A long, drawn-out 'Ouch!'
Perhaps you've been there, too: To be bullied in such a way that you are the school year's pariah, at a boarding school no less where there is nowhere to run. You're only eight but already your outcast status is set in stone. A false, cruel rumour about a tryst...

Everyone says you're gay. You don't even know what that means. But you know it's REALLY BAD. Places clear either side of you at the breakfast, lunch or dinner table. You are contaminated. So many casual kicks and slaps, and trip-ups that leave your exercise books scattered across the floor. You get used to it after a while.

School outings or sporting activities that necessitate buddying up result - in the worst-case, odd-numbers scenario - in your partner being the teacher. You hear the sniggers and you know the teacher does, too.

Mummy's not been well so you had to leave home a year early at seven and snitching is social suicide, so you choose death by a thousand cuts. Father is always angry, too. No use trying to pierce his rhino-hide. He'd only see weakness.

At 13 you move to a big boys' boarding school. The constant state of fear has stunted your physical development. This means a small dick and no pubes for nearly three long years. Every shared shower is a misery. You are a boy amongst ‘men’. Sometimes you wet your hair in a basin after games and pretend you’ve already been. Or you hide under your bed and creep down to the showers when lessons have begun. You’d rather answer to a teacher than hear the whooping apes’ chorus of taunts and insults.

Someone likes your youthful physique though. He listens and he is sympathetic. You cry in front of him, and he embraces you, but he is a wolf in a cassock – a hypocrite and a demon - and you become another buried statistic in the catholic church’s litany of squalid betrayal. Maybe you really are gay.

At 14 you run away from home at the end of the summer holidays. You are found and returned. A pathetic cry for help. Your mother is perceived as the wounded party. Nobody asks you WHY? Instead of the usual taxis and trains, your father drives you back to school – not out of kindness but to ensure you don’t try to run again.

By 20 you are in rehab, a human pin-cushion, a vile junkie, your hand swollen and hot with the infected puss from a burst vein. You don’t believe it then but there are good people in the world and with their help you will find a way to build a life.

But the wounds run deep and, as my fortieth birthday looms, I am still hurting.

Ouch.
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Wed 4 Aug 2010, 17:50, 5 replies)

I went to a public school too.
The kids there made me think that the human race were all cruel and pathetic at the same time.
I once watched some kids in a year above me (think I was 7) taunting and kicking a boy with spina bifida [sp?] -- I was apalled and lost any respect for the priveledged pricks there and then.
I was on a scholarship and at the top of my class always -- thankfully I was also an agressive little runt. I hate to think how I'd be if I let the cunts grind me down. I am equally as glad I was never a boarder.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 4 Aug 2010, 18:07, closed)

...
Having done part of my teaching practise at a very exclusive private school, I can only say that the teachers there were as bad at bullying as the kids. Made me ask for a transfer to another school, they offered me one that was in Special Measures; I took it and they were the best 18months of my life.
(Strump striving for imperfection since, Wed 4 Aug 2010, 21:03, closed)

Bloody hell
I'm glad you found that there are good guys and girls out there. Boarding school stories make me glad my parents were skint
(micmac is happy as a pig in shite, Wed 4 Aug 2010, 22:21, closed)

My alma mater
is an altogether cushier place these days in terms of food and accommodation but I'm sure there are still some kids leading miserable lives there. They caught the guy btw; I wasn't the only one by far and someone braver than me made a big enough fuss.
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 9:23, closed)

I didn't board, but
I did go to private school and I was the year's punchbag, although I highly doubt I had it as bad as you. These things happened half a lifetime ago mate, you can't change them, so let it go. I hope one day you work out how to make it stop hurting.
*hugs*
(berk, Thu 5 Aug 2010, 10:10, closed)