Connections eMagazine

For a father, a mother, a sister and a brother, the world changed on October 7, 2003. But for Greater IBMer John Halligan and his family, it could have happened yesterday.

That was the day his13-year-old son, Ryan Patrick Halligan, died by suicide.

And, as John says now, "losing him left a huge hole in my heart that will never heal."

The "why" tells only a part of the story, but it's a story John has told countless times since that day.

It's a story he hopes helps other Greater IBMers and their families avoid his pain. And it's a story he'll keep telling it in one way or another as long as anyone will listen.
You'll learn about Ryan's legacy of hopeful change later in this article.

Many of John's presentations are to schools. You can see an abbreviated video of his presentation to a group of middle school students on YouTube. Be prepared for his honesty, as he speaks from the heart about his grief.

John tells of his son's painful secret – that Ryan coped with developmental and learning challenges, was targeted for years by a school bully and humiliated by a popular girl at his school who pretended to like him on-line and then shared their private instant messages with others to publicly humiliate him.

"No one heard him," John now says. "None of us understood what he was going through, how alone and lost he must have felt. Not me, not the school and not the classmates who stood by and let all of this happen."

It's a cautionary tale. John said he was pleased when his son started taking an interest in the computer, and felt that he was making friends with fellow students over the Internet.

"We had no idea of how exposed he was," John now realizes. "We thought he was gaining skills that would help him in life and we had rules that we thought would keep our children safe.

"We just didn't know." John has played out all the decisions parents make, agonizing over what he could have done differently. "We talked about home schooling, but thought it was better for him to grow up with kids his own age."

John says "I was torn between wanting to be his bodyguard all day and feeling he needed to learn how to manage the situation as a part of growing up." After a particularly bad time in late 2002, father and son decided to practice a televised form of kick boxing together – and encouragingly a few months later Ryan stood up to his tormentor and "even got in a few good licks" before a school official broke up the fight.

Things seemed to be getting better over the coming months, until the humiliation of his infatuation with the popular schoolgirl.

"It's one thing to be bullied and humiliated in front of a few kids … or to feel rejection and have your heart crushed by a girl," John says. "But it has to be a totally different experience than a generation ago … now those hurts and humiliations are witnessed by a far larger, online audience of adolescents."

John makes clear that "I don't blame Ryan's suicide on one single person or on one single event. In the end, Ryan was suffering from depression. In Ryan's case, I feel it was the 'pile on effect' of environmental factors and the life experiences that were a part of his middle school life."

The Ryan Patrick Halligan story could have stopped there. We could be empathizing with a family dealing with "If only …" regrets.

But the story didn't stop there.

"The night I learned about the cyber bullying Ryan had experienced, I almost lost it," he says. "My wife stopped me. She said 'You should use that hurt and anger to do something for Ryan and all the other kids like him.' It stopped me cold and made me start thinking."

John started making calls. After making the rounds of the school and state authorities, he realized that "there's no law to keep this from happening. I couldn't believe it – and I couldn't leave it alone."

He also learned that what Ryan experienced is happening in schools all across the country.

And that's when this IBM engineer kicked into professional mode.

"I made a flow chart and said, 'okay, here's step one' and went on from there."

He was invited to speak to students – and found out his message was being heard. At last report, he's spoken to some 125 student assemblies.(In order to devote time to his wife and two other children, John and his wife have produced DVD's that capture his message and teaching methods that can be applied with students.)

"It's not as bad for many as it was for Ryan, but it's happening … and there's nothing to keep it from destroying others."

He created a Website to tell Ryan's story. You can see for yourself how readers – many 12 or 13 year olds – respond to the message in the Ryan Patrick Halligan blog. They identify. They've seen – or experienced – the same kind of bullying or humiliation, both cyber and personal.

Since there were no laws on the books, he spoke to lawmakers who encouraged him to submit a bill. And then they encouraged him to make his case, so he did.

And the determination paid off in amazing ways. If you've ever seen the typical path of a bill through committee to the floor of the assembly to the governor's desk, you'll know just how amazing it is that the governor of Vermont signed the Bullying Prevention Policy Law in May 2004 – only 7 months after Ryan's death.

Less than two years later, Vermont's Suicide Prevention Law (Act 114) was enacted, virtually unchanged from the draft John submitted. The bill provides for equipping teachers and other professionals to recognize and respond to teen depression and the risks of suicide.

If you would like to learn more about how to bring programs like the ones John Halligan inspired in Vermont, you can write johnhalligan@inbox.com.

• Learn about cyber bullying
• Teen suicide
• Teen suicide prevention
• The role of gatekeepers
• See more pictures of Ryan.