Seek out help to deal with bullying at school

DEAR MARIANN: I am con­stantly bul­lied at school to the point that I want to end my life. I’m embar­rassed to talk to my par­ents about this. Where should I go for help?

MARIANN’S RESPONSE: This sce­nario is one that is too famil­iar both nation­ally and per­son­ally. Your men­tion­ing sui­cide is of extreme con­cern to me, espe­cially since it is the third lead­ing cause of death for youth, which trans­lates to more than 4,000 Amer­i­can young lives lost inten­tion­ally ver­sus acci­den­tally. Also remem­ber you are not alone in this sadis­tic sit­u­a­tion. Stud­ies indi­cate that nearly 25 per­cent of all school-age stu­dents have been or are being bul­lied. Phys­i­cal con­fronta­tions are the more com­mon form of bul­ly­ing, but now using tech­nol­ogy or “cyber­bul­ly­ing” has become equally as problematic.

First and fore­most, you must tell any­one who will lis­ten that you are being bul­lied. Con­fid­ing in a school coun­selor or a favorite teacher would be a good start. Also let­ting your fam­ily know of this prob­lem could poten­tially be life sav­ing. No one has the right to shame, ridicule, or belit­tle another human. When some­one is a bully, they are find­ing inap­pro­pri­ate sat­is­fac­tion in see­ing oth­ers suf­fer, which can be a start­ing point for deeper and more dis­turb­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal traits later in life, such as being sadis­tic, nar­cis­sis­tic, anti­so­cial, a sociopath or worse.

Also, fil­ing a police report would be a sec­ond step. This will allow for poten­tial legal con­se­quences to occur and a doc­u­mented record to stop the bully from con­tin­u­ing his or her inap­pro­pri­ate actions toward you or other vic­tims. Now there are legal restraints to not only cir­cum­vent phys­i­cal abuse, but also spe­cific to cyber­bulling, yet the sever­ity of pun­ish­ment varies widely from state-to-state.

And finally, if nec­es­sary, ask your par­ents or fam­ily mem­ber to trans­fer you into another school. When I was attend­ing Willis, there were no other options, since Dempsey was yet an archi­tec­tural ren­der­ing, let alone a sec­ond mid­dle school for Delaware. Hav­ing the male/female-only Willis stair­wells with accom­pa­ny­ing bath­rooms on the Win­ter Street side of the build­ing was prime ter­ri­tory for two prob­lem­atic female class­mates who relent­lessly bul­lied me in sixth grade. So please accept my empa­thy of your sit­u­a­tion and I urge you to find a car­ing adult who will assist in con­fronting and cor­rect­ing this problem.

Dear mar­i­ann: My boyfriend is always mak­ing com­ments about my weight and sug­gest­ing that he will leave me if I don’t start diet­ing and exer­cis­ing. What should I do?

MARIANN’S RESPONSE: My first ques­tion to you is why are you with some­one who is demean­ing and not accept­ing for who you are? Since you men­tion “boyfriend” this is a dif­fer­ent sce­nario from when spouses change in weight due to preg­nancy and becom­ing more sed­i­men­tary from the at-home time com­mit­ment of rais­ing chil­dren. There­fore, I won­der about poten­tial self-esteem issues that you might be expe­ri­enc­ing since you have picked a less-than sup­port­ive part­ner. Also, if you truly have weight issues, these could be deflat­ing your self-esteem and lead­ing you toward rela­tion­ships that are not healthy, lov­ing and supportive.

If this guy is a “keeper” (which I ques­tion), how often is he men­tion­ing your weight? Should his com­ments be highly spo­radic and occur only dur­ing a heated argu­ment between the two of you (hope­fully a rar­ity), poten­tially you are being over­sen­si­tive. How­ever, if his com­ments are inces­sant and mean-spirited, again I ask, why are you with him? My next ques­tion is, whether you are truly over­weight or do you have a “boyfriend” who wants “Twiggy” for a girl­friend? (She was the start of the waif-thin run­way fash­ion mod­els for any­one read­ing this younger than 40.)

If there is a true need to shed a few pounds, this might be a healthy goal for you, both phys­i­cally, to lower the risk of many dis­eases, and men­tally, to boost your self-esteem. Do you want to start diet­ing and exer­cis­ing as he sug­gests? If so, how can he be a sup­porter of this goal ver­sus a detri­ment? As a start, how about cook­ing healthy meals together, along with keep­ing a diary of your food intake? See­ing on paper how you are attempt­ing to improve your nutri­tion ver­sus mind­less eat­ing of prob­lem­atic fast-food, fatty meats, sug­ary car­bon­ates sodas, snack foods that are from a bag and high in calo­ries, or over-indulging in desserts, are key areas of reduc­tion for suc­cess in los­ing weight.

Next, can you join a gym together? You might not enjoy the weight room as most men do, but there are other activ­i­ties such as aer­o­bics, swim­ming and yoga that could be ben­e­fi­cial to you. I love lap swim­ming, which is a great de-stressor, espe­cially due to the repet­i­tive­ness of your motion and the quiet­ness while in the water. Also tak­ing a brisk walk or a jog sev­eral times weekly is excel­lent for car­dio­vas­cu­lar health. Going to the humane soci­ety and adopt­ing a dog, (while sav­ing a life), will force you to walk more if you need the moti­va­tion to get mov­ing, let alone the invalu­able com­pan­ion­ship it will offer you, just in case you decide on dump­ing that insensitive-sounding boyfriend.

Mar­i­ann Main is a Licensed Coun­selor and a Delaware native. Her col­umn appears weekly on Sat­ur­days. To sub­mit a ques­tion and have Mar­i­ann answer it anony­mously, visit delgazette.com/life-questions-with-local-answers or send mail to the Delaware Gazette office, 40 N. San­dusky St., suite 203, Delaware, OH 43015.

Posted by Mariann Main on Sep 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.