The teen who opened fire at a high school in Chardon, Ohio, appears to have been a victim of bullying, Rolling Out and other sources are reporting.

Within the last few years bullying among teenagers has gotten the media’s attention countless times, especially involving LGBT youth. many teens have turned to suicide in order to end the years of harassment, including Tennessee high school student Jacob Rogers. Although T.J. Lane’s case is dramatically different, people who knew him and local authorities say that he was bullied.

Lane, 17, has been accused of killing three students and wounding two others in a shooting that occurred at Chardon High School, which is 30 miles east of Cleveland, the Associated Press reported. Lane was a former student of Chardon High but was enrolled in an alternative school for trouble students. His lawyer has entered the juvenile equivalent of a guilty plea.

Lane used Twitter and Facebook to tell classmates he would bring a gun to school and that was tired being called "mainstream" from other students.

"His only company to confide in was the vermin in the street. he longed for only one thing, the world to bow at his feet. They too should feel his secret fear. the dismal drear. His pain had made him sincere," a Facebook post says, which was made the day before the shooting. "he was better than the rest, all those ones he detests, within their castles, so vain. Selfish and conceited. They couldn’t care less about the peasents they mistreated. the world is a sandbox for all the wretched sinners," the post continues. "They simply create what they want and make themselves the winners. But the true winner, he has nothing at all. Enduring the pain of waiting for that castle to fall. Through his good deeds, the rats and the fleas. he will have for what he pleads, through the eradication of disease. so, to the castle he proceeds, like an ominous breeze through the trees."

Studies from the American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry say that half of all children have experienced bullying while attending school and 10 percent of kids are bullied regularly.

"Bullying is a well-known adversity among school-age children. according to data, approximately 10 percent of US children and adolescents are the victims of frequent bullying by peers," the study says. "in the aftermath of being bullied, victims may develop a variety of psychological as well as somatic symptoms, some of which may persist into adulthood. Psychological symptoms may include social difficulties, internalizing symptoms, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and eating disorders (i.e., anorexia or bulimia nervosa)."

"Bullying behavior can be physical or verbal. Boys tend to use physical intimidation or threats, regardless of the gender of their victims. Bullying by girls is more often verbal, usually with another girl as the target. Bullying has even been reported in online chat rooms, through e-mail and on social networking sites," the study also says. "Children who are bullied experience real suffering that can interfere with their social and emotional development, as well as their school performance. some victims of bullying have even attempted suicide rather than continue to endure such harassment and punishment."

Celebrities have helped spread awareness about teen bullying. Rolling Out points out that rappers 50 Cent and Waka Flocka Flame have joined anti-bullying organizations. a number of stars have participated in the "It gets Better Project", which focuses on helping LGBT youth who have been bullied because of their sexual orientation. Celebrities such as, Justin Bieber, Chaz Bono, Ke$ha, Tim Gunn, Kathy Griffin and many more have made videos in hopes of helping harassed teens.

Lady Gaga has also participated in the campaign and has made it one of her missions to end teen bullying. the pop star recently visited Harvard University to launch her nonprofit "Born this way Foundation," which will help empower kids in hopes of reducing bullying in schools, as reported here.

She told a new York Times columnist that, when she was in high school, she was a victim of bullying.

"I was called really horrible, profane names very loudly in front of huge crowds of people, and my schoolwork suffered at one point," she said. "I didn’t want to go to class. And I was a straight-A student, so there was a certain point in my high school years where I just couldn’t even focus on class because I was so embarrassed all the time. I was so ashamed of who I was."

Gaga also told the newspaper that the scars from bullying are still with her but she hopes the foundation will prevent teens from having the problems she faces.

"the Born this way Foundation is not restitution or revenge for my experiences," Lady Gaga said. "I want to make that clear. this is: I am now a woman, I have a voice in the universe, and I want to do everything I can to become an expert in social justice and hope I can make a difference and mobilize young people to change the world."

Grisha Balasanyan16:23, November 24, 2011

Lilit should be entering the fifth grade but she’s been left back.

Her medical condition is such that the young girl hardly attends class. Lilit is given to long coughing bouts.

The girl doesn’t seem to mind that much given that she won’t be surrounded by the same classmates that used to make fun of her.

At first, parents and even some teachers thought Lilit suffered from tuberculosis. Recently, physicians have diagnosed something more alarming – cystic fibrosis (mucoviscidosis).

It’s a recessive multi-system genetic disease characterized by abnormal transport of chloride and sodium across epithelium, leading to thick, viscous secretions in the lungs, pancreas, liver, and intestine.

The hallmark symptoms of cystic fibrosis are salty tasting skin poor growth and poor weight gain despite a normal food intake, accumulation of thick, sticky mucus, frequent chest infections and coughing or shortness of breath.

For the past three years Lilit has spent most of her days in hospital under the car of doctors.

Lilit’s aunt, Narineh Sargsyan, says the illness is incurable and that now they are simply trying to prolong the girl’s life expectancy.

When we visited Lilit, one of her coughing spells acted up. Family members were afraid because there was a lot of mucous coming up and the girl was having trouble breathing.

When doctors diagnosed CF and they registered Lilit as “disabled”, they advised the family to purchase a special piece of medical equipment. Medicine would be filled into the unit and Lilit would breathe it in. It’s the only way to bring the girl back to a conscious state in a short time.

But Narineh says the unit must be special ordered and that it costs 60,000 AMD ($170). the family was despondent since they couldn’t afford the life-saving unit but a kindhearted nurse, Satik Arturovna, gave the unit to the family free of charge. she realized that the child couldn’t get by without it.

Lilit uses the unit to breath 2-3 times daily and takes a regimen of medicines and nutritional supplements.

Lilit is starting to lose weight – a bad sign.

A t first, the doctors wanted to operate but decided to hold off till Lilit got older and the illness progressed. They aren’t sure if Lilit will make it to her twentieth birthday.

Lilit and her family live in the Sipanik village in Ararat Marz. the family can’t make ends meet let alone pay for Lilit’s medical care.

Lilit’s mother Karineh told us that her other child Benik is ill as well due to the dampness in the trailer they call home. Doctors have diagnosed that the boy has kidney nephritis.

Hetq covered the story of Lilit last year but there was no response from the government. the only form of assistance came from the Diakonia charitable organization in the form of periodic food packages.

This year Lilit sat down and wrote a letter to Armenia’s first Lady Rita Sargsyan. but the letter was addressed to the Ararat Regional Authority. Edik Barseghyan, the Regional Governor, responded that his office had financially assisted the young girl.

The assistance Barseghyan mentions amounted to 20,000 AMD ($60) and was used to but Lilit a school uniform this September.

Lilit’s aunt wrote a second letter to first Lady Rita Sargsyan. she included a picture of the girl breathing with the assistance of the medical device.

A few days ago the family received a reply stating that the first Lady wouldn’t be able to help until February 2012.

Once, the family wrote to the Catholicos saying, “if you refuse to help this girl remember that every day the church bells chime Lilit has held out her hand to you for help.”

The family received no answer from the church.

The Red Cross office in Armenia told the family that it only assists those with HIV/AIDS.

Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) MP Tigran Stepanyan is the legislative representative for the village of Sipanik. Narineh says she wrote to the PAP office in Masis but that her request for assistance was turned down. MP Stepanyan is aware of the girl’s medical condition but said he doesn’t deal with such matters.

Narineh also wrote to the Gagik Tsarukyan Foundation, but says they never answered.

Lilit’s mother says that received 25,000 AMD from the village municipality bad they spent it on school supplies.

Narineh has lost all hope. she says that there is no one coming forth to help Lilit.

“Lilit has lost her health but she at least be afforded the chance to have a happy childhood. We draw strength from God and will never give up seeking assistance. there is no one else to rely on. the elections are coming and at least the candidates will be doling out 5,000 Drams for votes,” Narineh laments.

The young girl can’t even watch her favorite cartoons. the TV is tiny and old. the family is forced to burn wood to keep the trailer they live in warm. They collect wood from the streets and even burn discarded clothes found in the trash.

Karineh says that when the fire goes out even water in the house freezes.

When it was time for us to leave, Lilit showed us a picture of a house she painted. the house has two doors,

She said that one of the doors was for her Aunt Narineh and her cousins.

Lilit told us that she cannot imagine living without them.

Alissa Welker, 17, takes medication for obsessive-compulsive disorder.STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Children as young as 3 or 4 can show signs of OCD
• OCD is thought to affect 1 in 100 kids
• Exposure therapy is a behavioral therapy used for OCD
• Medications may also be prescribed

(CNN) — Alissa Welker would switch the lights on, off, on, off, on, off — however many times it took to feel “right.” when she was 9, she’d spend the equivalent of an adult workday doing these kinds of rituals. she also washed her hands excessively, avoided sick people and barely ate because she feared food poisoning.

Mystery Almond has also felt that she needed to wash her hands more than most people, to the point that her classmates picked on her. she would see words spelled out in her head — “like reading a book” — telling her to do things, like hitting a girl in second grade who taunted her for obsessing over hand washing.

Alissa, 17, and Mystery, 10, have different symptoms, but they both have had feelings of needing to act in certain ways that are out of the ordinary, as well as intense fears. These are signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is thought to affect 1 in 100 kids, according to the International OCD Foundation.

“Sometimes I feel like, with my OCD, I feel sad. it feels like a darkness has overtaken me. It’s a real bad feeling,” said Mystery, of Coushatta, Louisiana.

Parents, kids, teens, school personnel and mental health providers have a comprehensive resource for learning about pediatric OCD at the International OCD Foundation’s new OCD in Kids website. it includes the personal stories of young people who have OCD, so that kids and teens can learn about their peers’ experiences.

The site launched this week for the organization’s OCD Awareness Week, which culminates in a national event in Boston on Saturday that will be streamed live on the organization’s website.

Children as young as 3 or 4 can show signs of OCD, said Jeff Szymanski, executive director of the International OCD Foundation. but the onset is usually around ages 10 to 12 and the 18 to 22 age group. Boys tend to have symptoms earlier in life than girls. Symptoms include unwanted thoughts that produce fear and anxiety, and repetitive behaviors aimed at getting rid of those ideas.

Doctors draw the line between normal childhood behaviors and signs of OCD when kids engage in repetitious behaviors that become time-consuming. Children may become fixated on thoughts that they just won’t move away from. and they may not necessarily realize they’re not acting normally.

“For the most part, adults realize that these symptoms don’t make any sense. They get that this doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Szymanski said. “Kids don’t necessarily have that perspective.”

A standard behavioral treatment for OCD is called exposure therapy, a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy aimed at decreasing anxiety associated with particular phenomena. For children, this often involves naming OCD as the “bully or “monster” and chasing it away, Szymanski said. this helps kids deal with their scary, unwanted thoughts.

Medication may also be prescribed. a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that kids who had cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD, in addition to medication, tended to show more improvements than those who only took medication.

Some kids get good treatment and never experience OCD symptoms again; others will have it throughout their lives, with some periods being better than others. it may go away in childhood and come back in adulthood.

Alissa’s mother, Vicki Gonzalez, had never heard of OCD before Alissa came to her and told her about these feelings. Gonzalez turned to the internet and discovered that Alissa’s symptoms seemed to match up with that condition.

At age 10, Alissa began seeing a therapist and starting taking sertraline, an antidepressant that’s commonly prescribed for OCD. It’s a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, a class of drugs that change the balance of the chemical serotonin in the brain.

A turning point for Alissa was the International OCD Foundation conference in 2006 in Atlanta. Alissa really didn’t want to go, but her mother coaxed her into attending. it was there that she met other young people with OCD whose symptoms had gotten better — something Alissa didn’t know was possible.

“Before I went to the conference, I didn’t think it was possible to go from doing eight to 10 hours of rituals a day, to being symptom-free and living a normal life,” she said.

She liked the conference so much that she went back the following year, when it was in Houston, and met two girls who continue to be her best friends to this day.

“We understand each other, and we know we don’t have to hide anything from each other. we don’t judge each other for what’s going on in our lives. We’re always there for each other,” she said.

Exercise has also helped. Alissa is a varsity swimmer and swims year-round, and when her OCD got tough, she felt relief from stress in general by diving into her passion for the sport.

These days, Alissa is a senior in high school and managing her OCD better than earlier in her childhood, although there are still ups and downs. Sometimes, she’ll have months or years without symptoms, but this fall as she stressed about applying to college, she caught herself tapping her hand in specific numbers and having other unwanted thoughts. she still takes medication and goes to therapy every two to three months.

Mystery Almond, 10, writes poetry about having OCD.

Mystery’s OCD journey began earlier, around age 5. she started having more outbursts, and the excessive hand washing and checking of locks on doors began. The writing in her head bothered her to the point that she couldn’t sleep. At night she feared that some kind of “mean animal” or monster was outside her window and had vivid nightmares, from which she awoke crying.

Other kids would pick on her when she would suggest that they also wash their hands before meals in the school lunchroom. Based on informal surveys, many OCD kids tend to report feeling bullied and say OCD interferes with schoolwork, Szymanski.

Therapy and medication have also helped Mystery, who also has Asperger’s syndrome, meaning she also has trouble with social interactions and repetitive behaviors. she has gone through several combinations of treatments before finding a mix that felt right: an antipsychotic, the antidepressant duloxetine, the antipsychotic ziprasidone and the ADHD drug guanfacine.

“I feel better. I’m more happy. I don’t have to wash my hands as much, because I’m not really worried,” she said.

With her therapist, she has also talked about making friends and gets bullied less, although “kids will be kids,” she says.

Mystery also has an occupational therapist and is undergoing equestrian therapy for Asperger’s syndrome, which involves developing interpersonal skills through interacting with horses.

“We don’t want to change her. we just want to help her understand the world a little better,” her father, Vince Almond, said. “She’s not wrong or bad or anything like that. She’s different.”

In her spare time, Mystery writes poetry, sometimes about OCD. she will be reading from her poem “Special and Proud” on Saturday in Boston.

Poetry, film give voice to OCD sufferers

She writes in this poem:

“She is brave,

But sometimes she’s afraid,

Of things she shouldn’t be

She might get upset

And it’s hard for her to forget

When she starts repeating things.”

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I play the violin and whenever my teacher is about to test me my heart beats really fast. I start to shake a lot and that affect how i play. its embarrassing because when there is a long note you can hear my hand shaking from the music.
People tell me to pretend my classmates are in their underpants but that does not work at all and nether does thinking that im the only one there. is there anything physical i could do to make the shaking and fast heart beating stop?

~ Read this.
I know how you feel. Practice, confidence, and methods in this article will help you…
Best of Luck.

Anxiety before a Musical Performance
How to Manage Anxiety before a Musical Performance
By Arlin Cuncic, About.com Guide
Updated March 20, 2010

Performance Anxiety
Since 1978. Comprehensive program for peak performance training
social-anxiety.com

Getting Over Anxiety
Acclaimed Program Used By Thousands As Seen On CNN, NBC & ABC News.
CTRN.com/Fear-And-Anxiety/
Anxiety before a musical performance can be a problem even for seasoned performers. if you are a musician who suffers from anxiety before a musical performance, you know firsthand the terrible impact that anxiety symptoms can have on your performance. if your anxiety is part of social anxiety disorder (SAD), it is important to receive treatment such as medication or cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). however, there are also a number of self-help coping strategies that you can use to reduce your anxiety.

In the months, weeks, and days leading up to a performance, work to keep your anxiety at a minimum. some of helpful strategies include adequate rehearsal, preparation of non-musical matters, use of relaxation techniques, and careful selection of repertoire. here, some tips to help you manage anxiety while preparing for a musical performance.

•Rehearsal: try to fit in at least three to four rehearsals prior to the actual performance. if possible, rehearse in the location where you will perform; this is especially important for piano players in order to get comfortable with the instrument. In addition to actual rehearsals, visualizing a successful performance is a good way to mentally prepare yourself to succeed.

•Preparation: Being prepared as a musician means more than being ready to perform. Make sure that you have taken care of all loose ends so that you are not scrambling at the last minute and feeling anxious. Do you need a page-turner? Make sure to arrange one ahead of time. Have you chosen your wardrobe? Be sure to have an outfit that you are comfortable in chosen well in advance of the performance.

•Relaxation: there are a variety of relaxation techniques that you can use to help keep anxiety symptoms under control prior to a performance. Deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, meditation, yoga, and other eastern disciplines will help to keep you focused and calm.

•Memorization: Choose several sections of a piece as designated "memory stations" that you can jump to if you are in trouble. sometimes simply knowing that you have memory stations makes it easier to relax and worry less about making mistakes.

•Assessment: Assess your abilities as a performer, and be realistic in terms of your choice of music. Do not choose a piece that is beyond your skill level or that you do not have enough time to learn. it is better to perform well within your comfort zone than to fail because you chose a piece that was too difficult.
Once you have successfully used coping strategies to manage pre-performance jitters, it is time to face your fears the day of the performance. if you suffer with severe anxiety and self-help coping strategies do not seem to be helping, you may want to see a professional. when musical performance anxiety is part of SAD, formal treatment such as CBT or medication is usually advised.

Sources:
Kenny DT, Osborne MS. Music performance anxiety: new insights from young musicians. Advances in Cognitive Psychology. 2006;2:103-112.
Kirchner J. Managing musical performance anxiety. American Music Teacher. 2004;Dec.
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