Bullycide

Bullycide is a relatively new term coined to describe suicide as a result of bullying. Approximately every half-hour a child or teen will commit suicide from being bullied at school or by cyber bullying. In this generation, children and teens take suicide as a joke and they don’t think about the consequences when they are bullying.

People that are being bullied are afraid to talk with a parent or adult because when they do talk about it with someone, the adult will commonly tell the child or teen to “toughen up” or to “grow a thicker skin and ignore it.”

The result of bullying and being ignored by a parent when they talk about it is depression, and for some it eventually leads to suicide. According to the American Psychiatric Association, over half of the people that are being bullied by their peers will suffer from depression and attempt suicide; seven percent of those people will successfully commit suicide. It has been estimated that 19,000 victims will attempt suicide this year.

Kids around the world are being bullied by their peers, and cyberbullying is the most common form of bullying. Bullies will either blackmail their target and demand something in return, threatening to expose them on social media, or they will bully their target in front of their peers and cause public humiliation.

Mr. Searway, a Psychology Teacher at Pitman High School speaks his thoughts about why bullies pick on others:

“Bullies do the things they do because their brain isn’t fully developed yet, so they don’t think about the consequences that their actions can cause.”

Some schools and parents are doing their best to prevent bullying, however, they don’t take action on the topic until it happens to their children. Bullycide is being ignored by so many people around the world because they believe it is not a serious issue. Bullycide is a touchy topic to talk about, let alone suicide, therefore not many people speak out about it.

Bullycide can be caused by things such as repeatedly emotional or physical bullying, experiencing continuous pain due to bullying, having no friends to rely on after being bullied, having to relive humiliating moments of being bullied over and over again, and getting bullied by a parent or authority figure such as a teacher, coach, etc. It is hard for children to cope with such humiliation because they are still young and haven’t figured themselves out yet.

Some children are so afraid of talking about being bullied that they don’t show signs of being bullied. Some victims of bullying will not show their pain to their parents or teachers. They will seem happy to cover the pain that is going on inside of them.

The mother of a young florida girl that was the victim of bullying that later resulted in suicide describes how her daughter didn’t show any signs of bullying:

“When I looked at my child I saw a normal, happy, productive child, apparently not. Inside, behind the scenes, there were other things going on with bullying. Even though your child may seem normal, there may be something else going on.”