Life / Health & Wellness

Bullying: Bystanders must take some responsibility, reporter says

A reporter who witnessed one of her friends get bullied for a year and did nothing now feels shame and urges that more attention be focused on what bystanders should do.

Toronto Star reporter Victoria Ptashnick witnessed a childhood friend being bullied on their school bus for an entire year and did nothing to stop the abuse. She now feels shame over her inaction.


Amanda Todd was one of the unlucky ones.

Todd was the 15-year-old who committed suicide last week in British Columbia after a battle with vicious bullying that spanned many years.

I, like so many other readers, was horrified when I read the story about the pretty girl who drank bleach to escape the hell she was living in, begging her parents to allow her to stay home from school to avoid the cruelty of other kids.

Like so many other readers, I thought, where was the responsibility of those kids who witnessed the bullying? I thought about the guilt they must feel now she that had taken her own life and I wondered why they hadn’t stood up for her or tried to help her.

My wonder at what kind of kids would do nothing about such cruelty came to a screeching stop when I realized I was once one of them.

Suddenly, I realized I, too, had had many opportunities 12 years ago to help a young girl I saw being tortured. And I, like the kids that stood by and watched Todd suffer, did nothing too.

I was in fifth grade, living in a rural area of Manitoba, and took the bus home from school. Every day, about 20 kids boarded my bus. It took at least 20 minutes to drop the first kid off, travelling from school, then onto a highway that turned into curvy dirt roads, eventually reaching homes dotting large prairie fields.

That bus became what I imagined to be a torture chamber for a girl I had grown up with, as the last few rows of kids on the bus took pleasure in taunting her the whole way home, every single day.

Sarah was a year older than I. We had played together as small children because our mothers were friends and we lived on the same street.

She was a genuinely sweet girl with a soft voice, a mop of white-blonde hair and the skinniest, knobbiest knees I had ever seen. Sarah and I had built snowmen together outside her house and played Barbies in her room regularly.

When my grandfather died unexpectedly, Sarah threw her skinny arms around me and hugged me tight, even though we had not played together in a few years.

Ringette games and piano lessons began taking up my time as I grew up and I saw Sarah less and less, running into her only on the bus. By then, the days we had spent together felt like they had been hundreds of years ago.

Every day, I boarded the bus, hoping the kids would lay off her. Every day, I was disappointed.

I saw them throw gum at her, aiming for that familiar mop of white-blonde hair. They constantly yelled horrendous insults at her, often centred around her stick-thin figure, until she’d turn around. The bullies laughed as tears escaped from her eyes.

I knew that I should have helped her, on principle, and also felt sick, remembering her kindness and knowing she didn’t deserve what was coming at her. I dreaded those bus rides and began to carry a Walkman with me to listen to the radio so I wouldn’t have to hear their taunts.

I remember rationalizing that what was going on was none of my business, really. It was between those kids and Sarah.

All the boys that taunted her were years older than I, and I was scared that if I stuck up for her I, too, might fall victim to their taunts.

So I stayed silent for the year and felt sick with guilt, especially when I saw her mother waiting for her, as she stepped off the bus crying. I knew that at some point her mother must have asked how I reacted when this was going on. After all, we had once been good friends. And I was embarrassed that I did nothing to help her.

Coming from a family that had taught me better, I was ashamed at how I acted then and I’m still ashamed now.

I had forgotten all about Sarah until last summer when I was home for a few weeks and saw her mother in a drugstore. Right away, the shame I felt as an adult for not stepping up when I should have crept in.

I wanted to say hello to her and apologize for my behaviour. I figured an apology years later was better than never. But by the time I had brought my items to the checkout she had already paid and rushed out.

I heard from my parents that Sarah was recently married and I hope those days on the bus are far behind her. I’m sure they are.

Now I am the unlucky one, left with well-deserved guilt about the actions I should I have taken.

Who carries the blame when someone like Amanda Todd takes her own life? The bullies themselves, or the ones who stood by and said nothing?

I reminded myself that, like the kids who probably saw Todd being bullied, I was one of them once, too. Todd is now gone, hopefully to a place where the pain she experienced while she was alive can’t find her any more.

The ones left, the ones who were witnesses, are left to ponder the what-ifs and should-haves, and rightfully so. I always knew how wrong my notion was back in grade school, that what happened on the bus was none of my business.

As an adult, I understand now that that thinking is dangerous and it is everybody’s business when witnessing such cruel acts. I remember hearing from my own parents, as well as at school, that bullying was not something to be part of — and I wasn’t. I simply watched. I now realize that made me equally responsible in the act.

Why did I, a nice kid by all other accounts, stay silent and do nothing? Why did I choose to be a bystander when I knew what was the right thing to do? Why did the kids who watched Todd’s bullying do the same?

These questions haunt me years later as an adult, now living provinces away from the bullying I witnessed as a kid.

Perhaps more attention should be put on what bystanders to bullying should do, as opposed to putting the attention solely on bullies and their victims.

Maybe shifting the focus would save the Amanda Todds and Sarahs of the world from the pain they never should have had to experience.

See more Toronto Star Amanda Todd coverage