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The bully hangover

It’s not hard to see why Meredith Dixon, 39, didn’t like school.

Beginning in junior high, other students regularly threw her to the ground, pounded her head into bricks and concrete, punched and kicked her until vertigo set in.

They held her against the cafeteria’s food-heating elements, spit in her milk and, in the locker room before gym, held her down, jabbed and cut her with a compass point.

For six years until graduation from her urban Virginia school district, Dixon, who now lives in West Virginia, suffered numerous concussions, a broken arm and internal bleeding from a particularly vicious beating. She thinks the perpetrators wielded lacrosse sticks.

Though teachers witnessed some of the attacks, Dixon believes they didn’t want to bother with the paperwork that would be involved if they were to report them, “particularly since they didn’t think the administration would do anything anyway.”

Some would probably have liked to help but didn’t want to anger bosses or colleagues. Administrators didn’t help either, despite Dixon’s reporting of most incidents, “if only so I could spend a few minutes in the relative safety of the office.”

She tried not to distract her mother, a busy teacher herself and single parent, with repeated complaints. When Dixon’s arm was broken in 8th grade, her mother wrote a strong letter to school administrators without telling her daughter, who found a carbon copy of the note upon her mother’s death in 1995. “So I didn’t know to tell her [if the violence continued].”

For Dixon and others bullied as kids, even though school days–and the torment–end, the effects linger.

Today Dixon runs Raven Days, a Web site (www.ravendays.org) for bullied students and adults with haunting memories like her own. She launched the site in May 1999, after the Columbine shooting reminded her that she had promised herself that “when I grew up and people would listen to me that I’d tell the world what schools were really like.”

She collated a list of resources, wrote her story and posted the site. Traffic now averages 1,200 visitors each month during the school year, 800 in summer.

A study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development published in the April 25, 2001, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found 30 percent of respondents experienced moderate or frequent bullying, as bully, victim or both. Students in grades 6 through 10 were surveyed; the prevalence was deemed “substantial” by the authors.

Other studies have returned figures as high as 77 percent.

A report from The Commission on the Prevention of Youth Violence found that 8 percent of students in urban junior and senior high schools miss at least one day of school each month due to fear.

We’re talking more than child’s play here.

Experts pretty consistently agree on what constitutes bullying: behavior that’s intended to harm or disturb; it occurs repeatedly over time; and there’s a power imbalance between perpetrator and victim. It can be verbal (name calling), physical (hitting) or psychological (starting rumors or shunning).

Sadly, it has taken several school shootings to nudge public attention. Anti-bullying initiatives now are undertaken with more frequency in the United States (the United Kingdom and Australia seem to have outpaced us), but studies of long-term effects other than one by Dan Olweus in Norway (1993) are few and far between.

Olweus found that those who were bullied were more depressed, had lower self-esteem and felt more isolated than peers who hadn’t been. Being bullied was actually predictive of low self-esteem 10 years later.

According to Dr. Jerry Wiener, past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and emeritus professor in residence of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School, “The person bullied develops a sense that they don’t have anyone to turn to.

“They come to feel weak and ashamed, and there can be long-term effects on mood–chronic depression–and decreased self-esteem. Those are prominent, and they can branch out in a number of ways,” he said.

Suicide may be one. The suicide rate among gay teens, who are targets of bullying to a higher degree, is three times that of heterosexual adolescents. Physical ailments are another. Wiener said somatic symptoms–headaches, stomachaches, intestinal problems–similar to complaints kids use to dodge school–can become a way of dealing with painful emotions later. Bullying is a form of physical abuse, and when parents don’t provide support at home, there’s an added component of emotional abuse, Wiener said. Post-traumatic stress disorder and “serious effects on personality development” can ensue.

A link to chronic fatigue

When asked about a comment posted online relating chronic fatigue syndrome to long-term bullying and harassment, Wiener said, “CFS to me is almost without exception a somatic representation of depression; I wouldn’t be surprised.”

It may be hard for clinicians to make correlations to symptoms. Wiener said, “Like so many things in medicine, you have to have an index of suspicion.”

Dixon points to other effects. “Even today I think of myself as a `weird person’ and half expect to be disliked by ordinary people.”

Her relationship with her late mother was “irretrievably ruined” by her not taking more assertive measures to stop her daughter’s abuse. It has been a challenge, she said, despite a happy marriage of 12 years, to learn that touch isn’t always painful. And she still flinches at sudden movements.

“I seriously expected to die at my classmates’ hands sooner or later,” Dixon said. To endure, she would imagine herself “a great hero of legend in the hands of my enemies,” a resistance fighter captured by the Nazis, a POW in Vietnam, Frodo in Mordor.

To protect herself physically, she would keep one hand on the hallway wall to cushion herself, round her shoulders and hope to get to class without incident. In college, she learned to walk farther from walls but kept her head down and shoulders hunched protectively for years afterward.

Author and radio personality Garrison Keillor writes about bullying by the Magendanz twins in his newest novel, “Lake Wobegon Summer 1956.” Keillor changed names to protect the not-so-innocent and said the real-life version started somewhere around 1st or 2nd grade (early; research finds bullying commonly starts in middle school).

“They got a kick out of fighting. And they really could smell fear. They enjoyed the chase. All the little rabbits running pell-mell from their awful presence; they got amusement from that.”

Keillor didn’t.

Watching and worrying

“It certainly was a damper on my childhood, being wary of Magendanzes, worrying about what heinous things they might attempt.” He doesn’t hold a grudge. “I hear they’ve done poorly, bumped along through periods of unemployment and wrecked marriages, struggled with alcohol, and I am genuinely sorry about that.”

Other targets are less forgiving. Wiener said bullying victims can “grow up with a kind of anger, a feeling of wanting to get even” and resentment when others don’t play by the rules. He cited road rage as an example of how these feelings can play out.

Dixon finds solace not in anger but in helping others through various online communities and in knowing she’ll never be forced into a similar situation again.

“It helps to know that as an adult, you’ll be able to sue the living daylights out of anyone who does anything remotely similar to you, that other adults will take it seriously and consider it a crime.”

Crime indeed. Brooke Whitted, partner in a Northbrook law firm, often represents victims of bullying, including a boy who broke his arm while frantically climbing a fence to escape tormentors. Another client, “a sweet, studious kid,” was beaten so badly, he needed corrective facial surgery.

Though criminal classifications vary by state law, “it’s battery,” Whitted said. “Or aggravated battery, depending on circumstances.”

If it were adults doing the battering, they would likely go to jail. Whitted himself was bullied as a child growing up in Evanston.

“I was a skinny little geeky kid, not very athletic, and I learned to talk my way out of situations or find a bodyguard,” Witted said.

Like Dixon, Whitted considers himself lucky.

“I could have gone in a bad direction. A lot of these kids are permanently scarred; they’ve deteriorated into major depression, become psychiatric inpatients, developed character and personality disorders.”

Does he see this often, he’s asked, or are these exceptions?

“All the time,” he said.

What saved Whitted was the support of “a very strong family; I had lots of people around to talk to.”

Support is key, said Mark Reinecke, chief of psychology and associate professor at Northwestern University Medical School who cites findings by researcher Ken Rigby: “There’s something of a culture of silence surrounding victimization.

“Many children are fearful of telling parents and teachers; having close friends or social support may moderate the effects.”

Practical approach

Erin Murphy, social studies co-chair at Nichols Middle School in Evanston, designed a Web quest (a technology-based assignment) for her students to delve into the issue “in a very real and practical way.”

Kids created their own Web sites as part of the fictitious National Bullying Forum to teach others–grown-ups included–how to handle bullying. Articulating strategies helped students feel more competent, Murphy said. They learned that bullies weren’t only “mean” but, like their targets, suffered from insecurities too.

“The kids being bullied felt they had inside knowledge about the bully; it began to seem easier to handle,” Murphy said.

By looking at the long-term effects on bullies, targets “acknowledged they may be bullied now but in the future might have the last laugh,” Murphy said.

The effects on bullies are significant too, Reinecke said, from increased gang involvement to a higher incidence of psychiatric symptoms later. Olweus found that by age 23, middle-school bullies had at least one criminal conviction; 40 percent had three or more. Bullies were less likely to finish college or find a job.

J.D. Hawkins, a counselor at the laboratory school at Illinois State University College of Education and president of the National Association of Self-Esteem, said that when looking at the effects of bullying on self-esteem, one also has to look at self-esteem’s affect on bullying. “It works both ways.”

Bullies lack the skills to build a strong sense of security, identity and belonging, hence their drive to “level” or make targets feel equally as wobbly.

Really, Hawkins said, “the bully and the bullied suffer from the same thing, only it’s expressed in different ways. The good thing is, these skills can be learned at any point in life.”

Decades later, reconnecting via the Internet with a bully

Meredith Dixon’s blighted childhood reminded me of my own–much less severe–run-in with a bully. My tormentor was a girl, which, though unusual statistically speaking, is becoming more common. The bully moved to my formerly peaceful town during 6th grade.

I was shy, with a recent onset of acne and mild scoliosis that had me trying hard to sit up straight lest I’d need a much-dreaded brace. Katie King (not her real name), nicknamed “The King” by classmates, was sturdy, tomboyish and quick to make friends. She glared often in my direction, made fun of my posture, among other things, and passed notes with cruel comments. Once she started, the kids who were my friends followed her lead. One kindly nicknamed me Zit Face.

I lost track of The King in middle school until I contacted her 20-some years later for this article. The queasy feeling I’d get whenever she looked my way returned as I typed an e-mail to her. I marveled at how the body and mind react to decades-old cues.

The King and I exchanged pleasantries (“Your work sounds interesting and exciting . . . Nice to hear from an old friend,” she wrote before I explained why I’d contacted her). I told her–tactfully–about my assignment.

She seemed sincerely mortified that I remembered her as a bully. She said she was “unendingly sorry.”

Her apology was irrelevant, though appreciated. What I’d really wanted was to know why. Honestly, I hadn’t been harboring resentment. Not much, anyway.

— K. R.

Where to go for more information

Dr. Edward Hill, chair-elect of the American Medical Association, said that in June the Council on Scientific Affairs is scheduled to release a report on bullying and the medical community’s role. The AMA Alliance this year is placing increased emphasis on bullying in its Stop America’s Violence Everywhere program. Additional resources include the following:

– American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (www.aacap.org):

See Facts for Families on bullying–www.aacap.org/publications/fac tsfam/80.htm.

– American Medical Association (www.ama-assn.org):

See “Youth and Violence: A Report to the Nation” by the Commission on the Prevention of Youth Violence, of which the AMA was a part–www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/3536.html.

– American Medical Association Alliance SAVE program–www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2162.html.

– National Association for Self-Esteem: Dedicated to building self-esteem in families, schools and the workplace–www.self-esteem-nase.org.

– Nichols Middle School National Bullying Forum project: Student Web sites and survey results from a social studies Web quest project–www.d65.k12.il.us/Schools/Nicho ls-MS/Nichols/bullying/bullyingforum.html.

— Kimberlee Roth