Dodson recently visited the “Judge Alex” show, during a special episode focusing on bullying, to discuss his troubled years on the receiving end of attacks by bullies.
“I was a victim of being bullied as a child for a very long time,” said Dodson, adding that his bullying began at a very early age. “Probably, I can say, around the second or third grade.”
Further into the interview, Dodson revealed that one bullying incident in the fifth grade involving a regular tormentor became so heated that he stabbed his bully with a knife that he’d brought from home.
“He poured Decon [rat poison] into my cereal, and it started boiling, and I automatically just got up, just went off, went crazy and, you know, I just stabbed his hand,” said Dodson.
Dodson was arrested on the spot, but he was spared jail time by a lenient judge, leaving him to serve only a 10-day suspension from school.
Despite his bullying problems reaching such a feverish pitch and repeatedly informing his mother and school of his bullying problems, Dodson claims that he continued to be bullied up until he graduated from high school.
Although he doesn’t fully blame his mother or his school system for the attacks, Dodson admits that he believes they failed to protect him.
“I do blame them partially because if my mother would’ve went [sic] to the school and been to the PTA meetings and talked to my teachers and talked to the principal and talked with the staff members and interacted with the school more, she would’ve known what was going on in my life at school,” explained Dodson.
Considering the highly publicized suicides of several LGBT teens caused by bullying that occurred last year and the numerous other cases that happen in American schools each year, Dodson’s choice to share his story is both timely and admirable. –nicholas robinson
