Was Jeremy Delle bullied?

Let's start off with an emotional punch in the gut. This statement can be found at page 23 of the police report PDF. I'll admit when I first read this I cried and I still feel broken-hearted and angry any time I read it.

When she said, "I was angry at them for writing that song, I thought: 'You don't know, you weren't there, that story is not accurate!'", it is unclear whether Brittany King was referring to Jeremy's home life, the bullying, or both. However, if she was indeed referring to the bullying, then there are a few things I'd like to ponder upon.

I've been bullied. I've seen people getting bullied. When you're in a classroom and your classmates are throwing stuff at you (which they do out of fun, cruelty and a need to feel superior to others and in control of something), they won't do it silently, because otherwise it wouldn't be fun. They will snicker, laugh at you, and eventually the victim will react, either by throwing stuff back or by saying something like: "Stop it! Cut it out!", because I can't imagine anyone staying silent for the entire time and not reacting in any way, given if you don't react, in most cases bullies insist until you do.

The teacher would then turn around hearing the noise, maybe they had no idea what happened but they would hear it from the victim one way or another, "They keep throwing stuff at me!" or "You guys are throwing stuff at me, cut it out!".

Now, if someone went up to the police and told them there was this bullying situation going on in Jeremy's English class, I can only suppose Barnett didn't take it seriously enough or do anything concrete to stop it. Not that I mean that she consciously ignored Jeremy possibly getting bullied, but I mean, events like these often get brushed off (even today!) as "kids being kids".

See, if Jeremy was really bullied, I don't think ALL of his classmates took part in it, that's never what happens in a class. In an event of bullying, there are two factions: the ones who actively bully and the ones who don't do anything to stop the bully, thus encouraging them. This can happen by either laughing, ignoring the situation or by consoling the victim but not doing anything to stop the bully.

When you're in a classroom and one of your classmates gets bullied, you'll know. You always know. Maybe it's me, but I get the feeling that if one of my classmates (not friends, just a classmate, because to my understanding Brittany King and Jeremy Delle weren't friends) would constantly get bullied and then one day they came to class and killed themselves and someone later wrote a song about them... I don't know, I feel like getting angry at the 'not accuracy' of the song would be the last of my concerns? That is, of course, IF that kid had really been bullied in my class. But what if he really wasn't? 

Let's go back to Amanda B's mother's statement, now: is it reliable?

Amanda B doesn't appear in the list of people who were in the English class/were witnesses the day Jeremy took his life, and it doesn't seem she was a friend of his (otherwise she would have mentioned it or we would have seen her testify somewhere else). Maybe she was indeed a student from that class but was simply absent that day and that's why she didn't appear on the list... otherwise, how could she know what happened to Jeremy during Barnett's lessons? 

At this point I'm wondering whether the mother who gave that statement was just someone looking for a way to get their name into the police report. You know, one of the first mythomaniacs surrounding this story. I can't even begin to tell you how many people have lied about knowing stuff about Jeremy in these past thirty years. Not that I was there, of course, but... I've read about several instances and have met some liars myself.

Here's the third key statement from a guy named Reagan, who was a senior at RHS when the fact happened (ssheps):

"Back then, and today, I saw Jeremy as a cruel and selfish prick for what he did. Mrs. Barnett was one of the nicest teachers in that school and there wasn't a single kid in that class that ever wronged Jeremy [...]."

Well then, my question is... how do you know? You weren't part of that class. And even if you did know all its kids personally... do you know how every single of them would act towards people they were not friends with? Do you know how they would act when grouped with other kids? Because it is well-known that humans tend to act differently when put under the pressure of a group. 

For example: trust me when I tell you my high school bully is still a terrible person, but ask the same question to her family and friends and see what they're gonna tell you!

In any case, mythomaniac or not, something in the following statements (ssheps) make you understand there was some form of truth behind Amanda B's (and her mother's) claims.

Shea B.

"Jeremy was a harmless yet lost teenage kid that could have done anything he desired if it wasn't for his home life and pressure of being cool in a new high school."

Dorie, June 8th, 2016

"I attended his funeral and was floored at the amount of people and teens that came. Some of them the same ones who wouldn't give him the time of day. Who mocked him for being someone who did weird stuff in class just for attention."

Robert B.

"Jeremy would be thrilled to see all the attention he has gotten since he died. [...] All he ever wanted was attention, as he didnt get much at home."

Shelly

"His mom basically abandoned him and his dad was no Saint either. In fact he was too wrapped up into his new wife to notice what was going on with Jeremy."

As you can see, there seem to be more claims hinting at Jeremy being somewhat bullied than not. But let's dive deeper and try to understand the causes for it (other than kids being pricks, obviously).

In PART 2 of my trilogy, No more "Later Days", I depict instances of Jeremy being bullied at Richardson High School after getting out of Timberlawn. I suggested the reason to why kids bullied him as them treating him as a 'nutjob' because they knew he had been in a psychiatric hospital.

You see, back in 1990 mental health was a huge stigma, especially in Texas and especially in boys and men, though the problem still persists today. I always use Texas' 2003 legalization of homosexuality (not same-sex marriage, I mean the legalization of consensual same-sex sexual activity) as an example to make people understand how mental health and being progressive aren't exactly something that Texas cares too much about. Just so you understand: the first state to legalize homosexuality was Illinois in 1961 and the last one was Texas in 2003... but only because the Supreme Court intervened by forcing its legalization! This means that LGBT folks in Texas stopped having trouble with the law if they decided to have intercourse with someone of the same sex only a little more than twenty years ago! This is INSANE!

Now that you have the mental health situation in Texas in mind, you probably wouldn't imagine Jeremy proudly going around a new school, where people seemed to be wealthier than the one he had previously been to (ssheps) and where he was really trying to fit in and be seen as cool; telling random kids he had been in a psychiatric hospital, knowing he could be seen as dangerous and insane... right?

Well, this was my idea, until I read in page 10 of the police report that a new friend of Jeremy's at RHS did indeed know about the hospital: "Ryan indicated that this Michelle was in a treatment center, possibily in Mesquite, or Dallas and then he decided it was Timberlawn, because that's where Jeremy had been admitted to a hospital."

Even though some of his former friends claimed Jeremy was desperately looking for attention, I still don't picture him going around proudly telling everyone he had been to a psychiatric hospital - I believe he only told some selected people about it. Those who weren't selected (and granted those who were could keep the hospital matter a secret, of course) could have known only if they had been in Timberlawn and then transferred to RHS as well, or maybe if they had been friends with Jeremy all that time and then, again, transferred to RHS as well. In short: I don't think most kids knew about the hospital.

On the other hand, those who surely knew were the school officials and Jeremy's teachers, given it must have been written in his personal documents. In fact, that appears to be the reason behind the school's decision to punish Jeremy harder and put him in ISS for much longer than any other kid - because he was carrying the prejudice of being 'not normal', and therefore dangerous (ssheps).

What we know so far is that apparently Jeremy was bullied because he would act out in class. Thankfully, Chris from Austin, Jeremy's best friend whom he met in Timberlawn in 1990, gave some important insight to how Jeremy was as a person and to the whole bullying dilemma.

"I have my own opinions as to what was behind his suicide, and why he did choose the method and scenario that he ultimately went. In my opinion, it was due to prolonged, what we would consider bullying current day, but not in a physical sense. He got made fun of a lot for fabricated stories that were grandiose in nature. [...] He was always desperate for positive attention, and would generate stories that weren’t true. I remember at his funeral [...] I was so angry because there were multiple hundreds of high school kids, the “popular girls” especially, who were in tears and acting fully distraught. [...] I remember being irate at the amount of faux sadness and heartache. Because if these people had of cared about him at all, they wouldn’t have alienated him to that degree and driven him into that level of despair and rejection. [...] He was drawn to things that caught the attention of others. Maybe there was something mentioned to a kid at his High School when being bullied, that he'd bring his CHS [Confederate HammerSkins] pals over to have his back and dole out some beatings? I have no idea, I am internally laughing if so...I am however quite certain that there were no CHS pals. That one kind of stung me and made me think about how many fabricated "this one time" stories there must be about him, that are just flat out made up?"

In 1991 Amanda B suggested Jeremy was bullied. In 2016 Dorie, a former friend of his, claimed kids would tease Jeremy for acting weird in class. In 2022 Jeremy's best friend at the time, Chris from Austin, came forward and described Jeremy in depth, together with providing important documents written by Jeremy himself (thus proving he had really met him).

Everyone experiences some form of bullying at one point in their younger years, but it is true that lonely kids, weird kids and the unpopular kids get picked on more.

Jeremy was part of these categories, but it is incorrect to say he didn't have friends: he had friends from different social settings, but he ultimately became the lonely, weird kid at his last school, Richardson High School. The poor kid was mentally breaking down and was also carrying the stigma of being the troubled kid who had been locked in a psychiatric hospital for six months of his life (ssheps, police report). He also came from a more impoverished area than the one he ended up to and had to try twice as hard to impress people (ssheps, Shea B.). He was also part of the punk kids, and even though now being alternative is considered 'trendy', it wasn't back then: punk and alternative kids stuck with each other because they were renowed as the unpopular, troubled, weird and unwanted kids - the 'leftovers', as some said. You would naturally expect some form of bullying, given all these things.

Maybe he was also picked on by some because they knew he came from an hospital, who knows? But as I said before, even though Jeremy was all about drawing the attention of people, I doubt that was something he would casually tell anyone (except for his friends) back in 1990 Texas.

What is apparent from all the proof and statements collected above, though, is that Jeremy was indeed picked on, and it was because of his habit of acting weird or saying weird, over-the-top and sometimes blatantly false things in order to draw the attention of others.

Spotting someone who says a lot of lies (a "pathological liar", as Mr. Delle described him) isn't easy at first, but given Jeremy had a tendency in saying lies that were "grandiose in nature", it is very possible some kids outside of his friend clique caught his lies and started to call him out on this, to pick on him. I will add more to the topic when I'll write my psychological analysis of Jeremy in another post.

Were the kids from his English class bullying him and if yes, did Faye Barnett choose to ignore it? I have consulted a lot of sources which claim that Barnett was a great teacher who cared a lot about her students (ssheps) and that none of the kids from the English class had ever wronged Jeremy (ssheps, private sources). Yet, none of the people who spoke about it (except for Brittany King) were in that English class with him, so... who knows? Maybe Jeremy did pick a random class which had never wronged him. Killing yourself in front of your bullies is terrible, but doing it in front of some innocent people? Yeah... that's absolutely terrible. 

I wasn't there, I have yet to read witness reports of someone who was actually in that class and, as I expressed in this article, I am fully aware anyone can tell their side of the truth and that includes Jeremy as well. I personally don't really believe Amanda B.'s mother's statement and I am inclined to believe Jeremy did end his life in front of some innocent kids.

Maybe Jeremy wasn't bullied in that English class and maybe he wasn't as bullied as Pearl Jam supposed he (or better yet, his character) was. The only thing that appears to be certain, is that he was somewhat bullied.

Finally, the question: did Jeremy Delle kill himself because of bullying? That's what Pearl Jam stated in their song (even though they said some 'Jeremy' did it, not Jeremy Delle).

As I said several times before, I think bullying was one of his problems, not THE one. I think what made him snap in the end was the isolation and alienation he had been put through, much like what Chris said.

I personally think and understand that bullying was just one of the final straws in a long line of unresolved issues.