The Unintended Consequences Borne Out of Suicide Via Bullying...
The Unintended Consequences Borne Out of Suicide Via Bullying…
Years ago, on the Island of Saint Kitts, the boat (Christina) that ferried the citizens to and fro between my sister Island, Nevis, sank and hundreds from both Islands’ citizens perished. I was a boy then and I do not recalled school being stopped, even though it had and has been the two islands’ worst tragedy then and now, and, moreover that many students lost love ones. It is true that we were not then and now as sophisticated as our brothers and sisters in the developing countries in dealing with this tragedy and its effect on the psyche on the young, but it also underscored that children who grew up in tough environs are not too sensitive and are able to take and face the attendant obstacles of growing up, like bullying without resorting to ‘going postal’ or committing suicide. Almost on a weekly basis, we see and hear about the young who, after being mercilessly bullied or the like, take to U-Tube or some form of the modern form of communications to memorialize their respective final thoughts before partaking in suicide. The unintended consequences of these self eulogies of many of those who commit suicide are becoming chic and are a cause for concern….
This is not a defense for those who engage in bullying against others, but only to say that the drastic act of suicide seems to be embraced as being acceptable… instead of fostering the idea that life is ‘tough.’ I have to be careful for fear of coming off as blaming the victims of bullying, but, perhaps, this is what comes from living in a sophisticated country and the attendant August perks that are part and parcel of said sophistication. When I see the homage paid to some of these bullying victims… I get the uneasy feeling that these gathering have become the ‘in thing’ to partake in and be seen at, along with the self indulgent, ingratiating speeches. I am almost certain that the older generation went through the same bullying… though it was more of physical nature, at least in my case, but it did not result in the spates of suicides we are witnessing.
Perhaps, too, then, the older generation did not embrace what was considered taboo… the act of suicide like many of us do today. We have sensitized our children to the point of wallowing in ‘wussiedom:’ we give out trophies for coming in last in sporting or academic events; we prevent those who excel to curtail their gifts… so as not to make the other children feel inadequate; and we place too much of the onus on our parents’ actions to feed the lucrative trough of what to me is mostly bogus principles of Freudian psychiatry. In that same vein, every slight is exponentially multiplied - whatever happened to the scenario… that when a child fell off the bicycle… that the parents did not run to pick him or her up, but left that child to cry it out and get back on that bicycle (life)? We are living in such an oversensitive era, which enables our children, notwithstanding the malignant cancer of bullying, to choose suicide as the first choice for dealing with the growing pains of growing up - were there not alternative lifestyles in the past, yet the spirit of suicide had little converts and therefore the success then?
It is a perfect 'catch 22 situation'… we are dealing with the suicide phenomenon… If we do not show the aftermath of bullying that results in these heart tugging suicides… we might be prone of not learning the lessons for prevention; yet the same lessons that might be had I think are being perverted, which, in turn fosters more suicides because it seems to becoming cool and chic… memorialized in splendid color on Facebook. I saw a comedian on the tele a few weeks ago and he was jesting on why he teased his children… in what seems in harsh manner… the comedian went on to convey that he deliberately teases his children so as to make them tough to face bullying, which he said will help his children not to resort to violence or suicide.
