Case Histories
My Bullying Experience
"Oy! long head, idiot, prat !" shouted Trevor at me in the corridor.
I just stood there. What else could I do? If I ran he would follow me. My stomach started doing somersaults and getting tighter. My head was in a spin, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The rest of the class were sniggering at me, including my friends. I didn’t know they why were doing, was it because they didn’t want to be picked on as well, or was it because they were not my friends.
I decided to make a slow exit to go to the toilets. I drifted nonchalantly towards the blue ‘Boys Only’ door. I looked around and no one had followed me, or so I thought. The boys toilets were wet and empty, tiles covered the floor and pools of brown coloured water lay in pools. I walked over to the two hand basins, I looked at myself in the mirror, and saw that all the blood had drained from my face. My eyes had doubled in size and a cold sweat had appeared on my forehead.
Suddenly I felt hands pulling me back into one of the cubicles. Two of these bandits were forcing my hands behind my back and holding me down. The third and the tallest of the three stood in front of me and said, ‘ It’s pay-back time!"
He yanked my mouth open by pulling my chin down. Then he waved what I thought was a sharpened five-pence piece in front of me and forced it into my mouth. I remember thinking I must swallow this or he will only ram it in again.
I swallowed it and the coin began its journey towards my stomach. Miraculously it didn’t do any damage on the way down, but when it got to my stomach it slashed the sides and the lining. The lads pushed me to the floor and walked away laughing.
I kept all this a secret from my Mum and Dad. I didn’t even tell the doctors even though I went to the doctors surgery five times in that first week of having a five pence in my stomach. I told nobody. I was frightened and I thought no one would believe me. However it was clear that everything wasn’t right because I was bleeding when I went to the loo.
Each doctor I saw was a different locum. There were five altogether and each came up with different diagnoses. However I didn’t tell them I had a five pence inside me. I know it was difficult for them to suggest what was wrong with me because they didn’t know what I had swallowed. Finally in desperation the fifth doctor sent me to have an x-ray. There it was nestling at the end of my alimentary canal waiting to be ejected. Eventually it found its own way out. It still makes angry and sad to think about the fact I didn’t tell any one and that I kept it all inside. When I look back I realise that this is all behind me now. I never see the boys who did it as I have moved schools and now learn in a safe environment.
My Bullying Experience
Dear Mr Holloway,
As an ex-pupil of yours I am writing to you to let you know how I have felt over the past year, because you didn't seem to deal with things when I said that I was being bullied. As a result of your not doing anything, I felt that I had no option but to leave school. At first I tried to forget about the whole thing. But over this Christmas and new year I started to feel extremely unhappy and I have realised where the problem lies and I need to get it sorted out. I feel that you are reluctant to face up to the fact that there was, and probably still is, bullying going on in your school. I also think you are intimidated by the bullies themselves as you didn't seem to act at all when I was bullied. At the time you told me that you were dealing with the problem when to me you didn't seem to care what happened.
First of all I would like to get one thing straight. I would like you to know that I am no longer at your school, and haven't been for over a year now. I stopped attending school in November 1998 and on the 7th of June 1999 I started at the Red Balloon Learner Centre which offers a safe learning environment for young people who have either been bullied victimised or ostracised. During the six month gap where I was unable to leave my house, I was only sent one piece of homework. Even though I have been here at the Red Balloon for nearly a year, I am still receiving letters about the results of my mock exams, which I didn't even do. I understand that a place was set for me in the exam hall last November. My parents have also received a letter inviting them to the school to discuss my progress. I have received a timetable for my GCSE's and I have no intention of taking them at your school. I find it hard to believe you still think I am there.
I feel that you should know exactly what drove me to leave your school.
The first time I was bullied it was by my best friend at the time. We had been best friends for two or three years but then half-way through Year 7 things started to change. I can remember what happened from the first punch to the day I broke down at home. It started off him just giving me "dead arms". It gradually got worse. He started hitting me harder on a more regular basis. I can remember one day in a history lesson, the teacher left the room and Nick hit me. He made my lip bleed and then just started to laugh. I wanted to hit back at him but he was meant to be my best friend and I just couldn't do it. After that I wish that I had because he now thought I was even more weak and vulnerable.
I started having the odd day off school to get away from him. By now I had already stopped going round his house after school.
When I had the days off school I felt more safe and protected. So I started to have more time off. The longest I stayed away was about three weeks, and then I went back for a day. I thought that maybe Nick would have got fed up, but he hadn't and that's when I told my mum. I can remember the day well. I went up to her room. I had already told her I wasn't going in and we had a big argument. Then I just said it. "It's Nick, he's the one that's been making me so unhappy." My mum went to the school and Nick was called into the head's office and spoke to Mrs Martin, the head at the time. Nick was severely reprimanded. I was told he was lucky to stay in school and that night my mum and I went round his house to talk to him and his mother. He apologised and said he didn't know how he had upset me that much. I don't know if he really meant it. He looked sorry but the sad thing was that I just couldn't trust him any more.
Nick moved to Leicester, partly I think because of what happened with me. He comes down for the holidays sometimes to stay with friends. When I see him we talk but not like we used to.
The second time I was bullied I found it much harder to deal with and it has been affecting me recently. I have slowly realised that the problem wasn't dealt with properly at the time and it is still hurting me inside.
The first time I had been bullied Nick hit me, which hurt me outside. But this time it was a lot worse, it hurt me inside. By 'hurt' I mean that I didn't feel good about myself, I felt dejected and isolated, tormented and humiliated. I think I'm quite a sensitive person and this made it harder because I believed the hurtful personal things Rob said to me.
Rob started bullying me at the end of year nine and continued up until the day I left in November 1998. Rob used to call me a freak and he used to say it in front of loads of people. If I stood up to him and told him to shut up he would get angry and sometimes even violent. At one point I decided to try and be his friend. I thought that if I did that he would find somebody else to pick on, but that didn't work. Geography lessons were the lessons I hated most. He sat next to me in class and he called me names. I remember one time - the teacher went out of the room and he picked up my pencil case and threw it around the class.
That's when I started not going into school on geography days. This didn't stop Rob and one day when I was walking to registration by myself Rob and his mates were waiting for me at the top of the stairs. As I walked through the door Rob, the main bully, grabbed me and held my arms behind my back. Then his two mates took it in turns to hit me in the stomach. They all laughed as they did it and they continued for about a minute, although it seemed like forever. When they finally stopped I said, "Thanks boys" and walked off. Although at the time I thought I had coped well, I think it was this incident that stopped me from going to school.
There was no way anybody was going to get me to go back. My parents tried having a friend stay over before school but I just went and sat in the bathroom and locked the door. I had counselling for about five months. I think that helped, but the thing that made me able to walk about in town and have fun and be happy again was the Red Balloon. I sometimes go back to discos at my old school, and I think if I see Rob again, although I know I will be upset and will probably want to kill him, I will be able to deal with it all much more easily.
When I was bullied I felt like I wouldn't ever get better. I really thought I was going to be unhappy for the rest of my life. I used to cry so much. I cried mostly at night when I was on my own because I always think about things more when I'm on my own. I cried in the mornings, as well. Especially when I had promised to go to school that day.
One afternoon when I was at home I went downstairs into the conservatory and my mum was sitting there crying, holding a photo of her dad. He had died when she was little. She told me that me not going to school was making her ill because she didn't have anybody to talk to. After this my mum and I became much closer and I was determined to get back into school. But the next day it was the same old thing. I just couldn't bring myself to go. I cried so much that day because I knew I had let her down. I never want to feel that way again. It's the worst feeling I have ever had because every time I thought I was dealing with it something would happen and I would start to feel down and depressed again.
When I was bullied it was like something was slowly eating away at me inside taking away my confidence and happiness and there was nothing I could do about it. I hated feeling like that so much and at first It felt like nobody understood but now I know that there are people that I can talk to and that has made things much easier for me.
Every time I have tried to do something about it, something would happen to make me upset again. One time my counsellor took me to my old school and as we drove down the road towards the school, he said that we were going to sit outside. It wasn't break or lunch, so everyone would have been in lessons, but I couldn't even sit outside. I felt so pathetic and as if I didn't deserve the help I was getting. Everyone said how well I had done to get that far but I just said they were wrong. I should have done better, but I just couldn't do it.
I have got a lot better since then and I can now walk around the school, not happily, but at least I can do it. This Christmas things came to a head. I started to feel depressed again and I didn't really know why. I stopped going in to school again. One of the teachers from The Red Balloon came out to my house to see me and we had a long conversation, trying to find out exactly what the problem was. That is when we realised that the problem was that I hadn't got my experiences sorted out in my head and I needed to do something about it. I decided that a letter to you explaining how I felt about my time at school and how this is still affecting my life was the best way to get my views across and to try and resolve it.
I have five requests. Firstly, I would like an apology from you for the way that you didn't seem to act when I was bullied. Secondly, I would like you to apologise to me and my family, for all the pain you have put us through. Next, I would like acknowledgement that even though there was an anti bullying policy where students thought that they would be safe and if bullied protected, that was not the case. I felt vulnerable and isolated when I was bullied. My fourth request is that you do not punish Bob for these incidents because they were so long ago. Lastly I would like you to take more seriously anyone who tells you that they are being bullied. The bullying that does go on in your school is a major issue and I know it has not been dealt with properly in the past. I believe that it's still an issue now. One suggestion I have is that somebody could come into the school and talk to all the staff and the students about bullying and the effects it has on people.
I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Newman