One survivor's story...

A friend of mine from school corresponds with me on Facebook.  After i began writing about our experiences and what we learned,working on sharing to help others, she began sharing with me about her own experience and how torn they had been in trying to stand up to the bully.  As a survivor, she has a very powerful story, one that speaks to just how hard it is to find the right path to survive and thrive after bullying and harassment.  To my friend, my heartfelt thanks for sharing.  To our readers, I hope it gives you another perspective in your own journey.  If you would like to share as well, we welcome guest bloggers here, to broaden perspective and learn together.  Thanks!




Bullying can lead to PTSD


I am 37 and suffer from PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It all started in 2002 when I got married and we bought our first home and moved next to “the neighbor from hell.”  We had only been living there a week when we received an anonymous letter on our door threatening us because according to the letter we had cleaned off our drive way and had send dirt down the way to our neighbors.  The thing is we don’t clean off our driveway or sidewalks with the hose because we grew up in a drought and don’t waste water like that.


Six months later we very tastefully landscaped our yard and our neighbor didn’t like it and then for the next 4 years he would yell at me, threaten to kill me, throw stuff in our yards, etc.  He tried to petition to get rid of us, but due to there is no HOA we didn’t do anything wrong. And it wasn’t like we had funky lawn art or pink flamingos in our yard. We didn’t cement in our yard and make a parking lot. Our yard was very typical of other yards in our neighborhood, and was actually a copy of a yard down the street that got praised in the local paper for being beautiful and drought tolerant.


He did find some people to back his claim and as they walked the neighborhood taunting me I no longer felt welcomed and feared trying to make friends with other neighbors, as I was afraid they would lash out at me too. (A few years later we found out his biggest follower and our other harasser was arrested for being a Pedophile.) 


At first we just turned the other cheek and didn’t say anything. Because isn’t that what we are taught in church. If you have nothing to say don’t say anything at all? We were nice and polite.  We knew he was in the military and was home on disability.  In addition his wife really wanted to have a baby, but couldn’t get pregnant.   So tried to be empathetic and hoped that soon he’d stop taking his anger out on me/us.  He didn’t stop and things escalated.  


Finally my husband went over there to talk to him and he told my husband to beat me into line, as that is what he does and it works.  


Later we found an odd substance in our back yard that was obviously put there by the neighbor so I called the police. They came and I told them what had been going on and due to it was only my word against his they couldn’t do anything. They said if he threatened my life again I could call them up and they would put them in a holding cell over night. That was all they could do. They suggested we move.  Like you we didn’t want to let him push us around and win so we stayed.


For four years I feared for my life every day. I was afraid to go outside. I stayed home with all the widows and doors locked and the alarm set. If I went out side I took my phone with me and was on it talking to someone just so I won’t feel so alone and someone would witness my death if it came to that. When I had to leave the house I would turn the car on in the garage, lock the doors, open the garage door and then pull out. When I came home I would pull in to the garage close the door, turn off the car and then get out.


It’s been 8 years since he moved and I’m still dealing with PTSD.  


I regret not moving.  We didn’t do it at the time because we didn’t want to let him win, it would have been expensive and a hassle.  Looking back we know that the cost and hassle would have been worth my sanity. My husband also regrets not standing up to him more in the beginning.


Last year I moved and my PTSD is better, the house and yard isn’t there to trigger it every day, but it still isn’t all gone. 






I post what I do, hoping to help someone not feel so alone.


I hope it will help.






Again, many thanks to my friend for sharing her story!

Lessons Learned... Part Four... Find an Advocate

Along the journey of survival for us, we have learned different things from different people.  The day I was called by the sheriff, and raced back to the school, spending all that time with the dean, she told me my daughter felt completely alone in facing the bullies at school and in the activities where they had taken root.  Knowing your mama is talking you through strategies just isn't always enough.  The dean of students had told my girl that she would be willing to be her advocate, to be with her to help talk to teachers where the bullying was rampant in the classroom.

I think the dean meant well, but in the end, when the folks who were so unkind to my daughter pretended to change their ways and said they were looking after her, the dean believed them, and my daughter felt more alone.  In the end, the teacher where she had felt safe made sure my daughter had a place she could go.  And some very special youth circled around her and let her know she was theirs, no matter what those other people might say about her.  It gave her the first safe place to begin to put the pieces back together, and to be reminded that she really did matter, not just those folks who were allowed to belittle and use profanity at others because they were somehow special and had their own set of rules and exceptions.
 
Not feeling like the person who had offered to act as her advocate was really genuine, made her retreat into the circle of the few places she felt safe.  That made it take longer for her to stand up and fight for herself and  claim her place where intellectually she knew she had a right to, but where other people had been able to use and abuse her.

Recently, we went in to meet with someone about her scheduling for school.  I was perfectly honest, that I had given the year over to survival and getting her feet back under her.  I wasn't happy with having to do so, but so many of the people, both in leadership at the extracurricular where it all had began and at the school where things had spilled into, had been too busy to follow through with things that while they would have made more work for my daughter and myself, would have given her a chance to be safe and still excel.

As we sat speaking with this nice woman who had been the only one trying to follow through, she apologized for how so many had dropped the ball and let the behaviors perpetuate.  She had had her own child go through bullying, and understood my feeling that while my child needed to be held academically accountable for what she had done when she shut down, the classroom should be a safe place.

I am well aware that life isn't fair.  We have lived that reality for some time.  But what we need is a chance for her to work at getting her feet back under her, where she can be safe and work for what she wants.  The woman we met with agreed with us.  She helped advocate for my daughter to take placement exams to qualify for a different academic track with more advanced science courses.  (She had a greater background in some science classes due to some outside experience).  While my daughter would still see those youth, and their parents, and those people will likely continue to spread the rumors and lies, she won't have their games at every turn, or the oppressive interruptions to her academic day.  While we cannot change the world, we can make a corner of it happier and safer while she works to put the pieces back together and have steady ground to stand on.

So while no one can snap their fingers and fix the injustice, and no one deserves to have their lives hijacked by the self-important unkindness of others, finding an advocate- one that is truly an advocate- can help you to survive and begin to put the pieces back together.  The first one to present them self isn't always the right one, but keep trying.  The future is worth it.

Lessons Learned... Part Two

Tip Number Two, Be careful with whom you trust your child, even if you have had well placed trust in the individual previously.

This seems so obvious, like something we would all get right.  And yet, when faced with vicious, vindictive folks who have no actual base for the lies they are telling in their gossip, otherwise well meaning people can fall prey to the mob mentality.  Normally nice folks who are generally tireless volunteers and seem to have nothing but every one's best interest at heart, can be sucked into the bizarre vortex of the mob and sweep it along, giving validity to the bully ringleader.

As unkind as the statement may seem, and as much as I have often been accused of being overprotective in an extreme, it is when we let out guard down that the bullies see their chance, and they take it, often with great abandon.  This was certainly true in our case, and looking back, I knew the tide was changing, but didn't want to believe those previously nice folks would be a part of it.

Around here, we have something called "The Wyatt List."  My mother reminds me regularly that the lord doesn't taketh away unless he gives something else in return first.  In our case, our younger child had a rough time with deployments and the endless TDY cycles that are the nature of a military family these days.  For periods of time, sometimes long ones, Wyatt didn't speak.  Then he needed speech therapy and has some processing issues. 

But what Wyatt has in return is this innate ability to see whether adults should be trusted.  Basically anyone other than his age.  The Wyatt List represents a VERY short list of people who he trusts, and often in varying degrees.  Being on the Wyatt list is an honor.(I know, the whole thing sounds odd, but if you qualify for the Wyatt list, you really had to earn it.)  Sometimes he looks at me and says of someone, I really wanted to like her.  She loves animals, but it doesn't feel right.  Funny to watch him.  And he may look at someone at say "I'm shy, I don't want to meet them." 

Imagine my surprise earlier this year when I went to get Wyatt from Bailey at the robotics lab, only to find he was across the hall with her biology teacher walking through the room asked her every question he could think of about her displays.  Shortly thereafter he spent over an hour helping Bailey catch her a tarantula.  This person ended up interceding to help Bailey.  I should have listened more deeply to her, too, though that is another story.

For the first time this year, I saw Wyatt remove people from the Wyatt List.  Previously, the ringleaders of this, and their close friends were never on the list.  He was known to hid under chairs, behind water coolers, whatever to get away from them and not have to speak to them or their children.  When one of the people had been at our home under false pretenses, preparing to drive the largest nail into Bailey, Wyatt had initially tried to help me speak with her, I thought maybe it was going to be okay.  When she left, he said, "That was weird.  What did she really want?"

He had already removed some other folks from the list, ones who he had previously selected and given hugs to.  Looking back, I really wish I had listened to him, and my intuition when their behavior seemed strange.  Maybe I could have somehow protected her, stepped in sooner, or done something to have prevented things from getting quite so bad.  You see, these people were the pillars of the community type.  And yet, even as they said they were not part of what was done, they were spreading the gossip, snubbing our daughter and then asking for hugs from the cuddly sweet girl- very publicly, playing the hurt with her good manners.  And standing back as part of the gossip ring so clearly that would turn their back on her as she walked into a meeting and faced the angry ringleader who said nothing kind. 

And you could read on the ringleader's face and in her strange remarks when she was lying most and gossiping most viciously. And my blind feeling, having gone to those I previously had trusted, allowed them to help the ringleaders to continuously hurt my child more deeply.

So even if you feel that certain people have always been nice in the past, done right by children before, even done special things for your child, don't ignore warning signs that say you should withdraw your trust.  And if you have to withdraw that trust, keep records of what is being done.  But that is the topic of another post, this one is long enough!  So be careful who you trust, and don't blindly continue to trust someone just because you have in the past and other folks continue to do so.  Our parent intuition is there for a reason!

Lessons Learned... Part One

I began this blog several months ago, in the hopes of opening a dialog that would help my children cope with bullies, and share strategies with others where my children and others might have a few more tools to surviving life in a sometimes cruel world.

At the time, the bullies involved in pushing at the lives of my own children were gleaning help from adults and they were increasing in the frequency and intensity of their bullying activities.  Over the course of this school year, things got really bad.  I don't mean crying on the drive home from school bad, I mean vomiting, sleepwalking, not sleeping for weeks and then the adults finishing my child off so that we were just trying to get through the year and my child was promising she could handle it and the school called in the sheriff bad. 

But there wasn't much the sheriff could do, unless I press charges.  And the bullies' cyber activity had been very carefully deleted from the cyber places right before the final set of proverbial knives were thrown.  So pressing charges would take significant work.  But I still may, if it protects someone else.

Fortunately, my child had some great people in her life who closed ranks around her and have helped her through.  I have set through numerous meetings with people in charge of the extracurricular activity these folks were a part of, and they helped a little, but not much beyond getting through the end of the year, and from the place where I look, I don't know if they have done anything to prevent this from happening to another youth.  And I believe they would do it again, if given the chance.  Maybe they are doing something, but they cannot tell me what it is.  A real apology would be nice.  And for something to correct the lies told where these folks worked to ruin my child's reputation.

So now, here I sit, with the family putting the pieces back together and trying to finish the school year strong.  And I reflect on what I should have done before, what we did right to survive, what I ignored along the way to them hurting her so deeply, what I could share to help someone else walking in my shoes.  So for the next several posts, I am going to try to share some of those things.  I will go one at a time, so the posts aren't so long, and if you all have any tips to share, please do.  While I moderate comments to keep things positive and avoid anyone personally attacking another, the more ideas and options, the more tools in the tool belt for parents and you.

Here is my first tip, something we did right:  Don't let any one activity be all that your child is. 

In other words, it is easy to get wrapped up in a favorite sport, like soccer, or activity like robotics or 4-H or the like.  I am not, under any circumstances, saying that they should participate in a multitude of activities.  We as parents must gently enforce a balance between, school, activities, and down time.  But sometimes it is easy to let your child contine to expand further and furth in one activity, say multiple projects in 4H or multiple teams in one sport, and when the bullies show up, and start pushing things around, you are backed into living with those bullies or giving up that activity, becoming isolated from the friends there, and it gives those bullies WAY too much power.

While other folks made fun of us, told us we were holding our children back, my husband and I stood our ground at Football that our son could balance it with 4-H, and at 4-H that our children could play football, (basketball for our daughter, and this year she traded basketball for robotics and Science Olympiad.)  In the end, it was the youth in one of those activities which closed ranks around our daughter and reminded her of what a great kid she was.  When the bullies even went to that saving grace activity to hurt her reputation, and she teetered on the fence of falling apart again, one leader of that saving grace activity looked at her and said that they knew who she was for them, who she really was, and that was what mattered.  Sometimes I wonder if that leader knew just how much that one statement meant.

This is getting harder than I had thought to be as nondescript asa possible about who her bullies were, but just don't worry about who they were.  The important thing now is, what we learn from having gone through this.  Having had my child's reputation publicly maligned by bullies, I have no desire to have folks pointing fingers here, just to learn and share strategies to survive and thrive as a community we can all be proud of.  Anyhow, you get the idea.  That variety of friendships and experiences helps your child learn who they really are, and whom they want to be in this world.  So enough for now, I'll share another next time.  Hold strong, hug tight, say I love you adnd mean it.  Tlak to you soon.