High School stories...

[Guest bob_barron]

I was made fun of a lot in high school and you just laugh along with them- I took all it in stride and I always had a good comeback ready.

 

This whole teenage depression cutting my wrist thing- Boo fucking hoo

[Guest Leena]

That was very well said, Marney.

[Guest papacita]

high school people don't have a very well-developed sense of self. they generally don't have the experience to be able to just say, "oh, fuck them, i'll just be myself anyway." young people's self esteem is more dependent on what others say than most of you seem to be willing to admit. you can't necessarily "just ignore them," it isn't that simple. if you're 14 and you're trying to find out who you are, & you get treated like shit by everyone around you 5 days a week for 7 hours at a time, you will start to believe it.

 

Well everyone's dependant on other people's opinions to some degree, so yeah, I know I'm oversimplifying it a bit, but in general, I think ignoring them is the best way to deal with it. When you show them that they're not getting to you then they're more likely to leave you alone.

[Guest J*ingus]

In my experience, just ignoring bullies never works. You have to fight back effectively, in one way or another.

[Guest papacita]

Well with bullies, that's a different story. If somebody's constantly riding you, and if you ignore them they don't let up, then yeah you've gotta step up. But you can't go around trying to fight everytime someone says or does something you don't like, because ultimately people are gonna start to think you're the problem. You're better off just ignoring most people.

[Guest EricMM]

It's true that you can always find someone who has it worse.

 

But I'd like to say that as someone who had a couple of friends in highschool who took so much, physical, mental, and sexual abuse from people when they were younger that they seriously got fucked up and contemplated (sp) suicide, I seriously don't think another back hand would be the correct method of helping them.

 

When you say that there are four year olds starving, that is completely true, and taking your own life is greedy, it really is. But this person was so fucking quality in so many ways, it was really scary to listen to her ruminate about what death would be like. Thankfully she's out of THAT (Highschool, the depression, etc.) and actually seems to have become a very solid, able, and hilarious person.

 

I just don't think all suicidal folk should be ignored that's all.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

To get back on topic, the peak of my high school experience (socially) was one of four things --

 

Homecoming 2001: I was Trojanman. Not THAT Trojanman, rather I was in Blue and Orange all over. Blue Afro wig with an orange crisscross, face painted with a blue and orange yin-yang, an orange dress shirt, an undershirt with "The SENIOR Whole F'N Show!!" painted on it(the previous year, it was 2002: The Whole F'N Show), blue jeans rolled up about knee-high with 20 and 02 on the legs in orange paint, orange "JI"s on my knee-high socks, and one shoe painted blue, with the other orange. Add a blue tie and a blue cape, and you've got yourself a superhero. I had an AWESOME picture of myself in a heroic pose, but when the computer died... fuck. I really wish that hadn't happened. Hey, at least I made the second page of the yearbook with that.

 

Valentine's Day Dance 2002: The night that the dancer in me came out. It started out in a subtle manner, with me being in the circle around a few dudes who could MOVE during "Chicken Heads." Eventually I started doing the Seizure during "Brass Monkey," and by the end of the night, I was making all of the younger teachers blush with my salacious dancing to "Baby Got Back." Truly a great night.

 

Mr. James Island Contest: Put together by the Key Club for the Cancer Society, I helped put asses in the seats with promises of unleashing the beatbox, and I delivered. The other guys just danced for their talents, literally. Of the eight dudes, I was the ONE who did something different. Anyways, I won. It would have still been great if I hadn't, but the most interesting guy won.

 

Prom 2002: I talked about this one time in an old thread, but in short, it ruled.

 

Those four experiences alone made high school awesome, and those are just a few of many that, if you think about it, you had as well. Oftentimes we want to remember the negatives and ignore the positives.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Heh..prom.

 

My girl at the time and I just spent the night drinking and making out. Why bother dancing?

 

I never got the whole bully thing. The simple answer is "Dot their fuckin' eye." Might get you an asskicking, but it'll at least get some respect, too.

[Guest godthedog]

Cordially, fuck you.

oooh, way to argue those points. i quiver at the power of your unerring logic.

 

How do you define someone that "shouldn't be made fun of?"

someone with a quality that either they can't help or a quality that's stupid to make fun of anyway. i'll go through your insults to cynicalprofit point-by-point and assume these are your criteria for picking on people.

 

I'm picking on cynicalprofit and he's just another one of those fat

not that he's necessarily fat, but...eh, some people can't help being fat, it's just the way they're built, but most just overeat. this one can slide.

 

ugly

a) who are you to objectively judge what's ugly and what's not?

b) if someone is born with a complexion you don't like, how does that make them deserve to be made fun of?

acne-ridden

i had a horrible case of acne in middle school & got picked on for it. it scarred up my face and i was on accutane for a total of about a year and a half before it went away. please tell me how i deserved to be made fun of for this.

insecure

so what if somebody's insecure? what does it matter to you? does it just make it that much more fun when you pick on someone?

dumb teenage slobs

okay, THEY deserve it. but how do you know he's dumb and a slob? because he disagrees with you and he's not articulate about it?

He's done nothing to deserve it apart from being weak, petty, vindictive, obsessive, and ignorant.

you have this bad habit of calling almost everyone who happens to disagree with you "ignorant," but that's another topic for another time.

 

Getting blasted on this board, probably the only place where he feels safe anymore, isn't doing him any good at all. It isn't helping him cope, it isn't enlightening him, and it certainly isn't making him change. It won't do a damn thing for him.

wow, not only is picking on people fun, but i can rationalize it to make myself think it has a constructive purpose! where do i sign up?

 

I'm doing it simply because I enjoy being cruel to whiny, contemptible brats who think their soft, coddled lives are roiling, unendurable cauldrons of despair and anguish. "Oh you made me feel so bad I wanted to kill myself?" The necessary and sufficient response is "Go to hell." I've known people who died when they DIDN'T want to. Life is precious, if you don't know that by the time you're 14, go back to the goddamn classroom. I have no sympathy and no patience for weepy teenagers who use their death as a threat, as an emotional lever, in order to make others care for them. That's extortion. That's blackmail. Such disgusting children don't need understanding or love; they need a hard slap across their fat, stupid faces.

i'm not sure if you understand this, but clinical depression is a mental illness. depressed people make desperate cries for help because they are mentally ill. you don't make a mental illness go away by picking on somebody, you do it with therapy and treatment.

 

i'll agree that there's plenty of teens who aren't really depressed and just ACT depressed, and i don't know whether cynicalprofit is one of them or not, but his state is irrelevant. first, it isn't your (or my) place to judge whether he's clinically depressed or just "whiny," as you put it. second, you make no distinction between the two. your argument is on the assumption that every teenager who ever killed himself because of being abused by his classmates was always in a sound state of mind. maybe in your ten-cent, tough love, pop psychology world this is true. in the real world, it is not.

 

And just whom do you think I should make fun of, anyway? Strong, generous, forgiving, kind, and smart people? What would be the point?

this is too stupid to even comment on. and lots of kids DO pick on smart people.

QUOTE  

you can't necessarily "just ignore them," it isn't that simple

It absolutely is.

again, no it isn't. clinical depression can be and is caused by things like this.

Cry me a river. 4 year-olds are starving to death right fucking now. A few hours ago a woman was shot and killed in Falls Church. People have real problems in the real world, and if you're such a self-involved self-pitying drama-queen mess that you're more concerned with your own meaningless, artificial problems while living your meaningless, artificial life, I have no time for you. And I'll say so. Mean? Unkind? Yeah. But that's what you've earned.

again: how do clinically depressed people deserve to get bashed by you?

[Guest Zack Malibu]

The dances at my high school were always cool. I took my video camera to my softmore Christmas Ball as a gag, and it wound up being school tradition that I had to take that video camera to every dance I went to. Junior Prom, it came in REALLY handy. We had it at a swanky country club, and the DJ was playing New York, New York, and me and a bunch of my buddies and their dates started a Rockette-style kickline on the dance floor. This one kid, whom everyone called "John Travolta" or "Disco Inferno" (don't ask) was down at the end of the line, kicking his shoes up, while a friend of mine was videotaping the whole thing. Next thing you know, you hear a loud crashing sound, and the sound of broken glass. Turns out Disco-boy's shoe came flying off, and flew into an antique cabinet thing that was displaying antique dishes. And he busted one of them. Everyone started dying laughing, and I have the whole thing on tape.

 

Best dance ever though, has to be my girlfriend's senior prom this past year. Had an awesome time, and I still knew tons of people in the school, so I didn't feel out of place or anything. Sadly, the video camera didn't make it for this one, as I had to get a new one.

 

And see my earlier post about not going to the senior prom, and the ensuing publicity stunt. Short-term, the situation worked out great, but sometimes I wonder if I missed out on something. Oh well, I'm not going to shed any tears, since I personally couldn't stand at least 65% of my class anyways.

[Guest EricMM]

It's generally the case that someone's Senior year is their favorite year.

 

Unless it's marred by some horrible tragedy (bad break up, car accident, etc) Senior year is the year people finally start to grow the fuck up.

 

That's always good.

[Guest Leena]

i'll agree that there's plenty of teens who aren't really depressed and just ACT depressed, and i don't know whether cynicalprofit is one of them or not, but his state is irrelevant. first, it isn't your (or my) place to judge whether he's clinically depressed or just "whiny," as you put it. second, you make no distinction between the two. your argument is on the assumption that every teenager who ever killed himself because of being abused by his classmates was always in a sound state of mind. maybe in your ten-cent, tough love, pop psychology world this is true. in the real world, it is not.

 

Being depressed has nothing to do with suicide. As a person diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder for 8 years, I've never once contemplated suicide during my depressing times. I was teased, abused and attacked by my classmates in high school, and that had no effect on my condition. Suicide comes from feeling sorry for yourself, and/or trying to get the ultimate remorse and attention from those who "wronged" you. Clinical Depression doesn't result from what happens in your life, it's due to a chemical imbalance.

[Guest godthedog]

i'll agree that there's plenty of teens who aren't really depressed and just ACT depressed, and i don't know whether cynicalprofit is one of them or not, but his state is irrelevant. first, it isn't your (or my) place to judge whether he's clinically depressed or just "whiny," as you put it. second, you make no distinction between the two. your argument is on the assumption that every teenager who ever killed himself because of being abused by his classmates was always in a sound state of mind. maybe in your ten-cent, tough love, pop psychology world this is true. in the real world, it is not.

 

Being depressed has nothing to do with suicide. As a person diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder for 8 years, I've never once contemplated suicide during my depressing times. I was teased, abused and attacked by my classmates in high school, and that had no effect on my condition. Suicide comes from feeling sorry for yourself, and/or trying to get the ultimate remorse and attention from those who "wronged" you. Clinical Depression doesn't result from what happens in your life, it's due to a chemical imbalance.

i was diagnosed with depression & put on medication for it right around the time of my suicide attempt, and i can truthfully say that the depression was not there before i started getting picked on.

 

draw your own conclusions.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

oooh, way to argue those points

I suppose I should've said "grow the fuck up" instead. Maybe that would've had you quivering.

Drop the phony indignation already. You set the tone. Don't whine if I flip you off after you start a screaming match.

 

You're missing the point entirely. Making fun of people is intrinsically cruel. There is no justification for it. I'm not the one rationalising cruelty; you are.

how do you know he's dumb and a slob? because he disagrees with you and he's not articulate about it?

Yes.

please tell me how i deserved to be made fun of for this.

No one deserves to be made fun of. Still, you were ugly, so it happened. Boo hoo.

so what if somebody's insecure... does it just make it that much more fun when you pick on someone?

Yep.

you... [call] almost everyone who happens to disagree with you "ignorant"

Almost everyone who "happens to disagree" with me is.

clinical depression is a mental illness

No. It isn't. Putting "clinical" in front of it and italicising your ignorant claims makes them no more plausible.

lots of kids DO pick on smart people

And the smart people ignore them. Or they get over it. One or the other.

 

it isn't your... place to judge whether he's clinically depressed

clinical depression can be and is caused by things like this

how do clinically depressed people deserve to get bashed by you

Clinically, clinically, clinically. You'd have a better chance of impressing someone by repeating your false claims over and over again if she hadn't taken four years of psychology at a graduate level, two of microbiology, and one of criminal psychology at Quantico. There is no such thing as "clinical depression." It is not an illness. It is a mood. Diseases have etiologies and histopathologies. "Mental diseases" do not. They are a myth, pure and simple, invented by those who want to rationalise away the fact of destructive and disturbing behaviour, condemn rather than care, brutalise rather than treat, and imprison rather than help.

Get over it.

[Guest The Flying Dutchman]

My friends and I used to go upstairs during lunch and use a giant slingshot to shoot erasers down the hallways.

 

We built a scene in the courtyard of a Satanic sacrifice to a dark god with many many tiny evil worshippers bowing to the monstrosity that was about to eat the hapless victim. It was made out of snow. It was kicked down during lunch. The next day, we built it again, but filled the dark god snowman with rocks inside it.

 

I was once stopped by the principal of the school who wanted to know why I was walking down the school hallway with a wooden log on my shoulder. Answer: Our math teacher had asked us to bring in Yule logs for the Christmas season to tie in with the logarithms we were studying and I decided to just bring the biggest log that I could find and conceivably carry all day.

 

My memory of high school is not exactly solid for some reason and those are a few of the things I remember specifically doing. My friends and I must've done some other more interesting things too that I'm not remembering at the moment, because according to a lot of current high schoolers from my school, we're all legendary.

[Guest Incandenza]

It's strange that my years of high school are such a blur. Earlier in this thread, I joked that I could remember nothing do to a massive drug intake during those years, but that's not why. I was somewhere in the middle of the social strata, so I can't say that I experienced a lot of highs or a lot of lows. Maybe the mindnumbing sameness of that time makes everything so forgettable

[Guest The Flying Dutchman]

Me and my friends were in that non-group of people...'cause in our school there were all these stupid classifications that people made. There were "preps" and "jocks" and "goths" and all that other stupid shit. We weren't any of those. We were just there...doing stuff.

[Guest Leena]

Why won't Marney argue with me?? I've been waiting for this.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Well, I pretty much did contradict everything in your last post in mine, if that makes you feel better. <g> Seriously, though, I've had the same argument countless times, and it never goes anywhere. I'll pound through another iteration if I must, but I know it by heart already, so I don't really see the point.

[Guest Incandenza]

I was something of a misanthrope in high school, and I suppose it would have been a more miserable time had I not found other haters of teenage humanity to surround myself with.

 

Also, I was a fairly clean living kid during those times, but it wasn't out of a sincere desire to live healthily; any disdain I showed towards all those kids who went out and got drunk every weekend was more out of me making myself better than them than actually wanting to be a "good" person.

[Guest The Flying Dutchman]

Damn straight. I only drink on social occaisons which happens extremely rarely and even then it's only weak stuff like Mike's HL or Kahlua's. I'm still completely clean in regards to drugs. My school was full of people that did the "Weekend Drunk" or "Constantly Stoned Crackhead" bits. Absolutely pathetic.

[Guest Leena]

Ok, then. Mental illnesses certainly do exist, however, so you're wrong.

[Guest Incandenza]

I drink way more now than then, but I'm 23, so it's all legal. (Remember kids, if a law can justify it, it's ALL good.) When I came to the realization that my refusal to imbibe was more about me being purer than the next guy than not wanting to destroy my liver, I knew that my stance had been dishonest. I figured going out and getting drunk all the time was better than that. How's that for crazy logic?

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Mental illnesses certainly do exist, however, so you're wrong.

Nope. They don't, and I'm not. I cited several works in another thread on this same subject: TS Szasz, Myth of Mental Illness, Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences; M Foucault, Madness and Civilisation; P Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry; C Hovey, The ADD Hoax; T Armstrong, The Myth of the ADD Child. These writers and many others, respected authorities in the field (Dr Szasz is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York; many others who agree with him are professional psychiatrists as well, and his books are required reading in practically every college-level course in the country), disavow the very idea of insanity altogether, and I agree with them. It is a meaningless concept.

What are called "mental illnesses" are more accurately described as "problems in living." The DSM-IV is a sociological and legislative document rather than the "diagnostic tool" it claims to be. It prefers to condemn rather than explain. It speaks in proscriptions rather than prescriptions and it cites ages of legal responsibility rather than ages of biological change as criteria for diagnoses. There is a centuries-long history of the proponents of "mental illness" pandering to social prejudices and serving as jailors rather than doctors. They continue to serve that function today.

[Guest Kinetic]

I drink way more now than then, but I'm 23, so it's all legal. (Remember kids, if a law can justify it, it's ALL good.) When I came to the realization that my refusal to imbibe was more about me being purer than the next guy than not wanting to destroy my liver, I knew that my stance had been dishonest. I figured going out and getting drunk all the time was better than that. How's that for crazy logic?

I'd say it's interesting logic, since there's no such thing as crazy. I drank whenever the opportunity presented itself in high school and picked up the smoking habit in the process. I actually always resented people who wouldn't drink because I saw their stance as being illogical and because it was a lot harder to score when no one was drinking. I actually knew a girl during my senior year who vowed not to kiss anyone until she was married. Mental illnesses may be a figment of our collective imagination, but that bitch was crazy.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Bitch be trippin', yeah. I kissed my first girl at like 8 or something and I haven't stopped since.

[Guest Just call me Dan]

My senior year in high school was the best year of my life. Everything came together and I just had a great time. the culture-shock from college is really killing me at this point in time, though, my bad grades are the main reason I'm not on this board much anymore besides the fact that wrestling sucks really bad as of now.

[Guest cynicalprofit]

For the record, im 21 and have very bad english and grammer, they were never strong points, or math, but I got along fine with the rest of the world.

 

If Marney is a christian, which Im assuming off his quote, what happened to love they neighbor and all that get along stuff. And thats not in anyway saying christianity is bad, it is in my personal belief, but its not do to Marneys actions if he is.

 

Look at it this way, politics and government have been running the world since what the begining of time, and notice how ever society that runs by its government, has fallen. Its only a matter of time before all governments fail and ppl go back to the leave me alone, ill leave you alone theory. (Cavemn had no taxes or jobs other then being self sufficient, whats so wrong with that?) And who runs government, why ppl who are out to prove they are better then everyone else. Notice a continuing problem with all governments, their leaders are always trying to prove they are the best, and war brakes out. You'd be perfect for the job of leader, marney, since you seem to have the aggressive , I am better than all of you quality down to a T.

 

Marney, you obviously dont have a clue who i am, yet you think you do because of my opinions? WTF? Im a college graduate, im not some 14 year old acne riddent fat kid. While I am fat, I dont give a fuck that I am, im over that shit since Anna Nichole Smith was a playmate and fat is a fetish, type it in on google.com if you dont believe me, so big deal. My weight does not make me anyless of a person or human being. We all bleed red.

 

God your more whinney then me, because if someone doesnt agree with you, you bitch and tear them appart to show your superority, talk about being insecure. You cant be wrong. Hell Ive been wrong alot, I know it and have grown as a human being because of it.

 

But then again show me someone who isnt somewhat insecure, and Ill show you a liar.

 

We all have faults, but I still think its fucking retarded that a group of ppl (i type ppl cause its shorter to type), have to gang up on one person and say i hate you for who you are, thats stupid, but thats the ONLY thing highschool tends to breed. In the business world its called discrimination, and IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME! Where did that idea of ppl not being worth of you likeing them, prove they arent qualified? Why school of course. (Unless your parents were clansmen, buts thats a whole other issue. ) If they arent worthy to you, you discrimate against them by finding whatever faults you see and making fun of them because of it. to some of us, thats what highschool was, to you it wasnt, glad to know.

 

Ok the comparison of slavery to being picked on was not that great, but the idea of we hate you because of your identity and will treat you as lower because of it, falls along the same line of thinking. Slavery was a more extrme version Ill admit. But hating is hating now matter how you look at it.

 

And for the record, anyone else find it ammusing that for every book about a medical condition, there is always a book saying that the condition is fake? I mean Ive been told aids is a disease that only effects "faggots", which is totaly disproven by reality. And some ppl still think the Holocaust didnt happen, despite all the proof of its existance and horror. Yet ppl have written books about how the holocaust was a lie and that aids isnt real, so remember, just cause you read it doesnt mean its true.

 

I dont have tv, and dont always believe anything I read, when the news company is run by a person who has friends in government, I'm not going to rush in and say this is truth. In genreal, unless I see it, I dont tend to believe it. But thats just me. Alot of newspapaers are run by people who have political opinions, therefore their news can be biased. Not saying thats always the case, but it has happened.

 

And Im done, have fun tearing it apart marney, I know you will, and you will do everything you can to prove you're right and better, which "if that is the way he wants, well, he gets."- GNR. I dont need to prove anything in this thread or to anyone on this board. (which will be countered with, they why do you keep posting, or there abouts, to which I'll respond with because someone has to say it so it might as well be me.)

 

And if you pop a half chubby or more while doing it, i recommend you seek some help.

-FIN-

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Regardless of who's right or wrong in this, I think a turning point for me was my discovery of dance music. Downloaded "What is Love?" and there was no such thing as NOT moving or being energetic.

 

Just thought I'd throw that in here to lighten the mood.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest Incandenza]

What, my realization that I was as shallow and superficial as all the people I despised in high school didn't lighten the mood? Would it surprise you that Ghost World really struck a chord with me?