(Un?)happy childhoods
Feb. 6th, 2004 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mollyringleFollowing in the courage of other friends who have spoken of how nerdy they were as children, I too will be honest with you now. When I get praise, when I get told I'm funny and cool, part of me is sincerely bemused, because part of us always sees ourselves as the 10-year-old we used to be - and in my case, that 10-year-old was a scrawny, weird, silent dweeb.
I'm not sure what went wrong. I was fairly normal up till middle school, though due to skipping first grade I was a year younger than everyone else in my class, and was always small. But in elementary school that didn't matter much: I had friends; I had good times. Then, due to the way our town's school districts were set up, I went to one middle school and practically all of my friends went to the other. And overnight, cliques sprang up. Cutthroat hallway politics took over. I had no one to hang out with. I don't know what it is about middle school, but kids are mean.
Seventh grade was pretty much the low point of my life. I was pathetically unfashionable, even for the '80s: I couldn't seem to decide whether to wear childlike pastel nerdy clothes, or teen-sexpot denim jackets and mascara (again: '80s), so I wore both, in ill-advised mixtures. My shoes were never the "right" brand - boys would snicker to each other and look at my feet in class; that's how much these things mattered. Bullies stole my lunch tickets. Careless (or malicious?) classmates actually knocked me over on their bikes when I was walking out of the building one day. Yeah, knock down the little 80-pound girl - don't you feel brave now? No one ever apologized and I didn't have the nerve to say anything. Get up, dust off, move on. In fact, I didn't say much to anyone, in school, ever. I lived in an agony hoping not to be called on. My friends, when I finally got a few, were practically the dorkiest people in school. I say this as one of them. We were total weirdos, and we didn't even have much fun with it - we were too busy being tormented on all sides by the rest of the students.
I see now lots of ways I could have been less of a freak: relax more, talk to people more, do not do the secret-admirer-letter routine to boys you like (who only respond by, eventually, telling their friends about it, and sending you a "leave me alone!!!" note), do not wear mascara when you're eleven.
So I got to high school, where, amazingly, the boys were actually nice enough to hold open doors for me on occasion. Even though I had once again gone to a different high school than most of my friends, and had to start over again at the new Lunch Table O' Nerds, I had hope. I had shot up about six inches in 9th grade, bringing me from well below five feet to a more respectable 5'1" or thereabouts, and was starting to look pretty. It's no wonder, after my middle school experiences, that I latched onto the first boyfriend who ever presented himself: a handsome, smart, popular, jealous, immature jerk of a fellow who I didn't have the courage to break up with for 2 and a half years. Yay.
But you know - through it all, I knew that my parents loved me, and that my little sister would still hang out with me and giggle over dumb things with me, and that when I went home, no matter how awful school had been, I would be sheltered and taken care of. And that made a huge difference. I didn't even have the courage to speak to my parents about the nastiness of my peers, usually, but their very existence was a tremendous comfort. Thank you, parents. And for other parents reading this: do not despair. Your kids love you and need you. Be there, and be steady, and one day they will grow up enough to be pleasant company again.
That's all we have time for today. Have a good Friday, my fellow misfits.
I'm not sure what went wrong. I was fairly normal up till middle school, though due to skipping first grade I was a year younger than everyone else in my class, and was always small. But in elementary school that didn't matter much: I had friends; I had good times. Then, due to the way our town's school districts were set up, I went to one middle school and practically all of my friends went to the other. And overnight, cliques sprang up. Cutthroat hallway politics took over. I had no one to hang out with. I don't know what it is about middle school, but kids are mean.
Seventh grade was pretty much the low point of my life. I was pathetically unfashionable, even for the '80s: I couldn't seem to decide whether to wear childlike pastel nerdy clothes, or teen-sexpot denim jackets and mascara (again: '80s), so I wore both, in ill-advised mixtures. My shoes were never the "right" brand - boys would snicker to each other and look at my feet in class; that's how much these things mattered. Bullies stole my lunch tickets. Careless (or malicious?) classmates actually knocked me over on their bikes when I was walking out of the building one day. Yeah, knock down the little 80-pound girl - don't you feel brave now? No one ever apologized and I didn't have the nerve to say anything. Get up, dust off, move on. In fact, I didn't say much to anyone, in school, ever. I lived in an agony hoping not to be called on. My friends, when I finally got a few, were practically the dorkiest people in school. I say this as one of them. We were total weirdos, and we didn't even have much fun with it - we were too busy being tormented on all sides by the rest of the students.
I see now lots of ways I could have been less of a freak: relax more, talk to people more, do not do the secret-admirer-letter routine to boys you like (who only respond by, eventually, telling their friends about it, and sending you a "leave me alone!!!" note), do not wear mascara when you're eleven.
So I got to high school, where, amazingly, the boys were actually nice enough to hold open doors for me on occasion. Even though I had once again gone to a different high school than most of my friends, and had to start over again at the new Lunch Table O' Nerds, I had hope. I had shot up about six inches in 9th grade, bringing me from well below five feet to a more respectable 5'1" or thereabouts, and was starting to look pretty. It's no wonder, after my middle school experiences, that I latched onto the first boyfriend who ever presented himself: a handsome, smart, popular, jealous, immature jerk of a fellow who I didn't have the courage to break up with for 2 and a half years. Yay.
But you know - through it all, I knew that my parents loved me, and that my little sister would still hang out with me and giggle over dumb things with me, and that when I went home, no matter how awful school had been, I would be sheltered and taken care of. And that made a huge difference. I didn't even have the courage to speak to my parents about the nastiness of my peers, usually, but their very existence was a tremendous comfort. Thank you, parents. And for other parents reading this: do not despair. Your kids love you and need you. Be there, and be steady, and one day they will grow up enough to be pleasant company again.
That's all we have time for today. Have a good Friday, my fellow misfits.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 08:36 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 08:41 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 08:36 am (UTC)Thank you
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 08:58 am (UTC)[Anyhoo, I only speak to one person from my school days (not counting Kevon). All in all, they don't matter. It all had little bearing on my life as a whole.]
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 12:23 pm (UTC)Anyhow, you're definitely right: it doesn't matter anymore, especially as I live in a different state altogether these days. And if I'd had more time on this post this morning, I was going to add that there were certainly people worse off than me, and that one of the things I regret most is that I sometimes seized the opportunity to snicker at them or gossip about them, simply glad to feel "cool" for a minute. Too bad "cool" apparently meant being a bitch to everyone...heh.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 09:51 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 10:31 am (UTC)step one- get five oranges
step two- write peoeples names on them
step three- get a hammer
lol, well i guess you can see where this is going :) *grin*
Sigh, everyone has angst, its how we pull through it that counts
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 10:51 am (UTC)I'm glad that through all of those painful experiences, you've turned into a happy, creative, well-rounded individual. Do you ever wonder where those bullies are now?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 12:26 pm (UTC);)
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Date: 2004-02-06 10:34 pm (UTC)Having attended my 20th high-school reunion not too long ago, I *know*. (evil grin). For reference, HS for me was 8th-12th grade. I started high school at age 12. The oldest kids in school were 21. This was NOT a good situation.
But, back to the assholes--er, bullies. The kid that used to steal my purse in class and wave my "feminine supplies" around for all to see is now grossly fat, nearly bald, on his second divorce, and just sincerely laughable. The tall, strong bully that used to pinch, shove, etc. is now some sort of commission-only salesman who was almost desperate to be nice to everybody at the reunion. Most of the cheerleader-bitches are either anorexic trophy wives with absurdly bleached-blonde hair or overblown Roseannes who can't accept that they never lost their pregnancy pounds.
Meanwhile: My friend that used to be known as "Trekky" is now a slim, confident judge; the "space cadet" is a happily-married author in New York City; the tall, ungainly "klutz" has a master's degree and is CFO of a profitable real-estate business... you get the idea.
Karma is a lovely thing. :-) (And it all goes to prove that the stuff in your head is far more useful over time than the clothes you wear or the looks you were--or weren't--born with.)
All hail the geeks!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 10:53 am (UTC)But you know what, I haven't heard hide or high from any of those kids in yyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrssss. So, yeah, it hurt then but who cares now? I'll probably never see those kids again.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 12:27 pm (UTC)Yeah, it totally doesn't matter now. I daresay it made us deeper people, in fact. I just wanted to confess that I was not always this normal...if any of you were under the impression that I was normal. :)
Cruel little things, children
Date: 2004-02-06 12:13 pm (UTC)Once two friends and I were talking. The friends had both gone to school. They were swapping awful experiences, saying (monotone) "Yep, that was bad, yep, uh-hunh, been there," and I was like "Oh my GOD! That's so GHASTLY! How could you LIVE through it?!"
Guess which one of us was homeschooled! ;-)
Love,
April the Geek
Re: Cruel little things, children
Date: 2004-02-06 12:28 pm (UTC)Glad I'm not alone in my mild dorkiness. :)
I was a nerd too!
Date: 2004-02-06 06:45 pm (UTC)A lot of it was probably my own fault, because I was (and really still am) quite paranoid and introverted, so I didn't approach anyone if I could help it, in class or out. I was that weird creepy kid who sat in a corner and read. Not only that, but plain and badly-dressed. We're talking rotund freckled girl who wore neon legging, had braces, and cut (or tried to) her own hair. Somehow that bothered people.
Like you, I just kind of lived on hope that I'd never be called on, because when I was there'd be those malicious giggles. I spoke strangely- I read more than I talked back then so when I opened my mouth I sounded archaic and I still had traces of a British accent- and they (they being mostly the trendy made-up stripper-chic types) poked fun at me for that. It got to the point where I refused to go outside at lunch, because I was afraid that people go on with it there, and hid out in the bathrooms instead. Then when I actually started making friends, they latched on to the fact that they were boys and spread rumours that I was... er... doing unsavoury things with them. (And these were twelve-year-olds, mind. So much for the innocence of childhood.)
Bullying was never physical for me, and it never went as far as it did for some other people I know, but it still hurt at the time, and it made me ashamed of what I was. Luckily, I can now say that I'm a nerd and damn proud of it. :)
As for the trendy stripper-chic types, most of them are potheads and hiphop fans now. In comparison I feel that I've turned out rather nicely.
~Jehane
Re: I was a nerd too!
Date: 2004-02-07 05:32 pm (UTC)The popular kids, when they get to the real world and find that they're no longer kings and queens, often seem rather lost and stunned. But the rest of us - ah-ha, for us things have improved! That is why perhaps it was better to be a nerd. :)
Re: I was a nerd too!
Date: 2004-02-07 08:21 pm (UTC)... or maybe my friends and I are all really strange.
~Jehane
Re: I was a nerd too!
Date: 2004-02-08 08:41 am (UTC)Re: I was a nerd too!
Date: 2004-02-08 03:12 pm (UTC)~Jehane
no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 11:04 pm (UTC)I had 3 friends in elementary school. And these were not all at the same time. The first moved away the summer after kindergarten. The second dumped me after a month. The third I befriended because she was alone crying in a classroom during recess, and she didn't have any friends. I only found out later why she didn't have any friends. It turns out she was a total bitch. I was also (and I say this without exaggeration) the smartest person in my class, and everyone knew it, and it didn't help. Do you know how traumatic it is to have the guidance counselor come into the classroom once a month and talk about how everybody should like everybody, and nobody liked me?
I actually made friends in middle school. I had people to eat lunch with and talk to and do things with. Middle school may have been the happiest years of my life so far. Then I moved to a podunk town for high school, and everybody had been friends since kindergarten. I had no friends during the whole first year of high school. The clique that finally took me in out of pity eventually told me that they were afraid of me. High school was the worst four years of my life.
I'm in my second year in college, and I still don't have many friends. I've never been on a date. I've decided to become a hermit.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:44 am (UTC)Oh, and I hate counselors. Mom used to set up meetings with me and whichever kid was bothering me, to meet with the school counselor and talk it out, and I hated it. Agh.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 01:34 am (UTC)I've never really been that good at dressing with the trends. i like to do my own thing.
Thats why i like the school system here, where almost all schools have a compulsory school uniform. just one less reason to be singled out from the crowd.
I only finished school in november, and in that last year and a half i fell into a group of people who, although not-like minded, were all a little strange. we got on fine and had some great times. i felt that with them, i didn't even need to try to conform and i became a lot more relaxed.
it was great.
that said, the seven years of primary school were pretty hellish.
i'm just glad it's over.
~christine
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 02:49 am (UTC)When I was about 14, I did an about turn into "alternative culture" and became pretty much the school outcast. Again though, with a group of similar friends it was easy to ignore everyone and just have a laugh. We foung it amusing - there were rumours about all of us flyig around the whole school, older children were scared of us after the Columbine thing cos we wore black... Heh.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:45 am (UTC)Oh, I hear you...
Date: 2004-02-07 09:18 am (UTC)Things are the same everywhere, it seems... except that if I had had the possibility of homeschooling here, I wouldn't have set a foot in that... that vile high school again.
Let us all rejoice for being out of that hell, and for turning out quite all right in the end!
... and since some of you have already reported the karma starting to come back to the bullies, maybe we're all going to get some super-duper karmic retribution now ;) (I wouldn't mind becoming a successful, critically acclaimed author, for example... *hint hint* *nudges karma*)
Re: Oh, I hear you...
Date: 2004-02-08 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 10:46 am (UTC)Funny thing is, when I hit 17 or so and began to answer back a little bit, to give the people who thought I was absurd a taste of their own medicine, they liked it. As if disrespect was the coin of the realm among craven little hormonal poseurs. Because, I guess, if you deep-down feel you're full of shit, you only trust the people who treat you that way. You assume that if someone has the moxy to answer back, they might know something you don't.
What a playschool charade.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:48 am (UTC)What doesn't work is telling the school counselor about the problems, or whoever it is you're supposed to complain to. Every kid instinctively knows that squealing never won them any friends.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 09:04 pm (UTC)Bless ya! Have a wonderful Sunday....
Kimma
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:50 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 01:20 pm (UTC)Blessings!
Kimma
no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 09:49 pm (UTC)Primary school was ok, there was 23 kids in my class, total, so everyone kind of had to be friends.
Then I got to high school, and my best friend since yr 3, the one whom I had always sheltered behind, became overnight the worlds biggest bitch, and I became the worlds biggest reclusive library dweller.
In the library however, I met my current friends, who are all in the nerd/geek/smart person category, and suffer the "cool people" who think that we are unworthy of society. However, we're all in it together, so it's ok.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 11:17 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-09 01:11 pm (UTC)though i am infinately glad to be outta that place i can't say it hasn't left it's mark on me. i became so darn good at blending into the background, and so instinctivly shy and wary of other people, that i'm finding it very very hard to come out of my shell. i'm still insecure about the way i look, and i still pretend i'm not as clever/nerdy as i actually am! (scarred for life! ;) )
strangely enough though, one of the popular kids (oh the bane of my existence!) has actually come up to me and spoken to me as an equal on several occasions since we left school. at first i found it hard to believe that she was actually trying to be nice and this wasn't some evolved form of sarcasm that i hadn't learnt to identify yet. perhaps she felt insecure in the outside world and wanted to latch onto someone. much as i would have loved to do to her what she did to me, i didn't. i was very nice and held a polite conversation with her. and whilst i hope that this might in some way teach her a moral lesson, i highly doubt it, since on previous occasions she has proven herself to have a very small brain. and after all, i get the pleasure of whislt smiling at her, darkly thinking "bitch"....it seems now i have the power! ;)
yeah, bring on the karma....
Re:
Date: 2004-02-09 03:13 pm (UTC)