There was this boy in my class at school in 7th grade. He was short for his age. He kept to himself and never really mixed with anyone. He always ate his lunch alone on a bench seat which was on the edge of the playground just staring into space. It was like he was in his own little world and nothing mattered to him. I never saw him smile in all the time i knew him.
He would get called all kinds of names that really hurt him deep down. But he never retaliated or showed how much it hurt him, which seemed to infuriate his tormentors.
They were relentless. Mean. One day he stepped in front of a car outside of school and stopped in the middle of the road as if waiting for it to hit him. The driver screeched to a halt only inches away from his body. He was frozen and only moved when the driver asked if he was OK. He hung his head and walked away slowly.
Nobody chose him for team sports during PE and when he was the last one left everyone called him a loser and laughed at him. He hung his head and went to the far corner of the gym and sat down hiding his face in his hands.
They tormented him in the change rooms and started calling him a ‘homo, faggot and perv’. It wasn’t long before it had got around the whole school that this boy was a ‘homo’ and so everyone started calling him those terrible names.
He had fruit thrown at him from behind and never saw who it was. It hit him in the back of his head knocking him down to the ground. With tears in his eyes he tried to stand up but they came at him again and again, knocking his books out of his hands and making him fall on the ground. People laughed at him. He got up, grabbed his books, and ran outside and kept running till he couldn’t run any longer. He ended up walking for 10 miles that day, just following a road not knowing were he was going. But he didn’t care if he died that day.
Still he didn’t retaliate. Or tell anyone. Or complain. The next week he wasn’t at school. Someone started a rumor that he committed suicide. Everyone laughed. Nobody called to see if he was all right. Nobody missed him. Nobody cared.
What they didn’t know was that his stepdad had hurt him so badly and that he was in hospital for three days. Too sick to attend school. He never told anyone about what happened when he returned to school. When everyone saw that he was still alive, they were disappointed. And told him to go kill himself. “Do it properly this time”.
He was still not well from what his stepfather did to him. When they pushed him into the lockers at school or tried to jam his head in the door, he let out a yelp. But the pain was not from what they did to him.
One day after PE he was acting very strange. He stood facing everyone with his head hanging low. As if his whole world was about to come crashing down. He was trembling. There was an unusual silence in the room that scared him. It was then that everyone saw his body. Covered in black and blue welts across his back, legs and arms. He had tears falling from his eyes and was clearly ashamed of his body.
The shower stung like a 1000 bees.
They didn’t touch his clothes or call him names or hit him; this time they left him alone.
That boy is me.
I never told anybody what had happened to me. I knew that if I snitched on my stepdad it would be 100 times worse. I was 12 and as far as I knew, nobody would help me even if I asked. I was too afraid of what he would do to me. I woke up every day hoping things would change. I didn’t hold grudges and never have. It helped me get through some depressing periods while I was at school.
I just wanted a normal life and to be happy.
I can’t say that I have found that dream and I probably never will. But at least I am not in danger any more, and deal with the consequences of my childhood as it surfaces, Now as an adult I can put it in its proper place.
In grade school there was a boy in our class who always smelled a bit funny. Kids were really cruel about that. They talked about “Danny’s” fleas, how he peed his pants and other really cruel things. To me he did not smell “bad” he smelled of something but it was not that strong.I do not have a strong sense of smell.
In first grade at Valentine’s Day we all made Valentines boxes and made cards to put in each other’s boxes. My mother told me that every child in my class should get a Valentine from me. I thought it was an odd thing to say because that was my plan. I thought it was everyones plan. On Valentines Day were got to open our boxes and see our cards. Some kids brought cookies and we had Kool Aid for our little party that day. Danny came to me afterwards and thanked me for the card I gave him. It turned out it was the only card he had in his box. This I just could not understand.
When Danny got a little older and in 5th grade he made a deal with the boys PE teacher that he and his little brother would come to school early twice a week and do the Gym laundry of towels and would include their clothing in the laundry. Maybe this originally came from the teacher. The smell was gone. Time went by and the teasing about the smell of Danny and is brother ended.
Danny was elected as president of our Graduating class.
There was that girl that had been lonely all her life. People, especially in school, disliked her because she was “strange”, “a nerd”, “too quiet” and just “different”.
One day she decided to talk to her teachers during the breaks instead of trying to fit in where she didn’t. She always acted older than her age and her teachers liked her, so they usually didn’t send her away, but had a friendly chat with her ever so often instead.
By tenth grade, she had almost developed some kind of friendship to a few of her teachers. When she got the “strictest teacher of the school” as her major course teacher in grade eleven, it took her mere weeks to find out that he actually wasn’t so strict at all.
They talked for at least half an hour after the lessons. About science, about our society, the people in school and whatever came to mind. Those two thought quite alike, despite an age difference of 34 years, and the girl now almost a woman could for the first time in years really live her passion for learning. Her teacher was highly intelligent and very knowledgeable, having not only written a dissertation in the past and worked in research for years but also being interested in a broad spectrum of topics.
Well, doesn’t sound so bad, now does it? So what happened?
Well, because teenagers are teenagers, it took about half a year for people to start whispering about the girl and her teacher. It started off lightly, she was still strange and why would she even talk to him?
But a few months after that, some people thought it to be funny to make up a non-existent romantic relationship between teacher and student. Despite that girl having been very close to other teachers before, but now that it was a male teacher, it suddenly was completely different. Because people of opposite gender can’t just see each other as friends, right? They just have to be in love to even think about talking to each other.
A less than funny “joke” became something way bigger. After two weeks, all of the 1600 students knew about this. And most didn’t know that it was a joke. People were laughing and pointing at her, throwing insults at the girl for something that never happened.
Finally, after about three months of dealing with it alone, she had the heart to tell her teacher. They decided to never talk to each other outside of class again, to prevent the teacher from getting problems with the school. While it was just a rumour, that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t lead to problems.
Both of them lost a friend on the day they made this decision. And the student lost a person she saw as a second father – her father barely ever was at home and her teacher had been one of three people (the other ones being her best friend and a female teacher she knew since fifth grade) she ever fully trusted. It might not have been cruel at the first glance, but it hurt her in more ways than the others students could’ve ever imagined.
That girl was me.
Starting in 6th grade, this nice boy from a troubled family was tortured for being suspected as gay. This was the late 80s in South Texas. The boy was caring but misunderstood. Sensitive. Soft. Other kids were non-stop cruel to him calling him a fag and “Terry the Fairy” (his name was Terry) from the time he arrived on campus until the moment he left. He never stood up for himself preferring instead to wish it wasn’t happening, turning them all off in his head by living in a fantasy reality instead, and becoming an angry shell of a generally happy boy.
One day in math class everyone was making fun of him with the usual taunts. Something snapped that day. He put his head on his desk and just said something like [Can you all just say it where I can’t hear it? I don’t care what you think, I just don’t want to hear it.] Everyone just laughed at him. Finally the teacher intervened and told everyone to be quiet (note no teacher ever made an effort to make them be nicer, just, on this day, to be quiet).
Finally, the boy broke down and told his parents. They were sympathetic but ultimately told him to just ignore it.
This continued until 11th grade when the boy discovered that he could get into college with a good GED score (not a top school, but he could work hard and transfer to one, which he did). He promptly signed up for the GED, took it, scored in 98th percentile, and immediately dropped out of school. He went on to college, did well, flew away and started his life.
That boy was me.
Fast forward 30 years. I am a successful man. Yes, gay, with two beautiful children and a thriving career thousands of miles away from South Texas and a life so rich and full I can barely remember any of their names — that’s the best revenge. 10ish-years later when Facebook started I received friend requests from many of those nasty kids I grew up with. Then, it seemed, that because I’d moved off to an exciting city and made good, and being gay was suddenly “cool”, they wanted to be my friends. I declined them and have not been to a single reunion nor do I ever plan on going. My attitude has always been: you hated me then, I didn’t like you, why on earth would I let you into my social media or ever purposely go see you now?!
It got better. My partner lovingly calls me “Terry my fairy.” I belong. I overcame and laugh at it now. They’re all mostly right where they were in that boring town surrounded by the same people, while I achieved that elusive thing: happiness. They did me a favor, really. They motivated me to get the eff out! If you’re reading this and you went to Hobby Middle School, or Clark High School, this post is really for you. I survived. I thrived. Thank you for the pain — it has served me well.
I never looked back.
My best friend in middle school was a goth.
Every day, she was a victim of endless harassment. People threw things at her, called her a freak, and would blatantly refuse to socialize with her simply because of how she looked, even though she was a genuinely sweet, caring person and got good grades. Heck, some people even told her to kill herself, not behind her back, but to her face.
Some people started a rumor that she was going to shoot up the school. One day I heard someone say that and I got suspended for fighting with that person. Defending the ‘freak’, because she was my best friend.
Ten years later, I’m still friends with that girl. It breaks my heart that people are cruel enough to bully others simply because they look different.Just because you dye your hair and wear all black doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Everyone would be happier if we could accept each other.
Let’s go back to my 8th grade year and there was a kid who really struggled with their mental health.
They were a class reject, she had friends but wasn’t popular. She was apart of the “gay” kids group. People used to call them fags and say that they will turn others gay.
She cut her arms, and she wanted to die everyday. So a few kids decided to start a bet. When will she kill herself.
We all knew one day she wouldn’t come to school and be dead by suicide. So we watched everyday watching her slowly suffer more and more in her own world.
She used to pass out a lot because of an eating disorder. She used to go to the bathroom after lunch and purge everything whenever anything passed her lips. She had a couple meltdowns in school and we all looked at her like she was retarded. We used to say it to her face. Small things like treating her like a child to degrade her every single day.
Then one day she didn’t come to school. Or the next, or for the rest of the year.
But she wasn’t dead.
On April 20th 2022, She left for Orange county california to a residential treatment facility, and she was gone till January 4th 2023.
That kid was me. My parents don’t know the details about how sucky my 8th grade school year was or how people used to make bets about when I was successfully gonna to kill myself. It was a struggle everyday to go to school when my mental health was slowly deteriorating everyday.
Right now, I am 2 1/2 months out of all mental health treatment. 2 months clean of self harm, and 2 months free of purging. I am happy with my life. And I love going to school everyday (I changed schools). I’m apart of the track team and I absolutely LOVE it.
I’m honestly not sure if my classmates at my old school think I’m dead or not. I’m not at their mercy. I am stronger than their words. And I will succeed in my life.
Stay Gold ponyboy Stay gold
-Eli
Edit: To be honest, I wonder how many of you at first thought I bullied a depressed autistic kid in 8th grade-
Edit: 411 upvotes?! Mom I’m famous :0
Im kidding, thank you for the support everyone.
Edit (4/20/23): Thank you so much for 1.6k upvotes. I reread the comments a lot, it gives me inspiration to keep going.
(I wanted to write a long reflection letter, however life happens and I got a concussion. So I’m not writing it as “thoroughly” as I wanted to.)
Today is April 20th 2023, exactly a year ago today, I was on a plane going to Orange County California. I went to Newport academy, which was the start of my 9 month treatment journey. It’s crazy reflecting on how much I changed in just 12 months but I am proud of myself for it. Exactly a year ago, I was basically throwing tantrums everyday and my parents had to deal with the bull crap sometimes 3 times a day. I was severely depressed, Self harm everyday, and I was miserable with life. That includes making family issues unbearable for everyone in my family.
Exactly a year ago, I said I didn’t need help. Exactly a year ago, I said I was fine, exactly a year ago I was attention seeking for everything. But reflecting now, I was in denial. I’m proud of myself where I came from.
My first day in treatment, I refused to go through the doors of Ranch House. It’s crazy to think that everyday for a month, I cried to my parents begging for them to let me go home when I was first admitted into youth care.
The last few days, I learned an important lesson. You really don’t know what everyone is going through. I learned the most outgoing, extroverted girl in my class was in 2 mental hospitals. I also learned my favorite teacher was in a mental hospital for 2 months when she was 12. I realized in that moment, “in the real world”, everyone struggles. Usually, I avoid talking about where I was for 9 months, but last week, I started to own my story. I won’t ever just “forget” what it was like to be that kid in treatment, and I shouldn’t. I do know where I need to go from now, to continue to be the best person I want to be.
The last rec therapy I did was a goals board for the new year. My goals were to get my drivers permit (I got it two months ago!). Transition into my new school (all though I might not have friends, I’m content with school), join the track team (I PRed at my last meet and now I’m triple jumping varsity distance. I also PR my pole vault and I’m allowed to start bending the pole after I get cleared from my concussion), get clean (3 months clean as of 3 days ago), stop purging (I don’t remember the last time I purged), and to continue to work on my family life.
And I did it, I’ve done all of it and I’m fucking happy for once. I’ve come a long way from where I was. I might not announce to everyone that I was in treatment, nor should I, but I’m not embarrassed by it anymore either.
I honestly don’t know where I would be without having the support system I did have in treatment. Thank you.
It’s been a wild ride this past year, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
