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Mary R. Wise
age 13-14

I was 14, in eighth grade, 1966.

The year when Nobody Liked Me.

I still remember the day that I found out Nobody Liked Me. I was working in the school library, shelving books, along with several other girls. These girls were the ones I hung out with, the ones who were my friends. They were chattering away about what they were bringing to a Christmas party being hosted by another girl from the class.

“What are you bringing to the party?” someone — I forget who — asked me.

“I didn’t get invited,” I said.

That was the first hurt, I think. All my other friends got invited to the party; I didn’t. I didn’t say a word about my lack of an invitation until I had to, there in the library, in front of the other girls and Sister Leon. I had to say, “I didn’t get invited.”

No one said anything, until Theresa finally spoke up.

“None of the boys likes you, you know,” she said helpfully.

Another sting.

“I don’t care if the boys don’t like me,” I said. (But I did.)

“Nobody else likes you either,” said Theresa.

I bit my lip and just tried not to cry. I kept on shelving books. No one else spoke up.

Later on, I tried to invite my other friend Linda to come over, or play on the playground, or something. All I really remember is that she said no, and I said, “So do you hate me too?”

And she didn’t reply.

I wasn’t overtly bullied. No one teased me or threw things at me or played ugly pranks on me. I was simply the Girl Nobody Liked. For the rest of the year I drew into myself. I didn’t talk much or try to do anything with anybody else. I just existed, doing my schoolwork and speaking when spoken to and trying not to draw attention to myself.

Sister Leon lectured the class one day on Christian Charity and Treating Other People Well, and I knew she was actually scolding the girls for shunning me. I was so embarrassed. When you just want to disappear, any attention, even when it’s on your behalf, is awful.

I began to cry myself to sleep every night. One night my mother heard me and asked what was wrong.

“Nobody likes me!” I wailed. I sobbed it all out to my poor mother, who held me tight and told me it would be all right.

“How?” I asked.

“We’ll have a graduation party,” she said. (In Catholic school, elementary school went through eighth grade; high school started in ninth.)

I was terribly skeptical about this tactic. What if no one came?

But Mom planned the whole thing: a Saturday afternoon party, a barbeque, Pop would cook hamburgers and hot dogs, we’d put the record player outside so the kids could dance, boys and girls, the entire class.

And like a miracle, it worked. Everyone accepted and everyone came, and they all had a blast, and all of a sudden I was no longer the Girl Nobody Liked.

But I have never forgotten that awful year, never. I’ve thought about many times over the years. I wonder if I overreacted to a silly girl being mean. I wonder if Theresa and Linda and the other girls realize how I felt that year. I wonder if Sister Leon really knew what was going on. But I do know this: forty-four fucking years later and I still remember that afternoon.

“Nobody likes you.”

Kelly Phelan
Elementary School

When I was in elementary school, maybe fourth or fifth grade, Liz Claiborne handbags suddenly became The Thing. Specifically, the kind with the tiny raised triangle logo covering the outside. As I recall, they cost about 30 or 40 bucks which, at that time and in that place, was quite a lot of money for a purse, especially for a little girl.

My parents tried, to some degree, to keep me from getting caught up in the materialism that often affects preteens, but all the popular girls had Liz Claiborne handbags and, being a distinctly unpopular child myself, of course I wanted one so bad I could taste it. At Christmas, they finally relented, and on Christmas morning, I unwrapped my very own brand-new Liz Claiborne. It was the first designer item I’d ever owned, and I could not have been happier. I couldn’t wait to take it to school.

The first day back to school after Christmas break, I walked into math class with the Liz slung over my shoulder. I sat down at my desk, and I could hear the popular girls whispering and giggling. I thought they were admiring my new purse. I guess I should’ve known something was rotten in Denmark.

“Hey, Kelly,” one of them finally piped up. “I love your new Liz.”

“Thanks!” I said. “I got it for Christmas.” I tried to look nonchalant.

“When are you gonna take it to church?” she asked pointedly.

I was confused. “I, uh … I took it to Mass yesterday … ?”

“No, I mean, when are you gonna take it to a real church?” She and the other girls burst out laughing.

That pretty much sums up my earliest experiences with people of different faiths than my own.

I still remember that moment vividly. I can feel my face burning, and I can feel the sting as I tried to blink back tears.

My parents came from different faith backgrounds. My mom’s family is, by and large, Methodist. In fact, some of our ancestors were Methodist Circuit Riders (and more than one of them is named John Wesley). My dad’s family was mostly Catholic. Because of negative experiences in their childhoods, neither of my parents have much use for churchgoing, and no one else except for my brothers (who are Catholic) attended church regularly, either. Nevertheless, my parents did their best to see to my religious education (my dad and I read my children’s Bible cover to cover a few times over the years), and I guess that education must have included some Catholic doctrine. I say “must have” because it was quite some time before I learned that not every Christian believes these things to be true.

At last, my mom decided that some good ol’ fashioned church would do me some good, so she sent me every week to Methodist Sunday School. After Sunday School, my friend Angela’s mother would pick me up on the corner outside the church and drive me and her four kids to Mass.

—-

If you’re at all less idealistic than my parents and I, then you can guess that this did not work out very well. More than once, an adult felt the need to tell me that they were praying for me because I was not a Christian, I worshipped statues and was thus going to hell.

A version of this essay was originally published on BachelorGirl.net.

Solveig Pederson Zarubin
Ages 6, 8, and 15ish

Scene: me, a little tomboy-looking girl, with short brown hair which was long and blond fairly recently. Sitting in a first grade classroom, with a worksheet in front of me.

I already knew how to read, and I could read well before kindergarten; it seemed like I’d been able to read forever. Many others in the class either weren’t reading or were reading much more slowly than I was. The teacher had given us a worksheet to do, and was walking around watching us work.

I had already finished the assignment. I was curious what everyone else was doing — and how did they do it? Which parts were they still working on? Nosiness that I still have today! So with nothing else to do, I was looking around…

And heard my name — and then the teacher sternly saying, “Eyes on your own paper!”

I didn’t realize she was talking to me, or what she was talking about.

“Not me!” I thought. “I was already done!” How could I be cheating? I was just looking around to see how everyone else was doing.

I’m pretty sure I got in trouble for that, and one lesson I think I unconsciously got from this was: “Getting too far ahead of the group, being too smart, or otherwise standing out from the crowd — can be trouble!”

Later on in second or third grade, we would be assigned to read a story from our reading books. It always felt like the teacher gave a humongous amount of time to read a story that was only three or four pages. I could always finish it really quickly, but then had nothing to do. Or nothing to do without calling attention that I was done so abnormally early — I thought that if I started reading or doing something else it would be so obvious that I was done way earlier than everyone else.

I didn’t want to seem different or weird. I thought that everyone must notice that I was done and think I had cheated on the reading somehow, like my first grade teacher had assumed.

“She must have been skimming, or just skipping parts. She couldn’t have read it already!”

So I would page back a page or two when I was done -– carefully checking around me to make sure I matched the page everyone else was on. I could be a bit ahead, but not too much. Then I would re-read that page, and then look around and see if I needed to re-read it again, until more people were done. I’d see people triumphantly finishing and then being happy to be “done” — yet I had been done for a long time and felt like I had needed to wait for them.

In upper elementary and moving on to middle school, I realized that raising my hand every time I knew the answer to a question could also be dangerous. I was worried about what people would think: “she’s a know-it-all” “She’s a goody-goody teacher’s pet…”

And I didn’t really want to raise my hand for every single question, that would get annoying to everyone. And isn’t it better for the others to have to answer the questions too?

Even though I knew the answers to most or all of the questions, I would try to figure out how many times I could/should raise my hand without attracting too much attention. Every third question? Once or twice per class? Just wait for the teacher to call on me?

This always felt very unnatural but also much safer.. Eventually I was thinking so much about how to spread out my participation, that I wound up just not participating most of the time in class. Safer, but also quite mind-numbing as a constant practice.

In high school, the grade in several classes, including U.S. History, was based on class participation. The history teacher was also rather intimidating, making it even harder to respond in class, although he eventually became one of my favorite teachers. Because I really wanted to keep a good grade, and I was so used to not participating, I had to really consciously plan that I would raise my hand at least once or twice every class.

Even now, as an adult, sometimes I still need to work on “raising my hand” (especially in a large group) and being comfortable with achieving and showing my talents.

Having good role models at work, joining public speaking/leadership groups like Toastmasters, and increasing my self-confidence by trying new things and succeeding at them has really helped this.

I still have trouble speaking out and expressing myself, especially with new people, but I think I’ve gotten better. (One co-worker told me after I joined Toastmasters – “When I first met you, you were really shy and you really didn’t speak up too much. But something happened – You seem
like a *real person* now!”). Um…Thanks, I think!

I really admire kids I see now, who understand that it is okay to be smart and to let your abilities show, without being afraid of being accused of cheating or “showing off.” Kids who are confident in their abilities and who have been encouraged by their parents and teachers to develop them.

By Maritza Longland
Elementary and Middle School Years

My parents marriage was in turmoil.  In fact, it was soon destined to implode.  However, in the years before the 7^th grade, I didn’t particularly notice.  Maybe they did a good job of hiding it from me… or maybe I was preoccupied with problems of my own.

It is my belief that the chronic instability of my parents marriage somehow manifested itself in my school life.  I can remember pleading with my mom not to make me go to school.  My mom was a meek (or, as I saw it, weak) battered wife, who never stood up to anyone, least of all my father.  I did not know my father was abusive because I thought this was normal, since I didn’t know anyone else lived differently.

My first two memories come from 4^th or 5^th grade (circa age 10).  I can remember the upper and lower play areas that were shared during those grades.  I remember I was almost always among the last picked for the kickball or dodgeball teams.  There was a short, stocky little boy who was often one of the team captains.  I think his name was Jeff.  He was an athletic, strong, well-built little boy.  I, in contrast, was tall, lanky, awkward, and weak.  My memory is blurry and not entirely clear, probably due to fear and strong emotion, but I remember an episode on the playground when he began to kick me.  When I didn’t strike back, he kicked again.  I think I did try to kick back once or twice before he walked away with a look of frustration that bordered on disgust.  I can’t remember that I did anything to provoke him, other than to exist.  I remember feeling like he won because he got more kicks in, and they landed, which mine didn’t.

My second memory is of Sarah H.  She followed me as I walked home from school, taunting me as I walked.  I didn’t know what to say.  I was never an emotionally strong or confident child, so I’m sure any occasional retort came out sounding weak or lame.  I was two-thirds of the way home, when my mom’s car drove up.  Sometimes I was a “latch-key” kid; but if my mom managed to get back in time, she would drive from our house toward the school in order to find me.  When we were both in the car, she asked who my friend was.  I told her she was not my friend – that she had been teasing me.  My mom got out of the car and began talking to Sarah.  Surprisingly, Sarah left me alone after that.  It was only 28 years later that I finally learned what my mom had said.  Apparently, she encouraged Sarah to put herself in my position and asked her if this was how she would like to be treated.  Then she invited her to come to play at our house sometime.

Sixth grade was my worst year.  I was 11 years old.  We all had to leave the elementary school and transition up the hill to the middle school.  I remember trying to be fashionable and trying to blend in.  I bought Izod shirts and bubble barrettes and a Le Sportsac bag, and I started carrying around makeup.  I tried to talk about and dream about kissing a boy, although there weren’t any in my class that I particularly liked.  I told my friends that I liked one of them, but I really only did that ‘cause they pressed me to name someone.

At the beginning of the year, I had two best friends.  I felt nervous and awkward, though.  And it seemed like things were changing so fast.  Suddenly, people seemed to gauge each other in terms of “popularity”.  This was a battle I knew I could not win.  As usual, my only hope was to fly under the radar… but this was not to be.

In December, before Christmas break, my two friends approached me.  I remember vividly – it was lunchtime, and I was standing in the cafeteria.  They told me that they couldn’t hang out with me anymore because, if they did, they couldn’t be “popular”.  Then they left.  The cafeteria was busy, but the sound in my head was a reverberating silence (as paradoxical as that may sound).  This sound followed me for the rest of my 6^th grade year as I felt isolated and alone.  I wandered the halls trying to avoid people.  The library was rarely open at lunch, but I waited at the door for every exception.  Although even the library was not a sanctuary after a couple kids came and pressed their laughing, mocking faces up against the glass windows, and I took it as a personal jibe.  And then there was one hallway I walked where I encountered our star female athlete, Brooke T., and she kicked me for no reason except to show her vital superiority.  (At least she ran away, showing she felt some guilt.)

This was also the year that a pretty, popular girl, Nicole G., tormented me.  I was “brainy” and lonely, and she knew it.  Worse yet, I was gullible.  She used to talk sweetly with me, as if she might consider being my friend, in English class.  Then she would ask me to help her with her homework.  At first, she would pretend to be interested in what I was doing.  After a while, she would look away.  I was trying to be nice, so I finished it anyway.  But then, at recess, she would go hang out with that mean girl, Tisha L.  Sometimes I thought I saw them laugh and point.  A little time would pass, and then Nicole would come to visit me again.  I fell for this repeatedly.  That was the year I was everybody’s doormat.

The good news is that I changed schools for my 7^th grade year.  My parents put me into a private school, where I met someone who continues to be my friend to this day, 26 years later.

Our second book, Can I Sit With You Too? is now officially for sale! Thank you so very much to everyone who helped make this book happen. Please help us spread the word.

http://www.lulu.com/content/4213814

Can I Sit With You Too? features an introduction by SJ Alexander of I, Asshole, cover art by Lea Hernandez, book design by Amy Freels, and includes the heartwrenching and hilarious stories of Mike Adamick, Pamela Merrit (AKA Shark-Fu), and Gwendomama, among others.

The book is $18 plus shipping and the download is $11 — a bit more than the original collection, but this book contains a larger number of stories. And all proceeds go directly to SEPTAR, the Special Ed PTA of Redwood City, which provides support, education, and community to families of special needs children in and around Redwood City, California. (You may tell skeptics who think this project “only” supports a local PTA that they might as well say the Bridge School Benefit “only” supports a local school.)

Here is what Can I Sit With You Too? is all about, via the back cover blurb:

Can I Sit With You Too? is the second collection of stories from the Can I Sit With You? project (www.canisitwithyou.org). These new tales represent an even wider range of schoolyard experiences, including best friend disappointments, new kid fears, harsh discrimination, living with disabilities, and emerging sexuality. By sharing moments from kindergarten through high school, these stories once again remind us that we are not alone: chances are, if it happened to you, it happened to someone else, too.

If you would like to promote Can I Sit With You Too? on a website, please email us at ciswysubmissions@gmail.com and we will send you the code for this tidy little “Buy Now!” button:

Buy Can I Sit With You Too? Right Now!


P.S. Please note that we still have not published all the stories in the book on this website; some are still queued up. And know that we always welcome new stories.

by Madeline McEwen-Asker of
alien-in-a-foreign-field.blogspot.com
whittereronautism.com
sandwichedgenes.blogspot.com
Age 11 at the time

I spent my formative years in a Roman Catholic Convent. As a direct result of that experience I have a vast knowledge of bullying behaviour. Unlike my own children’s enlightened school, there was no anti-bullying policy.

Bullying, like any other unpleasantness, had to be endured, a cross to bear for the greater good of our immortal souls. My immortal soul shriveled during target practice.

I was an ideal candidate, a head shorter than my peers, round and freckle faced. I made regular visits to the confessional on a Saturday morning to cleanse my immortal soul prior to Mass the following day. I would detail my laundry list of offences before the priest. At the end, he would often ask if there was anything else I wanted to ask. I took this as an invitation to moan about my poor benighted lot in life. I gathered that the priest had little experience of childhood or maybe it was just too long ago, but in any event, his advice was to tell my persecutors that I would pray for them. It sounded like sage advice to me and I took the first available opportunity to put it into practice.

I didn’t have to wait very long.

Sadly, the priest’s advice did not bring about relief. As I dusted myself off from my latest pulping, I decided that an alternative plan was required. I had tested my mother’s advice, “ignore them,” but that had proved fruitless. I had followed my sister’s advice, “walk away,” but ended up running at warp speed on short little fat legs. I ended up with a mentally satisfying option, whatever they said, I would agree with them, whole heartedly, good-naturedly, enthusiastically, followed by a jolly good simper. The balm of sarcasm would maintain my sanity.

“Hey McEwen, come over here so I can join the dots on your face!”
“Oooo please do, that would be delightful. Do you have a pen? Here you can borrow mine. I wish I was as talented an artist as you are.”

It didn’t work at first, but I kept trying.

The leader of the pack was one wizen and twisted Geraldine, the bane of my life. A cross between Dick Dastardly and Cruella de Ville. I instinctively knew that if I could just get her to crack a smile, I would bend her to my will, or failing that, slip under the radar. Her torments were regular and unfailing. Apple pie beds, stealing tuck boxes, hiding mail, public humiliation of every kind devised by the truly unloved.

It wasn’t the pain of being tripped up in line and sprawling on the floor, it was the punishment that followed from the staff for this misdemeanour offence, “McEwen! Get up this minute and cover your embarrassment! This kind of wanton spectacle will not be tolerated. Go to the chapel and say twelve Hail Marys and pray for humility, modesty, and chastity.”

The days passed slowly into weeks. One term followed another but I still bobbed above the Plimsoll line. During a holiday period I happened to break one of my arms, again.

“But I can’t go back to school! I can’t write!”
“You can still learn. You can learn to write with your left hand.”

So I returned to school with a cast. It was so miserable to learn that there was no escape from school that I hadn’t the will power to submit to Geraldine any longer. I kept a very low profile, lizard-like, but she still sought me out.

Triumphs when they come, are often small, not a fireworks display, merely an ever so slightly damp squib.

“So there you are McEwen. Licking your wounds no doubt.”
“Hardly, I don’t like the taste of plaster of Paris.”
“You look……grumpy.”
“That’s right I am grumpy. Very grumpy. Very grumpy indeed.”
“Good, I can give you something to be really grumpy about then.”

I saw her take something out of her skirt pocket. My brother’s old catapault, purloined from my room!

“Want it back?” she weasled, dangling it before my eyes.

Lizards can sometimes move very fast. I snatched it back and shoved the single end down the cast to scratch the itchy bits, “Ah that’s much better, how thoughtful of you.” I whipped it out with a cloud of old dried skin cells. “Here, you can borrow it for a bit if you like?” Geraldine didn’t sneeze but her nose wrinkled.

I should like to say that she stopped bothering me after that, that I won, but I think it’s more that she lost interest, or perhaps found a new and more interesting interest.

Now that I am a grown-up person, I suspect that ghastly Geraldine was also homesick. For all her bravado, she had no friends, only cohorts. Perhaps our powerlessness in an adult world, provoked her to gain control and revenge. I often think that resilience and persistence are the flip sides of the same coin.

For those of you who weren’t able to make it to our super fun event, where Amanda Jones, Michael Procopio, Judy McCrary Koeppen read their stories, and Lea Hernandez talked about her artistic process in creating the cover.

Photos by Susan Etlinger. Thanks, Susan!

We are in the process of transitioning our blog to a dedicated server. Apologies for the next few days’ design and interface hiccups.

We will announce which stories were selected for Can I Sit With You, Too? on September 30th.

If you want your wonderful, fabulous story about your social experience in elementary or middle school to be included in the Can I Sit With You? project’s second print collection, you’ll need to get it to us by August 31st. ciswysubmissions@at@gmail.com.

Though we have more than enough material for the second book, we want to include as many voices and perspectives as possible. Please make good on your good intentions, and send your story in by this Sunday!

Please note that while Shan and Jen are nice people, that deadline is a rock wall. Don’t run into it headfirst.

Submission Guidelines: http://canisitwithyou.wordpress.com/submission-guidelines/

by Lastcrazyhorn
Age 12 at the time

Let me set up a scenario for you.

Imagine first that you’re a kid, maybe 11 or 12, possibly 13. You have Asperger’s Syndrome, which means that your social skills are impaired already; plus you’re a preteen/young teen, which means that the rules for your social world are constantly in flux. But as of yet, you’re not diagnosed; nor has anyone in your life ever heard that word, let alone know what it means. As if that weren’t bad enough, you’re a girl who is more of a tomboy, who doesn’t see the point in following the social rules or norms, either because it seems like a waste of time, or you’re just mostly oblivious to their existence in the first place.

Most kids don’t like you very much. You don’t know why. Vaguely, you understand that there is something about your being that offends or bothers these kids. You don’t know exactly what it is. You think that if you smile at them, if you laugh at their jokes (their very unfunny jokes), if you make a point to be really nice to them, then they’ll see your effort and be friends with you. You think that if you can find a topic that you both can talk about, that you both like, then maybe you can have something in common and that’ll help the situation.

They laugh at you a lot, these other kids; sometimes you know why; sometimes you don’t. They seem to be speaking another language from the one you know. They use slang that’s unfamiliar to you, because no one in your world speaks it. Your world consists of what you’ve learned from books (specifically fantasy and fiction and children’s literature), games, adults and perhaps a few highly specialized interests that you really think are cool, that no one else ever seems to get quite as well. You start thinking that maybe you shouldn’t mention these interests, since they aren’t very well received; but sometimes you just can’t help it, because it’s something that’s important to you, and after all, other kids talk about what’s important to them all the time; so why can’t you?

Other kids bump into you in the hall. You try to be more careful as to not bump into them, thinking it was your fault to begin with. You slowly start to realize that they are purposely trying to hit you. Maybe it’s a new kind of joke. Maybe not. Just to be safe, you always try to smile at them and say “excuse me.” They laugh, like you’ve said a joke, even though you’re pretty sure that you haven’t.

Sometimes they trip you and you fall. When they laugh then, you think maybe you had a stupid expression on your face as you fell or maybe someone said something funny that you missed. Sometimes you laugh with them, because after all, someone falling flat on their face is kinda funny, right? Sure.

Sometimes when you fall, you bruise your knee or cut open your lip on someone’s foot that got in the way of your fall. You try to smile, even though it really hurts, because maybe they can still be your friend if you show that it doesn’t really hurt. Maybe you can show that you’re one of them, because you’re laughing and having fun, even though you are bleeding on the floor of the hallway.

Eventually, you might figure out that they are doing these things to you because they like seeing you hurt. Somewhere between them putting a bee down the front of your shirt, setting fire to your backpack, stealing your backpack, flushing your inhaler in the middle of your asthma attack, pushing/throwing you down the stairs, spitting on/at you, giving you Indian rope burns, drawing on your shirt in permanent ink, giving you the silent treatment at lunchtime (or just getting up en mass whenever you sit down), grading your homework wrong, threatening your life by showing you a knife that they brought from home just to cut your throat with, you start to realize that maybe they really might not like you.

Slowly, you start to realize that those videos your class watched a few months ago on bullying and bullies were demonstrating things that could really happen in your life. Who would have thunk it? So, you think to yourself, like anyone would after having seen those videos, that maybe you should tell someone about it. Either that, or the thought just never occurs to you as a viable option.

Say you try to talk to the principal about it. You ride a bus to school filled with these kids that don’t like you. In fact, as you think about it, you’ve started getting diarrhea every morning before you get on the bus, just from worrying about what might happen that day. Most of the time your bus gets to school late, and your bus driver tells you to go straight onto class as fast as you can. Thus, you can’t talk to your principal then, because the bus driver told you get to class as soon as possible.

All of the breaks in the day, when the kids push you and hit you going through the hall, are only about 5 minutes long. The halls are crowded enough, without kids purposely trying to run into you; so what should take 2 min. to get down the hall now takes 4 minutes. Plus, you have to go the bathroom on your breaks, because as it slowly is revealed to you, none of your teachers like you either, and rarely allow you bathroom breaks. Apparently you are considered a difficult student, because you have to ask a lot of questions just to know what’s going on consistently during class. Your teacher gives you instructions, but you aren’t sure who they pertain to. Is she talking to all of the students in the class or just the ones that think that particular way? You don’t know, so you ask.

You can’t talk to the principal on any of your breaks. So you think, well, maybe I can talk to him/her at lunchtime. At lunchtime, in-between the food fight that seems to be only directed at you, you go over to your teacher, who is far off at their table, and try to ask them to let you go to the principal. The teacher, thinking that you’re onto some new ploy to be allowed to go the bathroom, or just because they don’t feel like it at the time, says no and tells you to go back to your seat and quit bothering her. When you leave their table, you hear them all start laughing and wonder to yourself who told the joke and what was it to make everyone laugh so hard??? Boy, if you had that joke, people would fall down at your feet to be your friend.

You ride the bus at the end of the day. You have to get to a seat fast, because otherwise, you’ll end up standing/sitting in the aisle for the rest of the bus ride since no one thinks you really deserve to sit down. Plus, you have to carry on a french horn and even though you might be a little slow socially, you can tell for sure that no one likes trying to accommodate that thing in their seat. You have no time to talk to the principal because if you miss your bus, you’re stuck at the school even longer, and school isn’t really that great, so why be stuck longer?

Eventually, either you realize that if you go to the principal, the other kids will see and really will follow through on that threat to come to your house at night and hang you from your front tree; or else you do manage to see the principal and he either:

1.Doesn’t do anything
2.Doesn’t believe you
3.Calls you overly sensitive
4.Does something, but tells everyone who got them in trouble to begin with, resulting in your getting beat up by an entire crowd of kids, instead of just one or two

Or some combination of the above.

Now, the kids that aren’t actively trying to hurt you/embarrass you don’t do anything to you, but sometimes they sit back and laugh while some other kid fills up an entire wall full of spitballs why you crouch on the floor during the lesson.

There isn’t anyone you can talk to, because either they’re like the principal and don’t believe you, or they call you overly sensitive/compare you to their days of woe and explain that what you’re really doing is building character, because, you see, you really don’t know how it feels to be bullied and they do.

Every time you walk down the hall, either someone trips you, laughs at you, hits you, or whispers behind your back about how shitty a human being you are. In fact, sometimes everyone whispers and laughs at you as you walk down the hall. They say things like, “Hey what is THAT? Is that an IT? Naw, it’s a SHIT. Hey SHIT! Wanna blow me? No,” another one answers, “you wouldn’t want THAT to blow you; think about what kind of diseases you’d get if THAT touched you. Bleah.”

In the meantime, you start writing essays that are centered on themes portraying your violent death, which your teacher awards with A’s, saying things like, “wow, creative, but make sure you work on your handwriting next time.”

One day, you decide that someone has just pushed too far; that, throwing your inhaler in the toilet was bad enough, but throwing it in the toilet that was full of shit was just a little too much; so you hit someone back for the months of suffering they’ve inflicted on you. Instantly, the principal is called or the teacher sees it, and you find yourself on lunch detention for a week or better yet, you’re suspended and have to see the school counselor for a month, in order that you might work out your more violent feelings and the ways in which it might be better to handle yourself, should a situation ever arise again.

Or, say you try to hit someone and you don’t get caught, but everyone laughs it off and starts calling you a freak, or rather a nervous and crazy freak . . . and hey, you remember that one time when the nervous freak tried to hit me? Yeah, that was a laugh riot, wasn’t it.

Imagine that everyone you tell laughs you off or gets you in deeper shit when they try to do something about it. Imagine that you have teachers who purposely give you bad grades so that they can call you up in front of the class and show the class how “stupid” you really are. These same teachers also find great pleasure in not letting you go to the bathroom, even when you’re really sick, because it’s obvious to them that you just need a little toughening up.

Imagine that during PE, when you’re not losing the game and people aren’t throwing basketballs directly at your head just for the hell of it, you’re instead sitting on the floor drawing your name in your arm with a sharpened pencil. Imagine that no one sees or if they do, they don’t say anything.

Imagine that this goes on, day after day after day. Imagine that once every 20 to 30 minutes someone either hits you, kicks you, calls you shit, laughs at you or does all four. Imagine that you still think that agreeing with them will make them just suddenly like you. Imagine that there are good Christian kids that you go to church with that either stand back and let it happen, or that they are the ones doing the worst of the actions against you.

Imagine that every time you try to fight back, either someone overpowers you, or you get caught and in trouble. Imagine that every time you tell someone about it, they just tell you to grow up and get over it. Imagine that you tell the cop at your school and he tells you to quit bugging him and get out of his hair. Imagine that when you’re at home, you start cutting or burning your arms just for the sake of feeling something, since it seems that unless people can see physical evidence, then it didn’t really happen. Imagine that you ask trusted people for help and they ignore you and laugh.

Imagine that you start sleeping in a box on top of your bed for, say, 6 weeks, because it’s the only time you really feel safe. And your mother just thinks it’s a phase. Imagine that you start sucking your thumb again, as well as coming down with pneumonia. Imagine that you start pulling out your eyelashes and eyebrows, and all your parents do is get mad at you for making yourself look bad. Imagine that you suddenly realize that all there is to life is to hear the laughter of other kids while you hurt and no one helps you, no matter how much you smile or laugh with them.

Imagine that you have sleepovers with your teddy bears because no one would want to come to your house anyway. Imagine that for an exercise in your computer class, you have to make a spreadsheet with the names and ages of your ten best friends, and you have to use the names of your cousins from both sides of your family just to make up the difference.

Imagine that it’s like this every single day. Imagine that you start dreaming of ways to commit suicide. Imagine that this goes on for more than a year; more than two; more than three. Imagine that every day of your teenage life is like this.

What do you do?