Something happened this week which really bothered me. Two 14-year-old girls from Lynn, Wisconsin committed suicide. One of them is someone I was related to, though I had no idea of her existence. Her surname is the same as my middle name. She was chubby for her age. She had red hair. She had been bullied at school because she was "fat." During a sleepover at her mother's house, she and her best friend left suicide notes and killed themselves.
The town these girls is from at less than 150 families in it at the time of the 2000 census. It seems inconceivable to me that the people in that town, the adults at least, could possibly have been unaware that they were being bullied. It seems inconceivable to me that the adults in that town didn't know exactly who was bullying those little girls.
The television coverage particularly on NBC television has consisted of denials on the part of the school board in nearby Marshall that they were aware of any bullying, and assurances that there would be grief counselors standing by for the students.
Where the hell were counselors when these girls needed help? Why didn't anyone on that school staff step in and stop the bullying? Why, when she was the target of bullying, was the girl who shares my name expelled from school the one time she fought back?
Even in a consolidated high school where students from several small towns attend, I still find it inconceivable that the faculty and administration were unaware that those two girls were being bullied. By expelling the victim, the school system has shown the nation that it deals with problems by blaming the victim and sweeping the wrongdoers acts under the rug.
It passes me off beyond belief.
Well, what the hell. Wisconsin is the home state of that sociopathic bigoted bitch, Michele Bachmann. I suppose it's to be expected.
However, I STILL wish I'd known her. I put up with a lot of crap in grade school. I had a weird name. I was smart, but I was too people-stupid to hide it. My mother wasn't a part of the established social circles in the school district and that left me with no mother-friends, children of other mothers the same age. Everything I felt showed on my face, and *that invited bullying. My mother made a lot of my clothes. Most other kids' mothers did not make their clothing. That left me open to ridicule, though frankly I thought my clothes were better made than store-bought... they were, but the point was not to "stand out."
I survived public shool, but I'll guarantee you that I hated most of it. Maybe if I'd known this little girl existed, if I'd known any of her family in Minnesota, had been in contact with them, there might have been something I could have said which would have made her feel less despair than she and her best friend, both felt.
Then again, would having the same name as a little girl be enough to bridge a 48 year gap in our ages, let her feel she could have picked up the phone and called me or Emailed me and asked me to call her. Had I known her family, would her mother have resented my saying or doing anything?
I'll never know now. My name, my given names, have been a source of irritation at times in my life, and at others a source of uniqueness. To see and read that someone sharing my very unusual name committed suicide -- ended that name, fills me with such sadness. It's as if a piece of me just removed itself.
And yet, I never met her. Now no one will meet her, will see the promise on her that all youth carries.
And that breaks my heart a little more than it is already broken.
I wake up so many mornings, go to sleep so many nights, aching with age and less than perfect health, bone tired, alone except for the cats. I'd love to have given her some of my years, because I've had a bunch of good ones. I just had to survive a decade and 2/3 or so of privileged asshats and clueless morons to get to the point that I could start having some good years.
As I said, it pisses me off. Pisses me off to tears.
The town these girls is from at less than 150 families in it at the time of the 2000 census. It seems inconceivable to me that the people in that town, the adults at least, could possibly have been unaware that they were being bullied. It seems inconceivable to me that the adults in that town didn't know exactly who was bullying those little girls.
The television coverage particularly on NBC television has consisted of denials on the part of the school board in nearby Marshall that they were aware of any bullying, and assurances that there would be grief counselors standing by for the students.
Where the hell were counselors when these girls needed help? Why didn't anyone on that school staff step in and stop the bullying? Why, when she was the target of bullying, was the girl who shares my name expelled from school the one time she fought back?
Even in a consolidated high school where students from several small towns attend, I still find it inconceivable that the faculty and administration were unaware that those two girls were being bullied. By expelling the victim, the school system has shown the nation that it deals with problems by blaming the victim and sweeping the wrongdoers acts under the rug.
It passes me off beyond belief.
Well, what the hell. Wisconsin is the home state of that sociopathic bigoted bitch, Michele Bachmann. I suppose it's to be expected.
However, I STILL wish I'd known her. I put up with a lot of crap in grade school. I had a weird name. I was smart, but I was too people-stupid to hide it. My mother wasn't a part of the established social circles in the school district and that left me with no mother-friends, children of other mothers the same age. Everything I felt showed on my face, and *that invited bullying. My mother made a lot of my clothes. Most other kids' mothers did not make their clothing. That left me open to ridicule, though frankly I thought my clothes were better made than store-bought... they were, but the point was not to "stand out."
I survived public shool, but I'll guarantee you that I hated most of it. Maybe if I'd known this little girl existed, if I'd known any of her family in Minnesota, had been in contact with them, there might have been something I could have said which would have made her feel less despair than she and her best friend, both felt.
Then again, would having the same name as a little girl be enough to bridge a 48 year gap in our ages, let her feel she could have picked up the phone and called me or Emailed me and asked me to call her. Had I known her family, would her mother have resented my saying or doing anything?
I'll never know now. My name, my given names, have been a source of irritation at times in my life, and at others a source of uniqueness. To see and read that someone sharing my very unusual name committed suicide -- ended that name, fills me with such sadness. It's as if a piece of me just removed itself.
And yet, I never met her. Now no one will meet her, will see the promise on her that all youth carries.
And that breaks my heart a little more than it is already broken.
I wake up so many mornings, go to sleep so many nights, aching with age and less than perfect health, bone tired, alone except for the cats. I'd love to have given her some of my years, because I've had a bunch of good ones. I just had to survive a decade and 2/3 or so of privileged asshats and clueless morons to get to the point that I could start having some good years.
As I said, it pisses me off. Pisses me off to tears.
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