“Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt me…” How many of us have heard, used, or shared that simple rhyme as a child? I for one, am embarrassed to say, could possibly be the root cause for a little girl having to encounter that at an early age. The origin cannot even be recalled; however, I remember calling a female classmate what I believed to be a simple name. I promised her as an adult never to repeat it! What I did not know as an elementary school student was that my friends and others would begin calling her by this name that I concocted. To be honest, I did not have any malice or hard feelings with this girl, but simply did it for basic entertainment. Who would have known the effects that it had on her as she grew older? The ironic thing is that even though I lost contact with her, we did rekindle our loose bond and I invited her to attend my high school senior prom!
As the story continues, we even attended the same out of state college. There was communication at the start of our college experience, but it almost entirely disappeared until almost the conclusion of our four-year stent. Upon completing college, we ended up moving to the same city in a neighboring state. Fate would have it that we began communicating again and were far removed from the college age category. While reflecting and marveling at the dynamics of our interesting relationship one day she shared how much she hated me at an early age, and how those were the worse years of her life. Those words pierced my soul, it crushed me to know how words from my mouth caused so much pain and anguish to her. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to talk about the damage I caused, and she accepted my request of forgiveness. I wish I could take back my words, but once they left, they could not be retracted.
Fortunately, in this situation, the issue of what I later acknowledged as bullying was resolved. Fortunately, in never lead to physical retaliation! Fortunately, we were mature enough to use conflict management skills that we acquired from our personal experiences over the years. Now unfortunately, that is not the case for many young people around the nation. I refuse to acknowledge any of the individuals by name that cowardly took the lives of others but will make a general reference to hopefully decrease the number of victims. There is absolutely no excuse for the behavior, but most if not all, of the mass shooters were the product of bullying. Once again, I want to make this crystal clear, I do not condone their behavior. In a sick sense of retaliation of either bullying or being a social outcast, these individuals go into schools and other buildings taking the lives of people that often are not even a cause of their problem.
I have no intentions to victimize the monsters that run into schools, churches, movie theaters, and other public areas and take the lives of individuals however the root of the problem revolves around bullying! These social outcasts, often wrongfully labeled as having mental health issues, reach a level of bottled anger that they believe needs to be reciprocated to anyone that they are envious of. It is said once again “that sticks, and stones break bones, but words will never hurt me,” but that is far from the truth. Those “sticks & stones” are being replaced by high caliber assault rifles and pistols. More than bones are being broken, then entire nation is being crippled! We are in desperate need of more physicians to administer care and healing.
The Jeremy Anderson Group