out of the well
my battle with school bullying
and severe depression
Lisa Eskinazi
M
MELBOURNE BOOKS
Published by Melbourne Books
Level 9, 100 Collins Street,
Melbourne, VIC, 3000
Australia
www.melbournebooks.com.au [email protected]
Copyright © Lisa Eskinazi 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers.
Eskinazi, Lisa.
Out of the well: my battle with school bullying and severe depression
ISBN: 9781877096860 (pbk.)
Manic-depressive persons — Biography.
Depressed persons — Biography.
Mentally ill — Biography.
Inmates of institutions — Biography.
Bullying in schools.
Institutional care.
Homelessness.
Other contributor: Field, Evelyn.
Dewey Number: 616.8950092
Book design: Ning Xue
Digital Distribution: Ebook Alchemy
ISBN: 9781877096075 (ePub)
Conversion by Winking Billy
I wish to acknowlege the following people in helping me write Out of The Well:
Caleb Grundmann – Thanks for being behind me all the way! And until recently for being my only true friend in the last 7 years!
Hampton Community Centre Writers Group – Thanks for supporting me in writing this book and believing it would get published when no one else would!
Softpathway Support group – Thanks for sharing the excitement with me when finally I discovered it would be published! Thanks for the positive thoughts and warm wishes during the time I was preparing the books final touches!
Choofla – Thanks for reading my book when I was homeless and for giving me hope that it would someday be available for the wider community to read.
Sonja Holness – Thanks for being my only positive influence during high school. I may never have survived and written this book if it hadn’t been for you defending me the day I was bashed by the bullies.
Ike Nwokolo and Dyson Hore Lacy – Thanks for winning the court case against the bullies for me and for supplying court documents which helped to jog my memory of the court case.
Larry Boyd – Thanks for teaching me how to write. And for inspiring me to write my autobiography.
David Tenenbaum of Melbourne Books – Thanks for helping me make a dream come true!”
“Evelyn Field – Thanks for your support and for supplying your expert opinion to the book,”
I know you can take the steps needed
to find happiness!
In every school around the world, there will be some children who go to school dreading the day. They will be teased, pushed or excluded. Some brush it off and look for new friends, others know how to block their bully and some are severely affected by the bullying while they are at school as well as after they leave.
Sadly, despite the recent legal guidelines of National Safe Schools Framework, schools are slow to implement programs to reduce bullying. Most schools lag far behind their legal and ethical responsibilities – too hard, no funds. They appear reluctant to confront the issue. Victims of school bullying and their families are therefore left to sink or swim. There is very little support for them. The other sad fact is that there is no support for bullies. Once they leave school, bullies also face a downward spiral. They are far more likely to have a criminal record by the time they are 24 years of age and more likely to have work and family difficulties.
Although there is lots of evidence based research on what schools and parents can do, you cannot wait for schools to change. My first book Bully Busting (now available as Bully Blocking) has been clinically proven to empower children to block bullies. I believe that we need to empower young people to block bullies wherever they are. It is a life survival skill.
Lisa was physically, verbally and socially bullied over many years. She was different to other students, coming from a European background. She was a little chubby, matured physically early and had glandular fever while in primary school. Teachers were not kind. She was teased because she was sensitive. But it became far worse in secondary school. Her name was on the class graffiti. She received threats about her life. She was crying all the time. Nobody did anything. She wanted to leave but her mother wanted her to obtain a good education. The bullying was reported to the teachers who made it worse. Ms H told her to ignore it, and walk away. She said it would blow over. She said, “ You can’t run away from your problems.” Sadly that is exactly what she did as a teacher.
A few years later, at the school dance, she was kicked and punched by a number of girls. The following day, at school, she was again attacked again by a number of girls. She was kicked, called names and her head was knocked against a door. It appeared that other girls stood by watching, as though to support the bullies. She was knocked unconscious and did not return to the school.
Lisa then went to do her year 12 at Chisholm TAFE. she had to obtain an intervention order because one of the bullies also went there. S (the bully) said she would “kill me on TAFE grounds” and “ I’ll put you in hospital worse than last time.” She actually kicked her in front of witnesses at Chisholm and called her “a bloody bitch”. In fact, S admitted
