Bullies Killed His Sense of I

I am disturbed by gay teens taking their life, and this teen, Kenneth Weishuhn really got me. I was this teen and luckily I had no Facebook or a cell phone to help drive in the point that I was deemed worthless by society’s “standards.” When you are a teen, you are still relying heavily on others to help form a firmer sense of your “I.” And when Kenneth came out to his friends, almost no one stood by him, leaving him vulnerable to whatever bullies would write on his “wall” or drive home in cell messages. Seeing hate in action in one thing, but reading or hearing hate when one is alone and quite exposed leaves a deep mark. That hate echos deep within his delicate being. The hate I was exposed to made me angry and that what this tapped into when I saw this news.

Surely, the It’s Get’s Better campaign helps some, but most teenagers don’t have enough personal history to get a real feeling that time passes ....so that they can look any difficulty and have clarity. I was lucky enough to be busy enough with work and my horses to let the distance be perceived as a break from the bullies who tormented me in school. I now feel very lucky not to have Facebook in my face a home and on my phone to remind me how much others hated me. Parents should really look hard at how much these social media cues help to define their children sense of worth. Obviously, when watching this video, the mother did not quite grasp the shear weight of the posts of Facebook, emails and phone messages. Sadly, parents love will never overrule them. These children are at a fragile point in their existence, trying to understand their gayness which they are usually too embarrassed to talk about, to their parents. I am sorry that as a gay elder I cannot reach out and talk to the parents and their gay children. I am deeply troubled by this and wish his parents some wisdom will have to come out of this. They must now move this tragedy to a greater purpose and may they transcend their grief to do so. These bullies, although they never drew a physical gun, will carry the physic fingerprints tying them to his death that they will never shake.