Anne Lastman

How often do we hear, read, view stories of suicide by young people, teenagers, who should have been loving life, and looking forward to a future, wherever it would take them, but instead we hear with great sadness  of their death due to bullying.  A family destroyed knowing how their loved one chose to leave because he/she could no longer cope with the bullying? And the other family, the family of the bully/bullies, also never to be the same again? The treachery against a particular one, determined by mob of others whom they decided was different and easy target to torment.  This usually in a place (apart from those abused at home) where it should be a safe place, school, youth group, sports group, places of friendships and yet places of torment and with the knowledge of the school, group leaders, sports personnel, etc  who I am convinced really don’t understand bullying, its after effects or what to do about it.

I have an idea what it might be which causes bullying but it is my interpretation or understanding what  might cause such cruelty. Bullying is not something new.

I remember being bullied at school many many years ago, when as a migrant child 12 years after WWII  came to Australia where it was considered to be the land of milk and honey, whereas southern Italy had not much to offer  after the war.  It was true about the milk and honey, but no kangaroos crossing street. My father found work immediately, mother didn’t work but was a homemaker, and we two children compulsorily having to go to school,  tormenting had to be endured.  Derogative names, pushing, tripping, hitting, and after school along the way home physical abuse, particularly by  three non-migrant “treasures.”

This continued for long time because as migrants we have to be “careful” and not retaliate  in case we believed we would be returned to Italy and Mum and Dad didn’t want that. We were mostly blamed for “starting” the “fight.”  Sadly I have to say here that the Catholic school we went to did absolutely nothing to stop the bullying because the bullies were Australian and their parents could afford school fees, school books, school uniforms.  We stood out from the locals for being different. Even our lunches (made of Italian home-made bread and usually salami, or mortadella, and today the “Australians” pay huge dollars for same sandwich, were taken from our lunch paper bags and tossed into bins which meant whole day without food and water. And still no help from teachers (Irish nuns) who were probably not teachers but had to do something. 

One day when my little brother 7 yrs old was threatened and attacked I “lost” it and with a huge marble in my hand turned and did some damage.  This of course led to school problems. But bullying stopped. I believe headmistress spoke to parents of bullies and my parents and my punishment wasn’t so bad.  

This I share because bullying has always occurred but the difference we have today and which feeds into the system is that we have different parenting, different teachers, different school rules. Social media which makes bullying unrelenting, and bullies faceless and identity unknown. Mostly for some reason it seems that more girls than boys are bullies. A small group of favourites and “head of a cabal,” begin at first a slow demeaning, looks, followed by unattractive words, followed by unrelenting fear causing threats. This especially when the target  is “different”  in looks, intellectual, foreign,  and once this starts it grows like a or mould, silently and deadly. 

I have my own idea of what causes most bullying (not all) however it will be politically incorrect.  Indeed I could be pilloried for my thoughts and beliefs. 

Sufficed to say that a child doesn’t get up one morning and decide to become a bully.  There has to have been an introduction of this into this behaviour in the bully’s life. Visible, actual, learned, practiced behaviour.  Bullying does not happen instantly, behaviour develops instantly,  but it’s a response to some action which led to a pleasurable response in the bully.  Something harmful happened which led to a pleasurable response and  seeking of repetition of that harmful action in order to experience the same pleasure. As these actions are   continually repeated then the avoidance of pain is immediately  replaced with the pleasure inducing response.  Pain and its opposite pleasure.   Once these two emotions are united then new methods of bringing these two together are sought.  This of course is not to say that a child (or even adult) realises that this is what is happening. However, the dopamine which floods the brain at the envisaged pleasure ensures its survival of the actions which will its ensure ongoing and strengthening. responses  The anticipated reward is too desirable to analyse,  understand it effects  and want to stop the pain using different, more acceptable ways. 

When experiencing a pleasurable event (in this case bullying) and bullying lead to  spike in dopamine (pleasure hormone) occurs which leads to the need for repetitions. Indeed I would suggest that repeating a trauma keeps happening in order to make sense of it (this is very prevalent in both  post abortion and sexual abuse experiences). However, in the case of bullying the age of the bully and victim there is no trying to make sense of the need but continue the       re-experiencing more pleasure without concern for the pain of another.  “As a friend said recently, “when I was at school many years ago I thought that bullies would grow up and stop their bullying but they grew up into adult bullies”  By then unless help is sought the dopamine levels are so high that young bullies become as my friend said dangerous adult bullies.  

Some thoughts on where this might begin. I think it goes back to the parents, to their care for their child from the very beginning until that child becomes young adult (then some more).
Thinking about the idea of pain followed by pleasure I wondered if it begins as early as childhood when children are left in the care of another because parents have to or want to  go to work, and the separation causes the child much fear, separation anxiety, pain, anger, at assumed abandonment and this is assuaged (dopamine) by pleasure when parent returns. This continual pain followed by pleasure is instilled into the child’s brain and later the teenager (when most bullying occurs) when understanding of emotional behaviour and responses  have become the norm.  The stress hormones, followed by pleasure response via dopamine become set into the emotional development.    Are  their pain and pleasure associated with seeing a new victim and determines to make him/her unhappy too, acts to give them another  “fix” of  pleasure?  And of course today there is no need for personal interaction with victim by the bully because of the diet of visual violence through all mediums, and social platforms. This leads me to the belief that for the child, then teen there has not had an actual place of “rest” Not a place to go to except to return to the medium which actually causes the pain, social media to tell of sufferings which then leads to the notice by the bully and more intense bullying eventually leading to the result where a young one chooses to end the suffering by ending her own self. By the time the  young person has reached teenage years he/she  has been fed a diet of loss, at times family/marriage breakdowns, emotional neglect, instability, loneliness, inappropriate viewing of shows, movies, games, etc.  a diet of Violence.
It’s my opinion, and I suspect that I have no support in this, but I feel that the bullying by the young at various stages of development  is a rebellion against the “lot” that has been dealt to them. Some children, teenagers are able to navigate this better than others followed by behaviour results from this more positive navigation.As I said at the beginning of this paper bullying is not something new, it has been in existence since God created men and women, and perhaps we are seeing more and more because of our massive information mediums, but I object to the fact that not enough attention is being paid to it.  It’s useless feeling pity for a family who has lost a young son or daughter to this monstrous method. Suicide.  Its monstrous to hear of a beautiful young person going off and ending it  all because  life  became too painful and there appears no end in sight to the suffering.  The antithesis of suicide is not  a lonely death, but apathy and abandonment leading to that lonely death.
I have shared some thoughts on why bullying is endemic within the school system and becomes so entrenched that it’s taken into adult life. Because I believe it starts through the violence of being left by parents who have to or want to work to be “fulfilled,”  and  the transient society so that family is splintered and other family members cannot or are not willing to care for one of their own.  During the early developmental years children do not need quality time with parents, that is, spending 15 hrs week (out of 168 hrs pw) hours playing games, but they need quantity time. Mother or father present which ensures and develops in the child  a sense of security. A sense of wellbeing which in time be used at the service of another or others.  There won’t be a need for dopamine rush to quash the stress hormone. Having said the above maybe a suggestion.  Because it is important to accommodate and be present to the child in its earliest years during  developmental years and the need for a second income, could it become possible that daycare, that is strangers who have many other children to look after every day, and too few staff to give a child all the attention needed, Governments can fund children’s daycare to be done at their home with a paid child carer, (some countries call them nannies) to look after child/children in their own home with mother or father working in an office in the house, so that child knows that mother/father is nearby? This of course would require rules and regulations but in short time the parent and the child would know how to abide by the rules and parent nearby so that the child does not feel abandoned  leading to insecurity and  this then to a failure of emotional stability.  The present Australian government pays millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money  to fund a program of daycare outside of  the home and assists parents with their costs to send child to external daycare whilst mother and father go out to work, leading to the start of  child’s sense of abandonment, which I think is emotionally  unhealthy for both parents and child.  My question is  why is it not possible for same funds to be allotted to parents of child to be looked after in their own home with parent nearby?  Is not having to identify son or daughter, or receiving a visit from police with the news, worth every effort to raise children from infants onwards in such a way that their need to end their life or someone else’s life is not even a concept considered  but living fully that beautiful life given to them as a gift.