The Boston Globe today ran its fourth story in its series of occasional articles on bullying and its impact on children, adults, and institutions. In this piece, several adults recounted the torment they experienced as adolescents. For many of those adolescents, the memories are vivid even now, decades later.
…while many of those bullied as children move past it and thrive in adulthood, a surprising number say they have been unable to leave the humiliating memories behind. Their accounts are supported by a growing body of research suggesting that the bullying experience stays with many victims into young adulthood, middle age, and even retirement, shaping their decisions and hindering them in nearly every aspect of life: education and career choices; social interactions and emotional well-being; even attitudes about having children.
For example, one of the adults — Anthony Testaverde — feels his path in life could have been greatly different if not for the effects of his bullying:
Testaverde was an honor roll student who dreamed of a career in technology or engineering. But he also suffered from a spinal deformity, and said he was ostracized as a “freak’’ and “hunchback’’ throughout his high school years. He never went to college, largely because he feared being bullied again. A self-taught electrical technician, he said he might have done better for himself if it weren’t for the bullying. Deeply self-critical and preoccupied with what others think of him, he said he cannot be at ease in large groups and has found it hard to stay at one job, because even minor workplace conflicts trigger fears and the urge to flee.
“A part of my life has been robbed,’’ he said. “It’s like the show ‘Lost,’ where there are two storylines — one on the island, and one if the plane never crashed. Sometimes I think about what would have happened, if I hadn’t been as depressed, if I could have taken more risks.’’
In my experiences, many adults are remorseful for how they acted in high school, even if they weren’t bullies. I’ve seen people reach out to old classmates to apologize for perceived slights, even if the bullied student doesn’t remember the incidents. But for people like Testaverde, the damage was more severe than being made fun of for liking Marilyn Manson, Charles Bukowski and fine art. For him, the damage had life-changing effects.
By the time many of these bullies become wiser with age and maturity, the damage is done. They realize a fraction of the pain they caused, and now can’t do anything but apologize.
Another piece in Sunday’s Globe explores the effects of bullying on the teenage brain:
A new wave of research into bullying’s effects, however, is now suggesting something more than that — that in fact, bullying can leave an indelible imprint on a teen’s brain at a time when it is still growing and developing. Being ostracized by one’s peers, it seems, can throw adolescent hormones even further out of whack, lead to reduced connectivity in the brain, and even sabotage the growth of new neurons.
These neurological scars, it turns out, closely resemble those borne by children who are physically and sexually abused in early childhood. Neuroscientists now know that the human brain continues to grow and change long after the first few years of life. By revealing the internal physiological damage that bullying can do, researchers are recasting it not as merely an unfortunate rite of passage but as a serious form of childhood trauma.
I think that bears repeating: the brains of kids who are bullied in school can resemble the brains of kids who are physically and sexually abused. Chilling, eh?
Both are sobering reads, but eye-opening.
Another Sunday read shows how high school could be. In today’s Florida Times-Union, Mark Woods tells the story of Cara Stieglitz, a high school student with Down syndrome who was voted homecoming queen in a landslide. When Cara was a freshman at Fletcher High School, her parents Dave and Melanie Stieglitz prayed that God “send a friend to Cara. One friend. Someone to sit with her at lunch.”
“As a parent, that pulls at your heart,” Melanie Stieglitz said of picturing her daughter sitting alone.
So every Tuesday, she went to school and ate lunch with Cara. And on Sundays, they prayed that someone else would join her.