This QOTW is depressing. Can we have a return of smut and body fluids for next week, please?
*warning - post does not contain mirth. there is lots of length instead*

I've lurked on here for several years, and as far as it's possible to tell, most of you seem to be genuinely nice, canny folks. Even if you collectively weren't, you wouldn't deserve to have suffered through a microfraction of the shit I've read on here today.

But shit happens. I grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father, and whilst I was never on the receiving end *too* often as a wee child (that was reserved for my step-sister and mother) the minute I hit my teens and started to think for myself I came in for all kinds of unpleasant shit. What kind of sick fuck gets his kicks from playing mind games with an 11 year old, reducing her to tears simply because she's had the balls to say she thinks you're wrong? (I hasten to add, I was always encouraged to 'stand up for myself, do and say the right thing' etc...hypocrisy was only one of his many failings)

As if that wasn't enough, my physical attributes make me a bully's wet dream - I'm short, fat, geeky, have a ridiculous name, considerably brighter than average, wear glasses, and - most importantly when you go to a posh school - poor. If I was ginger too I probably would have caused a couple of the more obnoxious turds in my year to spluff their pants in glee.

Primary school wasn't so bad. Yes, I didn't really have any friends -how do you make friends when you can never invite them round after school or have enough money to go out and do stuff? - but I wasn't overly singled out for a good verbal shoeing more than the one or two other 'odd' children. It made me sad -very sad sometimes - but not suicidal.

Secondary school was worse. Much worse. We lived miles away from the school so I had to catch one of the private coaches the school used. The abuse got so bad that for the five years I was there I would sit behind the driver the minute I got on and not acknowledge anybody. This of course would provoke other insults once we were at school, but at least nobody could hassle me on the bus - two blissful hours a day where I had a rest from the hell of school and the hell of home.

I managed to make friends with a couple of the other 'freaks' but still had verbal abuse thrown at me from every direction. I was never slapped about - it was a posh school after all - but I did get called every name under the sun and then some. Two of the more unpleasant (but enterprising) psychobitchwhores got their parents to write letters of complaint about me, even though I blatantly hadn't done anything - if you'd cut me in half I would have had 'victim' written through me like a stick of blackpool rock.

I complained a couple of times but was just told to avoid them, ignore them, stop being a drama queen. 'Oh yes?' I felt like screaming. 'When was the last time YOU had to avoid a pack of screeching harpies who would chase you round the school til they cornered you, then ignore them whilst they hurled abuse'?

Then I had the misfortune to be in one of the sports teachers form groups. Surprise surprise, the ones hassling me were the popular kids; the rich ones, the ones that played sport, the pretty ones. This teacher was the most nepotist bitch I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Out of all the people who have directly or indirectly made my life hell, she is the one I remain most angry with - she would turn a completely blind eye to it all because it was her darling sport-playing girls doing it, even when it was happening in the classroom. Protests on my part would be met with withering disdain:
'Can't you make them leave me alone?'
'No. For gods sake, why can't you just grow up and stop complaining. If you ignore them they'll go away.'
'Well that hasn't worked for the last three years you stupid cow.'
-DETENTION-

Then to cap it all off, my only close friend (another 'freak') took against me in a major way. She was always slightly unhinged, and would on occasion ignore me for days at a time, completely out of the blue - even if we'd chatted in a cheery, friendly fashion just hours before. She became almost psychopathic in her hatred of me, and I just couldn't understand it. She managed to turn the whole school against me - not that it took much - and only really stopped when I proved she'd been lying. Even now, when I haven't seen her for the better part of ten years, I occasionally meet people who were at uni with her who'll say 'Oh, so you're berk. Wow, you're nothing like i imagined - I've heard all sorts of shit about you.'
I mean, why tell people - random people who I will probably never even meet - that I'm a bullying psychopath that made your life hell when it was in fact the other way round? The mind boggles. Amusingly, at the last count 4 of these 6 mutual individuals have then gone on to tell me that they no longer speak to the girl in question because she's a lying, vindictive, manipulative mentalist..

I dealt with all of this primarily by not dealing with it - not thinking about it, not talking about it and developing a mouth the size of a small city. A small city mainly made of gutters. This at least earned me grudging respect from the brighter ones and hangers on, as I could verbally outmanouvre a lot of the more puerile stuff the denser ones came up with. And thus the shower of shit became more of a soft, poo-y patter.

I put up with the abuse at school and then I came home and I put up with the abuse there too, because I had no other choice (except possibly offing myself). I sat my GCSEs, stuck two fingers up at the school and left. My dad died, I went to college and had a brilliant time doing my A-levels. I decided I would man the fuck up, grow a massive (pendulous, even) pair of ladyballs and never let anyone give me that kind of shit again. I heartily recommend this as a course of action, but it is *so* much easier said than done, and I know that after reading posts like Vampyrecats and Maladictas, I had it comparatively easy. It was hard, and I've had my ups and downs since (big 'uns too, but this is getting stupidly long so it's for another time) but mostly I'm pretty damn good.

It was a long time ago, but even now words can't convey the hurt, the anger, the bewilderment - why me? - and it simply isn't possible to just ignore them. This may sound like a self pitying tale of woe but it isn't. Being bullied fucks you up. It decimates your self esteem, your confidence - you begin to doubt yourself in every way, and even the strongest person would have difficulty maintaining the belief that they aren't a cunt when they're told they are for several hours a day. I have scars, both physical and mental; I still jump when I hear loud noises (because for the first 16 years of my life a loud noise was inevitably my dad going mental), I still tense when I see groups of people laughing (because my first instinct is to think they're laughing at me) and I have an innate distrust of 'trendy' people. I don't make friends easily.

So yes, my childhood was miserable, but I don't know any different - it's just how I grew up. It's made me *me*, and although I haven't always felt this way, I'm happy with my life and I like who I am. Seeing my parents make so many mistakes has simply made me more determined to never make the same ones, and being bullied has in a roundabout sort of way made me stronger. And given me talent for scathing wit and sarcasm which I continue to find helpful - that was just the way I was best able to deal with it.
I hope that anyone and everyone who has read this and is getting bullied finds their own way to deal with it too - bullies are cuntcakes of the highest, scummiest fucking order and should never, ever be allowed to win.
(berk, Fri 15 May 2009, 15:47, 11 replies)

I'm too tired to read that.

( WormuIus, Fri 15 May 2009, 15:55, closed)

It is a bit mammoth.
Sorry...
(berk, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:24, closed)

Well I'm not too tired...
Good point. Well said.
(Psyche finishes work at the end of June! Yay!!!, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:00, closed)

Very nicely written
thanks for that - cheers and click from moi
( SpankyHanky, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:38, closed)

I'm with on you on the groups of people laughing thing.
I haven't been picked on since I was 15 (that's 18 years ago!) but I still get that. People can be bastards, but sounds like you're pretty strong minded for all of it.
(Seebeedee, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:58, closed)

Out of all the posts I've read
this resonates the strongest with how it feels to be bullied.

You survive, because you have to. It's not easy, and although you grow, change, move on etc... you never "get over it". It DOES make you who you are.

*clicky hugs from a stranger on the interweb who wishes good things for you*
( warmfuzzies Isn't here, Fri 15 May 2009, 22:33, closed)

It was a shit time
but the past is past, and being emo doesn't help or change things.
Thanks, and interwebhuggles back :)
(berk, Mon 18 May 2009, 12:35, closed)

*Clicks*
Can't imagine what it would have been like to have been getting it at home too. Thank you also for putting so succinctly what it is like now we are grown.
(allthatglittersisglitter, Sat 16 May 2009, 0:25, closed)

wow
I read that with varying thoughts of disquiet and "good for you" spirit then got to the bottom and im afraid after a few beers this evening all I can think of is


BEERRRRKKK!! Wheres my dinner? sorry.
(Halfy By light alone, Sat 16 May 2009, 2:04, closed)

Hehe
'Coming, O sire! Now, where's old bone-head?'

They just don't make cartoons like they used to...
(berk, Mon 18 May 2009, 12:37, closed)

It does raise the point
if the bullying isn't physical, how is one supposed to "fight back"? Call them names? Steal their books? It's ridiculous.
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Thu 21 May 2009, 7:31, closed)