were you picked on in high school?

was it living hell? did you "not fit in"? are you still trying to wipe it from your memory?


for me , it's


yes
yes
yes

I stopped participating in school at age 12, and quit at 16.

It was horrible.

and i fought him (and two other foot ball players) off and i busted them up pretty good (i was stabbed in the shoulder) and I got expelled

Well, after all, we COULDN'T have the glorious jocks all sullied with assault charges!! And I bet you even had to go sit through their fucking pep rallies too, forced to applaud your attackers!

I still celebrate the anniversary of my HS graduatiion, May 22nd. That was the happiest day of my life!!

destroying the financial interest of the school, they were lucky i diddent have my gun, but i busted THIER arms.

at school did were WORSE.

in my shoulder

But, in reality, it's been 23 years. I've been dealing with that shit ever since.

My story's not as bad as yours Rad...but it still sucked being me.

:shrug:

11 years of education hell.

I remember those days as if they were yesterday, and I see your face(s) as clear as day.

Most of the other memories of school have long faded, but I remember those 2 people who stood up for me. Thanks! It meant a lot.

Or dead.

One's dead, two are in prison, one's been divorced several times and owes all his paycheck to child support.

The best revenge is living well. Or, better than your enemies, at least.

Or in prison.

1) The people at the lab station next to mine in Junior year chemistry had stolen glassware from my drawer all year long.

The last day of class, when the glassware was to be inventoried, I mixed up a batch of nitrogen tri-iodide monoamine (mix iodine crystals with ammonia water, and filter the black precipitate).

It is extremely unstable when dry. I put the filter paper with that in their glass drawer when wet. The moment they tried to open the drawer to inventory the glassware, KA-BOOM. Nothing left but sand in their drawer.

2) Somebody on the cross-country team kept stealing my snacks (and then my tapes) out of my duffel bag when we took the bus to a meet. So, I baked some very strong chocolate ex-lax brownies the night before state finals. I put them in my bag, and put the bag on the bus while we all got ready to leave. The brownies were gone when I re-boarded the bus. There was a 2.5 hour trip to the meet. The perpetrators had brown shit stains all over their shorts and horrible cramping by the time we got to the meet. They sprinted to the outhouses and stayed there the whole time.

i love that!!:yourock:

nt

We formed our own gang and took pleasure in exacting revenge on people who picked on us.

The movie Revenge of the Nerds looks more like a documentary to me than a comedy, though it is pretty damn funny.

I wasn't a jock and couldn't fight, but I had one vicious tongue. Comedy is a great defense mechanism.

Junior high was pure hell for me, but I made a comeback in high school to the point that I was in the "upper-middle class" on the popularity scale by the time I graduated.

High School was much better.

this one bully used to lead 3 of his other buddies in tormenting me when I was walking to a certain class. I was always reading and he'd always rip pages out of my books, etc...

He died 3 years later in a motorcycle accident. No helmet.

Or as I like to refer to it, "the hell years". I did OK in high school, but I've never known such humiliation as I knew in junior high.

The memory of one particular bully haunted my thoughts for years afterward. During one summer after my freshman year in college, I couldn't take it anymore so I looked him up, with the intention of giving him the beating of his life. I knocked on his mother's door, hiding a metal pipe up my sleeve. His mom answered and told me that he was currently in prison for armed robbery. I gave my condolences to her, and since then I've considered the matter closed. He's probably gone through more shit than I ever could've inflicted upon him. Somehow, that thought doesn't bother me too much.

I'll also add that I've never considered indulging a violent urge since that day in 1986. I changed for the better, and he's still someone's girlfriend.

Well, we didn't have junior high, just grade school and high school. But my situation worsened miserably as I got older, and it became obvious to everyone except me, that I was 'different' so far as sexual oriantation went. Myself, I was 16 as a senior, and didn't give a shit about dating ANYone, female or male (which would have been impossible in 1966 anyway).

Of course the jocks were the worst (a bunch of leering semi morans, they appeared to me), but the 'in-crowd' was as bad.
I had such an attitude towards most everyone, especially the fucking teachers (who favored the jocks), that by the time I left I was isolated and hated everyone in the fucking school. Even today, 37 years later, I sometimes run into one of those people, and even though they try to be friendly, I usually insult them, by pretending that I don't remember them.
I celebrate May 22nd every year, as the anniversary of my liberation from that hell.

But a month later, in college, I thought I had gone to 'heaven'. Totally utterly different. Had more friends than I could party with!!!!

But I felt more or less invisible to the "popular crowd". I guess that is a lot better than being public enemy #1 in high school circles.

At 14 I turned cute and had all the friends and boyfriends I wanted. Years later I was accused of only have pretty friends. I swear I was never deliberately mean to anybody, but I guess just ignoring people is bad enough.

Then one day I reached my breaking point and beat the shit out of the ring leader with a 2x4 in shop class. Broke his arm. None of his little gang ever messed with me again.

a good student
in the band
horribly naive
dating the brainiest girl in school

On the other hand, I was...

a brown belt in karate
on the wrestling team
dating the brainiest girl in school

I got more than my fair share of being picked on, but thankfully I was never "the easy target". I was adept at fading into the background when the was a large unruly crowd around. It's a talent.

a bi boy in high school

i wanted to be a cheerleader soooo bad

but mine freeper parents said male cheerleaders are fags

so in mom& dad's eyes the prez bushie must be the queen fag of america

Bi male..... yet I never wanted to be a cheerleader. I was on the football team :)

the slackjawed no-brains or the skinny haters?

for me. I was always very shy and small so I got picked on a lot in school. 7-9th grade were the worst though.

But High School was OK, I was just a nonentity by then. x( I had one other good friend on H.S. but we got together infrequently.

College was much better socially. I loved it.

i had the misfortune of being poor at a snotty catholic school K-5. after that the most awkward transition into public middle school. by high school i was just depressed and cynical. didn't hit stride until early 20s, and people wonder how it could have been so hard?


"and i hope never to return" (paraphrasing frieda kahlo)

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I couldn't win.

Throughout Middle School people called me gay... Once I got into high school..... they made fun of me because of my political ideas.

I can't figure out what is worse.

I'm still dealing with the psychological scars I received from those hate-mongering fuckwads.

I was liberated from high school hell in 1967, but still, I react to certain 'stimuli' in a way that I suspect was grounded in the years of shit I had to put up with. I was skinny and wimpy then (only 16 when I graduated), but now I am considerably larger. When I think that I am being 'confronted' now, my reaction is often an overreaction, due to high school conditioning, and it's not good. I don't know what to tell you, except to realize the extent of that period's influence on you, and to take it into consideration.

Myself, I guess I have a lifetime quick temper now, because of it.

I really didn't like high school---I felt too out of place, but then I was in the Yearbook and Newspaper clubs, so I had my own cliques.

i've recently began pondering whether man is inherently evil or not.. and high school came to mind.



funny thing was i was skinny and a target until sophmore year when i started growing exponentially and lifting weights, suddenly people that were antagonistic were my friends out of fear of being pummeled to death.

freshman-108 pounds
beginning of junior year-177 pounds w/ 7 % bodyfat

i ran in to one particularly bad offender years later.. this guy smacked in the face with a history book so hard my ears rang. it was all i could do from beating him severely right there in the auto parts store, but the owner was a friend of mine so i just let him leave.

and in junior high. These were the years I spent in San Luis Obispo. Nice town, shitty kids.

My friend and I were called the 'sonny liston and casious clay (before he became mohamad ali) of the school. It all started with me walking down the hall and some girl taunted me and I just thrashed the crap out of her...me being first year and her being third year...well it heartened me. Then I was called down to the principals office because I had cigaretts purchased overseas and given to me by the people I babysat for...back then...teen age smoking was not what it is today and was accused of distrubiting marijuania...which was not as bad back then either...no police...just the principal. At which time I decided I was a bad ass with a bad reputation so I was going to utilize my sudden fame and be a mean mfker...which I am NOT!!!

Oh yes...they did not know that I spent most of my youth in a reform school and spent 10 days in solarity confinement for hitting some chick accused of raping other girls???

this is why I was NEVER COOL!

Sometimes people shut their emotions down as a defense mechanism against further taunting or emotional trauma, as you did when you "decided" you were a bully.

I'm glad that you were able to get back in touch with your true self, and not give in completely to the callousness that surrounded you.

I'm curious...What do you feel was the turning point in your life that brought you back to yourself?

youth. I decided I did not want to go to heaven cause a priest told me my cat would not be there with me. I was sent to reform school because my mother decided I was 'incouragable'...though I recall the happiest moments of my life was walking to the store for my mother to buy a loaf of bread and returning with handfulls of mimosa 'flowers' for her, and being lied to by my probation officer promisimg me I WOULD NOT be returned to reform school...and she suggested to the judge that I be RETURNED to reform school....it was a false promise to make me show up for court...cause my ONLY crime was being a run away. I was never cruel...but I became so angry at people I could not strike out at...I did ...for a short time (thank goodness) strike out when given the reputation and the opportunity. I stopped all fighting in high school and tried to join the tri hi y but one of the girls I beat up was on the board...and one black marble and you cannot join... so I just kinda drifted in high school,...got my GED..and went to college at Providence College and Old Dominion...I found out that learning was actually FUN!!!

High school was better, as there were plenty of music and drama nerds to hang out with.

I saw one of my tormenters at my 20 year reunion. She wasn't the worst of the bunch; but she went along with the hecklers since it would've been "uncool" to stand up for me. I talked with her a bit about my then-10 year old, and mentioned that his temperment was a lot like mine. Her comment was "Oh my god...they're breeeeeeding!"

Sensitivity doesn't always grow with age.

ANY observable flaw on her part. If she didn't have kids that would have been perfect, but I would have found something.

Maybe that's why they left me alone.

All the kids there were related to someone who “mattered” in the community except for the scholarship students. On the first day freshmen year all the kids were comparing pedigree (my father is a Sr. VP at X Fortune 500 Company, you get the picture), and I found it nauseating. So I told the others that my father was a janitor at the institution where he was in fact President, and let the matter rest at that. Naturally I wasn’t very popular at the school. Anyway, at the first gathering of parents and students my father was obviously known to the other parents, and not as a janitor. The next day at school a few of the students asked why I said my father was a janitor when he wasn’t, I didn’t have a good answer and still don’t.

I dropped out of high school before graduation and went on to college.

Fucked with. And until I learned to respond in kind, that's what i got. So I learned how to fight, and learned how to hurt my opponent fast, and that horseshit stopped. Didn't happen overnight though, and I took a few knots on my head in the learning process.

I get along, don't get too much attention, tolerated by most, invisible to many.

i didn't give a rat's ass about the majority of my classmates.

i remember some fiedtrip we went on to a courthouse or something, i guess i was 16-17 or so, and i got all dressed up. as i got on the bus some girl that barely acknowledged me was like "wow! you look nice!"

i said.. "i know."

then i went and sat at the back of the bus :bounce:

When I was in 8th grade, several of the psychological bully girls in my class got together to write a note to put in my locker that suggested that because I was such a socially deficient loser, I shouldn't breed. There wasn't really any physical bullying -- that wouldn't have worked on me because I grew up with a younger brother and two older male cousins next door, I'd simply have decked anybody who picked on me physically.

I remember when I was fourteen years old having one of two moments in my life when I could easily have committed suicide.

What's more, my folks didn't back me up for a minute. 'Walk it off, get over it, high school only lasts for four years -- it'll be over soon.' They never once went to bat for me. That job was left to my teachers, which just made me that much more vulnerable to psychological torture.

But when I got my driver's license when I was sixteen, I started hanging around with a bunch of people from the next town over who didn't know me. I reinvented myself, and I reinvented myself as a pretty cool chick who knew a lot about cars and music. Most of the people I made friends with weren't exactly what you'd call 'winners,' but they also knew about music, or cars, or both -- we had a lot in common, and we had a good time together.

But between ages 11 and 16, I was in hell. Nothing I've experienced since then, from dislocation to depression to unemployment, has come close to what it was like to go to the same school for 13 years with at least 20 people who knew where all my buttons were, and many of whom enjoyed pushing them until I puked or cried or ran out of the room.

I went to my 20 year reunion a couple of years back. I looked at least five years younger than some of my former classmates, and ten years younger than the rest. The looks from the guys in my class -- who wouldn't give me the time of day, more because I was a geek than because they didn't actually like me -- were worth a lot.

I learned that living well was the best revenge long ago.

Junior High was fucking TORTURE. I attempted suicide twice in the 7th grade due to the overwhelming depression. However, I started becoming fairly popular by the 11th and 12th grade, if not at least accepted among the popular kids. Being a jock helped, too.

My popularity rose as my athletic ability became recognized. By my Junior year I was running with the really popular crowd. Did and said many things I am not proud of now. Then, senior year, I realized the unpopular kids knew about everything interesting... they got me into bands like the Clash, Ramones, Dead Kennedys. I trashed my Izod shirts and docksiders, and never looked back.

in the 5th and 6th grade. Jr High was no picnic either.
High School it got a little better. I started hangin' with the
'cool' kids then. Dang, I'm glad those day are gone.

But it wasn't an ongoing problem or anything. Isolated incidents.

got my GED and then went to college on the 17-year plan *lol*

I wasn't popular and still have to talk to a therapist about it. Lots of diappointments socially from college that still plague me to this day.

I have no idea why... }(

P.S. This guy is gonna be the next Conservative radio talk show host sensation. He just has that "look"...

a time or two.

Otherwise...not really. I did get picked on in grade school.

Then by high school, I was cuter and had big boobs. Same geek inside, but all of the sudden in 9th grade, these popular fucks were nice to me to try to get in my pants. Went from getting picked on to getting sexually harrassed. I never fit in though. I had my two groups of friends. A couple Doc Marten ripped jeans, get depressed listening to The Smiths and Depeche Mode friends and my follow chorus geek friends, but that crowd was so goody-goody. I was always the bad girl of that crowd (used to smoke and apparently certain sexual exploits with an ex-boyfriend were made public) and they made sure I knew it, but comparitively, I was a far cry from a bad girl.

I was a rather shy, sensitive child. I didn't really understand social situations as a child. I don't know if I am borderline Aspererger's syndrome, had a messed up enough childhood that I couldn't understand other people, just liked doing things my way, or a combination of all or some of the above. My mother made me feel bad about that because my younger sister was always popular. Looking back, I think that I would have done better if I didn't have that insecurity. I always had a couple friends except when I dumped them in an attempt to be accepted by the "popular" kids. The strange thing is when I did experience brief periods of true popularity, I felt overwhelmed with too many people to care about and spend time with. I guess that I was always a introverted type that preferred a few close friends, but I was made to feel that was wrong.
Anyway, academic ability wasn't exactly valued at my school, which was a detriment to me since I did very well. I joined the track team as a freshman, though, and became a phenomenal runner in a short period of time. Then I was a popular runner. It is amazing what a difference athletics made. The horrible thing is that there were some people who would talk to me all day at practice or the meets that wouldn't give me the time of day during school hours. I suppose that the torment stopped when I became a popular runner, but I still didn't fit in.
I sometimes wonder if part of it was me. I wasn't exactly the nicest person in the world either. I was so achievement driven that I was not as sensitive to those who didn't achieve as I should have been. I remember an exboyfriend feeling bad and saying the only thing that he was good at was model train set ups. I saw his set and said "That's nothing. My father is into that too and his set up is much better." I didn't even say it maliciously. You must understand that my mother was like that and that my sister and I were never doing well enough so I thought that such a statement was normal.
In college, I became socail where it wasn't as important to be social. I even joined a sorority. By the end of my freshman year, I was popular and felt overwhelmed. After that, I met my husband and had to limit my circle of friends because I didn't have time for everyone. It is easier for me to have only a few close friends while being openly friendly to everyone. I have accepeted that and have learned to meet people where they are.
I am not tormented by the memories anymore. I am growing still. As awful as my experiences were, it was necessary to help me grow into a better person and learn to be comfortable with who I am (Am I yet?)

But in High School I grew up and became pretty popular. I was lucky because I was a musician, and pretty decent at that, so I amde so popular friends. Then I hung out with the party crowd and got really bad. Then I went to Community College and got even worse, with alcohol and drugs. Now i am somewhat straightened out, although I do like to go out on weekends with friends and get shitty.

that I refuse to believe in reincarnation!

There were three factors involved. One was that I was always a bookworm, and that was not cool in the outer suburb where I spent my teen years. Another was that my mother and grandmother formed a tight, controlling team who made sure that I had very little freedom. They lived in utter fear that I would shame them by getting pregnant, so they made sure that I had no money, bought ugly clothes for me, and never wanted me to socialize with other kids. The third factor was the extreme social stratification within the school.

At the time, I needed friends who could have supported a rebellion against my overly controlling mother and grandmother. (I know this because I had such friends in college.) Instead I found constant psychological torment and ridicule from the girls and sexual harrassment from the boys. Junior high was hell from beginning to end, although senior high school was a bit better after I started acting in plays.

Still, that day in May 1968, when many in my class were crying because their golden years were over, I was absolutely high on the triumph of having survived it all.

My high school was large enough so I could lose myself in the crowd, so I was mostly ignored. After what I went through in junior high school, the last thing I wanted to do was stand out in a crowd. I even did a bit of bullying of outcasts myself because I feared being connected with anyone that was considered a geek, lesbian, gay or obese.

However, junior high school was pure misery. I was one of the shortest kids in my junior high school. The song "Short People" was popular when I was in 8th grade and other kids liked to sing it to me just to torment me. My clothes were mostly secondhand or homesewn so I got teased about that as well. The worst torments came at lunchtime because of the stuff I would bring in my lunch. My mother would give me peanut butter and marmalade sandwiches or cream cheese and jelly sandwiches both of which I hated. It was frequently on homemade bread. Classmates would steal my lunch and laugh at the contents and often I went hungry. My parents would not let me buy lunch no matter how much I complained. I rarely got beat up because I could outrun almost anyone who tried. It was my main defense against bullies. I was quite anti social as a result of all the harrassment I got, and I am still socially awkward because of it.