It's just like middle school

[undergroundpanther]

It was 1975-1978.Those years,I was in middle school. Middle school was made into hell for me. Life at home was made into hell too.Hell it seems is not just for children,abuse continues throughout adulthood too, it is more sneaky, precise,ignorant,deviant and cruel and it is perpetuated by bullies that have since grown up and wedged themselves into situations where they can tyrannize others and get away with it,just like they did in the social environment in middle school..

Most of the time in my school years...
I was either avoiding bullies, getting bullied,or kicking a bullies ass
once the limit of how much bullshit I can tolerate was breached
by those wastes of skin.

On the bus ride to and from school that was for me hell too.
I would be assaulted almost daily at the bus stop as well as on the bus,
It was started by the same people who had certain personality traits
If one is observant one finds out there is a pattern in who they ARE.
Red flags like a lack of empathy, no sense of what is right and wrong,
no shame, authoritarian control freaks, liars who were aggressive and
becoming vicious without provocation,and bullies become even worse assholes
in private. As the bus wound around back roads,cul-de-sacs,forests and fields
It would start,the harassment would become threats then some days I got pinned
on the floor of the bus by a bunch of bully kids,stomped, spat on,
verbally abused,punched,kicked. Eventually the bus driver would yell
for them to stop it. But no one listened to her as she drove on yelling
but DOING nothing to stop them,all bark no bite..Talk is cheap.
If my limits got breached on the bus,I would explode and
the bullies teeth got smashed on the metal bar on the seat
that my head got slammed into .
My misery was great fun for the sociopath little assholes and the bullies posse.
I dunno what the bystanders were thinking.I was disgusted that no one stood up.

The social environment of middle school gave me PTSD and dissociative identity disorder.My life is diminished and I can't function like others do,and daily I think of suicide. To this day I still trigger on public transportation.I ride it because it is the only way I have to get anywhere out in the homogeneous suburban soul killing emotional desert..

When I got home,I found hell again.My options upon walking into the house were to either avoid my drunk asshole father by slinking quietly past him Or race to my room if my father was home. If I walked in the house unaware he was there,I knew I'd get caught coming in the house with wounds and spit in my hair and have to deal with my father's lectures on my 'weakness' and threats from a 6 1/2 foot 200 + wall of hate filled muscle and alcohol and sociopath pinning me against the nearest wall he could pin me into. If he was not there I felt a small sense of relief ..But again I was alone freaking out after what I faced on the bus,cooking my own dinner which was lunch missed due to bullies.I ate and watched cartoons alert as a jackrabbit in a field full of foxes and hawks. listening for anything so I could bolt to my room or out the door if my father came home.
My bedroom door had 9 bolt locks on the door to keep him out (when it was too cold) Or I got out the door or a window into the woods or up a tree to avoid him.(when the weather was tolerable). I didn't walk in the woods much because the neighborhood bullies would chase me on minibikes, So I moved through the tree tops.If they caught me,together they'd tie me to a tree and punch me or worse. I began to ask Why? Why do these bullies hate me so much?
Everyday brought a new assault from sociopaths all around me and the sociopaths 'posse/enablers'.During these attacks additional despair came from the countless bystanders and heads looking "the other way"including cafeteria ladies,monitors,teachers administrators even the vice principal and principal of the school.I asked why don't they care? Why do the not stop this?
Why don't they use their position of authority to stop this hell?


It is October 2010. As far as logic appears I am OUT of middle school.I am 40 some years old.
Well I may have to change my logic...It makes no sense.


Lauren Valle got curb stomped by bullies.Adult bullies.They hated her.They wanted her to be scared and quiet.They dominated and assaulted her.(that feels familiar..)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101026/ap_on_re_us/us_kentucky_senate_scuffle

The entire incident had a whiff of not just election rage, but of gendered violence. Large men stripping a wig off a slight, unarmed woman and pinning her to the ground? Not exactly the chivalry that conservative men like to wax on about. To make it worse, the stomper demanded an apology from his victim, echoing the battle cry of wife- and child-beaters everywhere: "See what you made me do?!"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/28/tea-party-movement-republicans

It's the same shit just like I was Middle school all over again.

School board member to quit after telling gay kids to kill themselves
McCance fuming over a gay rights group's Spirit Day on Oct. 20, when the group urged supporters to wear purple to raise awareness about harassment and bullying against gay youth. "The only way I'm wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide," he wrote.
"I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die," he said in another comment about gay people. His comments were riddled with anti-gay slurs.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101029/pl_yblog_upshot/ar-school-board-member-resigns-after-telling-gay-kids-to-die;_

Noose Hung on Door of Equality California Office. Police Shrug: 'Sometimes You Have to Live with Being a Victim'Mel Diste, a volunteer at Equality California's Santa Ana branch reports that she arrived at work last night to find a noose hanging on the door of the office.Wait till you hear what the police officers she called had to say:
When the police arrived, two officers spoke to Daniel and myself outside. The male officer dominated the conversation. There was nothing they could do, of course, there was no suspect and no crime had been committed. The officer said "what it is, is a string on a door." My vision got blurry, I was embarrassed and felt stupid for making the call. I took a deep breath and said "Do you see any correlation between the fact that this is a gay office and there was a noose left on our door in the wake of all of these teen suicides?" The officer said, "Sometimes you just have to live with being a victim," and proceeded to mention that his car had been broken into before. As if that's the same. As if having your stereo stolen is anything like the message "You should kill yourself." As if random theft is anything like an act meant to convey hate and stir up fear in the heart of a minority group.
http://www.towleroad.com/2010/10/noose-hung-on-door-of-equality-california-office-police-shrug-sometimes-you-have-to-live-with-being-.html

police are looking for a man who was captured on video before he brutally assaulted a transgender woman. http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-la-brea-transgender-attack,0,2171220.story

NEW YORK -- Shocking video has surfaced in connection with an apparent hate crime that has left an openly gay man hospitalized in a medically induced coma.
The suspects reportedly taunted Price and hurled anti-gay slurs at him before assaulting him.
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-gay-bashing,0,4512891.story

I am familiar with the kinds of taunting and beatings bullies do. I remember it from middle school.

Are we as a culture stuck in middle school? Are we playing make believe?
How many people out there still believe in adult versions of the lies about bullying that excuse or enable it? Crap like bullying is a "rite of passage" or "boys will be boys""turn the other cheek" ignorant adults say about bullies,that end up implying kids must suffer and either fight or kill yourself or go into deep deep denial until you lose your mind 9 years after the fact. What might be adult versions of those old and dumb bullying platitudes?

Maybe stuff like: "You can't fight city hall",Poor people choose to be poor","Fat people are lazy" "Since ____has a position of authority above you there is nothing you can do about the decision" ,"If you want to keep your job be polite..you are above those tactics?", "To have any hopes of progressive legislation done we MUST compromise with psychopaths who benefit from government but want to eliminate it for anyone less fortunate than themselves." Compromise entails Playing the Game" " Just ignore they'll they'll stop","love conquers all",You are the same as a bully if you stop the bully by giving him his own tactics right back to him" "
Everyone knows to get a promotion,we must "play the game"and kiss the ass of the boss bully.(put up with anything if you want to make it).Bullies have a "right" to have,do,__ " "I don't have that__ right. "Life is unfair deal with it".and that old bullshit one "you are too sensitive/grow a thicker skin".


I still wonder..How many people are stuck in some form of perpetrator/enabler/ forever a victim types of social/relational dynamics?
Are people deep down afraid of being bullied if they dare stand up against a bully? Are they still recreating the wounds and long forgotten hurts and frustrations in the not so pleasant parts of millions of different childhoods inside the webs of relationships that make up what we call society? Is this why so many just appease the bullies, let them mouth off,walk on eggshells and parse our words carefully to avoid some bullies wrath or character assassination? Are people too confused,depressed,or exhausted from being overworked,disrespected,taken as a chump financially, stuck in unhappy relationships, emotionally drained and coping with various threats and unreasonable demands?

When will we finally as a culture grow beyond the middle school mentality? Without becoming spineless pacifists tolerating the intolerable or lapsing into uncontrolled/misdirected violence or driving ourselves crazy..
It's an important issue to ponder as individuals and as a culture.Life as we know it may depend on finding out where you stand with the bully issue,, Finding,understanding and using that inner locus of control wisely,forcefully,with discernment.

[midnight]

1. Interesting that you pin the tea bagger mentatlity and other bullies to

middle school.... I was trying to find an appropiate school age group that was also reminding me of the extrem innapropriate behavior that is becoming the norm accross out country.... I was reminded of High School, but after reading your post, I have to agree.....

[undergroundpanther]

3. During middle school

Was my second suicide attempt,my cat was murdered by bullies,and I wanted to blow that school to bits I was so frustrated and in pain.. But at the last minute, I couldn't do it because another scapegoated kid I knew laughed it was the first time I heard her laugh.I couldn't bring myself to hurt innocent people.I still wanted the bullies dead tho.

[panader0]

2. Sorry for your experience

Mine was in 66 and 67. You had to fight or be a "pussy". As a junior in high school I had 13 or 14 fights, real scraps, and I was always scared and always hurt and got hurt. It was what you had to do, it seemed like at the time.

[cilla4progress]

4. Sweetie -

I hope you have been able to find some help, love, and peace. Yours sounds like a horrific journey, and that you are whole and compassionate is a huge testament to your humanity, and inner power.

[SheilaT]

5. My older son was being bullied

in elementary school. It was absolutely nothing on the order of what you're describing (more on the order of social isolation), mainly because the teachers at the school did a pretty good job of keeping a lid on the bullying.

But in the fall of his 6th grade year, I got a phone call from another mom at that school whose older son had experienced much of the same social isolation at that school. She reminded me that I'd occasionally mentioned that sending our son to a private school was an option for us. She said I could not even begin to consider to send my son on to the middle school the next year. In that school district middle school is 7th and 8th grades, and there's just incredible bullying all around. Her son was experiencing a lot of what you described, especially on the bus. (The elementary school was walking distance.)

So we did it. The next year we sent him to the private school, where my son's differences -- he was small for his age, very bright and academically inclined which of course didn't sit well with a lot of the other kids, totally bald including no eyebrows and eyelashes because of an auto-immune disorder called alopecia areata. What we didn't know at the time that he also was mildly autistic, had Asperger's Syndrome.

Long story short, bullying was not as well tolerated at the private school, although I did hear from some other parents who felt their children were being bullied. My son did not experience it at all. Being smart was respected there, and he even went to National Science Bowl both junior and senior years. He eventually grew from being the smallest kid at the end of 8th grade (smaller even than any of the girls to a respectable 5'11"). Had we not been able to get him out of the public school, I'm certain he would have been suicidal by the end of 8th grade.

As for the friend's son, things were so bad for him they finally transferred him to a different middle school in the same district, and then attended the high school that middle school fed into, rather than the one he should have attended, based on where they lived. God bless parents who pay attention to what's going on and do what they can for the kids.

I am utterly appalled that bullying is tolerated at any level, anywhere.