Wired in: Girl’s experience with bullying shows social media to be a double-edged sword

Editor’s note: This story deals with an account of self-harm, bullying and suicidal thoughts. Martha and Betty are pseudonyms to protect identities. This story is based on Martha’s account only.

“Why are you so bad [at playing flute]? You need to go home and practice more. You are so stupid.”

The menacing words seemed to drown out all other thoughts and emotions, as Martha, a young middle schooler, sat next to her tormenter, Betty, fighting to maintain her composure. It was the middle of band rehearsal and no matter how much she tried to ignore them, Betty’s insults echoed inside her head, telling her she was worthless.

These recurring insults pierced through Martha’s confidence, initiating the start of a long inward battle between herself and her harassers. In the next three years, Martha faced nonstop attacks in person and online from multiple bullies who drained her already limited reserves of self-esteem and happiness.

Having just moved to Redwood Middle School, she not only was “the new kid that no one paid attention to” but also was not very good at playing flute, which made her an easy target in the eyes of the bully.

It was the beginning of the seventh grade, and Betty was becoming more than just an annoyance to Martha.

One wrong note and Betty would ridicule her. Martha thinks she was tormented for entertainment. She was the new student, so her classmates ignored her. Sitting in the back left corner of the room, Martha was far enough away from the eyes of the band director that he did not notice the jeering comments or her misery.

She never confronted her other friends, family and especially her teacher about the situation because she “never was brave enough to tell [them] what was going on.”

Consequently, Martha spent the entire seventh grade enduring the constant teasing directed at her intellect and flute playing in solitude.

“I had to carry that [burden] with me every day and act as if it was OK [outside of band],” Martha said. “The jokes really hurt.”

During band rehearsals, Martha often cried. She would desperately try to cover her face from her classmates, but she’d fail, tears spilling over her eyes as she hid behind her music stand. Betty would continually destroy her confidence with comments about not only her musical talent, but also her intelligence. The situation worsened as the year continued.

“It got to the point where I would think about [suicide],” Martha said. Feeling so awful at band, “she wouldn’t always sit with [her normal group] at lunch,” according to one of her best friends.

Alone and desperate, Martha turned to self-harm. She began using paper clips and safety pins and gradually progressed to razors to cut her wrists, leaving jagged scars on her arms.

“In the beginning, I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want anyone to see,” Martha said.

But her friends noticed the cuts along her arm one day during marching band practice when she forgot to wear her drab, grey sweatshirt. They urged her to to seek help from a counselor. She refused, believing that an adult couldn’t understand her situation.

As the school year came to a close, Martha’s tormenting lessened as Betty, a year older, graduated. During the summer, Martha continued to practice flute and became a TA in the middle school’s summer program. 

“I wasn’t too stressed,” Martha said. “I did a little [cutting] but not as much [as] during the year.”

The pressures of school that had once weighed her down were replaced with relief.

Cyberbullying and its aftermath
Prospects for a fresh start shattered as a new cyberbully surfaced during freshman year of high school. This new student used Facebook to attack Martha’s appearance and intelligence, calling her “ugly” and “stupid" in a group chat.

Next, the new bully joined forces with a few other students to harass Martha. In the middle of the year, they began sending Martha pictures of her face Photoshopped onto other people’s bodies in a Facebook group chat.

As these derisive pictures circulated within the group message, Martha deleted her Facebook account several times; however, she did not show the chat to any adults since, once again, she doubted their capability to fix the situation.

Later in the year, she created a new account to stay updated on school and extracurricular reminders that were only  accessible on Facebook.

When she logged on, the group chat began again. She avoided the blinking blue chat box by quickly logging on and off.  Curious to know what they were saying about her, she never removed herself from the chat or blocked the other users.

“If I could, I would have told people [about my situation] sooner just before it got really bad, but I was really scared and I didn’t know what to do,” Martha said. “There’s always something that I could have changed, but now it’s a little late to change anything.”

Even though Martha believed that her classmates “just meant it as a joke,” the fact that the people who she thought were her friends chimed in only made Martha feel worse. 

At the same time, Martha was struggling with school. She was also dealing with her parents’ frequent fighting and drama among her friends.

“I had depression, but it wasn’t characterized by [the stereotypical] sadness,” Martha said.“I wasn’t feeling happy or sad about anything. “I just felt nothing; I was numb and stoic.”

Despite her emotions, she maintained a relatively normal outward composure.

“I didn’t think her behavior was suspicious or abnormal at all,” one of Martha’s friends said. “I realized that she does similar things [to what she did before].”

As the year progressed, she confided in her parents about her suicidal thoughts. In return, they responded with anger toward her, unable to comprehend the intensity of Martha’s internal pain.

“What they portrayed as anger I believed was fear,” Martha said. “For them it was hard to believe that a couple people could make one person in this state. They would say, ‘Why? Why would you do this? Why wouldn’t you tell us?’.”

Without receiving any comfort from her parents, Martha was overcome with immense fear, confusion and agony.

“It was probably one of the lowest moments of my life,” Martha said. “I felt that no one really cared.”

The post that saved her life
Having no one to turn to, she decided to release the truth.

“I just needed someone to know,” she said. “I was worried that I was going to be judged because I felt that nobody would look at me the same way. I know a lot of people thought of me as happy, so [I believed] they wouldn’t understand the situation I was going through.”

In January 2014, Martha posted a video of herself on Facebook that described her depression, revealing how she cut herself multiple times a week and showed her scars to prove it. She said that the intention of the video was not an attempt for getting attention, but rather a necessary forum to unveil her true self, one that had been hidden by the affectation of happiness.

Martha’s inspiration came from a video created on YouTube by 15-year-old Amanda Todd, who posted the video before committing suicide on Oct. 10, 2012, after being blackmailed with nude pictures.

Influenced by Todd’s emotionally moving video, Martha held up a flashcard written in black Sharpie that read, “You guys see me in the hallway. You know me, but do you really know me?” in the beginning of the video.

Through a series of flashcards, Martha began to reveal background information justifying her cutting with “Endlessly” by Cab playing in the background of the black and white video. Instead of ending with her decision to end her life, she concluded the video with a plea for help.

Martha’s video quickly gained attention. Heartwarming and motivating messages flooded her inbox. One comment read, “You can’t do this to yourself; there are going to be dark times, but you just have to get through it.”

She was no longer alone.

With such comments admiring her bravery to share such a personal part of her life and assuring her that she could talk to any of them if she needed to, friends and even people she didn’t know offered to help her.

“[Technology] definitely saved me,” Martha said. “Without it I probably wouldn't be here. I was reached out by people I barely knew, but they still wanted to help and that was amazing.”

After her friends’ initial shock at the severity of her condition, they too helped alleviate the pain that dwelt inside her.

One of her best friends said: “I watched the video and almost started to cry. I was shocked that she had been hurting herself for so long. The fact that she is such an amazing person going through so much made me want to be there for her and make her not feel alone.”

When Martha returned to school, she was greeted with friendly greetings from her classmates. People whom she rarely talked to made an effort to start conversations with her.

After coming to an understanding about her daughter's condition, her mother later embraced Martha and thanked her "for being alive” the next Monday morning.

From there, Martha broke her old, harmful habits of cutting herself with the help of her peers.

“For the first couple of weeks, it was really, really hard not to go back [to cutting], but I got help from my friends at church and different groups [by spending time with them],” Martha said. “Right now, I am glad to say that I am stable.”

Looking back, Martha realized that social media had transformed from a platform for harassment to a stepping stone in her recovery.

“[The Internet] definitely, in the beginning, was very negative,” Martha said. “But as time goes on you learn to move past [the bullying], and just see it as a good thing more than that. It was part of my life and now it’s over.”

Her advice to others who are undergoing depression is to reach out to their peers.

“Moving past this experience was probably because of all the people who were so willing to help me get over it. You guys are not alone,” Martha said. “You’ve got this great community that cares so much about you.”