Pick On Someone Your Own...
Over the last few years, maybe because of how much attention bullying has gotten, I’ve been reflecting on things and coming to terms with the fact that I was bullied, and maybe being bullied had an adverse effect on my life, who I am, how I trust people, and my complete and utter lack of confidence in anything I’ll ever do… no matter how many times someone tells me otherwise.
I guess growing up I never really fit in. I thought I did, but looking back, I guess I really didn’t. I was always a smart ass. Like a major smart ass… which isn’t really a good thing when you’re a scrawny kid who doesn’t really excel in athletics, and would rather re-dress and re-arrange his sister’s dolls dollhouse than watch or play football and soccer (soccer is big in NJ for some reason). Around middle school I also noticed that I tended to hang out with people that were between 1 and 3 years younger than me. Probably because of what I’m going to get into here.
I left the school I was in after 4th grade and was placed in a school in another town near by because of my lack of focus in the classroom. I have really bad ADHD, and it really hurt my math, which is something I’ve hated since. Good in everything else, SUCKED at math. So I was placed in this school so I could focus on my math grades. The school was normal, but then I had the math class, which was in what they called a “resource room” at the time. To the other kids in my new school, this translated to “retard room”. Anyway, it was then that I had my first taste of being bullied or picked on. It went on for two years, and never really shaking the identity of “new kid” I didn’t really fit in, so I dealt with it as best I could for two years; being a smart ass and getting into fights to defend myself from physical bullying. I finished up in that school and began middle school… back with the kids I thought were my friends in my friends from K to 4.
My first day in 7th grade, I get on the bus and was excited see familiar faces. I was in school with kids from my neighborhood again, and I for a second I felt comfortable. Until I heard whispers and laughing accompanying my name.
“Oh look at Letsch’s clothes, he must think he’s cool now.”
“Wow, they let the freak come back to school with us.”
“Wow he got even uglier.”
I heard all sorts of names, too.
I had no idea anyone ever felt this way about me. It was strange. I didn’t belong again. I then realized that some of these kids were only my “friends” to begin with because my parents knew their parents because their kids went to school with me at one time. I dealt with more… and I was back in another “idiot” math class. Shit I hate math… hate it. So school got worse for me. Seventh and eighth grade which were supposed to be me back with my friends actually got worse for me. My old friends were making fun of me and becoming good friends with new people who rejected me right away. I was even being picked on by kids who weren’t “cool”. I had a fat girl that everyone picked on flip my tray of food during lunch one day because she didn’t want me sitting across from her. But there was nowhere else for me to sit, so I refused to move. So she flipped my tray. I had two girls beat me up in the hallway because I apparently called them bitches… to this day I have no idea who these girls were. But I was told by them that you don’t call black girls bitches. I have no fucking clue. I even had a kid with cerebral palsy make fun of me! He ended up dying a year later. And I felt good that he died, because everyone kissed his ass because of his condition, and he was a prick. I saw right through his bullshit. I tried helping him once because his chair got stuck, and he gave me an attitude about helping him. Like how dare I help him. Fuck you, asshole. So he didn’t like me for some reason. Maybe being seen around me cramped his already limited style. I mean he had it bad enough already, right? Anyway, 7th and grade… finally over. A lot of the same shit, but worse.
I moved on, went to a nice private school for high school… annnnnd not much changed. I had a couple of friends. Kids that really didn’t fit in anywhere, like myself. Even the geeks and the brainiacs fucked with me. This may have had a lot to do with the fact that a lot of these kids came from money, and I didn’t. Plus there’s the math class thing again, haha. I was still skinny, still needed braces, and still not into most things that most people were into.
But this time, there was an added problem. My sister. My sister is one of the most annoying and difficult people you will ever meet in your life. On top of this she has borderline personality disorder and a shit load of other “problems”. She’s the type of kid who would be on the bus, see a kid doing their homework on the bus, and then tell on them for doing their homework on the bus. Were you supposed to? No… they didn’t want pens and pencils out while the driver was driving, but everyone did it anyway, and she was the only person telling. That’s my sister in a nutshell. She’ll rat on you for a rule that isn’t really hurting anyone to begin with. So having a sister like that, I then had to do one of two things. Stick up for her, even when she’s wrong, or listen to my mother bitch at me for not sticking up for my sister, even when she’s wrong. My sister was an asshole to people for no reason, including myself, so I mostly dealt with hearing my mother bitch at me. Fun.
It’s been a long time since I was in school. And I see how all this anti-bullying stuff is coming to the forefront now, and I have a bit of resentment. First, we’re going way too far. Every fucking thing is bullying now, it’s beyond ridiculous. Kids can’t just not like someone… nope, now everyone’s parents are called, everyone from school has to be involved, and it’s ridiculous. Also, it seems like people suddenly give a shit about bullying because gay kids are being bullied. I don’t resent gay people for that, I resent these idiots that are suddenly on this big gay bandwagon. These people wouldn’t and didn’t care when I was getting stabbed with screw drivers, concussed when I rested my head on the bus window and some jerk off came up to it and punched it… maybe even kicked it, when I was almost blinded by a snowball, thrown into lockers, had my balls backhanded by some asshole walking down the hall, beat up by people I didn’t know for things I didn’t say, called names that I didn’t deserve, had my life threatened, had people show me knives and tell me what they’d do to me, walked home from school with people on the other side of the street taunting me about everything from my teeth, to questioning my heterosexuality, to my obvious virginity, haha.
Maybe if I just kept my mouth shut when these things were said I wouldn’t have had to deal with the physical stuff. You see, I was always the kind of person who would outwit a bully, and make them look and feel incredibly stupid. Not that it’s a difficult task. But maybe if I just took it, without making them look like idiots, maybe I wouldn’t have had to deal with everything else I dealt with. I mean I said some stuff to people when I got picked on… like really bad shit, and it shouldn’t be any surprise that it didn’t get better for me, haha.
Most people don’t know about this any of this. This is really the first time I’m sharing this with anyone other than my wife, my doctor, and maybe a friend or two. I told my mom and dad about it a few years ago, too. My dad seemed pissed. Mom seemed hurt. Anyway, I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish posting this, but there it is. Out there. I was never cool, likely never will be. I don’t know if I’d even say I was a rebel. I wasn’t cool enough to be a rebel. But there it is.
One last thing. It’s extremely hard for me to sympathize with people who take the easy way out when they get bullied because of what I went through.
I guess growing up I never really fit in. I thought I did, but looking back, I guess I really didn’t. I was always a smart ass. Like a major smart ass… which isn’t really a good thing when you’re a scrawny kid who doesn’t really excel in athletics, and would rather re-dress and re-arrange his sister’s dolls dollhouse than watch or play football and soccer (soccer is big in NJ for some reason). Around middle school I also noticed that I tended to hang out with people that were between 1 and 3 years younger than me. Probably because of what I’m going to get into here.
I left the school I was in after 4th grade and was placed in a school in another town near by because of my lack of focus in the classroom. I have really bad ADHD, and it really hurt my math, which is something I’ve hated since. Good in everything else, SUCKED at math. So I was placed in this school so I could focus on my math grades. The school was normal, but then I had the math class, which was in what they called a “resource room” at the time. To the other kids in my new school, this translated to “retard room”. Anyway, it was then that I had my first taste of being bullied or picked on. It went on for two years, and never really shaking the identity of “new kid” I didn’t really fit in, so I dealt with it as best I could for two years; being a smart ass and getting into fights to defend myself from physical bullying. I finished up in that school and began middle school… back with the kids I thought were my friends in my friends from K to 4.
My first day in 7th grade, I get on the bus and was excited see familiar faces. I was in school with kids from my neighborhood again, and I for a second I felt comfortable. Until I heard whispers and laughing accompanying my name.
“Oh look at Letsch’s clothes, he must think he’s cool now.”
“Wow, they let the freak come back to school with us.”
“Wow he got even uglier.”
I heard all sorts of names, too.
I had no idea anyone ever felt this way about me. It was strange. I didn’t belong again. I then realized that some of these kids were only my “friends” to begin with because my parents knew their parents because their kids went to school with me at one time. I dealt with more… and I was back in another “idiot” math class. Shit I hate math… hate it. So school got worse for me. Seventh and eighth grade which were supposed to be me back with my friends actually got worse for me. My old friends were making fun of me and becoming good friends with new people who rejected me right away. I was even being picked on by kids who weren’t “cool”. I had a fat girl that everyone picked on flip my tray of food during lunch one day because she didn’t want me sitting across from her. But there was nowhere else for me to sit, so I refused to move. So she flipped my tray. I had two girls beat me up in the hallway because I apparently called them bitches… to this day I have no idea who these girls were. But I was told by them that you don’t call black girls bitches. I have no fucking clue. I even had a kid with cerebral palsy make fun of me! He ended up dying a year later. And I felt good that he died, because everyone kissed his ass because of his condition, and he was a prick. I saw right through his bullshit. I tried helping him once because his chair got stuck, and he gave me an attitude about helping him. Like how dare I help him. Fuck you, asshole. So he didn’t like me for some reason. Maybe being seen around me cramped his already limited style. I mean he had it bad enough already, right? Anyway, 7th and grade… finally over. A lot of the same shit, but worse.
I moved on, went to a nice private school for high school… annnnnd not much changed. I had a couple of friends. Kids that really didn’t fit in anywhere, like myself. Even the geeks and the brainiacs fucked with me. This may have had a lot to do with the fact that a lot of these kids came from money, and I didn’t. Plus there’s the math class thing again, haha. I was still skinny, still needed braces, and still not into most things that most people were into.
But this time, there was an added problem. My sister. My sister is one of the most annoying and difficult people you will ever meet in your life. On top of this she has borderline personality disorder and a shit load of other “problems”. She’s the type of kid who would be on the bus, see a kid doing their homework on the bus, and then tell on them for doing their homework on the bus. Were you supposed to? No… they didn’t want pens and pencils out while the driver was driving, but everyone did it anyway, and she was the only person telling. That’s my sister in a nutshell. She’ll rat on you for a rule that isn’t really hurting anyone to begin with. So having a sister like that, I then had to do one of two things. Stick up for her, even when she’s wrong, or listen to my mother bitch at me for not sticking up for my sister, even when she’s wrong. My sister was an asshole to people for no reason, including myself, so I mostly dealt with hearing my mother bitch at me. Fun.
It’s been a long time since I was in school. And I see how all this anti-bullying stuff is coming to the forefront now, and I have a bit of resentment. First, we’re going way too far. Every fucking thing is bullying now, it’s beyond ridiculous. Kids can’t just not like someone… nope, now everyone’s parents are called, everyone from school has to be involved, and it’s ridiculous. Also, it seems like people suddenly give a shit about bullying because gay kids are being bullied. I don’t resent gay people for that, I resent these idiots that are suddenly on this big gay bandwagon. These people wouldn’t and didn’t care when I was getting stabbed with screw drivers, concussed when I rested my head on the bus window and some jerk off came up to it and punched it… maybe even kicked it, when I was almost blinded by a snowball, thrown into lockers, had my balls backhanded by some asshole walking down the hall, beat up by people I didn’t know for things I didn’t say, called names that I didn’t deserve, had my life threatened, had people show me knives and tell me what they’d do to me, walked home from school with people on the other side of the street taunting me about everything from my teeth, to questioning my heterosexuality, to my obvious virginity, haha.
Maybe if I just kept my mouth shut when these things were said I wouldn’t have had to deal with the physical stuff. You see, I was always the kind of person who would outwit a bully, and make them look and feel incredibly stupid. Not that it’s a difficult task. But maybe if I just took it, without making them look like idiots, maybe I wouldn’t have had to deal with everything else I dealt with. I mean I said some stuff to people when I got picked on… like really bad shit, and it shouldn’t be any surprise that it didn’t get better for me, haha.
Most people don’t know about this any of this. This is really the first time I’m sharing this with anyone other than my wife, my doctor, and maybe a friend or two. I told my mom and dad about it a few years ago, too. My dad seemed pissed. Mom seemed hurt. Anyway, I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish posting this, but there it is. Out there. I was never cool, likely never will be. I don’t know if I’d even say I was a rebel. I wasn’t cool enough to be a rebel. But there it is.
One last thing. It’s extremely hard for me to sympathize with people who take the easy way out when they get bullied because of what I went through.