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[rushthatspeaks]

I have just been fascinated, scandalized and reassured by theferrett's post here about school bullying. (WARNING: content disturbing, to put it mildly.) The comments are one of the most impressive expressions of the hell that school can so easily be that I've ever seen, and remind me of why I have a solid conviction that our present educational system in many ways requires total overhaul.

But at the same time... yeah, reassuring. Because the first thing that went through my head was oh gods it wasn't all in my mind thank you thank you thank you. Because the girls at my high school were masters of some really impressive psychological tactics, and I actually spent a couple of years of college wondering if they'd meant the effects they were having on me or if I was just paranoid.

I have now seen those same tactics described as having happened to so many people in so many places that I know I'm not paranoid. It's a great relief. That's why I'm linking to the post, and why I'm leaving this entry unlocked: because knowing that I'm not alone in having experienced some of the things I did makes me feel a lot better, makes me feel less like it was something about me that caused it. It wasn't.

(I remain grateful that my high school was well enough policed that I never took much in the way of physical violence-- just pinches now and then, people trying to trip me or knock me off balance, some hair pulling before I cut it short. Nothing I hadn't learned to expect. But some of those girls were masters of the psycho, and did in fact use one on me I still haven't heard about elsewhere-- there were a couple of them who specialized in being extremely and plausibly nice to me only in the presence of my mother or another authority figure, so that I looked rude and sullen when I didn't return their niceness because I couldn't bring myself to fake it. My mother'd say things to me like 'Why didn't you say hello when she said hello to you?' and I was just too unsure of myself to manage to spit out 'Look, if you weren't here she wouldn't have said hello; what she said would have begun with 'bitch', ended with 'dyke', and encompassed several sexual acts I'm not certain you've heard of, along with the standard telling me that I'm going to go to Hell for being a druggie dyke witch, just like the last six times she's spoken to me, and I do not feel like being cheery to her.' Has anyone else heard of/experienced that particular kind of bitchiness? I'd hate to think my high school had managed to come up with anything actually original along those lines.)

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure theferrett didn't expect what he's been getting by way of comments, but I'm glad it happened.

Comments

[prosicated.livejournal.com]

While my high school was large enough, and urban enough, that it took effort to run into another student with one's parents, that method was certainly used with other authority figures.
In elementary school, however, I remember one instance where one girl (F) convinced the mother of a friend of mine (A) that the two of them were fast friends, so that A's mother began inviting F over weekly, and leaving them alone to play. All of A's protests, complaints, and explanations couldn't convince A's parents that F wasn't up on A's life because everyone was, wasn't excited about the new toys A had gotten, and wanted to make A's life miserable.
This was in 4th grade, in 5th grade, F was separated from the school for seriously beating up another girl from our class.

[irene-adler.livejournal.com]

I thank my lucky stars that I got to avoid four years of this in the way that I did. I have my stories, but they're nowhere as bad. They mainly involved religious weirdness. I identified as Christian, but because of my deep interest in Egyptian history and my constant drawing and decoration of things with hieroglyphs, I was OMG A DEVIL WORSHIPPER. There was even a story about me bowing to a tree(!) But for the most part, the girls bullied me in elementary school, and the boys in middle school. Most of the girls were nicer then, possibly because they matured, possibly because they figured out the smart girl can help you with homework.

But as I say, I got to go to boarding school. Although there was plenty of bullying there, it mostly missed me -- there were just so many gifted students that you could get yourself in deep with the good smart ones, who'd have your back then if you had problems. So the devil-worshipping thing didn't get to cause me lasting bitterness, as I don't doubt it would have if I had stayed at that school.

You're right, though. This is a system-wide problem, and I believe there's something deeply wrong with our school design.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I was called a Satan worshipper. I experienced just about every torture described by the various posters. I don't say that girls were worse, though, because I got just as much torture from the boys. Except none of the girls tried to assault me sexually.

[batshua]

I got just as much torture from the boys. Except none of the girls tried to assault me sexually.

God, that just triggered a couple of memories.

*twitch*

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I actually couldn't really look at too much of that thread because it brought back bad bad memories, but most of grade school and all of jr high (I dropped out of high school) was, not exaggerating here, torture because I was teased so badly (and of course reacted so badly to it after a while; and of course the adults did noting, it was my fault because I didn't know how to deal with it). I had girls pretend to be my friends when authority figures were around and the minute the adults were gone turn on me and say really nasty things -- so not only was the "Noone likes me" stuff disbelieved, but "Why aren't you friends with those really nice girls? I see them talking to you every time," and so on and so on. V common tactic in my opinion.

For years I had a phobia of cafeterias -- I lost 20 lbs my freshman year of college, instead of gaining along with everyone else, because it roiled my stomach to just walk into a cafeteria because of all the stuff that had happened to me in one. Still difficult for me to walk into one, altho I can handle it better now.