Because, let me tell you, there is nothing more vicious than teenage chicks in cliques.
You can milk more venom out of them than a Death Adder and they probably kill more people a year.
On 60 Minutes last night, there was a story about a 15 year old girl named Chloe Fergusson.
Like a typical 15 year old girl, Chloe loved to giggle about boys, play with makeup and talk about what the future held for her.
But, tragically, it was a future she was denied.
Two months ago, Chloe committed suicide after enduring eight years of unrelenting emotional, physical and cyber bullying.
Sadly, she isn't the only one to have chosen this option.
Every day, six Australians take their own lives for a myriad of reasons, most of which are impossible to understand by loved ones left behind.
In total, suicide counts for a FIFTH of deaths in 15-24 year olds.
If it were it not for the hard work being led by her older sister, Cassie and her other family and friends trying to make change, Chloe could remain just another tragic statistic the ABS publish every year.
Currently, Victoria is the ONLY state or territory in Australia that recognises the word "bullying" as part of legal jargon.
Everywhere else, it's a term reserved for schoolyards and workplaces and indelibly scrawled in the repertoire of anyone who has experienced it and in those people who have lost a loved one because of it.
Chloe's Law seeks to introduce antibullying laws to Australia and to force the justice system to hand down criminal consequences to those responsible for the abuse.
Chloe's story hit a very painful nerve in me. It was too close to home but with a much more heartbreaking conclusion.
Like Chloe, I llived in Hobart from the ages of 15-18. My parents moved me down there, literally kicking and screaming in early 2001.
For those of you who know me now, my personality is the furthest type you can get from an introvert. I'm strong willed, opinionated, bubbly, secure and have a tendency to overspeak the truth. But there is one topic I'm still not good at talking about, even after a decade- my high school experience between years 10 and 12.
Before I continue with details, I need to say that not all of my time in Hobart causes anger or feelings of repressed pain to resurface.
There are plenty of people who still matter very much to me whom I wouldn't know now if it were not for my years in Tasmania; this includes my very best friend who went through a lot with me and can certainly attest to how difficult I found it all at times.
Now putting these warm and fuzzies aside, the majority of my memories from the last three years of high school involve being excluded, vindictively gossiped about and made the target for nasty rumours instigated by shallow, petty 'popular' girls who never even took the time to have a conversation with me.
Truth be told, I went back for a friend's 21st after not seeing some of the aforementioned females since the age of 18 and most of them still refused to acknowledge my existence.
When I was 15, I was physically assaulted by a girl (to be fair, she didn't go to my school but she knew I was friends with a girl at the time who she wanted to 'bash') much, much bigger than me while I was waiting with a friend for my mum to pick us up after a party.
She grabbed me by the throat and hit me in the face before running off with her fellow deliquent deros. It was just me and my friend, minding our own business...and there were seven of them just looking for trouble. That was the kind of cowards they were.
Luckily for me, I had (and still do have) an incredible relationship with my mother; she was always there to confide in and there was never a time that I felt alone. If it wasn't for her...things may have turned out differently for me.
After moving back from Hobart just before turning 19, I had to go through YEARS of therapy to undo the mess those awful girls had made of my self esteem.
I suffered severe panic attacks until my early 20s whenever I was put into situations that involved meeting new females because I was convinced they were all going to be she-devils that would find a reason to hate me and make my life hell.
I am certainly not writing this blog post for sympathy or in an attempt to throw a one person pity party- I've moved passed the bitterness and resentment that I harboured for so many years.
I am writing this blog post because people need to be more aware of the devastasting and long lingering effects that bullying can have.
So as I sit here with tears building again, I think of kids like Chloe and so many others who felt that the only available option they had to escape the pain was to leave their life.
I remember during my earliest therapy sessions, my psychologist would tell me that suicide was a "permanent solution to a temporary problem"...but it's so hard to understand that in high school.
Your validation of self worth hangs so heavily in the opinion of your peers and it's almost impossible to step back, realise that this too shall pass and that everything will be ok.
I am writing this blog post to ask you to talk to your kids, talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to your students...talk to anyone who will listen...because promoting awareness of bullying and the incredibly profound impact it has on its victims and their families is key to helping save those people who feel like they don't have a voice to speak up with anymore.
Bullying kills.
It's about time something is done to combat it.
For more information about Chloe's Law and to support the initiative, visit www.facebook.com/ChloesLawAust
No comments:
Post a Comment