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On Personal Tragedy
The news seems to unfold like a something slowly falling off a shelf. First it just sort of hangs there, and you aren’t sure what is happening, then it begins to move, and before you know it, the thing hits the floor. That’s how it was with Vylit Vander Giessen.
First, there was a report on Facebook, Thursday afternoon, of something happening at the Lion’s Head apartments, over by the High School. Low rent apartments often mean crime, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. Still, this is a small town, so when the police show up somewhere in numbers, it’s news. By the evening we were hearing that a teenager had passed away. “What could it be?” we wondered. Drugs? Alcohol? A fight? Then someone said a teenager shot another teenager? “What the hell?” we thought. Then on Friday morning we learned the truth: a middle school girl had been found dead in her apartment. Before our kids were off to school we learned that Vylit, a friend of our daughter, and in the same grade (7th), had hanged herself.
I had never met Vylit. She’d never been to the house. She was good friends with girls our daughter is good friends with. Though Moriah and Vylit were not close, the news was devastating for us. We learned that Vylit had struggled with kids teasing her. Some called her “Violent Vylit.” One kid is reported to have told her she should just kill herself. Moriah told us that kids teased her without mercy. Though we don’t know for sure, the general consensus from family and friends is that the bullying and teasing is what led to her decision to end her own life.
This hits close to us because we have been helping Moriah through some bullying at school. We’ve tried to encourage her to ignore the kids who tease her, to remember that all kids in middle school are uncomfortable, and that probably the bullies had first been bullied. It is hard not to imagine Vylit’s fate befalling our little girl.
So, like many other families in our little town, we’ve had to come to grips with this thing. It has been a week, but it still brings many emotions. I write about them here in part to deal with them myself.
I am hurt. I cannot stand the thought of a poor little girl, who barely understands the world around her, feeling so lost and alone that she felt the only way out was death. We were not created to live alone. If only I had known…
I feel guilty. What have I done in my community to reach little girls whose lives are miserable? As I said in our church council meeting on Monday night: “In three years of serving on this council, I have not participated in a single decision, the results of which make it less likely that someone who is lost and hurting will take their own life. Not one. What the hell are we doing here?”
I am angry. Who teased that poor girl? Who the hell do they think they are? Why didn’t her parents do more? Her grandparents? The school? This is irrational, I know. Everyone gets teased in middle school. Suicide almost always happens in the context of deep mental illness, as I am told. So it likely wasn’t just the teasing. But anger is a powerful emotion.
I’m afraid. Have I done enough to protect my daughter? She is at a vulnerable age. She is going though that girlish change (if you know what I mean). Is she at risk? Have I loved her enough? Hugged her enough? Told her I love her, enough? I’m afraid.
More than anything, I feel a call to action. I am a Christian. I am called, first and foremost, to seek the lost, the broken, the hurting, and show them that God loves them. Have I been doing that? Or have I gone the way of the typical American Christian? Wringing my hands about things that don’t matter? I want my life to mean something to the people around me.
I know that good articles are supposed to have a good ending. I don’t have one. There isn’t one to this story, not yet. Our family has not fully processed this terrible tragedy. But we are working on it. If you are a praying person, please pray for us, for our daughter Moriah, and especially for little Vylit, and her family.
I think I had ny first period at 12…so 12-13.
…Any older, and you’d suspect me of inviting these advances–especially after I mentioned “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” !
So cuz of that, let me assure you, the guy was no Mellors. I don’t know if anyone will believe this, but: he was an amputee and had a hook in place of one hand, the better to pinion me with.
But was I scared? No, just embarrassed, like I said. I had known him since I was a toddler.
Re : # 91
Would I suspect an older girl of inviting such advances ? Certainly not the first time the advances occurred. But I would think a 16 or 17 year old girl, who wasn’t willing to tell her parents that this had happened, would tell someone—even them—if there was no other way to avoid being left alone with the man again. At 12 or 13 year old might be too deeply ashamed to tell anyone.
When something like what you describe happens to a 12 year old, I think (1) she’s more likely than she would be at 17 to feel at fault for what happened and (2) she’s more likely than an older girl would be to be more in dread of anyone finding out about what (in her mind) she stupidly caused the man do than fearful of being raped by him in the future.
Agreed. By 16-17 if he had tried it, I’da kneed him in the balls.
No offense, Hypatia, but that old guy deserved to be marched out in to the woods, forced to dig his own grave, then shot and buried.
I get that you didn’t feel traumatized or unduly disrespected, I think that would be an unusual response. As for who it’s hurting…. possibly many others down the road. Louts like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump get away with misbehavior over and over again because they don’t face consequences for overstepping boundaries.
Re # comment 95
I didn’t get the idea she didn’t feel traumatized or unduly disrespected.
Maybe my sentence was poorly structured, I agree with you…
Oh gee, @herbert, @ansonia,@spin— see my comment 85. I really was just embarrassed, with the gale force of that emotion you can only feel as an adolescent. I’m sorry I gave in to the urge to recount this last night, it seems to be so upsetting to you. A kiss on the cheek is all, remember? This really oughta be something any personality of normal strength can deal with, by which I mean, put it away where it belongs: #puberty, #embarassingmoments, yes, even #humor.
Although not any more, I guess–I read not too long ago a piece railing against parents who insist that kids let even grandparents hug and kiss them)
Next you’ll be blaming me for not getting this guy locked up! Let me reassure you, ours was kind of a unique situation presenting inclination and opportunity; I do not think he was prowling around doing this to other maidens. And he didn’t live too much longer, okay? So–leave him to Heaven, and I’m sorry for splitting off @spin‘s thread.
I’m sorry it got sidetracked as well.
edited. I also didn’t mean to be critical of your actions (or inactions) at the time, if I came off as being such. @hypatia
I’m not blaming you in the slightest, just so we are clear.
I firmly believe it’s bullying to ever try to make a kid kiss anyone, or to insist a kid submit to being hugged or kissed when she/he has made it plain that physical contact isn’t wanted.
My youngest kids (boys 4 and 6) visit an old age home every Friday night, and go around hug and kiss all the residents. They have done this since they were babes-in-arms.
Are they reluctant? Sometimes. Do I bully them to ensure they are nice to people? You bet I do.
Re # 102
But you can be nice (kind, polite) to people without hugging and kissing them. (I feel a need to say I don’t necessarily have anything against hugging and kissing people provided you and they want that contact.)
Kids need to practice using their intuition about people, and to know they have a right, maybe a duty, to use their intuition about people. I feel we interfere with that when we insist they hug and kiss people, or allow themselves to be hugged and kissed, when something makes them uncomfortable about that contact.
@hypatia, I don’t think the guys realize how ubiquitous his sort of behavior is in a girl’s life. One felt one would be forever complaining.
I don’t think a single week went by when I was not touched inappropriately on my way to secondary school on public transport. Sometimes, often actually, I got my revenge by stepping very hard on the feet of the guy as I got out of my seat. Very satisfying.
When the bus driver tried it on and added inappropriate talk, I recognized a more significant threat and started to walk home. My father noticed and asked why I was walking so far, almost five miles, so I told him, he got the guy fired.
I was attending a girl’s convent school with extensive grounds. The groundskeeper, an Irish man, who could not speak English and seemed to be mildly retarded, was always reaching up under the girl’s skirts as we passed by, and muttering unintelligibly. It never occurred to anyone to complain. We thought it was hilarious. By the same token nobody would ever have walked alone in the grounds just in case, well we did not know what…
I wanted to thank you, @doulalady! Ubiquitous is the word! And my last word is: so what?
Doula Lady and Hypatia: your experience of life has been very different from mine. I was born in 1970, and I am straining to recall one instance in which I was touched inapropriately. There were a couple of times when inapropriate things were said, but the experiences you describe- sexual assault being ubiquitous in a girl’s life-is not my experience. At all. Virtually all of the men, young and old, whom I have known and encountered have been gentlemen; maybe I am just lucky.
I think things HAVE changed. When I was in college and law school, everybody was on the make. When I started practice, I could not do anything without someone commenting that I was a woman. A “lady lawyer”! You probably don’t even know, @judithanncampbell, what it used to be like walking past a construction site. ( The worst of that was, the guys also felt free to make less than complimentary remarks.) I’m not sure my gorgeous 22 year old daughter has ever heard a wolf-whistle.
But I think maybe things have gone too far. My daughter and her peers, from jr. high school on , regarded any appreciation of their charms as “creepy”. Is it really creepy? I mean, brush it off, sneer at the commentator–but this kind of attraction is what makes the world go ’round, after all. Okay, it used to be a “man’s world”– but now, uh, you almost wonder if there are any men around–or any who’ll admit to it….the young guys don’t seem too hot these days. (Estrogen in the milk?) I fear for the birth rate.
@judithanncampbell, I should probably clarify that this was my experience growing up in England. And to be honest it was much, much, more than this small sample.
Additionaly there was the constant background noise of wolf whistles, stares, and comments coming from all around. And if you could see the ugly shapelessness of my school uniform: brown pillbox hat, calf-length, heavy wool coat, gloves etc, you would realize this was totally about my being a young female. One simply ignored it. However by the time I was eighteen and in college I was a spitting mad feminist.
One of the most lovely things about living in the US was the sudden end of this constant physical harassment.
@doulalady: different cultures are definitely different, even cultures that don’t seem that different . In the 1960″s, my mother and her sister went to Italy; their male travel guide brought them to the hotel, and told them that he would show them around later: he implored them to not go out without him. They didn’t listen. “Come on, I am not listening to that old fuddy duddy” said my aunt. And off they went; they lasted about one minute before running back to the hotel-they were literally being grabbed by several different men. They always laughed about it, but it was easy for them to laugh: they didn’t have to live there.
@hypatia: things have definitely gone too far in the other direction. :(
This kinda thing is called secondary sexual gratification. Italy was the most extreme; guys followed me into alleys in their sports cars, screeching to a halt with a soulful “Ciao!” But I was grabbed in Philadelphia, too.
Y’all bring up an interesting generational divide that I was not consciously aware of before.
My mother told of certain older men who were “grabbers.” She thought little of it – “grabbers” were just one of life’s little annoyances. But today, such people don’t stand much of a chance.
We often praise the older generations, but this would provide a damper on the notion of a “more decent” age.
I don’t view catcalls the same way at all. My wife quite likes being catcalled, even by builders in England. She is not remotely threatened by it, and views such open admiration as kinda flattering. Then, too, the catcalls have always been complimentary; nobody messes with Mrs. iWe.
I don’t wolf whistle at women besides Mrs. iWe. I often think it would be nice to pay a compliment, and not make it inappropriate.
#2 son recently told me that he stood near a lovely young lady on a bus, and he wanted to compliment her without having it misconstrued (she was clearly not Jewish). So he wrote a short admiring note, left it unsigned and dropped it in her bag as he left the bus. I was impressed.
Yes, in many respects things have gone too far; however, yes, it can be creepy.
“Creepy” can be used as a put-down, of course, in which case, calling a guy a “creep” is a means of sneering at him:
But it’s an effective put-down, even when it’s a lie, because creepiness is a real thing. Whether intentionally or not (and it can be either), a creep causes others to worry that he won’t understand the social niceties that people use to enforce their boundaries. Being socially awkward, and poor at going through the motions when you’re in a social situation can make you come across as creepy – even, sometimes, if you’re a girl and therefore not much of a physical threat (this was teenage Midge, essentially).
The socially-calibrated, even when they are predators, are less likely to be thought of as “creeps”. Even so, girls aren’t wrong for listening to their “spidey senses” telling them “get out of here! now!” – gals can land themselves in a whole lotta avoidable trouble if, for some reason (lack of confidence, not wishing to appear rude) they ignore what gets their hackles up. The gift of fear and all that.
I don’t fear lack of male sexual desire lowering the birthrate. But true, it’s not a “man’s world” anymore – or anyone’s world, really. Is it possible youngsters in previous eras grew up around fewer conflicting sexual scripts? “This isn’t going according to a script I can identify” often seems creepy – and not without reason, either.
“Abnormal” sexual scripts are no longer things to be hushed up and hidden the way they used to be, which means youngsters are more likely to run into a variety of scripts, not all of which will be familiar to them. And even when you think you can guess which script it is, you’re doing just that – guessing: the more scripts to sort through, the easier it is to guess wrong. Ergo, more opportunities for something to seem “creepy”.
Re 112
I wonder if whistles and cat calls started to seem more aggressive and insulting, and actually were more often intended to mean something women found insulting, after about 1965. I think the new morality changed the meaning of a lot of flirting.