Nineteen Minutes Entry 5: "You don't need water to feel like you're drowning, do you?"

     Another reason I really enjoyed Nineteen Minutes was because throughout the interesting storyline, it was also very informative about the issue of bullying. Jodi Picoult used her fictional writing to show why people bully, why people get bullied, and also shared how bullying can be stopped. Picoult doesn't have the solution to stopping bullying in high schools--I don't think anyone does--but she suggests that asking for help is the first step.
     Peter was strongly affected by the bullying he faced daily. He was both physically and mentally abused, but it was the mental abuse from the name calling and humiliating jokes that led him to attack his schoolmates. Peter was depressed and felt as if he was alone and had no where to turn to. Rather than asking for help, he drowned in his sorrows, believing that the bullying could never be stopped. However, that was his downfall. It makes sense as to why he would be afraid to go to anyone explaining his situation; he had tried that before and it had backfired, causing the bullying to only get worse. But during the trial when the prosecutor was questioning the witness-the principal of the school-why he had never intervened, he asked, "But Peter didn't ask for help, did he?" (379). And, of course, the principal answered "no."
    In order to prevent tragedies like Peter's school shooting from happening in the future, both the victim of the bullying and the victim's family, as well as the school must take action. Students like Peter who are bullied all the time must ask for help. If they are too afraid to talk to a school official, then they can always turn to their parents or go to a counselor for help. Peter took such drastic actions by entering his school with guns because he truly believed that he was in constant danger due to the threats from his bullies. Peter had a mental disorder and needed to be taken care of, but because his parents did not pay much attention to his life and school officials turned a blind eye to what was happening in their school hallways, Peter never go the help he needed.
     Even though this novel was fictional, I found it very interesting how Picoult chose to have the defense make a large portion of the case based off the fact that Peter committed these violent acts because he was dealing with PTSD and felt that the only way to stand up for himself was by threatening the other kids, just like how they threatened him. Peter was depressed and felt as if his life was in a constant danger. It would not surprise me if the other students in real life who committed acts similar to Peter were also facing similar mental problems. They most likely needed to receive help, just like Peter. Although we can never truly control another person's actions, getting the students who face bullying the help and therapy they need is the first step in preventing school shooting tragedies like these.