Bullies Push Student to Suicide

As a child I was the victim of bullying.  I was a different child, prone to wearing my own personal uniform to school (black slacks and white shirts) and hung out with the "bookish" crowd.  I wasn't athletic at all, and pretty much tried to make as few waves as possible.

One day, after being teased and pushed around by a school "jock" in Junior High, I finally snapped.  I began slugging him fast and furious, and though my bad pugilistic style would probably be laughable, it was relentless.  I was finally pulled off him by the assistant coach.  The bully left bloodied and the rest of my classmates who happened to be present looked at me with wide-eyed amazement.  I guess adrenaline can really make you do strange things.

For the lucky part of the story was that I turned the pent up abuse I had suffered at the bully's hands outward and only injured my fists from hitting him so many times.  Had I turned that negative energy inwardly I might have ended up like the 13 year old Texas boy from Cypress.  He ended up committing suicide.

The point of my story is not to compare the gravity of what he faced with my own experience, I can never know the extent of the bullying he withstood before he was driven to taking his own life.  The point is, in both cases the school system should have tried to prevent the behavior that caused the problem.

In my day, bullying was just ignored and we were taught to just "suck it up and take it."  That attitude was as wrong then as it is now.  Schools should be safe places for all children.  Different kids may get singled out by other children, but the bullying must be stopped and the behavior should be deemed unacceptable, not just "part of being a kid".

Part of childhood is indeed coming to terms with the unfairness of the world, but it is the schools job to try to even that field as much as possible and in Cypress, Texas that system failed.  Sad lesson to learn and at such a high cost.  I can only hope the school and the parents of the students will use this sensless death as a wake up call.