BULLYING EFFECTS ON LIFE: Out of the wreckage, a school bullying victim's life rebuilt

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," Tom Tehan says matter of factly across the timber cafe table. "I was just trying to stop feeling. And Panadol is to stop pain, that's how it worked in my head."

The thing is, Tom downed several packets of Panadol in his attempt to numb his pain. He ended up needing his stomach pumped and spent three days in hospital when he should have been out enjoying the spring racing carnival with his girlfriend and friends.
Tom Tehan and his mother, Amanda Wallace. Photo: Jason South

Instead at 19 he was having a breakdown; the result he says of being bullied at school three years earlier.

It's rare to gain an insight into the long-term impact of school bullying. Now and then incidents pop up in the news. Sometimes they are even accompanied by a video shot on a student's mobile phone. Principals, parents and psychologists have their say. And then everyone moves on. Except not everyone can.

Tom couldn't. His years of school bullying culminated in receiving a letter containing a bullet and a death threat at his home. "Bang bang Tomas" the computer-printed note read, misspelling his name. "I just remember breaking down in tears," he says. "It was confirmation, after all the verbal and physical taunts and the times I was excluded, that I wasn't liked."

Though he was never identified by name, Tom's experience was one of those that made headlines in 2007: "Xavier student sent bullet in the mail". Now, more than a decade on, Tom wants to tell his story. It's a story about the car crash that can follow school bullying – and how one man emerged from the wreckage.

At 19, Tom had left Xavier for a new school, finished year 12 and started university. Summer was on the way and things appeared on track. But his bullying burden was always there in the background, unresolved. His stint in hospital brought things to the surface, but he soon suppressed them. He wanted to move on. After being discharged from hospital, Tom deferred his studies at Deakin University and started working in nightclubs.

He was smoking a bit of marijuana, which became a daily habit. He was going out. Lots. Spending more than he was earning. An unsolicited offer of a bank credit card was accepted and before he knew it, he had a $7,000 debt. His family intervened. His dad Peter's cousin offered him a job laying fibre optic cables in the Northern Territory. Arnhem Land. It was as remote and removed as 20-year-old Tom had ever been.

"It was the best thing that ever happened to me at the time," he says. "I had no phone. I was up at 5am every day and working until 6pm. I got to experience Aboriginal communities and hear stories about their Dreamtime from elders."

Tom while working in Arnhem Land. Photo: Supplied

He returned to Melbourne clean: mentally, physically and financially. He was loving life again.
But looking back, Tom concedes Arnhem Land was a Band-Aid. Just as Carey Grammar was – the school he went to after Xavier, where he was part of the successful school hockey and athletics teams.

"I was still in emotional pain, but because I was happy, I could mask it," the now 28-year-old says.

Running for Carey Grammar. Photo: Supplied

He resumed smoking marijuana and working in bars and nightclubs. His nocturnal existence saw him graduate to ice, which gave him supreme confidence. He started to deal in ice to supplement his own habit and mixed with people who used guns to get what they wanted.

Being bullied had made Tom feel he wasn't tough enough to stand up for himself. Ice made him feel that he could handle himself – and that felt good. "I lost all my inhibitions. I could talk without being inside my own head, if that makes sense," he says.

Tom was on ice for years and, according to his mother, Amanda Wallace, he became psychotic. He had "Moses" tattooed on his right arm, painted his car a matt black using spray cans and wrote what he believed were inspirational sayings on the rear window in permanent gold pen.

His memories of this time are hazy – isolated fragments come back. He remembers talking to a neighbour whom he believed was God and apologising to a street tree for the harm humans had inflicted on Earth. In the early hours of January 17, 2014, he was driving down Burke Road, Malvern, on his way to see a friend.  He believed the best way to get there was to put his foot flat on the accelerator and close his eyes. Police estimate he was travelling at 122/kmh when he crashed into two power poles and several trees.

Tom's car after the 2014 accident. Photo: Supplied

How he survived the crash, no one knows. Tom suspects closing his eyes saved him because he became "like a rag doll" as he was ejected from the car, landing bruised and broken on the asphalt. He nearly lost his right leg. Every bone in his right foot was smashed up, he had a ruptured spleen and broken ribs. He spent three months in various hospitals, which in hindsight was like rehab. It got him off ice, which he hasn't touched since.

In The Alfred's intensive care unit. Photo: Supplied

When he was discharged, he went to his mother's house. He says that after the crash he had no desire to use drugs. But while ice was behind him, a week later he sniffed butane gas and released a guttural scream. It freaked him out enough agree to a phone conversation with a family friend, who suggested he try an addiction program. That call started his slow turnaround from the self-destruction he believes was triggered by the 2004 bullying at Xavier.
 
Having lost his licence for two years, Tom was driven to his first session by his mother. She didn't trust that he would go in, so she waited and watched him in her rear-vision mirror. He did. He went every day for three months. He eventually ran the Wednesday night meetings.
"It gave me confidence in myself because someone had entrusted me to do something," Tom says. "I'd lost trust from a lot of people in my life and that was a way to re-grow it and start again."
Slowly, he rebuilt his life. The love and loyalty from his parents and four siblings never wavered. Neither did the support from his Old Xaverians hockey team, who late last year honoured him with the club's Smithy Medal recognising his against-the-odds return to the sport. It's what got him through; it reminded him how lucky he was.

He has had 10 operations in the three years since the accident and remains in pain due to nerve damage. He sees a psychologist regularly and works in hospitality. He has twice spoken to school students about addiction, hoping his warts-and-all story will strike a chord and make someone think twice before taking a similar path.

What he has learnt from all of this is that everyone makes choices. "As much as I could put it all back on bullying, I made choices to do the things that I did," Tom says. "Whatever was driving me, I was still at the wheel."

Talking to students about addiction. Photo: Supplied

This year he will return to uni to study sport coaching at Victoria University. He is moving on but has undertaken not forget the lessons his past has taught him. These are lessons he wants to share and hopefully, in the process, reduce the social stigma around drug addiction.

"One article isn't going to change how society sees it," he says. "But it just might make one person see that completely normal people get into cycles of addiction."

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/out-of-the-wreckage-a-school-bullying-victims-life-rebuilt-20161228-gtj58v.html

COMMENTARY - Who is Gordon Brown? Is he a Bully? What darkness lies behind Gordon Brown's aggressive personality?

Gabby Logan freely admits she had a 'meltdown' when she turned up too late to board the Eurostar in Paris

Gabby Logan freely admits she had a 'meltdown' when she turned up too late to board the Eurostar in Paris and was escorted from the station after being caught trying to crawl under the barrier.

A new book sensationally claims Gordon Brown pushed around people in his office and stabbed the back of a cream car seat repeatedly with a black pen while an official cowered next to him.

Unrepentant, the Prime Minister declares: 'I'm not perfect - but I know where I come from and what I stand for.'

Gordon insists he's angry with himself, not others, but the impression remains that this big bruiser is frightening to be around when he erupts.

Another difference between Gabby and Gordon: she fessed up to her strop on her blog, made a joke and said sorry.

For Gordon to admit having a temper would be construed as a sign of weakness - he now sees himself as the victim of a hostile media.

If he behaved so appallingly, why didn't any of those on the receiving end speak out? In my long experience, this kind of volatile behaviour is pretty common, and when male bosses lose their temper, they usually get away with it.

I've been an executive and I've been a boss. When I was in charge and lost my temper, I was called 'crazy' by my critics. When men behave in this fashion, they're described as 'forceful' or 'opinionated'.

When I dared to sack or criticise anyone, I was berated as erratic. When a man does the same, we say he's 'decisive'. Anger in the work place is all about double standards, as I know only too well.

Once, my boss at the Beeb was so annoyed at my failure to get a comedy star to appear in a show that he went beetroot, screamed his head off, smashed a pencil through a thick notepad and threw everything on his desk on to the floor.

I thought he was having a fit and wondered if I should call for medical help. Two minutes later, his pallor returned to normal and he resumed our conversation as if nothing had happened. I left the room, shaking. The incident was never referred to again.

See Westminster Parliament MPs erupt over Question Time when Gordon Brown is questioned on Workplace Bullying, in 6th May 2009.

Also below some more of Brown's Best Bits, also see Bullying Question asked at 2:10 mins

A new book claims Mr Brown pushed around people in his office and stabbed the back of a cream car seat with a black pen while an official cowered next to him

When I told someone else, I discovered they had experienced a similar strop. We didn't report this man for bullying, but accepted it as part of the high-pressure world in which we worked.

Gordon's temper tantrums are replicated in offices all over Britain. Lots of us will have the misfortune to sit through the frightening experience of a boss in meltdown. Why do we put up with it?

One reason is that we accept anger in men far more readily than in women. Female bosses who lose their temper are seen as less competent, according to a study by Yale University.

It concluded that angry men will earn a higher salary, get a better job and be more successful than bad-tempered women. And female workers are more tolerant of men who behave badly than they are of women. Anger remains a male privilege.

If men apologise for losing their temper, it works against them - research shows we don't rate their chance of succeeding so highly afterwards. But if women apologise, then it can actually help them.

That might explain why Gordon Brown is not going to admit very much. I admit I've been guilty of Brown-style swearing and cussing in the workplace - maybe I've just worked with too many men. But I haven't stooped to ranting and raging in a taxi in front of witnesses.

Isn't there something rather worrying about the revelation that our Prime Minister gets into his official car and spends the journey smashing his fist into the back of the seat in front or defacing it with a pen when he's in a strop?

That sounds like a toddler who can't get his way, not someone who's supposed to be leading us back into the black and out of recession.

Disraeli said 'a person's fate is their own temper'

We shall see if it's true for Mr Brown.

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