some externalize, some want revenge, some kill themselves, some live completely normal lives. But bullying does affect some peoples mental health and it is a cause not a factor.

Until I came to DU anyway.

I challenge anyone to find a "shooter" who was not bullied or ostracized.

how bad a case may be.

If everyone is bullied you are correct all the spree killers have been bullied. Does that make it right. Can't you see the rage it may cause in people, the sorrow, the depression?

I've been reading up on school shootings all week long... I've yet to find one single solitary case where the kid wasn't bullied or ostracized. Some minds are just to fragile to put up with that.

Maybe that is my fault, the way I wrote it.

So sorry.

We've all had quite a week!

Between the shootings and the lies, oh boy! Too funny... after reading again, we were on the same page! Honestly. It's been a rough couple of days!


:hi:

That's why they did it to me.

My difference was not psychosis so I dealt with the problems and found solutions. And friends. Allies. The occasional sweet revenge.

For a child whose difference is a slowly manifesting mental illness, the ability to roll with the punches, literal and figurative, to cope with the ridicule and all the other horrors is tragically circumscribed.

You're confusing the chicken with the egg.

No, not really... read again... we are actually in agreement!

:hi:

only lead to very wounded individuals.

Welcome to DU, Kathy.

:hi:

Welcome to DU!

There are a lot of very strong individuals in the world. Not everyone is wounded by this behavior. You can never say always or never about just about everything:)

:hi:

Welcome to DU!

If you mean to say being bullied is no excuse for going on a murder rampage, I'd say: correct.

But if you mean to say being bullied can't utterly destroy some people, I'd say: incorrect.

But it may be one part of an explanation.

Explanations are not excuses.

and I do believe that being bullied can "utterly destroy" people.

I thought that was clear. Where did I go wrong?

Is it because of the subject line?

No offense, but I really don't know what it is you're trying to say.

some can handle it, some can't, some act out, some internalize.

Bullying can have a devastating effect on someone's mental health and just because it might not have had one on "you" doesn't mean you should'nt be able to empathize with some one who might not be able to handle it as well.

PS when I say you, I don't mean you personally, I mean people in general who feel that bullying is a part of growing up and there is no harm to it. That there must be a defect in you if you can't handle it. and not recognize that everyone is not the same.

On what planet?

http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/consumption/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&ssDocName=NCC043124&ssSourceNodeId=&ssTargetNodeId=3164

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1047497,00.html

What it does to the smart kids: http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/2006/060406.Peterson.bullies.html

http://www.childresearch.net/RESOURCE/DATA/MONO/BULLYING/index.html

I think that sometimes kids are bullied BECAUSE they are strange or different already (that is, they already have some problems). It's not that the bullying CAUSED them to have mental problems. Sometimes.

But bullying in cases where the kid already has mental problems would probably make the problems even worse, and possibly drive them over the edge.

It's a parent's responsibility to stay in touch with his child's school experience, and if there's bullying going on that can't be resolved, pull the child from the school. But only IF the problem can't be resolved, and after the child himself does his best to be social or withstand the bullying for a reasonable period of time. But to leave a child in that atmosphere is wrong, IMO.

that "weird kids" aren't the only ones this is happening too.

Boys especially are brutal, more brutal than you may imagine. And I think it may be worse for them emotionally because of the way society says a man should act.

the same way.

I don't get it. What's so fun about hassling other people? I never got into that, even when I was a kid. My parents would've tanned my hide if I'd gotten into trouble for hassling someone. (Of course, I had an older brother, so I personally knew what it felt like to be picked on....so I was always sympathetic to those who would be picked on. But I sure learned how to defend myself from my big bro!)

It's the reaction to that bullying that determines what you are.

Some degree of "bullying" can even be -dare I say it- good. Kids with horrendous social manners are sometimes more likely to have those behaviors corrected by disapproving and ridiculing peers, than by parents.

But yeah, somehow, sadly, kids are also quick to pick up on any weakness. And they will relentlessly pick at that.

Kids need to be TAUGHT compassion and empathy. Yes.

To be kind. Yes.

But kids do have an amazing ability to sniff out...let's say it...freaks.

I went out of my way to avoid them.

I did everything in my power to get away from them.

Then one by one they sucker punched me.

I kept my head and beat the hell out of them.

I am sorry they made me do it.

I am sorry I broke my hand hitting them in their rock hard heads.

What else can I say?

For sticking up for yourself. Nothin' to be sorry about on your end. Sounds like they are the sorry ones.

Yes, I read the post, not just the subject line.

And shame on you for saying it is.

What he did is inexcusable on any level and any amount of bullying wouldn't make what he did excusable.

But, bullying can have devastating affects on some people. And shame on you for not recognizing that.

please stop putting words in my mouth.

I was bullied, too. It was the worst experience of my life.
And, I hate to confess, I turned and bullied some kids too. Not as badly, I hope to say. I think I grew out of it and apologized to those I hassled before I got out of high school.

but those bastards that bullied me.....I'd still like to punch each of them in the mouth. Just one good punch.
holy shit i'm still a sick bastard, 40 years later...

It's not clear that you're critiquing the view that you have in your title, rather than advocating it.