The horrors of Youth
Posts about bullying are flooding LJ these days, and I wanted to have something to say, but despite being bullied a little here and there, my problems had less to do with bullying than with feeling alone.
It would be easy to say that it started when my parents got divorced and we moved from milwaukee to louisville, moving when you're 12 is awful, but when I'm being honest with myself I can admit it goes back a lot further than that. I know that when I was pretty young, like third grade or so, I felt separated from the rest of my class. I grew up in a small town, and outside of my closet friend, I didn't know anyone I didn't go to school with so this felt pretty immense. I honestly have no idea how I was thought of in my class. There are times when I felt like a part of the group and there were times when I definitely felt like I wasn't welcome. (There were only two groups and either you were a part of the kids who were cool or you weren't. In a class of 28 there isn't a lot of room for multiple cliques).
I know that I never felt like I was really accepted in the group. I was on the fence and sometimes it was okay to be my friend and sometimes it was necessary to tease me and all that. I think that a lot of my feelings of anxiety and my little abandonment issues come from not knowing from day to day whether i would be playing football with the cool kids or I would be getting taunted.
Moving to louisville created a whole new set of issues. I basically hit puberty right afterwards and going through that without my dad around (to tell me it was normal and not to worry) and without any friends who i could see were having trouble (since we moved) built up a lot of frustration in me. But mostly it was the endless feeling of not being a part of anything. I went to school, I came home, I did homework, and I played video games and learned how computers worked. There was very very little of spending time with my peers outside of school, I definitely didn't have anyone who was really a friend when I was in middle school.
And that continued until I was a junior in high school. Basically, for 4 or 5 years I felt like an island. An overused metaphor maybe, but I didn't feel like a part of anything or connected to anyone. It was just me, reading books and being alienated. A pretty normal story, but I think it's one thats overlooked when we talk about how kids are feeling when they're in middle school and high school. Just because a kid isn't being bullied doesn't mean they don't feel miserable and depressed. It doesn't mean that they don't have suicidal thoughts. And it certainly doesn't mean that they're okay. Just because nothing obviously is going wrong, because they aren't being picked on, bullied, or harrassed doesnt mean that things are going well.
I don't want to take anything away from people that were treated terribly. Who faced terribly bullying and harassment. Physical and emotional abuse. I just wanted to remind everyone that loneliness and isolation can be just as damaging. And just looking for people who face obvious hardship can mean not noticing the people who are suffering in silence.
Looking back, it seems like I spent years just floating through school walls unseen and unwanted. I'm at least a little lucky I made out of high school alive. Not because of how horrible I was treated, or how bad it was, but because the loneliness was terrifying and I didn't think it would ever end.
Thankfully, it did.
It would be easy to say that it started when my parents got divorced and we moved from milwaukee to louisville, moving when you're 12 is awful, but when I'm being honest with myself I can admit it goes back a lot further than that. I know that when I was pretty young, like third grade or so, I felt separated from the rest of my class. I grew up in a small town, and outside of my closet friend, I didn't know anyone I didn't go to school with so this felt pretty immense. I honestly have no idea how I was thought of in my class. There are times when I felt like a part of the group and there were times when I definitely felt like I wasn't welcome. (There were only two groups and either you were a part of the kids who were cool or you weren't. In a class of 28 there isn't a lot of room for multiple cliques).
I know that I never felt like I was really accepted in the group. I was on the fence and sometimes it was okay to be my friend and sometimes it was necessary to tease me and all that. I think that a lot of my feelings of anxiety and my little abandonment issues come from not knowing from day to day whether i would be playing football with the cool kids or I would be getting taunted.
Moving to louisville created a whole new set of issues. I basically hit puberty right afterwards and going through that without my dad around (to tell me it was normal and not to worry) and without any friends who i could see were having trouble (since we moved) built up a lot of frustration in me. But mostly it was the endless feeling of not being a part of anything. I went to school, I came home, I did homework, and I played video games and learned how computers worked. There was very very little of spending time with my peers outside of school, I definitely didn't have anyone who was really a friend when I was in middle school.
And that continued until I was a junior in high school. Basically, for 4 or 5 years I felt like an island. An overused metaphor maybe, but I didn't feel like a part of anything or connected to anyone. It was just me, reading books and being alienated. A pretty normal story, but I think it's one thats overlooked when we talk about how kids are feeling when they're in middle school and high school. Just because a kid isn't being bullied doesn't mean they don't feel miserable and depressed. It doesn't mean that they don't have suicidal thoughts. And it certainly doesn't mean that they're okay. Just because nothing obviously is going wrong, because they aren't being picked on, bullied, or harrassed doesnt mean that things are going well.
I don't want to take anything away from people that were treated terribly. Who faced terribly bullying and harassment. Physical and emotional abuse. I just wanted to remind everyone that loneliness and isolation can be just as damaging. And just looking for people who face obvious hardship can mean not noticing the people who are suffering in silence.
Looking back, it seems like I spent years just floating through school walls unseen and unwanted. I'm at least a little lucky I made out of high school alive. Not because of how horrible I was treated, or how bad it was, but because the loneliness was terrifying and I didn't think it would ever end.
Thankfully, it did.