Bullying: A social epidemic

Gulf News

Tia Kamel was bullied in school. It was so severe that it sent her into a coma. She shares her story with Gulf News, hoping to put an end to this problem. See more videos at www.gulfnews.com/videos/storytellers

Transcript

00:00Sometimes I hated waking up in the morning to go to school. I hated school.

00:05My name is Tia. I'm from Lebanon. I studied in Abu Dhabi for 17 years and

00:12this is my story, my long journey against bullying. At six years old, I started at a

00:18primary school. I was severely bullied because of my appearance, because of my

00:24height, and because my mom worked in the school I went to. I spent most breaks in

00:29lunches with my mom in her office and kids and kids at my school found that an

00:37opportunity to make fun of me. I wasn't a very talkative or social person so I

00:42was an easy target.

00:45Children that are either too tall or too short, children that are overly intelligent or overly good at school,

00:51children that are too thin or sometimes a little bit overweight, any kind of a

00:57physical feature that makes them different can become something that a

01:02bully will pick on. Also, children with low self-esteem tend to be bullied.

01:07Children who are a little bit more shy or withdrawn tend to be bullied. So these

01:13are the people that I feel adults need to take a little bit extra care of.

01:17I never really told my mom about any of the bullying that went on. Only because the

01:23saying, snitches get stitches, followed me throughout my entire school life.

01:29I want students to know that you're not being a snitch if you're going to report. I think it is imperative that you

01:38report rather than be a passive observer. You know, it's important for the child to feel that

01:45somebody cares. When somebody comes with bullying issues, I usually appeal to them to talk to their parents, to talk to their

01:52teachers. Oftentimes it's the parents that bring in the children because they

01:56realize that something has changed in their child's behavior and they're

02:00worried about their child. Children withdraw or they start to not want to

02:04spend time with anyone anymore. Some kids gain weight or lose weight. Some kids

02:09develop allergies, headaches, don't want to go to school, sometimes they feel

02:13nauseous. So the parents recognize this behavior and when they talk to the child,

02:17oftentimes the child doesn't want to talk about it, so the parents are at a loss.

02:21So they come to me and usually when I speak to the child one-on-one, then they

02:24open up to me because my conversations are confidential. And then I ask the

02:29child to go and speak to the parents, promising them that things will get

02:33better. I had a problem, I just chose to ignore it. I see myself leading on a fake

02:39persona of a strong person that didn't care what people thought of her, didn't care what people had to say about her.

02:47And most of my friends, my sister, my mother usually saw that. However, I wasn't like that at home.

02:54I was a completely different person at home. I was always happy, I was always laughing, smiling, making jokes.

02:59Bullies are really afraid to get teachers involved because they know

03:02something will happen, there'll be consequences. And that's why they

03:06blackmail the victim into saying that snitches get stitches and you

03:12can't tell the teacher, can't get them involved. So then the victim has to fight

03:17by themselves. I think that there needs to be an awareness program set in place

03:22in schools to help children and people. Bullying is also prevalent in the

03:27workforce, so generally everyone recognizes bullying.

03:32Okay, March 8th, the friends that I thought were on my side in this entire

03:40bullying situation turned their backs on me. I started shaking, just like minor

03:47shaking, and I had a fever. I didn't really tell anyone that I was sick, I

03:51just thought that I had a flu. So I went home and I took a nap and then I took my

03:58brother to football. And by the time I was back home from football, I was

04:04completely numb and I couldn't move or speak. And I fainted in my mom's

04:11arms, so she chased me, she rushed me to the hospital. An hour or two,

04:19and I started seizing. I was having seizures and the hospital thought I had

04:26meningitis, which then led them to induce me in a coma. And I was in the

04:34ICU for three days and no one knew what was wrong with me. The second they woke

04:41me up from the coma, I started seizing again. And they realized that anything

04:45emotionally triggering caused me to have a seizure. All the memories would start

04:51piling in and I would start getting anxious. And then the doctors realized I

04:56had anxiety and depression. And my final diagnosis was psychological seizures

05:06and clinical depression with anxiety. Lots of therapists, lots of doctors came

05:11and spoke to me and said, this wouldn't have happened if I addressed the

05:15situation earlier. Because of the buildup, my seizures were my body's way of

05:23releasing that anger and that sadness.

05:26The most severe effects of, let's say, physical bullying would be that someone

05:30actually dies due to the consequences of the violence inflicted upon them.

05:35Emotional bullying, the most severe outcome of that could be that someone

05:39might take their own life.

05:41An investigation was held at school where everyone in my year had to write a

05:47report over what they know about the entire story. And slowly the bullies were

05:56seen as the people they are.

05:59I think that there's still a large problem with recognizing bullying

06:02because sometimes there's no awareness. And so I think the first step for

06:06bullying to be reduced is to increase awareness of bullying and making

06:11facilities available to people that are being bullied so that they can seek help.

06:15Actually, I started seeing a therapist and she made me talk about everything

06:19that's happened, everything that I went through. And I started getting better.

06:23I don't have any more seizures. I'm learning how to communicate and control

06:28my anger and my sadness.

06:32I'm lucky enough to still be alive to this day. Some people commit suicide

06:36because of bullying. Some people get sick and die because of bullying.

06:42I encourage you guys to reach out to a parent or to a teacher or to a sibling

06:46and try and find help. And always stick up for yourself.

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