He was targeted – it was poisonous

Extracts from Lucy Alexander’s open letter to the online trolls and classmates who bullied her son Felix

I WRITE this letter not for sympathy, but because there are so many more children like Felix who are struggling.

His confidence and self-esteem had been eroded over a long period of time by the bullying behaviour he experienced in secondary education.

It began with unkindness and social isolation and over the years, with the advent of social media, it became cruel and overwhelming. People who had never even met Felix were abusing him.

He was so badly damaged by the abuse, isolation and unkindness he had experienced, that he was unable to see just how many people truly cared for him. I wrote the letter as I want to educate our educators and to the bullies themselves so they can see the effect they have on the people they target.

Teachers need to be aware of the dangers of bullying and I want more help to be available. My son had been targeted for many, many years. It was generalised cruelty. It started with social isolation when he was ten. He didn’t get invited to parties and wasn’t included in weekend activities. Then the online abuse started when he was 14.

It was initially via the website Ask.fm and then it escalated with basically every social media platform you could imagine. It escalated into people who barely knew him joining in, and then he became Felix who everyone hated. The damage had already been done. He couldn’t see a way to be happy.

He saw a psychologist when he was ten because he was in a very dark place. The bullying was poisonous. He moved from his old school because he was very unhappy there and didn’t get the grades he needed to get into sixth form.

On several occasions we removed all form of social media from Felix as it was causing so much distress, but that just isolated him further.

I want to raise awareness because we all have a collective responsibility to prevent other young lives being lost.