Bullying
A lot of good posts about bullying lately. Seanan McGuire talks about her experiences. Michelle Sagara talks about bullying as the parent of a child with Asperger’s. Di Francis describes standing up to the bullies.
Bullying and suicide has been in the news a lot lately. One Ohio high school lost four students to suicide in the past few years. October 20 has been designated Spirit Day, to remember seven teenagers who killed themselves after being bullied about their sexuality/gender identity.
As I read through various articles, one of the first comments I saw said this was a sign of the times, and kids were tougher when he was a kid. In those days, you either kicked the bully’s ass or you were strong enough to take it.
Bullshit.
If you think kids didn’t kill themselves over bullying in the old days, you’re a damn fool. I say this as someone who 20+ years ago sat in my parents’ bathroom, having swiped one of my dad’s syringes and filled it with insulin. I remember breaking out in a sweat when the needle broke my skin. I sat there for a long time, hands shaking, struggling with whether to push the plunger home and end it all.
Bullying gets more attention these days. We talk about it online, and it pops up in the news more often, but it’s nothing new. For me, it started the first day of sixth grade. I had gotten some “Hines Ketchup” comments in elementary school, but sixth grade is where things turned nasty.
I was a perfect target. Small and skinny, with glasses and zero fashion sense. (To this day, I despise the idea of fashion, and would happily live my life in blue jeans and T-shirts.) I was one of the brightest kids in school, but my social skills lagged pretty badly. Topping things off, I had been in speech therapy for years.
The bullying was mostly verbal, though I got my share of shoving, of books being knocked from my hands, and all the rest. My next door neighbor ripped my book bag. I was the kid who ended up in his own locker — ha ha, sitcom gold, right? I usually managed to avoid actual fights, but that was it.
Teachers, bus drivers, and principals didn’t give a damn, as far as I could see. My parents … I didn’t talk about it much, and I don’t think they knew what to do. They called other parents once or twice, took me shopping for better clothes, but none of it really helped. The common wisdom back then was “Just ignore them,” which was utter crap.
I was on the other side a few times, too. In 7th or 8th grade, a friend and I picked on another former friend for most of the year. There was a stint where I teased a kid about her weight. Unforgivable, and I hate myself for doing it … but at the time, if my choice was to be bully or bullied, the former seemed the better choice.
For the most part though, it was 4-5 years of feeling alone and despised and hopeless.
I survived. Things started to get better around 11th grade. Today I look around at my children and their schools. There’s more awareness, but I’m still scared. My daughter hasn’t had much trouble yet. She’s socially gifted in all the ways I wasn’t, and sometimes I envy her. Well-liked without losing herself, gracefully exploring her identity.
My son reminds me of me. He has Asperger’s, and has been in speech therapy. His social skills have improved some this year, but I still worry.
I don’t know how to fix things. But I know telling kids to toughen up only makes things worse. It’s victim-blaming. “It’s your fault because you’re weak.”
Bullshit.
Ignore them and they’ll go away? Never worked for me.
Conflict is part of life, but no child should feel sick with dread every morning before school. Nobody should have to hide and watch for the bus, emerging only when it starts coming down the street, because that’s the only way to avoid interacting with the other kids at the bus stop. Nobody should be pushed to the point where death looks like the only way to end the torment.
I wish there had been someone like Di at my school, both to stand up for me and to stop me when I was the one picking on others. I wish I had known things would get better. I wish people hadn’t looked the other way, hiding behind “Boys will be boys” and other excuses.
It has to end.
Sewicked
October 14, 2010 @ 10:46 am
One friend’s parents took her to therapy to help her deal with the bullying. Whatever lesson they meant to teach, what she learned was ‘other people aren’t worth my time or attention.’ If she hadn’t gone early to college and gotten some social acceptance she would have become an arrogant, isolated woman.
I didn’t get bullied as much. There was some verbal stuff and I grew some really thick walls (not skin, walls) to deal with it. My mom tried to help as did my much more socially aware brother; mostly by giving me retorts of the ‘baffle them with bullshit’ field of responses. It took years for me to learn to trust people and even now I only share with people that I trust; ie other geeks and outcasts.
MichaelM
October 14, 2010 @ 10:51 am
I spent a lot of years being bullied in both primary and secondary school, but I guess I was lucky in that I never came close to ending everything. Yes, I had suicidal thoughts (Who doesn’t?), but I don’t think I’ve ever had the stones to follow through with it.
I, personally, feel that schools *never* do enough to stop bullying. They don’t separate the victims from the instigators, they never offered help (Either inside or outside) to me or other kids who were bullied. Even if you tell teachers, they seem to offer such little help to you, and what help you get is contradictory. “Pay no attention” often is paired up with “Fight back”. “Be proud of who you are” often results in either worse bullying or being hollow. Why? Your self-confidence has been pummelled to this… This pile of dust that gets blown away every time the wind blows.
For me, it all came to a climax when I got “floored” by one of my “friends” (That was the worst thing for me. Those who bullied me in secondary school were the closest I had to friends) and one of their friends jumped on me – I spent that afternoon in hospital with a damaged wrist. They said it was nothing, but a week later I got a call and they’d reviewed the x-rays; Turns out one of the bones had twisted due to the force of the impact. The guy who did it? He got let off.
Where am I now? I’m socially inept, I’m possibly depressed, I’ve recently been getting closer and closer to having anxiety attacks in public, I’ve got no self-confidence or sense of self-worth. I’ve got no friends, either, and I honestly don’t think I ever have had any. I don’t know what I’d say to myself if I was talking to a younger, victimised me. I don’t think I could tell him it gets better because, to me, it’s only getting worse. It’s like the years of bullying cracked the ice, and now it’s starting to break away.
Sorry to rant a bit like that, Jim. It’s something that’s hard to deal with, and even harder to conquer and put behind you. Glad you’re still with us, though. Your books have given me, at the very least, a lot of enjoyment and put a smile on my face more than a few times. Don’t ever forget that.
EpeeBill
October 14, 2010 @ 10:56 am
Good post, Jim. I agree with you pretty much on all points, but, you kind of leave a question unanswered. You’ve said that “toughen up” and “ignore them and they’ll go away” are ineffective. So what do I say to my son if he gets bullied? “Kick his ass”? That doesn’t seem like a viable strategy either.
Jim C. Hines
October 14, 2010 @ 11:21 am
I don’t know. (Partly because I don’t know your son.)
In my case … it depends. Telling him it’s okay to fight back if he has to. Talking to the school, and making it clear that if they don’t end this I’ll be happy to go chat with the superintendent. Possibly talking to the parents. Making sure my son knows it’s not his fault.
At my son’s age, I’ve heard from other parents that have gone in and just talked to the classes about Aspbergers, which helps them to understand why one kid is “different,” and cuts down on the teasing.
It would depend on the circumstances, but I suspect just about anything would be better than doing nothing.
Jim C. Hines
October 14, 2010 @ 11:24 am
No apologies needed, please. It was the same for me — the worst offenders in 6th grade were kids I’d been good friends with up until that year. I had no idea what the hell had just happened.
What do you think is causing it all to continue to get worse these days?
Anita K.
October 14, 2010 @ 11:36 am
Yeah, I don’t go with that crap either. My dad was bullied to the point where it makes me feel sick to think about when he was in school, and that would have been between around 1955ish through 1967. Reading between the lines of things he actually told me, he was pretty close to suicide many times from at least mid grade school on, until he escaped by going to college. He didn’t deal with it by being tough or ignoring them–he developed lifelong problems and hang-ups about dealing with people, which affected his work and home life very negatively. I don’t know how much of depression is chemical and how much can be affected by experience, but I also suspect he suffered from undiagnosed clinical depression, and I think a lot of that also went back to those hideous years of bullying.
I think the best thing that can be said, other than supporting that child and trying to work with officials/parents/etc. to stop the bullying, is exactly what Dan Savage says: It Gets Better. That applies to everyone, not just gay kids: it will get better. Just hold onto that hope.
MichaelM
October 14, 2010 @ 11:40 am
I’ve no idea to be honest, Jim. I wouldn’t say life’s been particularly stressful or horrible for me since I left secondary school (Although everything did basically fall apart for me) beyond two family members passing away and an e-friend from a forum taking his own life.
The thing with me was I knew no one (Basically, anyway) in my year at secondary school when I joined, so it was 150 new kids just in my year group. I guess I was partially lucky in that it wasn’t the same people continually doing it.
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Robert C.
October 14, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
I enjoyed your post, even as it brought up memories. I was also one of those very smart, socially awkward kids (speech therapy until 10, what’s that about?) with a target on his back. With one twist. I was taller, and more powerful than any other student in either junior or high school. My parents were terrified that if I gave in even once and stomped a bully (1) I might accidentally kill someone (2) I would become a bully, and a terrifying one at that and (3) I would be immediately expelled even if I was defending myself. No one would believe a 6’5 250# 14 year old could be a ‘victim.’ Every jackass knew that I wouldn’t fight back, so I endured physical and emotional abuse for many years. I hated it. And it all ended after high school, like someone turning off a switch.
To this day, I still debate if my parents did the right thing. Then again, even bullies grow up. A wife of one approached me at a 20 year reunion and apologized for him. He wouldn’t do it himself, though I guess his conscience had been bugging him. I looked at her kids, healthy, cute, obviously thriving, and complemented her on them. I still wanted to snap his neck like a dry twig, and he knew it, and he knew there was not a damn thing he could do to stop it. But his wife and kids did.
Stephen Watkins
October 14, 2010 @ 1:11 pm
Another “brillaint” rejoinder that scores high on the “Fail Meter”, for me, was “They’re only doing that to you because they’re jealous.”
I mean, my parents meant well when they said that to me, so often. They were trying to my self esteem by making me feel not only that I had some quality that the bulliers lacked (at this point, I already understood that I was superior at academics than most of the bulliers; and I also knew they tended to be superior at athletics to myself), but that this quality was somehow desireable to them.
That was a fine line of bullcrap. They didn’t care in the least that I was smart. In fact, most of them wouldn’t have known otherwise, because the smart kids like myself were regularly segregated into our own classes – and yet the other “smart” kids in those classes didn’t get bullied. I knew it was bullcrap then, and feeding me that line did nothing to stymy the pain.
And then, of course, I too went through that phase that you shared, where me and a few friends occassionally bullied another of our former friends. I went through the massive guilt-trip later when I learned his mother had committed suicide. (We no longer bullied him by the time this happened, but neither did we hang out with him anymore.) When it was happening, I didn’t think of it as bullying – it wasn’t on the same order, I reasoned, as what was done to me. Heck, this guy was even allowed to hang out with us sometimes, for a while. That was just self-justification… and I knew even then that I was uncomfortable with it.
I learned years later a better model for understanding bullying: that it’s about power. It was finally a bit of explanation and understanding, an understanding that I felt was sorely lacking in my parents’ attempts at comforting words. I’ve continued to learn about the process, and now also understand that there’s a deep element of socialization involved, a primal tribalization instinct of some sort, that partially overlaps the “power” motive. Why did I bully, even for just a short time, that poor kid who had been our friend? Because I thought that wanted/needed the approbation of my peers, of my friends. I didn’t have many of those, and found myself willing to sink that low to maintain the ones that I had. I’m ashamed of that.
It’s a sick, vile cycle. And yeah, and those who want to somehow divert attention or victim-blame or whatever… need to just get a clue.
Stephen Watkins
October 14, 2010 @ 1:13 pm
err… “they were trying to” [insert the word BOOST here] “my self esteem”…
Jim C. Hines
October 14, 2010 @ 1:34 pm
Yeah. Heck, maybe they are jealous … but that does nothing to end the bullying, or to change anything I’m going through.
“When it was happening, I didn’t think of it as bullying – it wasn’t on the same order, I reasoned, as what was done to me.”
I didn’t even think about it that much. It was just “Oh, this is what the other kids are doing, and if I join in, it’s better than being on the receiving end.”
I don’t blame myself for not being “strong enough” to deal with bullies, or anything like that. But I do feel shame at not being strong enough to stand up for those other kids instead of joining their tormenters.
Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy
October 14, 2010 @ 1:34 pm
From my experience in school, I think the following are essential when teaching our kids to deal with bullying:
1. Take the first step, and talk to them about it in a way that they KNOW that you are not ashamed of them for being bullied. That way, when it happens to them, they know they can talk to you about it.
2. Make sure they know you have their back, and are willing to act in a rational, non-embarrassing way if they need you to intervene in the situation.
3. Tell them it’s OK to respond if they reach their limit, and tell them how. In my case, it was the Vulcan nerve pinch whenever we were standing in a line. I had already informed the teacher without success, so my mother told be to lift my foot straight behind me rapidly. We were good friends the rest of the year after that. I know not all will get the same result, but a personal swift response in kind often earns the bully’s respect. Makes you feel better, too 😉
4. They need to know that being bullied doesn’t give them the right to bully others or themselves.
Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy
October 14, 2010 @ 1:38 pm
Oh, and also: DO talk to them about the things that may be bringing it on. While it’s never good to bully people that are different, sometimes there is a behavior that can or should change. It’s hard for me, for example, to deal with those that bully my daughter without also have to address her complete lack of tact.
Stephen Watkins
October 14, 2010 @ 1:44 pm
Likewise… I’m ashamed of myself for picking on the kid who should’ve been one of our friends, but I’m not ashamed that I was targeted by bullies. There’s nothing I could’ve done differently, really, that would’ve changed that, and even if there was, nothing I did was wrong. It was the bullies who used violence and social warfare who need to feel ashamed of that years later, not I (and also why I do feel ashamed of what I did take part in).
Jann M.
October 14, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
I am not sure if bullying is happening more or if it is just getting more media attention. My daughter barely survived high school. We live in a comfortable suburban community but high school was a jungle and it was only by getting her into a program where she spent her senior year at a local community college did she make it through. And this was over ten years ago. There are so many layers to this problem. I think throwing 9th graders into the high school environment (which seems to be the norm at least in my area of the country) is a huge mistake. It also angers me that bullying is a standard joke in TV high schools such as Glee. It is not a joke.
It is hard to know what to do. Keeping good lines of communication open with your kids is one. Maybe a course in conflict resolution can help. And I think all of us need a lession in curing bystander-itis. I heard something on TV a couple of weeks ago about how 5% are victims, 5% are perpetrators, and the other 90% just watch it happen. I for one would like some lessons on how to effectively speak up.
Thanks for another thoughtful essay.
Kevin Stewart
October 14, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
First off, this is a good post for the most part. I find one fault with it that I find in most all discussions of bullying.
Like Robert, I too was an oversized kid that still experienced bullying–though it did dwindle by highschool due to my actions. People always gave me the same lame platitudes that did no good and offered little in the way of help. I resolved the issue myself by growing out my hair long, wearing disheveled clothes, and looking crazy. By my senior year I had an entire school afraid of me.
This is not a solution I would suggest anyone else try, as it just made my life that much more socially awkward and me that much greater of an outcast. But it did teach me something valuable about humanity–there will always be alpha personalities who prey on those they deem weak.
You see, as long as I was submissive, an alpha child sought me out and used me to prove their superiority. Once I became threatening and appeared difficult to dominate (not as another alpha but as a loose cannon outside the alphas realm) everyone left me alone or pretended I supported them. This leads me to believe, in order to alleviate the issue of bullying is not to get rid of the bullies or educate them or change them because they won’t change. No, the only way to relieve a child from their bully is to take away the fear the bully feeds on. If a child is awkward or insecure or different and prone to being bullied, then build the child up, teach the child how to overcome the torment, how to rise above the bully’s powers, how to feel enough self-worth and self-importance that the bully can’t touch them.
I know this is not an easy thing. I know that a childs emotions and self-worth are very fragile in the teenage years. But I also know, that if a person does not have enough personal strength to overcome the trials of a bully, then they will find the strength to end the torment permenantly. And personal strength isn’t a born with quality, we learn it from our surroundings, from our experiences, and yes from our parents.
Stephen Watkins
October 14, 2010 @ 2:17 pm
The problem with your prescription is built-into your analysis: (a) you were large enough to be physically intimidating if you made that your goal and (b) you admit you don’t recommend the path to appearing physically intimidating to others.
That being the case, now matter how much self-confidence a kid has, if they appear physically weak, they will get bullied. Most kids who get bullied don’t have this sort of size “advantage” as a defense.
Changing the appearance of the victims shouldn’t be the answer. They’ve done nothing wrong, and encouraging them to change their behavior in some way to try to prevent the bullying only reinforces the notion that there was something wrong with them to begin with. It’s the behavior of the bullies themselves that is deviant, and that should be the target of correction.
Elaine Corvidae
October 14, 2010 @ 2:47 pm
All the recent discussion has brought back a great many memories for me, and it surprises me a little just how immediately the pain still feels. I was relentlessly bullied through elementary school up until about tenth grade (by that point most of the bullies happened to be in the band with me, so when I quit to escape them I was mostly left alone). The teachers quite simply didn’t care, and my parents had nothing better to offer than “ignore them and they’ll go away,” which as we all know is worse than useless. Even worse, so many adults I knew constantly said things like “enjoy your childhood–these are the best years of your life!” No wonder I was suicidal; if these were the best years of my life, then adulthood must be literal hell and not just a virtual one, so why stick around for it?
One of the things I haven’t seen addressed at all in the discussion of bullying (although I may have missed it) is how the indifference of teachers and other adults sends a clear message to the victim that Persons in Authority Are Not There to Help You. Heck, one of my clearest memories is of a girl who was being bullied going to our 5th grade teacher for help. The teacher loudly declared to the whole class that “You’ll be in Middle School next year. If you go up to one of the teachers like a crybaby, she’ll laugh in your face. Now go sit down.” So not only are authority figures not interested in helping you, they’ll actively participate in your abuse? Gee, thanks for the life lesson. I’m sure I’m not the only kid in that class who grew up with a lingering distrust of anyone in a position of authority.
Mel
October 14, 2010 @ 7:06 pm
I was bullied because I was fat and had big front teeth. While the teeth got pulled back some and the rest of me caught up with their size, I am still fat.
Grades 1-3 I had a teacher who had asthma and was often sickly. As a result, she had no control of the class, and the boys would get up in class and dance around my desk, taunting me. I would try to stay in the bathroom next to the classroom until the teacher came in to cut down a bit on the pre-class problem, but she kept telling me that wasn’t allowed, and I needed to be at my desk. Then they would follow me home, attacking me verbally and physically the whole way. I began to steal money from my dad to take candy to school to make them like me, which worked to the extent that I didn’t get kicked quite so much for the next few weeks, but ultimately things were just as bad, of course.
Grades 4-6 I had a teacher who didn’t like me because I was fat, and because she thought my handwriting somehow signified that I was bad (these are things she told my dad!). She would rummage through my desk to come up with reasons to call me out in class before everyone, and this disgusting person even would make me do my homework on toilet paper (!!!) because I had done something “wrong”. Around 5th grade I got a growth spurt and was suddenly taller than a lot of the boys still doing the bullying (thankfully some of the worst had landed in a different school), and I started beating them at arm wresting and such.
From then and through high school there were no more physical attacks, but plenty of verbal abuse. Matter of fact, it continues to this day. It never ends.
The lessons I got from my dad and the nasty step-mother at the time? Ignore them. I know my dad meant well, but I wish there had been a way to make it better. I want my childhood back.
Elaine Corvidae
October 14, 2010 @ 8:52 pm
I got the handwriting thing too. How insane is that? The teacher was very disapproving of me because my handwriting wasn’t enough “like a girl’s,” whatever the f**k that was supposed to mean. I’m guessing she had some crazed idea that boys wrote a certain way, and girls another, and if I didn’t meet her arbitrary criteria I must be a lesbian (which I’m sure in her mind would be just awful).
Monica
October 14, 2010 @ 10:18 pm
Went to Catholic school. A private one with uniforms and the whole bit. Bullying went on for eight years. Sixth grade my class signed a petition to see how many people wanted me dead. Parents dealt with the bullying by saying I was the problem and I took it too seriously or I was making it all up. Same thing with the school.
I was never suicidal, but the experience did affect my ability to interact with other people for a long time after that. Still does some days. Can’t stand bullies. I try to seek resolutions to conflict, but sometimes you just have to move on. Sometimes it’s hard when you don’t know how.
Don’t know what the answer is. Especially in a world where snap judgments turn someone’s life on a dime if you don’t say/act/wear the right thing. I just know that these kids need a hero. I did. I never got one. So I became my own.
I’ve never been public about all that’s happened to me, but I will tell you one thing: If one child would listen to my story and it would cause them to stand a little straighter and find the strength to go back to school? Then I’d put it all out there. It’d be worth it. Just so these kids know they’re not alone. They’re not crazy. And there is no such thing as normal.
Jim C. Hines
October 15, 2010 @ 7:59 am
I really, really wish people could get over their messed-up ideas about weight. We’re so obsessed with it, and with punishing anyone who doesn’t fit with what we’ve decided people’s bodies are supposed to look like.
Reading the comments here and on LJ, there are some teachers who needed to be fired. Period. And forbidden from ever working with children again.
Jim C. Hines
October 15, 2010 @ 8:10 am
“If one child would listen to my story and it would cause them to stand a little straighter and find the strength to go back to school? Then I’d put it all out there. It’d be worth it. Just so these kids know they’re not alone. They’re not crazy. And there is no such thing as normal.”
That’s one of the things I’m hoping comes from so many people posting and talking about this lately.
I’m surprised at how many of my SF/F friends — awesome people all — went through things like this.
I think it would have helped me a little back then to know I wasn’t alone. And that it does get better, most of the time.
Jim C. Hines
October 15, 2010 @ 9:19 am
It’s been a hard conversation for me too, in a lot of ways. Lots of things getting stirred up that I haven’t thought about for years or decades. I think it’s a good conversation, but it’s also painful.
The apathy or participation of the adults has come up in a lot of the comments. Teachers who just ignore it, others who actively participate … I assume either through some twisted belief that they’re teaching kids to “man up” and prepare for the real world, or else because they’re simply sadistic bullies themselves.
My brother had a teacher like that, who was basically bullying him right there in the classroom. Fortunately, my parents were able to intervene and make it clear that this would end Right Now.
Jim C. Hines
October 15, 2010 @ 9:21 am
I think a lot of it is the increased attention, which I believe is a good thing.
I keep coming across people who say bullying wasn’t so bad in the old days, and I want to smack them. (Ironic, I know.) It was bad … it wouldn’t surprise me if it was *worse* back then. But we just didn’t talk about it, and it didn’t get publicized.
Elaine Corvidae
October 15, 2010 @ 9:35 am
I don’t think I was very clear…the apathy and indifference factor has been discussed extensively, but the way it can leave the victim with a lifelong fear/distrust of anyone in authority as a result hasn’t been a big talking point. That it can change the way people relate with all teachers/police/clergy/bosses/etc. because you “know” that none of them give a damn about you and its everyone for himself. Once you’ve internalized that lesson as a child, it’s really difficult to overcome.
Kudos for your parents for standing up for your brother!
Jim C. Hines
October 15, 2010 @ 9:39 am
Got it. Sorry — you were clear, but I missed that anyway. (Too many comments, most of which are fairly intense, and my reading comprehension seems to be off this morning.)
Kevin
October 16, 2010 @ 8:18 pm
I never meant to imply that the bullied persons behaviour was in any way at fault. My prescription is, that since adults in authority are useless and bullies will not be changed due to their inherint nature, then the victem should in any way possible be strengthened. If it is by self-confidence building (if they portray enough self-confidence they won’t appear weak) by lessons on how to mentally battle or handle the onslaught from the bully, or just give them places they might find refuge and solace from their attackers.
It is never the victims fault.
J. Cheatham
October 17, 2010 @ 8:57 pm
I don’t know what the answer is. I do know that when I was bullied it never really stopped but the times it got better where when I fought back. Even when the teachers (or any adult figure for that matter) intervened it only created temporary relief. Bullies will find a way or wait till no ones looking or around. Ignoring the situation of course as most of the posts here attest to, doesn’t work. Toughen up, usually just means you become a more solid target. One place where I was lucky (I’m guessing here actually) was that I was in a military family on military bases so the bullies changed out regularly. The key thing that I would say, that you as a concerned parent, could do is to make sure that your kids have a safe haven at home. That’s what kept me from going crazy and either opting out or going “Columbine” and taking a bunch of people with me. My parents (mom mostly) were a big part of my coping mechanism, either by listening to me talk it out or just holding me when I was busy crying about having to run home from the school bus, and backing me when I finally did unload on one of my tormentors. Beyond that, getting more directly involved really only serves to make them more of a target when you can’t be around to do something about it. It’s not a real answer but then again demanding the schools do something about it isn’t either. Even if they do something it’s usually only ammunition for the bullies to try to make things worse.