how did YOU survive highschool?

[lemongreen]

I didn't... almost.

(this is probably going to get really personal, so I'm gonna put it under a spoiler)

Spoiler

My freshman year I went to the same high school that the rest of my siblings have gone through (including my younger sister, she's actually graduating this year) but all of my friends from the years before (and I mean all the way from early elementary school) were going to the other high school in town. Now usually this isn't a huge problem, but because I'm rather shy and awkward I was... well... taken advantage of (not to put it lightly) 

Basicly, this group of girls (I'm not sure what grade they were, but I guess they were older) intimidated me into giving them my ID during lunch. Even beyond that I had problems concentrating in class and doing homework at all (because I really just wanted to rest after school, not work even more) I got sick extremely often, probably from stress, so sometimes it didn't even matter whether I did homework or not.

The biggest thing, though, is when my parents finally found out about the problem and tried contacting the school about it, they adamantly denied there was a bulling at the school. That and my poor grades (and the school saying I wouldn't graduate) caused my parents to pull me out at the end of the year.

That wasn't the end of high school for me, though; thankfully at the time we had a great alternative school (closed now due to budget cuts) which was where I went for my last three years of high school. I actually learned a lot from the teachers there (including how to actually do accounting correctly, different proper forms of government, ethics, and most of what I know with photoshop) I know it'll probably sound cheesy, but  those years are actually the most memorable at least pertaining to school. (it doesn't hurt that there were a lot of awesome things that happened in those years, including going to New Orleans to help after Katrina, that is something I'll never forget and eternally grateful I got to do) And I did graduate on time, probably with much better grades than I would have if I had stayed at regular public school.

Still, I kind of understand I'm a strange sort of exception since my siblings pretty much all have graduated just fine. I actually (surprisingly) don't harbor any ill will to the public school system; I just understand that it isn't perfect nor is it actually a good fit for everyone (no "one size fits all" system usually is)

Best advice I can offer is just try to find what suits you and play to that (also, prove people wrong. It's possible, I should know)

 

[KanaX]

The thing is, you cannot really know who to blame the more you think about it. The way I remember high school is, that it was a relentless struggle to uphold a generally good front and mask any weakness. If you couldn't, you would have a hard time, both by the perpetrators of your grief and by the uncaring spectators.

There were times where I witnessed people, who I considered to be heartless animals, who I considered only being able to put a smug grin on their face, breakdown in what they thought to be a private place (Trying to make myself invisible through the years, I became as silent as possible). They are in the same cage battle we are, they know it and they know how to fight. I won't deny it, some of them enjoy inflicting pain, others don't care and others make excuses to themselves. But it al comes down to the thin line between the abused and the abuser.

For me middle school was the worst. High school was just extremely solitary. When I realized that I couldn't escape it, I just started skipping days. I'd tell my mother that I was going to school and just run off to the park nearby to read books. When I was found out, the headmaster said that he could arrange having police officers accompany me from home to school. You can make your own assumptions for what that meant. 

There are people that definitely have had a much harder time than me and with more severe unhealed wounds. I developed a very low self esteem, an unhealthy need to lose weight and be thin (I'm 5'7 and 100 pounds), paranoia when I year laughter around me, fear of teenagers and I have accustomed myself so much to my solitude, that I cannot leave it. I'm ok with what I am though. I don't know any other Kanax.

And I still have the will and vitality to develop myself. One step at a time.

 

[LostFonDrive]

Dayum, people here seem to have had it really rough. I almost feel bad for having cruised through with little hardship in any regard

 

[KanaX]

@LostFonDrive I'm gonna report you to Tumblr for being an over-priviledged, un-bullied scum. Your life as a developer will be forfeit.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Dayum, people here seem to have had it really rough. I almost feel bad for having cruised through with little hardship in any regard

TBH, I had very little. Once people figured out I was a ****ty target, I never really dealt with bullying. I had a pretty good time in high school.

 

[Clord]

well it was pretty easy for me cuz in 9th grade a guy sucker punched me who was bigger than me and i beat him up in the middle of class and well everyone tends  to be nice to you after that... i got suspended for 10 days though now i hear they jail you for that even if its self defense... glad i'm out of school

USA! USA!





Anyway, getting respect out of the fear is not probably healthiest way to solve it. Still, kind of stupid to punish a guy for defending himself.

 

[hian]

It's sad to see how many people have had to deal with bullying on this forum.

And while I don't know if the numbers of people having been bullied on this forum are being skewed due to certain personality types being more common here or not, it still speaks to how pervasive the issue of bullying is.

That being said, some thoughts arose reading some of the posts in this thread.

It helps to know that the reason people bully, is because of their own insecurities and problems. In my case, I got bullied because my bully's sister would hit her at home, and this was her way of gaining back some power. My own sister beat me up almost every day because at school she was bullied because of her weight. Usually, bullies are also being abused.

I hear this a lot, and I can appreciate that it's probably true for certain people.

Where I grew up though - bullying was considered humor for most.

People bullied others because they found it to be an amusing thing to do, and the majority of the bullies I knew did not come from disfunctional homes per say, in the general sense.

(although, it's certainly possible to argue that the kind of child-rearing many of these children were subjected to, could be labeled what I would call "empathy/sympathy neglect", or parents failure to consider pedagogical means of teaching chidlren how to empethize with others, and the necessity of sympathy on top of that)

I think it's really interesting that you had that kind of an experience because it really talks to the sentiment that many hold, which is the idea that you can reach bullies, and make a change in a proactive way - and I think that's a healthy sentiment to have, because the kind of "benevolent bullies" (those who have a "good" reason to bully) actually exist, and can be reached, like you demonstrated.

In that sense, people like you are extremely important as "social glue" in society at large.

That being said, I still think there is a spectrum here, and in my experience (based on what I know about the science on the topic), the people who persistantly bully usually have personalities that border dangerously close to antisocial and/or narcissistic personality disorder I.E people who lack ability to sympathize, have a bloated self-image, a need for admiration and a tendency to engage in impulsive behavior. And, it bears mentioning that this "class" of people, is not a tiny minority in the total human population.

Many of the people I know who used to bully back in elementary school, and junior high, are still bullies to this day (I come from a small town, where everybody knows everybody, so it's easy to keep track of people).

People whose personalities trend towards this end of the personality disorder spectrum tend to be the results, of as you said, certain enviromental pressures, and some even by birth. The problem though, is that by the time they start to exhibit the kind of behavior that would indicate such a personality problem, they're far beyond conventional intervention.

These kind of people literally bully like a sport, the same way you would play video-games, or go fishing - because it's fun.

Which leads me to this -

Anyway, getting respect out of the fear is not probably healthiest way to solve it.

This is certainly true if you're trying to stop the kind of bully Celianna was talking about, because people like that can be reached with emotional appeals, or reasoned dialogue, and will therefore more likely end up resenting you if you respond by fighting back.

When you're talking about the kind of bully whose personality borders on antisocial, and narcissistic, the problem is that the ordinary approach doesn't work anymore. These people don't care if you're hurting, or if what they're doing is "bad".

They do however, like all other creatures on our planet, understand the concept of consequences, because they'll ultimately still be concerned about themselves, even if they aren't concerned about you.

So, in the cases of bullies like that, even if fighting back and making them "fear" you might not be the healthiest way to deal with the issue, it might very well be the only way to deal with it, because it's the only way to make them back down.

That being said - I think modern society really lacks a proper public mental health-care system.

If people had to under-go regular mental health checks, together with the general health checks, and vaccines etc. it would be very easy to pick out struggling people, and give them the necessary help before they develope more serious conditions. It might also help take some of the stigma off of talking about mental health issues.

 

[Clord]

Problem is that after years of being bullied, a guy finally stands up against their bully and then they both get punished when caught fighting, sending wrong message to a guy who defended themselves. Worser yet if the guy who has been bullied for years get lectured how what they did was wrong.


http://gawker.com/5951998/teen-suspended-for-standing-up-to-longtime-bully-back-in-class-after-dad-spends-days-protesting-outside-school

 

[hian]

Problem is that after years of being bullied, a guy finally stands up against their bully and then they both get punished when caught fighting, sending wrong message to a guy who defended themselves. Worser yet if the guy who has been bullied for years get lectured how what they did was wrong.

http://gawker.com/5951998/teen-suspended-for-standing-up-to-longtime-bully-back-in-class-after-dad-spends-days-protesting-outside-school

This is very true. It's a problem I had to deal with a lot, when I was bullied back in elementary school.

I remember countless hours spent waiting in the hallway to the school director's office, to be talked down to like an idiot for having "fought" someone, or having been mean-spirited, and then be forced to apologize to the very person who bullied me to begin with.

That kind of **** adds insult to injury in a way that few people can truly appreciate the pain and humility of.

Still, it paid off. I would still rather get a slap on the wrist from school authorities knowing that I'd punched a borderline anti-social narcissist in the face and tought him or her to leave me alone, than walk around in abject silence and carry on being bullied.

In my opinion, this is a cultural problem caused by a combination of the the over-sensitive post-millennial sentiment "violence is always bad all the time, regardless context" and a failure of teachers to properly keep track of what's going on between students, and a lack of back-bone to face up parents of disfunctional children, and finally parents refusing to believe that there might actually be something wrong with their little angel.

The way I see it though, that cultural problem is very hard to address. Tell people, violence is something okay, which of course it is, and people will jump on that and use it as an excuse for times when it obviously isn't.

Teachers have enough on their plates already, and simply aren't equiped to keep track of each individual's students situation and decided whether a student fought back with justification or not.

It will always be hard to tell other adults what is "wrong with their children", and it will always be hard for parents to accept that there might be something wrong with their child.

That's why I think it's important to advocate for a robust public mental health-care system. A system like this could side-step all those issues by going to the root of it I.E the mind's of the children - and making sure we weed out and help children before they develope into bullies to begin with.

Things like fighting back, or trying to fix the bullies after the fact etc. are at best just temporary solutions.

 

[Ed19]

There are 2 ways to survive your high school, you ignore the bullies or you fight the bullies.

However, IMO Sometimes when you are getting bullied you have to fight back.

It happened to me, when I was bullied so badly on my first year, I was totally weak and unable to fight back

year 2  I trained martial arts seriously. I fought the bullies one by one.

in year 3, no more bullying . Although, the bullies are uneasy to me, I felt it looked like a cold war. 

Thus, I am not totally a freak, I have a lot of friends in other classroom, it's so dumb I was at the wrong class for 3 years.

 

[Toaofgames]

High school can be a stressful period in your life for many reasons, but it can also be rewarding. The most important thing is to not give up.

 

[ShinGamix]

High school. LOL It's no different than any other part of life. You choose to go or not go and choose to take a bunch of bs or give it.

Go to school even if its just to get away from home or just for lunch or just to meet girls...LOL

Be friendly to people who are friendly to you.

Trust has to be earned not given freely.

Choose your battles carefully. 

If you think someones fake or a have a gut check feeling 99% chance its always right.

You can't make everyone happy.

Crap happens it's how you deal with it and overcome it that defines what kind of person you are.

Don't try to blend into or join any click or group of cool people just be you and people will find you if they are truely your friends.

 

[TherainED]

I didn't.

Still I was able to learn enough sense of humor skills to bring me back as an Undead Arse.

I've been improving to the point where I unlocked all the Sarcasm related skills, Dark sense of humor, /d/ handling, Avoid BS and Subtle insult. Now I'm trying for Cossack-like swearing, but I got to have at leat three more skillpoints in the Offensive humor branch.

Just so you can have an idea of how much I've improved, this is my skill tree.

Spoiler

Dealing w/ it - /d/ handling (4), Avoid BS (5), Deffensive sarcasm (Max)

Heartly laughs - Punification (7), Sensible chuckle (2), Reference play (8), Absurd sense of humor (7)

Offensive humor - Inappropriate jokes (Max), Offensive sarcasm (Max), Subtle insult (6), Dark sense of humor (4)

Rant expression - Scathological methods (6)

Still, I got some other things to improve. If you can give me some advice on what skill should I up to reach Cossack-like swearing, that would be really handy.

 

[Clord]

Problem with sarcasm is that some people are unable to detect it even when you basically use the sarcastic voice.


"You're SO smart."

 

[EliteZeon]

First of all, I'm a Cambodian born in America, and I practically live in the south... My real name is Bobota Keo, (pronounced similar to Boba Fett, so Boba-ta) but my kindergarten teacher decided to Americanize the name and call me Bob... and it just stuck.

I had more problems back in Elementary and Middle School, lots more bullies back then, lots more racism, lots more people trying to convert me, damning me to hell or making fun of my Buddhist beliefs at the time. Kids are so idiotic, they thought I was a terrorist after 9/11 because I was a Buddhist... seriously what the hell?

Even so, I was more troubled at home than I was at school during those years, coming from FoB parents, I would get beat with a stick if I didn't come home with A's on my report card and any assignments or quizzes. I remember crying in 2nd Grade when I saw I got a B on my report card, because I knew my parents would beat my ass. Which they sorta did...

The latter years of middle school changed for me since my parents couldn't keep up with what I was learning anymore, since they weren't as well educated... so they backed off a bit, but my father still resented anytime I was caught sketching or drawing, since he can't tell the difference between studying and hobbies. (He practically still can't btw) He used actually not mind my awesome drawing skills, until my doctor started to make fun of me during one of my annual visits and explicitly told my dad to not let me pursue a career as a cartoonist or artist or w/e... Frick that doctor.

Moving on to High School, I actually attended one of the worst high schools in my city. With the state exam average around an F, 1/10 girls were pregnant, a mix of cliques from multiple cultures (all of the foreigners came here), several "gangs", at least three fights a week, two gun threats, several kids arrested for drugs every year... I was.. actually doing pretty well.

My generation actually had twice the amount of honors/advanced students attend, it got to the point where there were 40 kids in one class, and they had to split us up, a first. I really quiet, reserved and obedient back in Elementary and Middle school... practically once I was a Freshman I quite literally got those things beat out of me. Eh... I'm not gonna go into detail for that... But I became more vocal, disobedient and so on.

Well, half of the bullies back in Elementary and Middle School got on good terms with me by High School... why did that happen? We introduced EVERYONE to RUNESCAPE, and we all got along from that. Then practically everyone in my grade knew who I was, since everyone shouted, "Asian Bob!" so I was -that guy- the token Asian. Plus people knew me since I was the really nice and friendly guy that was somewhat artistic, so I built up a reputation from there.

I was still bullied and teased verbally, but I just ran with it, and joked with them. Such instances where people were teasing that I was going to bring a gun after that Virgina Tech Massacre. One time I got annoyed enough that I reached a boiling point and yelled at everyone in the middle of class... everyone was shocked, teacher included, and everyone realized I was pretty scary when I was angry (probably comes from my Dad)

Then I had some enemies in terms of artistry, its too complicated to get into for that one...

I got sucker punched twice during my four year stay, for no reason, I think they were just *******s that had a knack for doing that. Or because they thought I was staring at them wrong during lunch or something.

Then there were some ghetto kids in drama that tried to bully me for no reason... but that got sorted out quickly since the bigger kids were on my side.

Our principal was also a piece of garbage, he had transferred from an even worse school from Miami and treated everyone like criminals. He got rid of lockers, bookbags and all sorts of crazy things out of fear for weapon possession. I mean c'mon... we have more a drug problem than a weapon problem. We hated him to the point that the majority of the students booed him off the stage during one of his announcements. During graduation, most people didn't shake his hand.

In the end, I graduated in 2010 in top 20 of my school. High School was actually kind of nice...? Maybe? I think it would've been nicer if I found some love though...

Currently I am attending University of North Florida aiming for a Chemistry degree. (that fricking doctor's influence still affects me since I couldn't pursue Graphics Arts or something) I'm about to hit my 6th year here... I feel the struggle is more real in college than it was back in High School,  but those are stories for another day.

 

[Necrox]

I was in rowing for the first year and couldn't stand it so I did marching band for the next 3. I met people I normally would have never thought about talking with and had a good time aside from the struggles with improving myself and being "good enough" and whatnot. That also transferred to personal issues outside of school that were probably the hardest thing in high school to deal with. Academically, I was decent but not exceptional and managed to find plenty of time to fool around with composing while also doing band.

 

[Alistair]

Is this thread labelled "Teachers keep out?".

Otherwise I'd like to stay.

You know, it's interesting to read all the different experiences you all made in highschool.

I personally had a great time in highschool which may be the reason why I decided to stay there permanently.

Every (sane) teacher fears that there may be bullying going on in his class without him noticing. I'm no exception to that.

In class, everything looks alright but you can never be sure what happens once you leave the room. Will the whole class gang up on one student?

What makes it even harder is that bullied kids rarely seek for help.

Bullies know that they damage other people. They think as long as you can't see the damage, it isn't real.

A fatal way of thinking.

 

[Clord]

Errm, what?


There would still be witnesses assuming it's a normal school room with 30+ students.


Which makes bullying issue even weirder as it means most of the class chooses to not intervene.


From deep down inside bullies have issues and generally are cowards. They're more likely to bully someone when no "outsiders" are around which makes the target of course potentially even kill their bullies when they snap under the pressure (once the bully has knife in his stomach I think he stops.)


Bullies don't often realize what kind of stakes they might be setting up for themselves once their target snaps. I even found via Google that something like this has actually happened.

 

[Iavra]

People tend to not intervene, because they are scared that they might be targeted themselves and are happy to be out of harm's way. Sad as it sounds.

High school (or the german equivalent), was pretty chilly for me...didn't need to learn much and did well anyway for some reason. Our german and english teacher prefered to watch movies with us, our history teacher hated school as much as everyone else and our class teacher (i had physics and math as "Leistungskurs", don't hate me for it, please) was a drunkard, who couldn't teach the most basic stuff.

Graduation was surprisingly good, considering that we didn't really learn anything in the past 3 years.

The years before i was actually bullied, and beaten, a lot. Partly because i was best friends with the most bullied guy in our class, partly because i'm not a very social person and usually tend to keep for myself. I once snapped and hit a bully, who used to be a good friend of mine before getting friends with the other bullies, in the face with the edge of a ping-pong bat. I don't even remember what they did to me in return. I was kinda happy once i got to high school and the others had to leave, as you can probably imagine ^^

/edit: Funny enough, we had 3 class teachers before high school. The first 2 left because of the bullies, the 3rd one actually got bullied and attacked by students a lot, so he used to carry a pocket knife in case he needed to defend himself. During my time at that school, my latin teacher almost got paralyzed after being hit be a football and hitting a radiator with her spine.

 

[Clord]

There was this boy sitting next to me (I wasn't adult back then) and he decided to violate me during an event while we were both sitting in the front row. I think between legs is enough hint.