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I've decided to need to write this, I don't know what this thread will be at the end.
I grew up in a small town, now I didn't actually live in the town I lived on an old farm where my mom grew up a 5-10 minute drive outside of said town. I still currently live there. Now the school I went to for grades jk to 8 was pretty much for that town only and I think we only had a few hundred students. I'm honestly not sure. At some point it stopped having all grades at one school and split them between two schools, one at the top of the hill the other the bottom of the hill. Not far apart at all.
I honestly don't remember when it started in earnest but I know it started early, some students decided I was their entertainment. It was mostly the older kids but it spread, almost like an infection and over time it became a lot of people older and younger. Based on how the teachers and my parents responded I learned that it wasn't going to stop because the people with the power weren't going to do a fucking thing to stop it. See the thing was they kept thinking I was the problem, which doesn't explain why my sister started to get it too. There is one good thing is shared background has led to me and my sister being very close, almost mind reading at points. Basically I was a pariah, when most people talk about bullying they talk about an individual or a group. I had about half the school in the end, at least that's how it felt.
Sure there were a lot of people who just stayed out of it altogether and to be honest some probably did try to be nice but by then I learned it was just easier to push people away. It's funny it wasn't being beaten up that bugged me, it wasn't always the insults, it was the looks. The looks people gave me said one simple thing, you are not human and you are not wanted. People would follow me around commenting on everything I did, it was like I had my own personal narrator, a narrator that hated my guts.
I learned not how to interact with people but how to limit my interactions with them. I wore track pants to school to avoid changing for gym because being alone in the change room with all the other boys for any time at all scared me. I would use any excuse to get out of going to school that I could and it drove my parents nuts but what was the point, I could never concentrate and I'd come home feeling like crap. I couldn't even read a book outside without a group of people harassing me.
Like I said they thought I was the problem, they kept trying to make me socialize with the people treating me like crap. One teacher threatened me with detention if I didn't go play games at lunch, these days I'd tell her to go fuck herself. I was criticized if I didn't play tetherball with students she specifically told to ask me. In later grades it was decided that I would stay inside in the library for my own safety. Think about that for a minute. I didn't mind because it meant I finally got a bit of what I wanted, to just be left alone. I always noticed that if I misbehaved I got in more trouble than they did. I'm not going to list off all of the times I was beat up or attacked or stalked. I had to wear clothing with no labels whatsoever, the one time I wore a gatorade shirt I heard about it endlessly, though I started wearing it more as a protest. I remember in grade six being pulled behind the shed and having older kids shove ice down my pants. I remember being whipped in the face with a skipping rope and he was made to apologize and I was forced to "accept" the apology. I remember someone four years older than me throwing me in a river and then beating up me twice more later that same day.
I was friends with anyone who would give me the time of day really which was basically all of two people. A few more in highschool but not many. Eventually I left that school and entered the wonderful realm of highschool. Where now I had to put up with even more assholes. Honestly half of highschool is just memories of me being angry constantly, a red haze. A lot of the people from my school went to the same highschool I did in the bigger town twenty minutes away. The pattern of they can do whatever and I'm told to just ignore it WHICH NEVER FUCKING WORKS, but heaven forbid I do anything. I mean they were allowed to throw half eaten apples at me from the bus window when it pulled away but the one day I threw something back (a pen) I got kicked off the bus for three days, it probably had something to do with my parents calling the driver's supervisor. Or the person who signed me up for the school's talent show to eat an elephant's dick. I missed out on a trip to greece thanks to these assholes. None of the teachers were willing to endorse me as someone who could handle being in groups because they would see me telling the bullies to go away.
See I didn't learn social skills I learned defense mechanisms. I learned that while ignoring never stopped them it would at least not give them any more ammo. I learned to never ever go into the cafeteria during lunch where half the school was. I learned just make it through the day and go home and try to have some peace and quiet from a family that would never leave me alone. My mom would pester me with questions about my day when I just wanted to tune out and finally I had to tell her no more questions. My sister was a teenage girl, sometimes great sometimes a bitch.
These defense mechanisms helped but didn't stop it, it didn't stop a girl older than me sitting next to me on the bus refusing to let me move to another seat, grabbing at my hair and pulling on my pants continuously while someone from behind me kept throwing food at me. Basically this is what I mean when I say I was nonsexually molested. It may not sound like much but you're trapped with someone older than you, stronger than you who won't stop touching you while making fun of you while everyone else around does absolutely nothing and you tell me how fucking minor it is. I'm not even listing a tenth of what happened to me or how many of these people were my friend in kindergarten.
The only thing that saved me was I learned how to play Magic the Gathering and started going to the local cardshop. I made friends, got out of the house and started to take some of the edges of my habits but honestly all I really learned was the biggest loudest jerk was the most popular. People made fun of me for playing it at school but honestly it gave me something to focus on, it gave me something in common with some people and it was somethign to do. However it was not easy to find a place to play at school "if we let you use the room we have to let everyone use the room" "you can't play cards in the library because the other people who play cards make a mess" bullshit.
Eventually I managed to graduate, I had decent grades but it was just I didn't do something crazy and get expelled. I chose the school I went to for college based mainly off the fact that noone else I knew was going. I had to get away, there was no two ways about it. It was a private school that cost shitloads and has saddled me with a lot of debt that I will have to pay back and honestly what I took was not what I wanted in the end. I'm still in school when I graduated highschool 10 years ago. I'm a grad student now for programming but I had to get away and it cost a lot of money but through that I made some friends, once again through magic, and filtered a lot of crap from my soul.
To be honest part of still being in school the first school I went to was crap, 40 hours of class a week plus homework so I didn't realize until after I burned out.
I went to the local college back here for programming, timed it to graduate with the recession and ended up needing a degree not a diploma so I went to a university that had an agreement with the college to skip half the credits, but there were some small breaks where i did try to job hunt but failed. I went to grad school because my grades were good enough to get some good scholarships to the points I get to keep most of TA salary as well as work part time without adding or needing to pay my student loan yet.
The end result is I'm 27, I'm still in school because honestly I wasn't allowed to grow up until after highschool because any attempt to be myself got me harassed to no end. I'm saddled with a large student debt (bigger than most mortgages) and honestly Is till really don't know how to deal with people nor do I like to. I've learned to be on my own, I've learned to enjoy playing video games, reading and watching tv because it's just easier. When I'm around people except for a select few I;m still on the defensive, I'm always wondering when the insults are going to start or in my bosses case when he's going to yell for no reason. I don't mind being on m own most of the time but I wich people would leave it the hell alone, my family keeps pushing me to make friends or asking me about it but honestly I really don't care, I still usually just want to be left alone. I'm a hermit and I'm fine with it because first off I tend to put my foot in mouth as I don't always know when to stop. It takes me time to process things and I don't always get the joke and I've found that people not only don't like to explain the joke but won't altogether leaving me confused while they look at me like I'm an idiot. Even my own family does this, I do something a different way or don't like to do something and the look at me like I'm nuts, I see it in their eyes. I've given up trying to explain things to people because they usually will roll they eyes at me like I'm a lunatic. I don't like dealing with people because people are fucking nuts. I'm supposed to accept everything they do but nothing I do is acceptable. I've learned that basically I'm better off just doing my best to get through the day until I can go home and just be by myself.
I do have some friends, but I really only see a few them at all regularly, I follow a routine, in highschool I would go to teh magic tournament every friday, almost never missed any because that's what friday was, period. I gamed with my friend on sundays because that's what sunday was period. I am not one that tends to initiate the hang out, months go by when I don't see some friends. If you invite me out to something I will probably say yes but the urge to cancel and stay home is gigantic as is the anxiety too. The worst part is, people just don't get it. They refuse to get it.
I'm an abuse victim, and honestly I am different, maybe not genetically, maybe not chemically but I am different from most people. I don't process things the same, I've learned to be by myself jsut out of simplicity and I honestly really don't know how to handle people without it being exhausting.
I can handle being around people, I've learned how to fake it. I'm good at selling stuff at work becuse I know my tech and the sales conversation is so formulaic that I know what to expect. The thing about faking it is that it never stops being fake. people give the fake it until you mean advice never realizing the fake it part never actually stops.
The funny things is, social issues aside, anger issues aside I really do like myself. I'm not perfect but I'm ok with that. sure I get lonely sometimes but not often. Honestly its fine, but thats the part people really don't get, I'm fine with how things are. Stop pushing me to go out more, stop pushing me to make friends stop bothering me. All you do is make me want to hide in my room more. If I want to go I'll do it in my own time. If I do go out don't ask me 500 questions or act surprised or make jokes, that all just gets me frustrated and again makes me want to go back upstairs and forget the whole thing.
By the way the reason I was bullied? I am fat. That's really it, that's what made my life a living hell. Of course the stress eating didn't really help with that.
I grew up in a small town, now I didn't actually live in the town I lived on an old farm where my mom grew up a 5-10 minute drive outside of said town. I still currently live there. Now the school I went to for grades jk to 8 was pretty much for that town only and I think we only had a few hundred students. I'm honestly not sure. At some point it stopped having all grades at one school and split them between two schools, one at the top of the hill the other the bottom of the hill. Not far apart at all.
I honestly don't remember when it started in earnest but I know it started early, some students decided I was their entertainment. It was mostly the older kids but it spread, almost like an infection and over time it became a lot of people older and younger. Based on how the teachers and my parents responded I learned that it wasn't going to stop because the people with the power weren't going to do a fucking thing to stop it. See the thing was they kept thinking I was the problem, which doesn't explain why my sister started to get it too. There is one good thing is shared background has led to me and my sister being very close, almost mind reading at points. Basically I was a pariah, when most people talk about bullying they talk about an individual or a group. I had about half the school in the end, at least that's how it felt.
Sure there were a lot of people who just stayed out of it altogether and to be honest some probably did try to be nice but by then I learned it was just easier to push people away. It's funny it wasn't being beaten up that bugged me, it wasn't always the insults, it was the looks. The looks people gave me said one simple thing, you are not human and you are not wanted. People would follow me around commenting on everything I did, it was like I had my own personal narrator, a narrator that hated my guts.
I learned not how to interact with people but how to limit my interactions with them. I wore track pants to school to avoid changing for gym because being alone in the change room with all the other boys for any time at all scared me. I would use any excuse to get out of going to school that I could and it drove my parents nuts but what was the point, I could never concentrate and I'd come home feeling like crap. I couldn't even read a book outside without a group of people harassing me.
Like I said they thought I was the problem, they kept trying to make me socialize with the people treating me like crap. One teacher threatened me with detention if I didn't go play games at lunch, these days I'd tell her to go fuck herself. I was criticized if I didn't play tetherball with students she specifically told to ask me. In later grades it was decided that I would stay inside in the library for my own safety. Think about that for a minute. I didn't mind because it meant I finally got a bit of what I wanted, to just be left alone. I always noticed that if I misbehaved I got in more trouble than they did. I'm not going to list off all of the times I was beat up or attacked or stalked. I had to wear clothing with no labels whatsoever, the one time I wore a gatorade shirt I heard about it endlessly, though I started wearing it more as a protest. I remember in grade six being pulled behind the shed and having older kids shove ice down my pants. I remember being whipped in the face with a skipping rope and he was made to apologize and I was forced to "accept" the apology. I remember someone four years older than me throwing me in a river and then beating up me twice more later that same day.
I was friends with anyone who would give me the time of day really which was basically all of two people. A few more in highschool but not many. Eventually I left that school and entered the wonderful realm of highschool. Where now I had to put up with even more assholes. Honestly half of highschool is just memories of me being angry constantly, a red haze. A lot of the people from my school went to the same highschool I did in the bigger town twenty minutes away. The pattern of they can do whatever and I'm told to just ignore it WHICH NEVER FUCKING WORKS, but heaven forbid I do anything. I mean they were allowed to throw half eaten apples at me from the bus window when it pulled away but the one day I threw something back (a pen) I got kicked off the bus for three days, it probably had something to do with my parents calling the driver's supervisor. Or the person who signed me up for the school's talent show to eat an elephant's dick. I missed out on a trip to greece thanks to these assholes. None of the teachers were willing to endorse me as someone who could handle being in groups because they would see me telling the bullies to go away.
See I didn't learn social skills I learned defense mechanisms. I learned that while ignoring never stopped them it would at least not give them any more ammo. I learned to never ever go into the cafeteria during lunch where half the school was. I learned just make it through the day and go home and try to have some peace and quiet from a family that would never leave me alone. My mom would pester me with questions about my day when I just wanted to tune out and finally I had to tell her no more questions. My sister was a teenage girl, sometimes great sometimes a bitch.
These defense mechanisms helped but didn't stop it, it didn't stop a girl older than me sitting next to me on the bus refusing to let me move to another seat, grabbing at my hair and pulling on my pants continuously while someone from behind me kept throwing food at me. Basically this is what I mean when I say I was nonsexually molested. It may not sound like much but you're trapped with someone older than you, stronger than you who won't stop touching you while making fun of you while everyone else around does absolutely nothing and you tell me how fucking minor it is. I'm not even listing a tenth of what happened to me or how many of these people were my friend in kindergarten.
The only thing that saved me was I learned how to play Magic the Gathering and started going to the local cardshop. I made friends, got out of the house and started to take some of the edges of my habits but honestly all I really learned was the biggest loudest jerk was the most popular. People made fun of me for playing it at school but honestly it gave me something to focus on, it gave me something in common with some people and it was somethign to do. However it was not easy to find a place to play at school "if we let you use the room we have to let everyone use the room" "you can't play cards in the library because the other people who play cards make a mess" bullshit.
Eventually I managed to graduate, I had decent grades but it was just I didn't do something crazy and get expelled. I chose the school I went to for college based mainly off the fact that noone else I knew was going. I had to get away, there was no two ways about it. It was a private school that cost shitloads and has saddled me with a lot of debt that I will have to pay back and honestly what I took was not what I wanted in the end. I'm still in school when I graduated highschool 10 years ago. I'm a grad student now for programming but I had to get away and it cost a lot of money but through that I made some friends, once again through magic, and filtered a lot of crap from my soul.
To be honest part of still being in school the first school I went to was crap, 40 hours of class a week plus homework so I didn't realize until after I burned out.
I went to the local college back here for programming, timed it to graduate with the recession and ended up needing a degree not a diploma so I went to a university that had an agreement with the college to skip half the credits, but there were some small breaks where i did try to job hunt but failed. I went to grad school because my grades were good enough to get some good scholarships to the points I get to keep most of TA salary as well as work part time without adding or needing to pay my student loan yet.
The end result is I'm 27, I'm still in school because honestly I wasn't allowed to grow up until after highschool because any attempt to be myself got me harassed to no end. I'm saddled with a large student debt (bigger than most mortgages) and honestly Is till really don't know how to deal with people nor do I like to. I've learned to be on my own, I've learned to enjoy playing video games, reading and watching tv because it's just easier. When I'm around people except for a select few I;m still on the defensive, I'm always wondering when the insults are going to start or in my bosses case when he's going to yell for no reason. I don't mind being on m own most of the time but I wich people would leave it the hell alone, my family keeps pushing me to make friends or asking me about it but honestly I really don't care, I still usually just want to be left alone. I'm a hermit and I'm fine with it because first off I tend to put my foot in mouth as I don't always know when to stop. It takes me time to process things and I don't always get the joke and I've found that people not only don't like to explain the joke but won't altogether leaving me confused while they look at me like I'm an idiot. Even my own family does this, I do something a different way or don't like to do something and the look at me like I'm nuts, I see it in their eyes. I've given up trying to explain things to people because they usually will roll they eyes at me like I'm a lunatic. I don't like dealing with people because people are fucking nuts. I'm supposed to accept everything they do but nothing I do is acceptable. I've learned that basically I'm better off just doing my best to get through the day until I can go home and just be by myself.
I do have some friends, but I really only see a few them at all regularly, I follow a routine, in highschool I would go to teh magic tournament every friday, almost never missed any because that's what friday was, period. I gamed with my friend on sundays because that's what sunday was period. I am not one that tends to initiate the hang out, months go by when I don't see some friends. If you invite me out to something I will probably say yes but the urge to cancel and stay home is gigantic as is the anxiety too. The worst part is, people just don't get it. They refuse to get it.
I'm an abuse victim, and honestly I am different, maybe not genetically, maybe not chemically but I am different from most people. I don't process things the same, I've learned to be by myself jsut out of simplicity and I honestly really don't know how to handle people without it being exhausting.
I can handle being around people, I've learned how to fake it. I'm good at selling stuff at work becuse I know my tech and the sales conversation is so formulaic that I know what to expect. The thing about faking it is that it never stops being fake. people give the fake it until you mean advice never realizing the fake it part never actually stops.
The funny things is, social issues aside, anger issues aside I really do like myself. I'm not perfect but I'm ok with that. sure I get lonely sometimes but not often. Honestly its fine, but thats the part people really don't get, I'm fine with how things are. Stop pushing me to go out more, stop pushing me to make friends stop bothering me. All you do is make me want to hide in my room more. If I want to go I'll do it in my own time. If I do go out don't ask me 500 questions or act surprised or make jokes, that all just gets me frustrated and again makes me want to go back upstairs and forget the whole thing.
By the way the reason I was bullied? I am fat. That's really it, that's what made my life a living hell. Of course the stress eating didn't really help with that.
She did NOT get in trouble for that at all, cause it was needed. Some people don't learn except when hit back.
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