On 20th April, 1999 it all started at Columbine High School when two young boys schemed and carried out an act so sinister, so wicked and so lethal that absolutely nobody could have been geared up for what was to occur. Armed with guns and with bombs located in exact places to cause as many fatalities as possible, on this day in history bullycide and school shootings became the center of the nation's attention.

The two youths were both victims of bullying. Feeling totally alone, their isolation led to depression, quickly developing into anger which in turn encouraged them to commit this horrendous crime. As a final point, following the bloodshed of twelve innocent lives being taken in this way, the two youths committed suicide.

The world as a whole tried to make sense of the incident. Regrettably, parents and teachers had not seen or recognized the signs. Although bullying is a pandemic within schools, it is a shocking, but true fact that the situation is not yet taken seriously. Furthermore, very few schools have procedures of any description in place to deal with this type of aggression. In denial, some even advocate that what happened at Columbine High School was an isolated incident.

Recently, however, bullying has taken on a whole new significance. The Virginia Tech shooting was the well known straw which broke the camel's back. On this occasion, there were apparent and exact signals that something was amiss. The boy who carried out these evil deeds was also bullied at school. He spent a lot of time on his own just thinking about how he could avenge those who had caused him harm. He prepared his plan and then executed it. Coincidentally, on 16th April, 2007, exactly eight years to the month the tragedy occurred at Columbine High School, thirty two pupils were killed at Virginia Tech. The troubled youth responsible for his, Seung-Hui Cho, also took his own life, continuing the sequence of school shootings involving bullying.

Today, we are still observing haphazard acts of violence with bloodshed as a consequence. So who stirred the sleeping monster? How did bullying soar to this level? All the indications were there just waiting to be spotted and acted upon .Parents and educators who chose not to see or intervene only contributed to make this situation even worse.

Take a look at the teenage bullying commemorative pages from Virginia Tech, and ask yourself if this tragedy could have been avoided. Surely the parent's of the boy in question must have sensed something was wrong? The pupils interviewed in connection with this incident told of the boy being a loner, not well known by anyone of them in particular, except for his roomies, who having given this extra thought, admitted that there had been clear signs that all was not well with the youth - something which could not have been said by any school officials.

When a child is bullied he is thrown into a world of terror and mistrust and these feelings rule his every movement. Although he will reveal absolutely none of his feelings in his eyes, he may well write down his thoughts in great detail, as did Seung-Hui Cho. His abhorrence for those who harmed him in his former school years developed into the eventual act of retribution. His despair gave way to his ultimate battle against those he considered to be his foes.

What would have happened if intervention had taken place and he had received proper help much earlier on by his parents or school officials taking him for counselling right at the very beginning of him being bullied? It's all so easy to say "what if" now!

Perhaps this quotation says it all: "There is no better way to take apart a character than to separate it." The two boys who executed the bullycide and school shootings were totally cut off and because the bullying had not been dealt with from the beginning, the only tranquility they felt they could achieve was in committing the final act of aggression.

This does not make these violent and brutal actions tolerable - No way!

For someone to prepare and implement such annihilation is a needless and horrendous tragedy - it's unspeakable! There are no words to express the heart break of leaving friends and relations to bear the loss of their loved ones.

This only proves that bullying, and even talk of bullycide and school shootings, has to be taken very seriously, by no means underestimating the situation and treating it as "urgent" in order to stop more lives being lost in this way.

© By Mandy-Jane Clarke

Stop-Bullies.com