Matt Doyle speaks up on bullying

[Stage Door Sally]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 8:14am

Broadway performer Matt Doyle (Spring Awakening, Bye Bye Birdie) talks about bullying on his blog. Very personal and moving. Well said, Matt.
Matt Doyle On Bullying

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 11:25am

I can totally relate. I was bullied a bit in school. But when I was a kid and bullying happened, parents got involved and most of it stopped. I can remember one time I defended myself against a kid on my block, beat him up and threw him down in some pieces of glass. Our mothers made us apologize and sit and have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together. We never fought after that.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 11:03pm

I was bullied all throughout childhood. All. Throughout. There was suicidal thoughts, tears, blood, bruises, etc. So much damage was done that I still have not recovered mentally, affecting me socially and physically. Like Matt Doyle, theatre saved me.

Bullying is one issue that, I think, cannot be solved nor helped. If you are singled out, then you are STUCK. If you seek help from the school, it makes things worse. If you seek help from parents, it makes things worse. If you attempt to change yourself to fit in more, it makes things worse.

The only thing that has a chance at ending bullying is to remove yourself from the school and try another one. I did this. Once. Twice. Three times. At my fourth school, an arts school, I was successful at not only avoiding bullying, but actually FITTING IN. And MAKING & HAVING FRIENDS.

While going through four different schools did solve the problem, it did, however, have negative consequences. It makes you think "Why does EVERYONE at EVERY SCHOOL hate me?? It must be me. I am never going to be 'normal' or fit in. I will never be accepted." It wasn't until years later that I realized that it WAS me but it wasn't my FAULT. I never learned social skills because I was a social outcast. My new social settings would reject me because I didn't know HOW to be normal. I never had the opportunity to grow up knowing what 'normal' was.

Bullying is tragic. It's scarring. And little-to-nothing can be done about it.

[Gobstopper]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 3:02pm

CapnHook, as somebdoy who went through some bullying in middle school (though perhaps not on the same scale), I have to disagree with you. While you are probably correct that there is not much the victim can accomplish, changes can be implemented to create a learning environment with less bullying. It all comes down to whether or not teachers are vigilant about such abuse. So many adults enable these types of things to occur and it has to stop.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 4:47pm

Well, I would love to learn what teachers & administrators can do about it. Because in my experience, everything they did (mostly out of good intentions and really trying to help) only made things worse or had no change.

- A lot of abuse occurred on the bus ride to school and from home. My mother would have to drop me off at school early and I would stay after school and take the "late bus" home. This made the abuse I receive lessen, but did not go away, because a lot of the athletes took the late bus home.

- In elementary school, I was told to name names and report each and every occurrence. I did. The kids would be taken to the guidance counselor's office and reprimanded. This caused them to retaliate by beating me up and calling me a "gay ****" for having to get help from the school. So I quickly learned NOT to do this.

- Recess was a time when a lot of bullying occurred. The administration would not let me stay inside during recess because that was the rule. I had to sit with my back against a brick wall where a teacher stood with the whistle which told us to all come back inside. This was the same wall used for punishment where any misbehaving kids would have to sit if they weren't allowed to enjoy recess that day. So I either sit with my back against the wall for however long recess was and be bored, or sit there and be tormented by kids who were also there being punished.

- In middle school, gym class was especially a time when I would get ridiculed and even physically attacked, both during class and in the locker room. They would not let me skip gym class, and they said I could choose to sit out of class but each time I did my grade would drop, so I would fail the class by the end of the year.

- Inside the classroom, we had to sit in alphabetical order, and one of the major bullies in my life had a last name very similar to mine, and he always sat behind me. The torture I received from him was ridiculous! The administration DID let me move my seat to the end of the alphabet so as not to be in front of him, but now I was the only kid not sitting in the correct order. Very easy to single out, no? And I was teased for this.

These are just some of the ways how I WASN'T helped, despite the well-intentions of the school. Again I ask, if you have had experiences where the school WAS able to help you and end bullying, I would LOVE to know what they did.

[Stage Door Sally]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 6:43pm

Capn thanks for sharing. Bullying is terrible and even effects people not directly involved.

When I was in high school in the 70s, a kid Dennis became the repeated victim of several jocks. They tormented him in Chemistry when the teacher's back was turned, punching him, messing up his hair, grabbing him in a headlock...

English class was even worse. The guys did the same thing but even with the teacher looking. It bothered my conscience an awful lot, so one day I slipped an anonymous note into the school office mailbox asking the teacher, Warren Dodge, to stop the abuse because Dennis was getting hurt.

Dodge figured out the note came from me (Not a surprise because I volunteered in the office), and asked me to stay after class. I said I knew nothing about the note, but we both knew better. He said I might not understand this, but everyone has to learn to fight their own battles. I had no expression on my face and just left, but from that day forward I hated the guy.

Nothing changed in class. Dodge eventually left the school system. I think maybe today he could be sued.

Now maybe nothing Dodge did would have stopped the bullying, but at least he would have let those guys know it was something that should not be tolerated.
Updated On: 5/9/10 at 06:43 PM

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 5/9/10 at 11:10am

That was a very good blog entry. I was eaten up by bullying in Middle School and late Elementary. My family decided to move to the other side of town in between middle and high school partially because of this bullying. Thankfully, things got much better after the move and I'm happier than ever in my High School. In middle/elementary school, the bullying was so excessive that I really struggled with making friends and my social skills didn't really get the chance to properly develop. That's the only problem I STILL have. I'm slightly behind on my social skills, and even though I've gotten TONS TONS TONS TONS TONS better and I'm continuing to get TONS TONS TONS TONS better, I'm not quite there yet... and I therefore feel like I don't fully fit in. Thanks to the wonderful friends I've made at my school, I have a lot of people supporting me and boosting my confidence (which is still rather low). Like I said, I'm happier than ever. I'm grateful to have great friends, to be in a school where I face little-to-no bullying, and I'm grateful that I now have the "anti-bs" view towards bullying (and many other things) that Matt Doyle talks about. Now the only bully I have to conquer is myself, but I'll get there!

[javero]

Posted: 5/9/10 at 1:20pm

"I can remember one time I defended myself against a kid on my block, beat him up and threw him down in some pieces of glass."

I had three similar experiences growing up which convinced me that bullies must be confronted by their targets at all costs. This is where I differ considerably from the "peaceniks" who posit that no good comes from violence.

In my case, I was reed-thin kid growing up so inevitably some azzhole sporting husky-sized clothing would give me a hard time in the class room as well as on the playground. In elementary school I punched out a dude nearly twice my size, in middle school I swatted a bully seated behind me in class with my Holt mathematics book up against the side of his head; and finally in high school I clocked this bully on the tennis team with my wooden tennis racket. The tennis teammate had intentionally struck me in the head first with a tennis ball before calling me the "N" word. In each instance, I allowed those muthapluckers to get away with physically assaulting me one time before I decided it was time to put an end to the abuse.

Long before I became a Libertarian my dad instilled in my that I had every right to defend myself when under physical attack, end of story. I cannot live my life with the constant fear & anxiety of being assaulted or accosted on the street. I was mugged a couple of years back by two guys right after making an ATM withdrawal. They got away with my wallet and left me with a bruised hip but one of them clearly left with a broken nose & cracked ribs. After realizing that neither was armed, my instinct was to fight like hell for my hard earned money and my life.

I will defend myself, my loved ones, and the sanctity of my home with my very life if necessary. These thugs can read potential victims and sense their innate "fear" and "vulnerability" a mile away. Thanks goodness my dad taught me to defend myself at a very early age.

Please check out an example of adult bullying at the link below. Bullies need to understand that not everyone will take the abuse lying down. Some victims simply aren't going to grant bullies impunity, be their reactions right, wrong, or otherwise. That would include cyber-bullies as well.




The Tale of Rolando Negrin

Updated On: 5/9/10 at 01:20 PM