URGENT! Input requested! Bullying/Harassment in High School
Ok, so I am going to be doing my first presentation in a high school specifically on the topic of sexual harassment and bullying. Here's my quandary: like most kids who were bullied, I told NO ONE. I was terrified to tell anybody in authority about being bullied (parents, teachers, etc.) because I KNEW that things would become worse if I was labeled not only as a nerd/geek/skank/slut/dyke etc., but also as someone who narked on fellow students. And, in fact, the one time I did tell anybody, the harassment and bullying escalated. Still, the standard line (and I see why) is "Tell someone in authority. Keep telling. If the person in authority doesn't believe you, switch to someone else." There's other advice as well, but that's part of the main message.
So, here's my question: To anybody on my f-list who was the victim of bullying and/or sexual harassment at school--did you do anything that helped your situation? If so, what was it? How did your attackers react? How did adults react? How did bullying affect your life as an adult, if at all?
I'm trying to gather some impressions to help me with how to address the situation in a knowing way, rather than just being some stupid adult coming into the school and bleating, "Tell an adult!" when--I suspect--the main reaction on the part of the students will secretly be, "Stupid adults don't know anything about how things really work. I can't tell..." How do I get around that? Should I?
If you are uncomfortable with addressing any of this as public commentary on my lj, please feel free to send me a private email.
Thank you all, in advance. By responding, hopefully you can help me with these presentations, and hopefully the presentations MIGHT make a positive difference for a teen out there right now, going through bullying.
Addendum: My Own Bullied Experiences in Brief
I realized suddenly that I'd asked my lj-friends to talk about bullying experiences they'd lived through and hadn't offered much. I didn't think that was fair, to ask you all to possibly relive really awful experiences and not at least state some of my own. So...I was bullied pretty badly in Junior High (mostly). Things got better as I went through High School. In Junior High, I was the bottom of the social ladder. I had a pack or two of girls who dedicated a fair amount of time to terrorizing me. I was followed home from school by a pack who would get in my way, shove me, call me sexual slurs like dyke and skank and slut, ask if I had oil wells growing in my hair, call me a bitch, and would peel off when I got near the turn-off to my own court, only to do it again another day. They made a great sport of trying not to sit near me at lunch, get near me in the locker room, and would pointedly avoid me in the halls after first declaring they were going to do so. I was also picked on because I was "too smart." People would ask if I'd swallowed a dictionary. Girls threatened to "beat the shit out of me" because I thought I was smarter than they were. Interestingly, my grades were not very good at the time. I just had a big vocabulary, when I had the courage to speak. I would get suckered when girls would act suddenly friendly to me, and go to join them at their table at lunch, only to have them turn on me when I got there and send me away again, laughing at how dumb I was.
I was threatened with being thrown into the dumpster (and weirdly, I can't actually remember if this happened, or was just threatened) and with flushing my head in the toilet. My house was TPed once, and then not only egged, but sprayed with Christmas tree flock (that white stuff) with words like "bitch" and "slut" and then (bizarrely) whoever was responsible also taped pink and blue circles of construction paper to the door. This all happened on an evening I was home and my mom was gone. I heard nothing and only knew it had happened when she returned.
I never told anybody about it. I was terrified that if I did, people at school would find out, and then not only would I be a pariah, I would be a narc, and I'd be in even worse shape than I already was. My grades suffered, my self-esteem was lower than constipated crap, I was depressed, and I lived in a state of anxiety. I never fought back.
I credit most of this with my passion, now, for women's self-defense. I have never been raped, but I have certainly been on the receiving end of violence of some sort.
So, here's my question: To anybody on my f-list who was the victim of bullying and/or sexual harassment at school--did you do anything that helped your situation? If so, what was it? How did your attackers react? How did adults react? How did bullying affect your life as an adult, if at all?
I'm trying to gather some impressions to help me with how to address the situation in a knowing way, rather than just being some stupid adult coming into the school and bleating, "Tell an adult!" when--I suspect--the main reaction on the part of the students will secretly be, "Stupid adults don't know anything about how things really work. I can't tell..." How do I get around that? Should I?
If you are uncomfortable with addressing any of this as public commentary on my lj, please feel free to send me a private email.
Thank you all, in advance. By responding, hopefully you can help me with these presentations, and hopefully the presentations MIGHT make a positive difference for a teen out there right now, going through bullying.
Addendum: My Own Bullied Experiences in Brief
I realized suddenly that I'd asked my lj-friends to talk about bullying experiences they'd lived through and hadn't offered much. I didn't think that was fair, to ask you all to possibly relive really awful experiences and not at least state some of my own. So...I was bullied pretty badly in Junior High (mostly). Things got better as I went through High School. In Junior High, I was the bottom of the social ladder. I had a pack or two of girls who dedicated a fair amount of time to terrorizing me. I was followed home from school by a pack who would get in my way, shove me, call me sexual slurs like dyke and skank and slut, ask if I had oil wells growing in my hair, call me a bitch, and would peel off when I got near the turn-off to my own court, only to do it again another day. They made a great sport of trying not to sit near me at lunch, get near me in the locker room, and would pointedly avoid me in the halls after first declaring they were going to do so. I was also picked on because I was "too smart." People would ask if I'd swallowed a dictionary. Girls threatened to "beat the shit out of me" because I thought I was smarter than they were. Interestingly, my grades were not very good at the time. I just had a big vocabulary, when I had the courage to speak. I would get suckered when girls would act suddenly friendly to me, and go to join them at their table at lunch, only to have them turn on me when I got there and send me away again, laughing at how dumb I was.
I was threatened with being thrown into the dumpster (and weirdly, I can't actually remember if this happened, or was just threatened) and with flushing my head in the toilet. My house was TPed once, and then not only egged, but sprayed with Christmas tree flock (that white stuff) with words like "bitch" and "slut" and then (bizarrely) whoever was responsible also taped pink and blue circles of construction paper to the door. This all happened on an evening I was home and my mom was gone. I heard nothing and only knew it had happened when she returned.
I never told anybody about it. I was terrified that if I did, people at school would find out, and then not only would I be a pariah, I would be a narc, and I'd be in even worse shape than I already was. My grades suffered, my self-esteem was lower than constipated crap, I was depressed, and I lived in a state of anxiety. I never fought back.
I credit most of this with my passion, now, for women's self-defense. I have never been raped, but I have certainly been on the receiving end of violence of some sort.