(no subject)
Aug. 29th, 2006 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanaiseI was talking to my mom about the whole Harlan thing, and some of the other things we were talking about in Chance's journal, such as the 'boys will be boys" excuse that gets entirely too much air play, and I mentioned that boys were horrible to me in middle school, and how they were horrible (mostly physical violence--I remember Randy pushing me into a wall going past me to talk to Shelle because he was pissed at me for, I don't know, being friends with her? And also him pushing me into the side of the pool--that one did scrape me up, the first one I narrowly missed smacking my head against the bricks, and Lucas pushing me into desks--oh, and Chris DeSantis messing up my finger--I forgot that one, even though the joint took 4 months to go down, and the bone is still crooked there.), and that the teachers would basically excuse it as just being boys. Chris did have to apologize to me, (someone dropped a note that said I loved him on his desk, and when I went to take it back, he twisted my finger badly, and the teacher caught wind of the fussing, so there was a formal discussion of it, and he had to apologize for hurting me--I'd forgotten how pissed I was that all he had to do was say "I'm sorry," and I wasn't allowed to be upset that he'd hurt me anymore.), but the rest of them didn't even get scolded that I remember. I'd complain, and the teachers would say, "Oh, they just like you." Yeah, well, that's not the way to show it.
And my mom asked me why I never mentioned this to her at the time.
I don't know. I mean, I was still getting along well with both parents at the time. I think what I *did* do is start really picking on Eli. I was *horrible* to Eli when he was younger. I was 13, so he would have been 8. and he was an annoying little brother, with all that is inherent in that, but I got into the habit of treating him the way I was being treated at school. Which is not a mature way of handling it, and I really wish I hadn't. But I did.
I don't know why I never mentioned it to my mom. I don't know if I didn't think my parents could do anything about it, or if it was a slow escalation of how people treated me so that I never noticed it at the time. I really don't think I was treated badly, and I don't know *why* I felt that way. I think maybe by middle school I'd been verbally teased long enough that it bothered me less. I started reading *a lot* in middle school--I remember reading in the halls between classes then, which is where I learned the skills for walking to work now--if you can dodge hostile preteens, commuters are nothing. And I had my friends.
But I still think it's bad that when I think about school now, I start crying about it. About this, about Jon Rackoff, about the bitchy girls on the bus. I really don't think I had a horrible time in school. I remember liking my classes, I loved my friends. But I guess when I think about the details, there were a lot of things that weren't very fun about it. No wonder I loved college so much.
And my mom asked me why I never mentioned this to her at the time.
I don't know. I mean, I was still getting along well with both parents at the time. I think what I *did* do is start really picking on Eli. I was *horrible* to Eli when he was younger. I was 13, so he would have been 8. and he was an annoying little brother, with all that is inherent in that, but I got into the habit of treating him the way I was being treated at school. Which is not a mature way of handling it, and I really wish I hadn't. But I did.
I don't know why I never mentioned it to my mom. I don't know if I didn't think my parents could do anything about it, or if it was a slow escalation of how people treated me so that I never noticed it at the time. I really don't think I was treated badly, and I don't know *why* I felt that way. I think maybe by middle school I'd been verbally teased long enough that it bothered me less. I started reading *a lot* in middle school--I remember reading in the halls between classes then, which is where I learned the skills for walking to work now--if you can dodge hostile preteens, commuters are nothing. And I had my friends.
But I still think it's bad that when I think about school now, I start crying about it. About this, about Jon Rackoff, about the bitchy girls on the bus. I really don't think I had a horrible time in school. I remember liking my classes, I loved my friends. But I guess when I think about the details, there were a lot of things that weren't very fun about it. No wonder I loved college so much.
