Heavyweight: #7 Julia
November 9, 2016 7:57 AM - Subscribe
In grade 8, Julia was bullied so badly by a group of girls that she changed schools without telling anyone. Soon after, the girls from her old school showed up at her house and rang her doorbell. She didn't answer it. For the past 20 years, Julia's been wondering what those girls wanted.
The way I heard it, it wasn't that they thought one bad class or the bullying problem caused the suicide, but more that they sadly remembered that the last time anyone saw the teacher, that it had been in a class where the children were pretty out of control. And that it was a class where none of the students really cared about he subject.
More a questioning like "Oh man, were we just adding extra stress and sadness to this person's life? If she was at a low point already, could our idiotic behavior that day have lead in some small way to an unintentional tipping point?"
Sad. But that's one of the legacies of suicide--it leaves everyone left behind with a head full of unanswered questions, plagued with what-ifs and guilt.
posted by blueberry at 10:54 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
More a questioning like "Oh man, were we just adding extra stress and sadness to this person's life? If she was at a low point already, could our idiotic behavior that day have lead in some small way to an unintentional tipping point?"
Sad. But that's one of the legacies of suicide--it leaves everyone left behind with a head full of unanswered questions, plagued with what-ifs and guilt.
posted by blueberry at 10:54 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
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And . . . how fucking dare they think that a veteran teacher for 20 years was so distraught by the fact that their class had a bunch of bullies in it, like every single other class ever, that she killed herself. I loved Miss McD (as did all the students), and she was a wonderful person and an amazing teacher and making her suicide about you as a 14 year old is . . . you are 35 years old know, you have to know better.
(Relatedly, Miss McD was not the only overweight old girl who came back to be a really excellent teacher at that school, and I don't know why the other teacher was ignored, except that she was 20 years younger.)
I know I should be horrified by the bullying, but I am angry about other things from this podcast, which doesn't go very deep at all into a story that could be.
posted by jeather at 8:07 AM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]