Why Hurt Somebody to the Point of Death?

Do you know what makes me mad? Bullying. Bullying single-handedly changes a child’s day every single time he is called a name or shoved or pushed around. Bullying even took lives away from a small town in Ohio. In Mentor, four teenagers killed themselves because of bullying. According to Jared DeFife of Psychology Today, “there seems to be an epidemic of bullying in the country, fueling a spate of suicides,” which saddens and angers me because being a kid is supposed to be the non-stressful and fun part of life, not the scary, sad part.

The teenagers that couldn’t live with the cruelty of life anymore were all treated worse than anybody is in human society. They were called dirty names that no one wants to hear and shoved around like they were some kind of animal. Now imagine going to school and receiving this punishment every day. I wouldn’t want to be myself or be at school if I was them. These bullies pick out the weak that aren’t seen by society as “cool” and destroy their confidence and self-esteem by saying just one or two words. Once these kids have no more confidence of themselves or of other people they can’t live to see the sight of themselves. The saddest part about bullying is the fact that these kids feel like they don’t have anybody to care for them or “back them up” against the bullies. It makes me very angry that these teenagers were hopeless and didn’t have anyone to help them out and stand up to the bully.

Dante would definitely put the bullies in Hell for violence against neighbors but would also put the suicidal teens in Hell for violence against themselves. Dante sees violence as a very bad sin since it is part of lower Hell. Society would agree with Dante if he put the bullies in circle seven but I have trouble seeing the victims also in circle seven. I understand that the victims disgraced God by destroying themselves but the bullies already destroyed most of them. The bullies destroyed their confidence, self-esteem, their reputation, their relationship with friends, and caused way too much stress to handle in life. These kids didn’t want to harm anyone and didn’t want there to be any problems but the bullies decided to ruin their life and what they had taken them so long to achieve. Dante would most likely disagree with me in my statement but he doesn’t take into effect what the trees in circle seven faced for them to kill themselves and how the world can be a very cruel place, especially with bullies lurking around, causing too much trouble. These four teens have a very sad story and the world wishes that they could have changed what happened before it was too late.

For Jared DeFife's story go to: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-shrink-tank/201010/4-teen-suicides-in-ohio-is-bullying-blame