My wife had a small incident at the playground the other day. She was there with our 1 year old son climbing some stairs when a 5 year old boy stuck out his foot to trip him. My son stopped, but the other boy left his foot out and said “I don’t want you up here”. The boy’s father heard this and said “why don’t you want him up there? That’s not very nice. You should let him up and tell him he’s your friend”. But the boy left his foot out another few seconds before letting my wife and son through. My wife is a sweetheart, she’ll literally only argue with me, which is kind of endearing in a way, that she’s comfortable enough with me to be open. Anyways she froze, she didn’t know what to do, and later told me that she almost cried.It got me thinking about a number of things and it led me to recalling a traumatic time in high school that I don’t know where else to get off my chest so I’m here. High school scarred me pretty bad, and it’s honestly likely that I scarred a few people too, but I got to thinking about the altercation on the playground and how the father handled it and can’t hold in what I want to say.I was a loser in school. I went to a upper-middle class high school in a well populated town about 20 years ago. We had over 2,000 kids in high school and the largest cross country team in the state. I had enough friends, but only because there was so many kids, in a smaller school I would’ve likely had 0-2 friends tops. I was quite literally the first kid to dye my hair a crazy color. It was blue. I watched Dragon Ball Z every day, I even had a different DBZ T-shirt for each day of the week. I pre-ordered the first generation Pokémon game, the clerk told me I was the only one who did, which is probably true because out of 2,000 kids the Pokémon club only had about 5 of us in it. Oh, and I was fat enough to have boy-boobs. When I ran in gym class I held my shirt out so the other kids wouldn’t see them bounce. Loser.On the other hand I was smart like, really smart. I was the kid you’d cheat off of. I was consistently high honors, rarely studied, if a course had a college offering or advanced placement, I was in it. I knew I was smart, but I would’ve traded all of it just to feel normal. I didn’t know how to talk to people, and a lot of conversations were just weird with long pauses, irrelevant tangents, I was just bad at talking to people. I don’t believe you get to be strong in one area without being weak somewhere else. These are mine.In 11th grade something changed. I don’t know if my brain’s chemistry changed first or if I spent too much time in deep waters and became something else, but I fell into a deep depression.I would stay up until 4:00 am alone in my room and get up for school at 6:00. I would wonder what the point of anything was and couldn’t come up with an answer. At first I’d sit and cry because of how bad I felt. Then I started staring at the wall with a blank expression; no TV, books or games, just staring at nothing. Finally I became manic, I would rock and shake and when things got too out of control I would cut myself so that the pain could ground me and bring me back to reality. My scars are so long and deep that people today will ask about them, in complete disbelief that someone could do that to themselves. I’ve tried to kill myself twice with pills. I lost every reason to stay attached to the world. I was ready for it to be over. Fortunately I eventually started dating a girl and found a reason to stay.I hope it goes without saying that I was picked on a lot in school. There was one kid in particular who really went out of his way to torment me, let’s call him Tim. We had a few altercations, but in 12th grade things came to a head. I left my backpack in the senior lounge and left to visit with friends. When I came back Tim was going through my stuff. I yelled at him, I didn’t realize why at the time, but he looked genuinely scared and dropped it all and ran off. I thought that was the end of it.A day or two later I was called to the principle’s office, I had no idea why. Well it turned out that Tim had found my journal (my Dragon Ball Z journal). In my journal I had a list of bullies I hated. For being as smart as I was, I had labeled the list “Hit List”. I was never going to do anything, and at the time I didn’t really know why I labeled it that. I think I was trying to feel like I had some control at a chaotic time. I never fantasized about violence, it was somehow therapeutic to have the names of my bullies written down in one place, compartmentalizing it I guess.The rest of the day was talks. Talks with the principal, the superintendent, the counselor, teachers, etc. Fortunately I was a good kid, several teachers and the counselor I had been seeing vouched for me and so they decided I wasn’t a threat. I was punished though. I got one detention. In that time I was expected to write an apology letter to be sent to all of the families in the district. As an adult I totally get it, they wanted to save face, show I was playing ball and there wasn’t anything to fear, obviously rumors were going to spread.I couldn’t believe it. I was a good kid even if I was troubled. After everything I’d been through I’m expected to embarrass myself and be a whipping boy for the district? I couldn’t handle it. I went to detention and I wrote a letter but it was not an apology. I explained that I was never going to kill anyone, but I also wrote that Tim, who invaded my personal privacy didn’t face any repercussions. I explained how I was bullied by a group of kids. I asked them to consider that when a calm kid snaps, are they pushing, or are they pushing back?The letter did not go out and the matter was dropped. I was called into the office one more time within the following week because one of the girls on my list didn’t want to be in class with me. She had a thing for trying to make me look dumb in front of the class when I answered questions. She made the list when I was trying to make a point that no one was getting. I was smart, so I’m sure I was right, but I’m bad at conversing so I couldn’t get it out right. She said something to put me down and the whole class laughed at me. Anyways we met in the office and I explained to her why she was on the list and that I wasn’t going to hurt her and I was sorry for scaring her. Guess what, we became friends after that. Not close friends but we were out of our way nice to each other. I wonder if she contemplated how her actions potentially got her close to violence and changed her ways, I don’t know.Now as a relatively stable adult, I hear the story my wife tells me at the playground and I think about parents who want to “talk out feelings” with their kids. This little kid on the playground was being a dick, and he wasn’t given any reason to stop, not long term anyways. I think kids need to learn there’s repercussions for bullying. Not by getting shot or punched or spanked, but learning that being mean to others has consequences. Unless the kid has a heartfelt epiphany I don’t see how talking it out is effective.My point is this. You might think your kid is acting out a little, or overall a good kid, but to someone else they might be the bane of their existence. It was never going to be me, but I was in a place where I had nothing to lose. You don’t know if the person you’re picking on does or not. Stop talking with someone who’s not developed enough to empathize, and work on giving them a reason not to bully instead. via /r/TrueOffMyChest https://ift.tt/2FdNiMQ
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