A 3-Week Nightmare: How Bullying Pushed My Son To Run Away

HILLSBORO, OR — For nearly three weeks, I didn’t know where my son had gone. While visiting his mother in Nebraska for summer break, he’d run away and disappeared. No one knew where he was or why he ran. He was just gone.

For nearly three weeks, I communicated regularly with the Omaha Police Department, my son’s mother, administrators with my son’s high school in Oregon, where he was expected to begin his junior year on Sept. 4, and anyone I believed could help me understand what was happening and bring my son home.

After disappearing Sept. 1 without so much as a word, my 16-year-old son called me late on Sept. 17.

I was in bed when my cell phone rang. Normally left perpetually on vibrate, I turned on my ringer Sept. 1 so I wouldn’t miss a single call that might finally reunite me with my boy.

When I heard his voice for the first time in nearly three weeks, all the anger, frustration, worry and concern I’d felt seemed to instantly vanish; all that remained was relief — relief and a new desperation to put him within arm’s reach.

I was on an early flight to Omaha from Portland Sept. 19. By 5:30 p.m. Omaha-time, roughly 12 hours after I’d left the Pacific Northwest, I was looking into my son’s tear-filled eyes, finally learning what had inspired him to flee: He’d been bullied by people he thought were his friends almost every day since he’d left.

The bullying began on social media, he told me — on Snapchat. Someone he knew started a rumor; the rumor then grew through Snapchat story shares and quickly ballooned into what my son described as a mass bullying effort involving dozens of kids.

It wasn’t a new story, unfortunately.

(Sign up for our free daily newsletters and Breaking News Alerts for the Hillsboro Patch)

Throughout the previous school year, I’d needed to visit his school numerous times to meet with counselors and administrators to discuss various rumors that had popped up involving my son.

The first began with another former friend — a boy who’d been to my house multiple times and left me with the impression he was a decent, well-mannered kid. He claimed my son had stabbed him with a knife. I quickly addressed this claim and with school officials learned it was unfounded.

Not long after, the same boy began another rumor that my son had been in a sexual tryst with a girl and another boy. Again, I was forced to visit his school to speak with administrators and assure them my son was not involved in some threesome with two other students.

Few experiences in my life have been so painfully awkward.

So on Sept. 19, when my distraught son told me of yet another round of rumors, I learned that two boys who my son considered his “brothers” had help perpetuate a story that he was dating a 37-year-old woman. From this new rumor came name-calling, which was followed by threats of physical harm — which stemmed from my son’s defensive reaction to the out-of-control online situation.

In the end he believed his only recourse was to run away. It’s better than some of the alternatives other parents have been made to endure, I suppose.

Days before my son called me on Sept. 17, the school informed me they’d found graffiti on a boy’s bathroom stall. Someone had written a threat of physical harm specifically directed at my son as the future victim, should he ever return to Oregon.

The school investigated but was unable to directly identify who wrote the threat.

My son returned to school Oct. 1 — four weeks after the school year began, and one week after his return.

Since then I’ve met with school administrators, spoken with the school resource officer, and done all I can to prepare my son for his shaky return to a place that has been nothing short of a living nightmare for him.

As a journalist, I know all too well the stories of kids who kill themselves as a result of bullying. Yet I never expected when Patch began its year-long look at bullying and cyberbullying that my family would be caught up in a problem public health officials call “epidemic.”

That my son only ran away to me is a blessing. To have him living and breathing, able to tell the story of why, is something I’ll take any day over the alternative. But should I still worry?

The school will do what it can to protect my son, school administrators said. I can appreciate that. But what about those kids’ parents who allowed their own children to participate in an activity that ultimately led to my son’s panicked and irrational solution?

I can only hope my family’s experience may help others.

I’ve taken my son’s cell phone since his return. I will not allow him to access social media for some time. Even though he’s the victim in this situation, I feel that removing him from the source will only free his mind from the awareness that there are terrible kids who care not for the consequences of their words and actions.

I can only hope it’s enough.

The kids who participated in the bullying of my son face no serious consequences for putting him and my family through a summer of anguish, confusion and fear. They’ll continue to use their smartphones; they’ll continue to post on Snapchat disgusting comments and rumors about other kids — maybe even my son; but we’ll be the only ones who are forced to emotionally recover.

I’m just thankful we’ll be able to recover together in our house, instead of a cemetery.

_______________________________________________________________________

Through the end of the 2018, Patch will continue its in-depth look at society's roles and responsibilities in bullying, which can lead to a child's unthinkable decision to end their own life, in hopes we might offer solutions that save lives.

Do you have a story to tell? Are you concerned about how your local schools handle bullies and their victims?

Email us at bullies@patch.com and share your views in the comments.

Earlier In This Series

• The Bully Menace: When Kids Kill With Words
• America's Shameful Truth About Bullies And School Shootings
• The Hero Myth: Why Expecting Kids To Fight Bullies Is Harmful
• 'They All Failed And Changed A Child': Bullying Detailed
• Teen Tells Bullies In Video: 'Every Day I Wear Your Words'
• Teen's 'I Wear Your Words' Video Inspires Nashville Songwriters
• Bullying Of Mallory Grossman Detailed In Lawsuit Against School
• Bullies And Their Targets The Same: Digital Self-Harm Rising
• Why These Kindergartners Start Each Day With A Respectful Handshake
• Bullying In New York City Schools Never Worse: Survey
• The Bully Menace: 13 Great Books For Kids Of All Ages

Image via Shutterstock