TEENAGER BACKS CAMPAIGN IN BATTLE AGAINST THE BULLIES
A TEENAGER left suffering anxiety attacks after years of physical and mental bullying has described the torment which forced her to move schools.
Casey-Jane Bishop, 15, from Cynon Valley, said the bullying started in year one of primary, when she was six or seven. Sometimes she went home from school bruised and scratched. She endured being pushed about and criticised.
“There were times when I didn’t want to keep going, I wanted to give up,” she says.
The experience has left her traumatised and never knowing when an anxiety attack might strike.
As school starts again this week and many children face bullying or anxiety Casey-Jane is backing a hard-hitting television advertising campaign from Barnardo’s. The charity’s advert, being screened for the first time today uses images of hyenas following a girl.
Describing her own years of torment the teenager said: “I was physically bullied from year one or two and had to move school. That was difficult because it also meant I had to leave all the children I had grown up with and my new school felt like a desert island.
“That was when the anxiety really kicked in for the first time. I was always on edge and constantly looking around. I didn’t know it was anxiety until I reached crisis point. I was verbally and physically bullied at my second school, pushed around and bruised quite badly.
“It was a lot to deal with and I suffered from nightmares.” Casey-Jane’s mother spoke to the school and after that she says teachers tried to prevent further attacks and she was pleased to move up to secondary school in a new area away from the group who had bullied her.
When her parents split up she was once again a target for bullies. The schoolgirl says it is only now, as her peer group have turned their attentions to exams, that things have settled down for her.
Years of being bullied have left Casey-Jane with anxiety for which she has had to have professional help.
“I’d describe anxiety as if my brain has a remote button that controls everything, I never know when it’s going to trigger or how bad it will be.
“I start shaking really badly, sometimes I start sweating and sometimes my speech becomes slurred. Since I’ve been receiving help I’ve learnt to understand my anxiety more and I can recognise the signs. It’s kind of normal for me now,” she said.
Casey-Jane has been helped through the worst times by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Service (CAHMS) and Barnardo’s Resilient Families project.
Barnardo’s and her CAHMS worker even encouraged Casey-Jane to stand for the first Welsh Youth Parliament earlier this year and she is calling on schools to do more to tackle bullying.
“I want to raise awareness about young people’s mental health,” she said.
“When I was at my worst I felt singled out and treated differently yet at the same time I felt no one could see me, it was weird. I was frightened and confused.
“Before I got help from Barnardo’s and CAHMS there were times when I didn’t want to keep going, I wanted to give up.
“There are a lot of other people in that place and it is important young people don’t feel they are on their own.”
A return to school survey carried out for Barnardo’s by YouGov showed that almost three in every 10 children worry about changing schools, class or teachers, and for 11-year-olds who are moving to secondary school this increases to more than half.
More than half of eight-year-olds said their friends had experienced someone kicking or punching them.
Sarah Crawley, Director of Barnardo’s Cymru, said: “Any form of bullying whether it is mental, physical or through social media can lead to anxiety and fear.
“In Barnardo’s we provide schools-based counselling, family wellbeing services and individual support to children and young people suffering with these issues. With the right support from a trusted adult, children can recover from difficult experiences and work towards a positive future.”