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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I'll admit. I don't like the word "bullycide", to me it implies the bully standing over their victim forcing them to shoot themselves. Suicide is tragic, but it's a tragic CHOICE and I think that using the rhetoric of coercion (ie "he was FORCED to kill himself") is necessarily helpful. Even if we eliminated bullying tomorrow kids and adults would still be killing themselves. On the other hand I think it is at least theoretically possible (although probably impossible) that suicide could be eliminated- even if bullying continued in its current form.
I guess I see "bullycide" as two separate issues and I'm not sure that much is being gained by linking them. "It gets better" has done a great job of trying to tackle suicide, but I feel that a little too often the focus is only on kids that want to kill themselves because of bullying and only gay kids that want to kill themselves because of homophobic bullying. I feel that's a very narrow target for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I was a gay kid growing up in a homophobic community. Not Christian homophobic- just uneducated, low-income, rural homophobic. There were a number of times I wanted to kill myself as a teenager, and a few times I prepped for it (tied a noose ready). I never attempted, but I was borderline. For me, it wasn't bullying, though. I was fortunate not to be bullied too much over sexuality and I had a supportive group of friends, and a tanked boyfriend that allowed me to ignore any bullying that was targeted at me once I came out. There have been four main factors in my life that have made me think of suicide:
-Isolation. I had few friends for a large part of high school. I wasn't bullied as often as other people at school, rather I was invisible. Between the ages of 12-16 I don't think I had a single school friend come to my house. Part of it was because I was ashamed of being poor. I visited friend's houses probably less than 5 times over 4 years. My entire self-esteem was built up on being intelligent because my teachers were the main people that I interacted with. I was bullied occasionally over my intelligence, over being well spoken, over my church-based ethics (I didn't smoke/ drink/ and rarely swore). I distinctly remember in grade 8 some boys in front of me in class talking about how "1 in 10 people are gay, that means 3 people in our class were... who do you think?" and them laughing and pointing at me as well as two others. I was bullied, but it wasn't systematic and it was seldom violent (usually hard punches on the arm that were more ritualistic "wedgie" type behaviour because I was an easy target rather than being a "beating up"). I guess the isolation made these incidents feel worse, too. Until I realised I was gay at 16, isolation would have been the primary motive for suicide. Suicide was something I fantasised about and I remember one time tying my school tie really tight around my neck and trying to hang myself from a door frame while waiting for a teacher outside a class room, my face went a bit red from restricted blood flow before I stopped. My classmates thought I was just joking around and being silly, I wasn't really. I wished I could die and every could see and notice me. It just wasn't really practical to kill myself in a situation like that, though.
-Self loathing. When I came out, as I said I wasn't the target of a great deal of bullying. But I'd been raised Christian and to me, homosexuality was wrong. I wanted to be gay, I liked boys, but homosexuality was immoral. I couldn't control my urges- I'd tried to stop masturbating before to no avail and I knew I couldn't stop liking guys. I was doomed to be gay and think sinful thoughts. When I did first start being sexually active the self-loathing was exacerbated. For two years I struggled and oscillated between secular arguments and believing I might as well die because being gay was wrong. I wasn't directly a victim of bullying at all, but because of my religious upbringing I became a bully to myself. I called myself worse things that any schoolyard bully could have. And it hurt more, because I listened to my own head. If it had been a bully I could have easily switched off. I also got scared, scared that coming out would mean rejection by my family, friends and society at large. I read the "horror stories" like about Matthew Shepherd which did more to scare me than anything else. As an aside I think the gay media hyping up the cases of "bullycide" has the potential to be bad for gay kids, if they are like I was they will think "look how bad it is out there- these other people are killing themselves over it- the world hates me- maybe I should die too". I hope "it gets better" will remember that at the end of the day, the person that makes someone kill themselves is themselves. We need to convince gay kids that it does get better, that it will be okay and that they need to snap out of it. A lot of the videos I've seen seem to forget what it's like to be a teen and seem to accept it as a given that the kids accept themselves as gay and are "just" killing themselves over bullying. I doubt that's the case- one can recover from and ignore bullying if they have a positive self-image and believe that they are in the right.
-Rejection. For me, one of the most intense periods for me, when I was closest to killing myself is after my first gay crush not only rejected me, but refused to acknowledge my existence. He wasn't a bully, but once he knew I was gay and liked him he didn't even look me in the eye, let alone talk to me. That was devestating. Absolutely devestating. I would have rathered be called "fag" in the hallway at school every day, punched, have my locker sabotaged, etc than the cold rejection I faced at his hands. I think the reaction from him was so extreme partially because he was homophobic. But funnily enough it's possible to imagine the same scenario between a straight boy and a girl. Possibly the closest I've ever been to suicide and it wasn't even directly a sexuality issue. But it was, too. I don't know the exact stories of the gay kids that have been killing themselves- the media is pushing the bullying issue. But I wonder how frequently it is the bullying itself. I wonder if the rejection by a crush has been the final straw in any of the cases.
-Depression. Since adulthood I've struggled a lot with depression and generally low self-esteem. I have big ambitions and seldom accomplish the things I want to- and I often struggle even just performing important day-to-day duties. It's not at all sexuality related. It's stuff like failing my studies. Not finding work. Being lazy with house work. Financial pressure. Being unable to control my temper. I sometimes find it very hard to like the person I am, even though now I have absolutely no problems with my sexuality. Depression for me is an ongoing curse since my teen years that seems to have been exacerbated by the pressures of adult life.
No without trying to undermine the importance of combating bullying I sometimes feel the focus is lost when talking about suicide. Suicide goes a lot deeper than bullying. And in some cases gay youth are bullied for reasons other than their sexuality. Tyler Clementi's suicide was because he was humiliated, but we still don't know if he was humiliated because of his sexuality or if it was just a prank gone wrong. It's unlikely that Joseph Jefferson killed himself over bullying- he was a 26 year old- my age. While his last message on facebook speaks of homophobia and pain, it says nothing of bullying. Raymond Chase probably didn't kill himself over bullying, either- he was 19 and at college. This article echos my feelings in more detail: http://www.autostraddle.com/joseph-jefferson-no-easy-answer-65984/
Bullying is a problem, a big problem. Bullying over sexuality is particularly cruel. But bullying is never DIRECTLY the cause of suicide. Suicide is caused by people believing life just isn't worth it any more. Tackling bullying is only combating one half of the equation and arguably it's a cop out and taking the easy way out. It's relatively easy for schools to prevent bullying (at least while teachers are around). It's much harder to convince a kid that THEIR individual life is worth living. Especially when they might feel isolated, they might loathe themselves, they might be depressed or they may have faced rejection. Those are all causes that we CAN'T stop the way we can stop bullying. We can't prevent gay kids from being rejected by straight crushes (unless we force straight kids to date their gay peers!), we can't MAKE a kid have friends. It gets better can't just be about the bullying. It needs to be about why life is worth living, why each and every kid is valuable (no matter their sexuality!), why set backs shouldn't be seen as a good enough reason to commit suicide- even when the set backs are terrible (like severe bullying can be). I'm opposed to the anti-bullying campaign not because I think bullying is trivial, but because I think it's trying to combat suicide with legislative means (stronger anti-bullying laws, etc) when so much of the motivation for suicide can be societal rather than legislative. I also worry that the distinction between bullying and teasing and differences of opinion will be lost. Teasing is a part of growing up and in itself not harmful- ritualistic teasing can become bullying but I don't think it's bullying itself. Calling homosexuality immoral is a difference of opinion and should not be considered bullying even thought it's a nasty thing to say. I don't think political correctness is going to stop kids killing themselves. I also don't think wrapping gay kids in the cotton wool of strong anti-bullying laws will necessarily protect them.
I also wonder about the tone of the campaign and how victims of homophobic bullying are often broad-brushed as gay. You don't need to be gay to be called a fag. You don't need to be queer to be beaten up for being queer. The campaign to stop homophobic bullying shouldn't just be about gay kids- it should be about all kids. Hell why is it even being limited to gay kids? What about the fat kids, smart kids, smelly kids and poor kids? They get bullied for reasons that have nothing to do with sexuality. But even if it's just about homophobic bullying, we should be careful about pushing the "it's okay to be gay line". Gay kids might want to hear "it gets better, you'll have a great life as a gay adult", but straight kids labelled as gay don't want to hear that! The last thing a straight kid that's called fag wants to hear is "the gay movement embraces you"- he doesn't want to be gay and possibly he's not! Teenage years should be about questioning and discovering things like sexuality and gender. I don't think it's right for the gay rights movement to be co-opting the images of these kids without being able to ask them if they are actually gay.
Western culture is homophobic and heteronormative. That is as much a problem as bullying is. Straight kids don't want to be gay because gay is inferior to straight. Girliness is associated with homosexuality. Feminimity is seen as inferior to masculinity. It's a big deal for a straight guy to be lusted after by a gay guy, but not so much to be lusted after by a girl he's uninterested in. Until all of this changes there will still be impetueus for gay kids to kill themselves. And even if all of that changes some gay kids will kill themselves because of reasons totally unrelated to sexuality.
In Australia one of the highest suicide rates can be found amongst rural, young-middle aged men. We need to be telling all people that life is worth living.
I guess that's why I don't like the "bullycide" campaign. Because to me the issue is more complex. And I feel that by lumping a bunch of youth together we lose the nuances of each of their deaths. They were each individuals in pain, but their pain was different in every case. Some may have been triggered by bullying, some may have been gay, but unless we're made privy to notes left by them to their close friends and family (if any exist) then we're only guessing when we say it's another death caused by homophobic bullying. And we marginalise their pain and the pain of their grieving friends families.
It gets better. But it doesn't get better just because you get to live as a gay man and because the bullying stops. It gets better once you accept yourself as a person whoever you are and whatever your sexuality may be. It gets better once you are able to focus on the positives and pleasures in life without dwelling on the negatives. It gets better when you surround yourself with the things that make life worth living. It gets better when you realise there are things out there that do make life worth living. And it gets easier once you leave home- leaving home itself doesn't make things better- but it becomes easier to make things better. Once you leave home you are responsible for creating your own happiness.
I've been suicidal before and it hasn't just magically gotten better. I've had to make it get better. And I'm still trying to make it get better now. The future is mine, and yours, for the taking.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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