re: Bullied high school student graduates alone

quote:

---

Mackenzie says that she wants to pursue a future in still photography.

---

As a response to the entire thread:
The family/school fricked up in handling this for sure. They should have approached this differently rather than encouraging the idea of avoiding school entirely. This girl needed to be taught how to deal with these kind of things rather than just running.

However, those of you saying, 'Suck it up and deal with it', are a bunch of dumbasses. That's how you get school shootings.

I say this with experience of bullying and being bullied a frick ton growing up. I got the ol' 'Suck it up and deal with it' line which led to me simply bottling up a whole lot of hate and anger. Thank God I didn't have easy access to guns because I legitimately wanted to kill those assholes. Don't tell people to 'suck it up and deal with it' without teaching them or telling them HOW TO DEAL WITH IT. I have the advantage of hindsight obviously, but at the time when I was a little kid, I didn't know how to properly handle it. Anger management issues bit me in the arse for years.

Also, the administration/school isn't always in a position to help. I have a vivid memory of finally standing up and accusing those who were treating me like shite. Guess what happened? Everyone denied it, and suddenly I was in shite with the school for 'falsely accusing' others while having to deal with MORE shite from bullies.

quote:

---

In high school, it was up to us to step in. The school wasn't going to do anything. Most of the bullying centered around P.E., when the little guys were most exposed. The coaches turned a blind eye to it, probably because it was the bigger school athletes who were doing the bullying.

---

This kind of stuff is more often the norm than not, and people need to realize that.

quote:

---

The only time that I saw the school really step in is when a mom called the principal directly and everyone who had ever spoken to the kid was called in. Everybody left him alone after that.

---

It usually takes something this extreme to finally get the school off their arse, and even then, it's not really a guarantee to get results.

quote:

---

BTW, on two occasions I was turned in as participating in a group of bullies. On both occasions I had zero interaction with the kids bullied. I think that they were pressured to name names and knew that I wasn't the type to put a beating on them just for making me sit through questioning.

---

Blows that you got caught up in it though It is a real concern though that retaliation will occur to those who do something.

quote:

---

Mackenzie says that she wants to pursue a future in still photography.

---

I predict that within 10 years, she is not working and single, living with about 8+ cats and living off the government because she "society is just cruel".