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Mar. 30th, 2005 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksI have just been fascinated, scandalized and reassured by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 suretheferrett didn't expect what he's been getting by way of comments, but I'm glad it happened.
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.
