I know that not many people will see this, but after digging through the jungle known as 'YouTube', a certain book I read last year came back to my attention. I realize that BULLYING is not a topic that everyone can handle, but I wanted to put my 2 cents out there so that maybe, just maybe, someone who's struggling might see them and feel reassured. This is your last chance to turn back before I get into the really heavy stuff. I don't blame you if you can't read about bullying or if it makes you uncomfortable because it can be an uncomfortable topic. For the rest of you, who maybe just want a shortcut, I'm going to post an 'In sum' at the bottom with the main things you should take away from my lecture, let's say (because I'm going to try really hard to keep from ranting).

My awareness started with a book. It's a book that I believe should be required reading as soon as kids hit Junior High. Let's face it, in most cases, Junior high is where things start going to Hell. It just gets worse in High school. 

The book in question is called Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. I wasn't going to, but for you lovely people who have stuck with me this far, I will type out the summary on the back of the book. 

You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret... is to press play.

Clay Jensen doesn't want anything to do with the tapes Hannah Baker made. Hannah is dead. Her secrets should be buried with her.
Then Hannah's voice tells Clay that his name is on her tapes--and that he is, in some way, responsible for her death.
All through the night, Clay keeps listening. He follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his small town...
... and what he discovers changes his life forever.

So if you didn't quite understand it that way, I'll ruin the first five minutes or so of it. A girl named Hannah killed herself, but before she committed suicide, she made a set of tapes directed at the people who, in some way, pushed her to the edge of the cliff. Their instructions are to listen to all the tapes and pass it on to the person who's segment comes after theirs.

I am not condoning suicide in any way. Those people may have put Hannah Baker on the edge of the cliff, but she chose to step off of it.

So with my shameless promotion of "Books Everyone Should Read" complete, I digress.

First things first, suicidal people are not all crazy people. Being suicidal does not make someone insane. I have heard many times that almost all people contemplate suicide at least once in their life. It does not make you insane, and it does not make you alone in the world. Second, suicidal tendencies are linked strongly to depression. Depression, sadly, is one of the diseases that can be passed through heredity, meaning if there is depression in your family tree, you are at risk to have it as well. It's important to know if you are at risk, because depression is dangerous. It's one of the most common mental diseases in the United States, where I live, but also in the world in general. Depression can also be brought on by the environment. Socio-cultural psychologists and sociologists have found peer relations can lead to depression. Once again I reiterate, having suicidal traits or depression does NOT mean you are insane. 

Warning Signs of Suicide

1.  Previously has attempted suicide
2.  Talking about death or suicide. 
3.  Planning for suicide
4.  Obtaining things to go through with a suicide plan.
5.  Depression
6.  Expressing suicidal feelings.
7.  Making final arrangements and giving away valued possessions.
8.  Engaging in self-destructive behaviors like drug abuse and excessive drinking
9.  Expressing that they're are suffering a great deal, unbearable feelings
10.  Show lack of hope for the future getting brighter
11.  Pulling away from friends and family.
12.  Recently suffered a great loss
13.  Lose interest in hobbies, work, school, etc.
14.  Take unnecessary risks (like Bella in  New Moon)
15.  Lose interest in appearance.
16.  Sudden sense of calm where there hasn't been any.

This is a compilation of several resources I have collected from various Awareness fairs at my school. If some of them seem redundant, I apologize.

Just one more quick set of notes and I'll get down to the real reason I made this blog post.

Myth	Fact
Depression is just a state of mind. A person just needs to "think positive" and it will go away.	Depression is a real, treatable illness that affects the brain. Asking someone to get better by "thinking positive" would be like asking a person with diabetes to change their blood sugar by thinking about it.
Treatment is just a cop-out for people who can't cope with day-to-day life.	Seeking Treatment is a smart choice that takes strength. Mood disorders are not flaws or weaknesses. Seeking treatment means a person has the courage to look for a way to get better.
Talk therapy is just whining about problems. It doesn't help.	Talk therapy has been tested clinically and found to be effective. In some cases it works as well as medication.
Medications that treat mood disorders are habit-forming and can change a person's personality.	When properly prescribed and used, medications are not addictive and do not change a person's true personality. Medications help a person's mood become stable and even. They do not cloud a person's judgment or give a false sense of courage
People with mood disorders can't get better.	When correctly diagnosed and treated, a person with depression can live a stable and healthy life. Millions of people already do.
People with depression are dangerous	Research shows that people with mental illness do not commit significantly more violent acts than people in the general population, but they are more likely to be victims of violent acts.
Suicide is not a problem in the United States.  Only a small number of people take their own lives.	Suicide is a significant problem that needs to be addressed. Suicides outnumber homicides in the U.S. (sorry people outside my country, I don't know your statistics.) Each year in the U.S, over 30,000 people take their own life.

Table adapted from a handout I got during one of the Mental Health Awareness tables. For more information, go to www.DBSAlliance.org

 

Bullying

I know that all that stuff up there seems unconnected and perhaps even unnecessary, so allow me to connect the dots. Bullying can lead to depression which can lead to suicide if no one steps in to prevent it. Depression, as I said, can be caused by two ways: Heredity and Outside social forces, in other words, interacting with the people around you. Bullying is one of those outside forces. 

In the book I mentioned above, Hannah Baker did commit suicide, but she left a tale of her suffering in in 7 tapes (front and back making 14 sides but one left blank) where she tells how every action led to one massive reaction. Some people didn't even directly affect Hannah, but their interactions around her, their negligence, made them as much a part of the cause as anyone else. It's a sad story, but it opened my eyes that had foolishly believed that not bullying anyone around was helping to prevent bullying. It doesn't. Watching someone get bullied and refusing to act makes you as guilty as the one who is doing the bullying.

SPOILER ALERT 

In the Korean drama, Monstar, Park Kyudong is bullied by his classmates who all join in with the crowd. They call him Radio and force him to sing for them like their own person jukebox. In one instance, he sings this song, and it nearly broke my heart into pieces. Lyrics below.

To you, who hopes for my despair
I should give you my congratulations today

The friendly scorn that I received today
They suit me even more today

Laugh at me
All you want
Laugh at me
At me

No I’m not alright at all alright at all
Swaying, swaying
No I’m not alright at all alright at all
I’ll be broken every day

Laugh at me
At me

No I’m not alright at all alright at all
Swaying, swaying
No I’m not alright at all alright at all
I’ll be broken every day

No I’m not alright at all alright at all
Little by little every day
No I’m not alright at all alright at all
I’ll be broken every day

To you, who hopes for my despair
Today won’t be any kind of celebratory day

You can see where he starts right? On the roof of his school. He fully intended to jump to his death. I will tell you this, he was lucky enough to have friends who caught on to him at the last possible second to pull him off the edge.

Others aren't so lucky. One man in California was walking to the Golden Gate bridge. A note at his home said "I'm going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump." That man plunged down to his death in the river. Not one person smiled at him, and no one noticed him standing on the edge of the bridge looking down to the water and working up the nerve to jump off. If they did, they didn't stop to do anything about it.

The point I'm trying to make here is that you have to watch what you say and what you do. Sometimes, all someone needs is a smile to get rid of their doubts or fears. Your words can pick someone up off the ground and draw them away from the precipice. But it's a double-edged sword. As quickly as you can build a person up, you can tear them down. An off-handed comment. A bad joke. An insensitive reaction. Neglecting someone because you're too busy, moving too quickly. People kill themselves over this. We don't always realize just how sensitive and fragile the balance is that keeps us from ripping apart at the word of someone we let have power over us. If someone is being bullied, and you KNOW they are being bullied, you can't just stand back and watch. For me personally, I feel like suicide and bullying go hand in hand. I believe that not helping someone escape that is like handing them the rope, the knife, the gun, the pills, the car keys and saying have a ball! It's not right. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke said that, and it's absolutely true. By doing nothing, by allowing bullying to continue, we are promoting and condoning it. 

I was bullied; I think we all have at some point. There were some boys in High school that liked to harass me with crude statements. I was stupid and gave them reactions, which is what they wanted most likely. No one really stood up for me. The teachers didn't really notice either except for the one who goes to my church and has known me since I was born basically. After she figured out that they were bothering me, she made sure to put them all far away from me in the seating charts. It was a blessed break that kept me from ripping off heads. It was just one person stepping in that made me feel so much better. One person can be that powerful.

I also had a friend who liked to criticize my every waking moment. I doubted myself a lot because of her comments, but I let her words have power over me. One day I did something that she normally did to me and she snapped at me. Surprisingly enough, I managed to keep calm and maturely apologized, saying I didn't know it would bother her (seeing as she had done it to me several times). Then, she had the nerve to just spit out like a brat, "That was really rude." I saw red. I was hurt and confused and embarrassed beyond belief that she had said that, rather loudly, to me in the middle of the hallway. I left. I practically ran out to my car and just sat there for a while, so I could cool down before I drove home. To be completely honest, I was really hoping that someone would follow me out and make sure I was okay. I really needed someone at that moment, and sure enough, one of my friends came out after me a minute or two later. It would have been a lot worse for me if she hadn't. She even told me that one of the other kids in the hallway had spoken up to my "friend" and told her that she was the one who was being rude.

I had people who stood up for me and helped me, and that made a lot of difference. I'm a happy person almost all the time, but even I have times when my light threatens to go out. I've been lucky enough to have people around with matches that help strengthen the spark back up to a roaring fire. No matter how small you feel or how little help you think you might be, you should always give your all when it comes to helping someone else. If you cried during this I-don't-know-what, I will be your shoulder. And you can be mine because I have burst into tears at least 3 times since I started this thing like almost 2 hours ago.

In sum: Bullying can lead to depression and that can lead to suicide. Watch what you say and do because everything you do affects someone. Try not to let words get to you, but if they do, talk to someone. Everyone has a light. Let it shine, because someone is out there in the dark, and they need it more than you could ever imagine. Negligence is the same as bullying. Refusing to help is the same as bullying. Ignoring that bullying, depression, and suicide are problems that need to be addressed is the same as bullying. Go read Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and learn just how important your actions are.

You can always talk to me if you need to. I've been told I'm a good listener, and I want to help people.

Please join the fight against bullying and pay attention to people who seem at risk of suicide.

Share this with your friends with a link or, bless your heart, attempt to copy-paste all this stuff into your own blog. Spread awareness, help save lives.

 

If you've stayed with me til the end you deserve a medal. I mean this thing is like over 2500 words. I apologize for that. As a reward, and because I'm feeling in a particularly poetic mood, I treat you to this free verse that I'm going to make up now.

I hold a power that can save a life
Or cut it down
Others can turn it around
And use it to cut me
What did I do to deserve it?
It is a power just barely within my control
Yet it is beautiful
And I find Comfort in it
I can cast off the power that others use for their own desires
But it hurts more than rocks or bats
I can paint with my power and show the world myself completely
Marked down into history
Or flowing through the air
Fables and fairytales
I lock the weapon behind my teeth
Until I can learn to use it correctly
For my words too often cause destruction 
As long as I can speak