Tormented in School

I got a lot of bullying.

For heaps of things.

For being asian (i wasn't but that didn't stop them thinking I was), for being intelligent, for being academic, for being effeminate, for having a different accent or pronouncing words differently, for having a brother with darker skin (we used to look almost like twins but he got the tanning gene and I didn't), for having divorced parents... I could go on for ages.

I got verbal harassment, often daily, physical attacks, theft of and destruction of property (including from our shed when they learned where I lived at one point).

The physical attacks included being spat on, being ambushed (so much so I developed randomised ways to walk to and from school and to and from each class), I was attacked with: acid, a bunson burner, a firework, a chisel, a broom, a soldering iron, a knife and a four-wheeled drive utility.

Yes they tried to run me over as I rode home from school!

One punch in late primary school left me with a weak blood vessel in my nose which resulted for years in unpredictable nosebleeds, many quite severe (when you bleed so much your funeral director/paramedic friend is astonished your still alive it's impressive :) ). The boy was awarded a sportsmanship trophy that year by the way.

I had a few friends at each school I went to, but was so different that at each I was severely bullied (3 different highschools in three different towns, even more primary schools).

The schools encouraged conformity to avoid bullying.. or rather they used bullying as a way to ensure conformity. Teachers were sometimes complicit in some of the lower level harassment (or outright guilty of it themselves) and complaints led to me and not that assaulter being sent to a school counseler who proposed? Conformity! So I made a habit of defying them as overtly as I could and very covertly too.

After studying martial arts I became a pacifist, the last person that attacked me who was the terror of the bus stop for many kids I finally got annoyed with (after rolling with 16 punches to the left cheekbone, the martial arts was handy for avoiding damage) and forced the school to finally act by threatening to call the police and have him charged on school grounds when parents were arriving to pick up their kids. They expelled him. He then went to jail some years later for assaulting someone else. I since heard from the mother of someone who knew him that his father beat up him, his borthers and his mother on a regular basis... which is often how these things work.

The physical stress of constant attacks though made my pre-existing mild chronic fatigue syndrome severe (though it took 5 years to diagnose it) resulting in 16 years of disability and counting, it will likely be life-long. But at least it's been years since a cup's worth or more sized nosebleed!

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Originally Posted by Marshchild

Interestingly, I enjoyed at least a couple of periods of popularity during my school years. At one time during primary school, for example, my classmates thought I was so cool they'd actually pick me up and carry me around like I was some kind of god in human form or something (no, seriously) - I wish I could remember what I'd done to earn that kind of treatment! - while during my final years, I became so unabashedly eccentric that people either admired me for my ballsiness or simply left me alone. It was probably for that reason that I was able to wear pink satin pyjamas on my final school camp, and live to tell the tale!

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Amusingly when i was trying to repeat year 11 after having lost too many days the previous year from 'a mystery viral infection', later diagnosed CFS) and over a year since getting the other kid expelled, after a spectacular nosebleed leaving a trail of blood from one end of the school literally to the other as i travelled to the infirmary with cupped hands overflowing with blood a delegation of classmates came to visit me to se that I was ok.

I did make some friends. Though by that time i was suspicious of betrayel (i'd had plenty of that before) and fairly closed off. And on this day one kid who was in my maths class said:

"God made (Batty) sick because he didn't want the competition!"

:D

I may have lost track of him years ago but that humerous line sustained me for years of suffering as i was putting myself back together, unlocking all the walls I built up to protect myself and coping with the worsening disability.

One sentance was more powerful than a hundred punches.

I feel pretty lucky now. I skated through school getting high enough marks to fit in the "smart" kids clique but not good enough to get into the jocks and slu...uh I mean popular girls clique. I wanted a cheerleader back then but don't remember why. I was teased about being more of a sissy and the girls I knew treated me like a girlfriend when they wanted to complain about their boyfriends (and I always thought I wouldn't treat you that way). But all in all it was a very good year

Yeah, I got picked on. By some. I was fat, unathletic, feminine in a lot of ways and didn't fit in with the masses. I was friends with the other odd balls. I hid my cross dressing so no one knew about that thankfully. Back then, I had no clue about why I had to dress up in my Mom's clothes. All I knew was that at that time (early 60's) it wasn't "right" I was a guy after all. At least that thing I had said so even though I felt I shouldn't have it, so for years I tried to be the guy. Growing a beard, it was the 60's after all, trying to do what I and society considered manly things but to no avail. Still hung out with my fellow weirdos and enjoyed their company.
If I knew then what I know now? Who knows. I can't have regrets and play the "what if" game.
All in all, being the strange one hasn't been too bad. I've enjoyed my 58 years.

i used to get pick on mostly because during recess we used to play baseball and i was always on the girls team.hee-hee, we used to beat the boys all the time.

I was picked on mostly because my dad was a teacher and later on became the principal of the grade school when I was in third grade or so.. was picked on more because of that although I did side with the girls on a few issues.. such as Christmas presents, the boys being greedy wanted to get something from everybody and I sided with the girls wanting to just do a name drawing, and there were six and six in the class so I often sided with the girls.. they just were more mature and smarter than most of the boys were.. they didn't know I wore pantyhose or stockings every now and then.. very rarely back in the years between first grade and junior high.. and then.. well you know.. puberty...

It is probably quite common for a lot of people to catch hell from someone during school years. I would imagine 2 out of 3 people in general would say they hated school or got picked on a lot, at least at some point.

I don't think too may people have particularly fond memories of school, especially junior high.

For me, 7th, 8th 10th were my worst years.
Rest of the time, I don't think I caught much more hell than anyone else.

You know, one of the biggest fears or phobias is social situations. I wonder why.

As a kid in grade school I always tried to be as much of a boy as I could possibly be. Good at sports and rough and tumble because thats what I thought everyone expected of me. My real desires were to cross over the line and be with the girls as a girl. I had to fight that desire in very strong ways. We had a boy in our class that did exactly that. He was with the girls doing girly things more than he was with the boys. He wasn't treated very well by the rest of the school.
The major thing that I had problems with was that I had a very feminine looking face. Many people commented on it; especially grown-ups. If I wore a hat you would swear I looked like a girl. Very embarrassing when you're trying to convince everyone otherwise.
If I could go back I would be myself and take my lumps. Isn't hindsight wonderful?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by battybattybats

One sentance was more powerful than a hundred punches.

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That just took my breath away. Utterly beautiful.

I was 5'2" when i was a senior. I grow 6" after high school started working out and got pretty big.

I got picked on because I was small. I did kick some butt in high school. I was a wrestler and could put you on the ground and pin you and than hit you as hard as my little arms could. LOL..... Never hurt no one. They were amazed as to how fast I was.

I admit, I was a target for bullys. But my feminine nature didn't have much to do with it really. I was smart enough to keep it under cover.
I got picked on simpliy because I just didn't fir with any crowd.

I was always viewed as someone different, someone that was easy to be picked on: somehow other guys knew this even though I always tried to act really tough.
High school was really tough for me, but I survived it, and I think it actually prepared me to survive in the real world. In business or in every day transactions, now I can tell when people are trying to take advantage of me and I immediatly put a stop to it. Results and the right attitude is the only thing that is important in my business, and the bullys can't get you if you already know their ways.

I had an ugly birthmark that most kids felt was absolutely disgusting; I grew up with having my peers dare each other to touch me, like I was a leper or something. A few times, they would push a girl into me and press her against me, and she would run away crying and screaming like I was a monster or something, going to the girls room to wash any part of herself that touched me. Tormented? Yes, I guess you could say that. Hence, I had no friends growing up. This went on to some degree all the way through high school.

I was always physically abused up until my 5th grade year. I knocked a kid with 25#'s and two years on m flat on his ass and walked away like nothing had happened. Something apparently clicked in the minds of my tormentors, cause I never had another one touch me again. Now they kept up the mental aspect, but the physical stopped then and there.