Another View

   
stopthehate.net

I received the following as a private post to my guestbook and later received an email asking me to post the message on a page on my site. I believe that this post presents another view of what makes kids act out violently, but this person received the help, support, and nurturing that he/she needed to deal with issues in his/her life in a non-violent way.

Hello. Unfortunately, I do not feel comfortable giving my true name for this message. The e-mail address I have given is also a confidential one that does not send messages with my real name on it. This is because I am going to admit to something here that I don't feel comfortable telling most people. Which is that, in junior high, I was suspended for assaulting a teacher with a metal object; I don't remember anymore what exactly it was, it was something left over from some construction project.

I am the first to say that the teacher had done nothing against me that would warrant such an action. Another teacher witnessing the incident restrained me immediately, and the teacher I attacked was not seriously harmed in anyway. However, I was suspended for three days, and kept out of school (though not officially suspended) for almost a month, during which I was psychologically evaluated. I wound up being put on school probation (meaning if I committed any other act of violence I would have been expelled) and required to see a therapist for the rest of my time there.

I am telling you this story for two reasons. One is to explain why I did such a thing with little provocation. The reason why I acted out violently was because I was in severe emotional pain at the time. Like jazmyn, like many people, I was mostly a social outcast all throughout elementary, junior, and high school. Part of it was simply my personality, I usually had my nose buried in a book for most of my younger years. It wasn't that bad in elementary school, when there were kids who teased me but also many who were decent to me. But somehow, when I got to junior high, even many of the people who had been decent to me in the past turned against me, for they had become part of the "popular clique". My first year of junior high was spent in pain and depression over the fact that even my old "friends" had rejected me. I tried to make new friends, but I quickly found out that many of them thought there was nothing wrong to, for example, convince two people who lived on the same block each had a crush on the other, just for the amusement of watching them be embarassed and awkward around each other.

Feeling I could trust no one, I withdrew into myself. Until then, I had mostly been a "good kid" in the eyes of grown-ups, who did well on tests and didn't act out in class. But in my despair, I changed. I began thinking of everyone else as "the enemy". And so I wound up lashing out against someone who was innocent and had not really contributed to the hell I was going through. In that sense, I think I do understand a bit of what Eric and Dylan must have felt.

However (and this is the 2nd thing), I do not think the harassment they suffered at the hands of the more popular students is the only thing that made them go over the edge. I think the obliviousness/apathy/uncaring of the parents and school was also a factor, if not in fomenting their anger and hatred, then by not noticing it or offering them support. In my case, the immediate, overwhelming intervention I received after my first act of violence from teachers, counselors, etc, may be what stopped me from going over the edge completely. My parents were very involved at home, and constantly reassured me that no matter what happened at school, my home was a safe haven. Finally, I was supervised by my parents, to an extent some may have thought strict, and I would never had had the opportunity (time) or means (money) to go buy or assemble guns or bombs. Possibly, if I had not been in such a supportive environment, I might have gone on to even more violent behavior. Now, I am a very peaceful person and would not dream of using violence as a means to acheive any ends of mine. It seems the tragedy here is that no one in the lives of these kids cared enough, and did not notice the extent of their pain, anger, and ultimate depravity, until it was too late. The parents probably did care to some extent; one of them called the school when the news broke suspecting his son was involved...but it was not enough.

But let me say that, even though I had help to overcome the pull of violence, that does not mean the teasing and harassment I received had no lasting effect on me. After my violent incident, which of course spread through the school rumor mill like wildfire, the abuse I was receiving worsened. Late-night harassing phone calls, nasty notes sent through my school's candy-cane telegram sale, occasional physical aggression against me...this continued for most of my high school years, although the frequency decreased as I got older. People justified it by saying I was a "crazy psycho", as if this made me subhuman, as if this meant I had no feelings.

Now I am in an environment where no one knows any of this happened. I have made a fresh start. But I often feel very afraid to let myself be myself. I find myself looking around to see what everyone else is doing before I do anything, so I don't stand out. I find myself pondering a thought in my head over and over before I say it, fearing what people's reactions to it will be. I still find it very hard to trust people, to open up to them. Even after I have made a friend, I am in constant fear s/he will find out the "truth" about me (which does not mean this one violent incident, but that I am in general somehow a bad person) and reject me. I suspect there are many, many people out there who have had their sense of self-worth decimated by what too many people still say is just "normal" teasing, "a teenage rite of passage". It should NOT be normal to be cruel to people simply because they are different. And I wonder, how can any of the racial, ethnic, sexual, etc. prejudices and tensions that still plague our society truly be fought, if it is still considered "normal" and acceptable to harass and ridicule anyone who doesn't fit into the majority?

Finally, while I do not judge the souls of these boys (only G-d can do that), while I do not judge them, I do not forgive them either. I do not think I have the right to forgive anyone for the wrong they have done to others. What I have written here I think explains to some extent what was on the minds of the killers. But in the end, they did turn into killers, and there is no excuse for that.

I Understand

Making Sarah Cry

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