I was walking down the hallway when a friend flagged me down. Her voice pitched to a level intended to be heard as she asked a question that was a not-so-thinly veiled allusion to something that I find mildly embarrassing and that I thought I’d told her in confidence. I did my very best to brush it off.
Then came the laugh. It was the laugh of recognition, the laugh from a third party that indicated my story was no longer private.
I felt my face go red.
“Oh! Look! He’s turning red. He's embarrassed!”
All I wanted to do was run away and cry. That wasn’t exactly an option, though.
--------------------------
One of the first things you learn when you’re the sort of kid who gets picked on all the time is to choose very carefully what you reveal and who you reveal it to. Knowledge, after all, is power. I was the kid who was placed in a special class for high achievers in the third grade[1] and ended up getting picked on in that class for doing things like reading Tom Clancy books and knowing really big words. My knowledge did very little for me in a social setting, but knowledge about me allowed others to pick on me.
I honestly don’t know when the other kids started picking on me. I have benchmarks, though. I remember my older sister, who was two grades ahead of me, defending me on the playground from my chief tormenter. This was on the playground at the elementary school, so it would have had to be in third grade.
I also remember confusion at the fact that several kids I went to kindergarten with being a grade behind me by the time I got to the end of my time in elementary school. Many years later my parents told me that my kindergarten teacher had suggested putting me in a remedial first grade class because it would give me a chance to improve my social skills and not get picked on. She’d make sure that I went to the proper second grade class, though. My parents vetoed that idea on the grounds that if something happened and I ended up a grade level behind it would do irreparable damage to my psyche.
I can’t argue the point. There were several kids who graduated a year behind me in spite of the fact that we went to kindergarten, after all. The other option ended up being taking me out of my third grade class and transferring me to the high achievers class even though that track started in the second grade. In the end that was probably the more sensible option, considering the fact that the next time I took a non-honors or AP core curriculum class was my junior year of high school. But that’s a whole different story about the awfulness of the American schooling system…
The takeaway here is this: I was apparently getting picked on in kindergarten. I don’t remember it then but I was certainly aware of it by the time I was in third grade. Getting picked on in kindergarten, for those who don’t know such wonders, is a good way to become truly emotionally stunted.[2]
--------------------------
I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about this for a while, honestly. On one level it’s because I know that if I can figure out how to write about what I went through I might be able to offer some insight into a lot of things that happen in the world far beyond the borders of my own mind. On another level it’s because writing for me is a form of therapy and this is one of those places where a bit of therapy is pretty useful.
There are also about four different directions I want to go from here. My biggest problem is that I don’t know which direction to take.
--------------------------
When you’re the kid who gets picked on it’s always your fault. You could have tried harder. You could have done better. You could have been more invisible or less obnoxious.
It doesn’t matter what people say. The kid who’s getting picked on doesn’t care about theories behind bullying. That kid just wants to survive. That kid doesn’t understand why it is that they’re always the target. That kid doesn’t understand why it doesn’t stop.
I spent most of my time in high school wanting to die. There were several times I went and sat next to the railroad tracks and thought about jumping in front of a train. Weirdly, it was Christianity that saved me. I thought god would condemn me to Hell for committing suicide and I didn’t want to find out firsthand.
Have I ever mentioned that I referred to god as “The Cosmic Jackass” for my last couple years in Christianity?
It goes back to a genuinely well-meaning intervention by someone who had no business doing interventions. My refuge in junior high was the church. So after my freshman year in high school I went on a missions trip and, at some point over the course of the two weeks I was there, told one of the older students that I wanted to kill myself. He told me not to because god would send me to Hell.
That’s awful theology. At least, I think it’s awful theology. Hell, I hope it’s awful theology. But every time I sat by the railroad tracks and thought about jumping in front of a freight train I remembered the warning and decided not to do it.[4]
--------------------------
I hate to say this, but I understand the kids who bring guns to school. Columbine happened at the tail-end of my senior year in high school, so my life is intertwined with that moment. I would never do what they did. But I can understand what drove them to do it. You just want it to stop. You just want everyone to leave you alone. You just want to spend one day free and safe and left alone.
Of course, for me, the reason that I will never own a gun isn’t because I fear I’d turn it on someone else. It’s because I fear I’d turn it on myself. It’s been at least five years since I slept under the same roof as a gun, but I thought about turning it on myself then. The thing that stopped me? It wasn’t my gun and that would be weird. I’m not even joking. I was worried that it would be awkward for my friend to know that I’d used his gun to kill myself. That was the only reason I didn’t do it.
I do not like guns.
--------------------------
The other thing I understand is the Mens’ Rights Activist and the Pick-Up Artist. I mean, I think they’re assholes and whatnot, but I understand them. I figured that out the very first time I realized that the Internet Pick-Up Artists were offering tips to guys exactly like me.
When you’re that geeky social outcast you seek validation. There’s no better form of validation than the validation you get from that pretty girl who isn’t giving you the time of day. It ends up being pretty easy to resent that girl and try to take it out on other girls.[5] Spite is a pretty powerful motivation, really.
That’s why I hung onto Amy far too long. I like to say it’s because I was trying to use her and my “relationship” with her to understand my split with Christianity. In reality my split with Christianity started before I met Amy and would have happened with or without her. She simply had quite a few features and qualities I never thought I’d be able to get in a girl, so for those first few months when everything was going swimmingly I couldn’t believe my great fortune.[6] Then when everything fell apart I wanted to hang on because I didn’t think I could do better.
When everything was over I wanted to hang on because I didn’t want to admit I’d failed. For one brief, shining moment I’d achieved everything I wanted to achieve. Sure, I’d failed, but, dammit, I’d succeeded for a while. That had to count for something, right?
--------------------------
The thing you learn when you’re the kid who gets picked on is to be very careful who to trust and what information to trust them with. I had school friends who I would tell about church things. I had church friends who I would tell about school things. I had very few friends who I would tell about anything they would actually know about.
Tim. SMark. Dave. Marc. Victor. That’s it. I added Andrew in college. By that time Tim and SMark had become people from the past to a certain extent.
The shitty thing about it is that I knew a bunch of other people who I’m sure would have been good friends and trustworthy people. I couldn’t trust too many people, though, because if I trusted people they’d inevitably turn on me. Everyone does after a while. Or maybe they don’t.
That’s the shittiest thing about the whole exercise. The only person you can blame, in the end, is yourself. Intellectually you know that there are other people out there who care, that there are other people out there who don’t want you to hurt. By the time you realize that, though, you’ve been hurt too many times yourself.
--------------------------
That’s really the Amy problem. She had her own shit to deal with and she was dealing with it really poorly. So we were both using each other to deal with shit that the other person didn’t really understand at all. Yay, baggage!
--------------------------
The anecdote that started this train of thought didn’t happen in grade school. The anecdote that started this thought didn’t happen in high school. The anecdote that started this train of thought happened on Thursday. That is to say it happened yesterday.
I honestly don’t think that any of the people behind that story intended any ill will. But when it happened it completely and totally ruined my day. It ruined far more than my day, really. It ruined my ability to trust yet another person, specifically a person who knew more than that one thing I didn’t want to get transmitted too far.
--------------------------
Getting over the idea of suicide isn’t really that big of a deal, at least for me. There’s always something to live for, even if it’s just a long, slow trudge and the fear of oblivion. Sometimes it’s about stupid questions, like, “Who will take care of my dog?” Sometimes it’s about important questions, like, “No, really, who will take care of my dog?”[7]
Getting over the idea that you can’t trust anyone, though, is a much tougher proposition. I’ve put years of effort into being self-sufficient. I’ve put years of effort into being emotionally detached. I’ve put years of effort into convincing myself that the things I want most don’t really matter. It sucks, but sometimes that’s just what you have to do to survive.
--------------------------
[1]One of my friends and I have a theory that it was a class for spazzes but was sold as a class for high achievers. I’d be willing to accept that explanation except for the fact that I know one genuine spaz who was kicked out of the class after a short period and most of the people I know of from that class were actual high achievers who went on to be successful human beings.
[2]I have three-ish memories of kindergarten: I once got in trouble for trying to cut my own hair with safety scissors, I learned the alphabet through the wonder of inflatable rubber letter people, and I got “married” on the playground.[3]
[3]And, yes, this deserves its own footnote. That girl ran a stop sign many, many years later and got in an accident with my sister and mother. A year to the day later an old man in a Buick Skylark made an illegal left-hand turn directly in front of me while I was driving in front of my high school and the officer who responded at that scene was the same one who showed up at my sister’s accident. My mother actually wrote a very complimentary letter to the village which was read at a public meeting. I ran into the officer a while after that while I was driving a tow truck and found out he’d been made shift supervisor.
[4]And, seriously, I might be being a bit flip about this, but I was fifteen at the time and the guy who I dropped that on was no older than 17 or 18. What the fuck was he supposed to do in that situation? I still remember that scene and I remember that he was genuinely anguished by the whole thing. I mean, how do you prepare a kid to tell another kid not to kill himself?
[5]One of the things that I feel genuinely bad about is that I have probably ended up being a real jackass to women who didn’t deserve it because of that. I’ve been out with a bunch of women who were obviously way more into me than I was into them over the last few years. I didn’t know how to deal with that. The notion of someone genuinely liking me simply wasn’t something I knew how to cope with.
I dealt with it poorly in most, if not all, situations.
[6]Which is why she actually delayed my departure from Christianity. Funny, that.
[7]The other day I was watching an episode of The Simpsons that prompted me to call Daisy dog over and hug her on my couch for about ten minutes. I have zero doubt that if I died tomorrow my family would make sure that she ends up with someone who will love her forever. But I also have zero doubt that the best person to do that is me. That matters. That matters a whole hell of a lot.
Then came the laugh. It was the laugh of recognition, the laugh from a third party that indicated my story was no longer private.
I felt my face go red.
“Oh! Look! He’s turning red. He's embarrassed!”
All I wanted to do was run away and cry. That wasn’t exactly an option, though.
--------------------------
One of the first things you learn when you’re the sort of kid who gets picked on all the time is to choose very carefully what you reveal and who you reveal it to. Knowledge, after all, is power. I was the kid who was placed in a special class for high achievers in the third grade[1] and ended up getting picked on in that class for doing things like reading Tom Clancy books and knowing really big words. My knowledge did very little for me in a social setting, but knowledge about me allowed others to pick on me.
I honestly don’t know when the other kids started picking on me. I have benchmarks, though. I remember my older sister, who was two grades ahead of me, defending me on the playground from my chief tormenter. This was on the playground at the elementary school, so it would have had to be in third grade.
I also remember confusion at the fact that several kids I went to kindergarten with being a grade behind me by the time I got to the end of my time in elementary school. Many years later my parents told me that my kindergarten teacher had suggested putting me in a remedial first grade class because it would give me a chance to improve my social skills and not get picked on. She’d make sure that I went to the proper second grade class, though. My parents vetoed that idea on the grounds that if something happened and I ended up a grade level behind it would do irreparable damage to my psyche.
I can’t argue the point. There were several kids who graduated a year behind me in spite of the fact that we went to kindergarten, after all. The other option ended up being taking me out of my third grade class and transferring me to the high achievers class even though that track started in the second grade. In the end that was probably the more sensible option, considering the fact that the next time I took a non-honors or AP core curriculum class was my junior year of high school. But that’s a whole different story about the awfulness of the American schooling system…
The takeaway here is this: I was apparently getting picked on in kindergarten. I don’t remember it then but I was certainly aware of it by the time I was in third grade. Getting picked on in kindergarten, for those who don’t know such wonders, is a good way to become truly emotionally stunted.[2]
--------------------------
I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about this for a while, honestly. On one level it’s because I know that if I can figure out how to write about what I went through I might be able to offer some insight into a lot of things that happen in the world far beyond the borders of my own mind. On another level it’s because writing for me is a form of therapy and this is one of those places where a bit of therapy is pretty useful.
There are also about four different directions I want to go from here. My biggest problem is that I don’t know which direction to take.
--------------------------
When you’re the kid who gets picked on it’s always your fault. You could have tried harder. You could have done better. You could have been more invisible or less obnoxious.
It doesn’t matter what people say. The kid who’s getting picked on doesn’t care about theories behind bullying. That kid just wants to survive. That kid doesn’t understand why it is that they’re always the target. That kid doesn’t understand why it doesn’t stop.
I spent most of my time in high school wanting to die. There were several times I went and sat next to the railroad tracks and thought about jumping in front of a train. Weirdly, it was Christianity that saved me. I thought god would condemn me to Hell for committing suicide and I didn’t want to find out firsthand.
Have I ever mentioned that I referred to god as “The Cosmic Jackass” for my last couple years in Christianity?
It goes back to a genuinely well-meaning intervention by someone who had no business doing interventions. My refuge in junior high was the church. So after my freshman year in high school I went on a missions trip and, at some point over the course of the two weeks I was there, told one of the older students that I wanted to kill myself. He told me not to because god would send me to Hell.
That’s awful theology. At least, I think it’s awful theology. Hell, I hope it’s awful theology. But every time I sat by the railroad tracks and thought about jumping in front of a freight train I remembered the warning and decided not to do it.[4]
--------------------------
I hate to say this, but I understand the kids who bring guns to school. Columbine happened at the tail-end of my senior year in high school, so my life is intertwined with that moment. I would never do what they did. But I can understand what drove them to do it. You just want it to stop. You just want everyone to leave you alone. You just want to spend one day free and safe and left alone.
Of course, for me, the reason that I will never own a gun isn’t because I fear I’d turn it on someone else. It’s because I fear I’d turn it on myself. It’s been at least five years since I slept under the same roof as a gun, but I thought about turning it on myself then. The thing that stopped me? It wasn’t my gun and that would be weird. I’m not even joking. I was worried that it would be awkward for my friend to know that I’d used his gun to kill myself. That was the only reason I didn’t do it.
I do not like guns.
--------------------------
The other thing I understand is the Mens’ Rights Activist and the Pick-Up Artist. I mean, I think they’re assholes and whatnot, but I understand them. I figured that out the very first time I realized that the Internet Pick-Up Artists were offering tips to guys exactly like me.
When you’re that geeky social outcast you seek validation. There’s no better form of validation than the validation you get from that pretty girl who isn’t giving you the time of day. It ends up being pretty easy to resent that girl and try to take it out on other girls.[5] Spite is a pretty powerful motivation, really.
That’s why I hung onto Amy far too long. I like to say it’s because I was trying to use her and my “relationship” with her to understand my split with Christianity. In reality my split with Christianity started before I met Amy and would have happened with or without her. She simply had quite a few features and qualities I never thought I’d be able to get in a girl, so for those first few months when everything was going swimmingly I couldn’t believe my great fortune.[6] Then when everything fell apart I wanted to hang on because I didn’t think I could do better.
When everything was over I wanted to hang on because I didn’t want to admit I’d failed. For one brief, shining moment I’d achieved everything I wanted to achieve. Sure, I’d failed, but, dammit, I’d succeeded for a while. That had to count for something, right?
--------------------------
The thing you learn when you’re the kid who gets picked on is to be very careful who to trust and what information to trust them with. I had school friends who I would tell about church things. I had church friends who I would tell about school things. I had very few friends who I would tell about anything they would actually know about.
Tim. SMark. Dave. Marc. Victor. That’s it. I added Andrew in college. By that time Tim and SMark had become people from the past to a certain extent.
The shitty thing about it is that I knew a bunch of other people who I’m sure would have been good friends and trustworthy people. I couldn’t trust too many people, though, because if I trusted people they’d inevitably turn on me. Everyone does after a while. Or maybe they don’t.
That’s the shittiest thing about the whole exercise. The only person you can blame, in the end, is yourself. Intellectually you know that there are other people out there who care, that there are other people out there who don’t want you to hurt. By the time you realize that, though, you’ve been hurt too many times yourself.
--------------------------
That’s really the Amy problem. She had her own shit to deal with and she was dealing with it really poorly. So we were both using each other to deal with shit that the other person didn’t really understand at all. Yay, baggage!
--------------------------
The anecdote that started this train of thought didn’t happen in grade school. The anecdote that started this thought didn’t happen in high school. The anecdote that started this train of thought happened on Thursday. That is to say it happened yesterday.
I honestly don’t think that any of the people behind that story intended any ill will. But when it happened it completely and totally ruined my day. It ruined far more than my day, really. It ruined my ability to trust yet another person, specifically a person who knew more than that one thing I didn’t want to get transmitted too far.
--------------------------
Getting over the idea of suicide isn’t really that big of a deal, at least for me. There’s always something to live for, even if it’s just a long, slow trudge and the fear of oblivion. Sometimes it’s about stupid questions, like, “Who will take care of my dog?” Sometimes it’s about important questions, like, “No, really, who will take care of my dog?”[7]
Getting over the idea that you can’t trust anyone, though, is a much tougher proposition. I’ve put years of effort into being self-sufficient. I’ve put years of effort into being emotionally detached. I’ve put years of effort into convincing myself that the things I want most don’t really matter. It sucks, but sometimes that’s just what you have to do to survive.
--------------------------
[1]One of my friends and I have a theory that it was a class for spazzes but was sold as a class for high achievers. I’d be willing to accept that explanation except for the fact that I know one genuine spaz who was kicked out of the class after a short period and most of the people I know of from that class were actual high achievers who went on to be successful human beings.
[2]I have three-ish memories of kindergarten: I once got in trouble for trying to cut my own hair with safety scissors, I learned the alphabet through the wonder of inflatable rubber letter people, and I got “married” on the playground.[3]
[3]And, yes, this deserves its own footnote. That girl ran a stop sign many, many years later and got in an accident with my sister and mother. A year to the day later an old man in a Buick Skylark made an illegal left-hand turn directly in front of me while I was driving in front of my high school and the officer who responded at that scene was the same one who showed up at my sister’s accident. My mother actually wrote a very complimentary letter to the village which was read at a public meeting. I ran into the officer a while after that while I was driving a tow truck and found out he’d been made shift supervisor.
[4]And, seriously, I might be being a bit flip about this, but I was fifteen at the time and the guy who I dropped that on was no older than 17 or 18. What the fuck was he supposed to do in that situation? I still remember that scene and I remember that he was genuinely anguished by the whole thing. I mean, how do you prepare a kid to tell another kid not to kill himself?
[5]One of the things that I feel genuinely bad about is that I have probably ended up being a real jackass to women who didn’t deserve it because of that. I’ve been out with a bunch of women who were obviously way more into me than I was into them over the last few years. I didn’t know how to deal with that. The notion of someone genuinely liking me simply wasn’t something I knew how to cope with.
I dealt with it poorly in most, if not all, situations.
[6]Which is why she actually delayed my departure from Christianity. Funny, that.
[7]The other day I was watching an episode of The Simpsons that prompted me to call Daisy dog over and hug her on my couch for about ten minutes. I have zero doubt that if I died tomorrow my family would make sure that she ends up with someone who will love her forever. But I also have zero doubt that the best person to do that is me. That matters. That matters a whole hell of a lot.
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