This is the one who dresses up as a Red Army soldier and decks pretend-Nazis, right?
What does "to dumpster" mean?
I assumed she meant "had sex with" or "shoved into the dumpster."
My youngest niece is now about 15. I hate it when she tries to talk tough, because while she's smart and independent she's not tough. She's got comedic potential, though.
"Balloons are fun to slap around but they don't cry like a woman does".
"and i ain't never met a nigga that didn't lie about pussy to this day." Maybe a rap quotation, but Google doesn't find it.
1: yes.
3: shove into a dumpster. (how? she was tiny? what?)
5: ditto.
no pushback on the "middle school is the worst 2 years of your life" thing, I take it?
8: As I've said before, I went to kind of a hippie middle school (it was K-8, so very small grades), and other than my best friend there betraying me and queer-baiting me, it was actually not so bad. Oh, also my parents forgetting to pick me up after the school camping trip so that I had to call around to friends' houses to find a parent to get me and all the stuff I had brought. So, yeah, somewhat traumatic, but not as bad as I've heard from other people.
I too assumed "dumpstered" was some sexual act.
Sixth grade was bad, at the end of elementary. Seventh was lonely, but not bullied. Eighth and ninth grade were the ones where I found friends and things started going smoothly again. So my overall judgment about middle school was that it got much better. By 9th, it was objectively good and those same kids went to my high school.
8: Sally's having a pretty good time, but she's in a nice nerdy school, and she's got a lot of advantages: large and muscular, attractive, friendly, and interpersonally kind of insensitive, so you'd have to hassle her pretty aggressively before she picked up on what you were doing. She's just an inconvenient victim, so no one seems to try that hard.
She's got at least one friend who's the center of a spiral of text-message based hostility -- not sure what's going on there, but it seems to have come from the friend's elementary school.
no pushback on the "middle school is the worst 2 years of your life" thing, I take it?
I remember in the eighth grade, after a couple of years of misery, promising myself that I would not become one of those adults who sentimentalizes childhood. I also remembered thinking that grownups had it easy compared to kids my age.
I have kept my promise, and confirmed my youthful observations about adulthood.
no pushback on the "middle school is the worst 2 years of your life" thing, I take it?
Clearly wrong. Worst three years.
8
no pushback on the "middle school is the worst 2 years of your life" thing, I take it?
Not really. I'm not sure if I'd say the same - I was a depressed guy off and on for a long time, starting around then but ending much later - but I can definitely believe that middle school is the worst for most people, and/or that there are warning signs for middle school being the worst. It's hard to pinpoint.
And even if it's not strictly accurate, I can imagine it being a useful lie to tell someone. Teenage years in general can be tough, and that kind of thing might be encouraging to the right person and/or with the right presentation. Look forward to high school, because at least it won't be as bad as middle school was!
I'll push back on it. I don't remember any part of school being particularly worse than others. All of it was basically fine. As has come up before, I think from a UK perspective American schools sound fucked up. But I don't imagine we are getting a particularly balanced view, I suppose.
Middle school is ages 11-14 or so. Yes, that was a fairly grim stretch, but mainly because of compulsory military training and compulsory rugby, rather than anything inherent in being 11-14.
I was too socially unaware for middle school to be the worst. Only later when I realized that other people hung out with friends outside of school that I started to feel really bad.
Personally, I didn't really have a middle-school experience; K-6, then 7-12. K-6 sucked, not in a bullying way but in a friendless kind of way, and 7-12 was much better. I was still kind of socially inept, but with friends and no one being unpleasant to me.
Look forward to high school, because at least it won't be as bad as middle school was!
Better to look forward to college, where there are fewer morons, plus you have beer and promiscuity!
Middle school was easily the worst for me. Completely horrible and I was very unhappy.
School was awful, and there was this huge disconnect where my parents believed that it was or ought to be great, and I was too embarrassed/awkward to correct them. That disconnect (in specific ways) made me miserable at home, as well. So both places sucked a lot.
19 gets it right.
US schools probably aren't much more f'd up than UK schools. The big differences include
- Kids are encouraged to identify with their high school sports teams in the way you guys are encouraged to identify with your local semi-professional soccer team [or rugby]
- Almost everyone goes to public schools. The public schools in rich areas are well-funded and the public schools in poor areas have no money. This becomes a self-reinforcing cycle as parents make it their #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5 priorities to live in an area that has "good public schools" rather than "bad public schools" now and for the foreseeable future.
23: This sort of thing horrifies me. I'm really pretty sure Sally's doing fine (friends come to parties, she talks about a varied cast of characters, she seems happy) but of course I wouldn't know if she were covering up misery.
Didn't Matt Groening clear this up for all time?
Junior high school--the deepest pit of Hell. Junior high school is a holding pen designed to help us through our formative "snotty" years. By isolating us from grade school kids, we will be less likely to torture them. By isolating us from high school kids, we will be less likely to receive the beatings we so richly deserve.
Certainly more memorably bad than other school years, though as mentioned the other day, I can't really speak to the existence of first and second grade or how miserable they might have been.
Middle school ought to be replaced by vo-tech training and agricultural training and things like that. Then return to the classroom in 9-10th grade when kids are a little less evil and can pay attention better.
25: I fought a lot with my parents over stupid, trivial shit. That's the only clue I gave them.
(Full story: it was obvious that I wasn't very popular, although I did have nice, nerdy friends. My mom took ballet with a lot of very popular kids. She would take my stony silence and chat happily about these kids, and occasionally ask me why I didn't like them and want to be their friend, when they were so nice and well put-together. I was too embarrassed to explain that they did not want to be friends with me. Instead I seethed and lashed out over stupid shit. I was really, really angry over this dynamic, which was repeated nearly daily.)
US schools probably aren't much more f'd up than UK schools. The big differences include
...
- Almost everyone goes to public schools.
I imagine the main difference you're identifying is the funding/quality disparity among public schools, but for the record, it appears that in the UK, about 6.5% of nursery, primary, and secondary students are in non-state schools (assuming "non-maintained" means the same thing), compared to about 10.8% in the US.
Middle school, for me, was definitely better than high school. Bad, but not nearly as bad as the next three years.
27: Seventh and Eight graders must go up to the mountains and down to the villages!
Jr. High was indeed the worst. I transferred from a K-12 open school to a very racially divided school, where I knew almost no one, but they all knew eachother, and there were fights everyday. Sucky times indeed.
Age 12-14 were my worst years, I guess that corresponds to middle school.
Grade 6 was the worst for me (that was in middle school, we didn't have junior highschools in our area). I was pretty unhappy, and kids were clearly savages.
28: Ah. I had a bit of that sort of thing going on, but mostly I was basking so hard in no longer being an utter pariah that worrying about what the popular kids thought of me wasn't an issue.
Junior high was a pretty miserable time but, in retrospect, that was mostly internal to me and not a result of the actual reality of junior high.
34: It wasn't what the popular kids thought that made me furious. It was my mom's belief that I was being the jerk to these lovely pretty well-turned-out kids, when in fact they were assholes to me. (I concluded that she wanted to be their mom and felt all this rejection and blah blah blah.)
It sounds terribly melodramatic and non-traumatizing, especially after discussing actual child abuse for the past two weeks. But within my cush bubble, it was really awful and prolonged.
Better to look forward to college, where ... you have beer and promiscuity!
I don't know about your high school, but mine had both of these things, arguably in greater abundance than my college. You're right about fewer morons, though.
Sally does complain a bit about racial stuff -- the school is very integrated; white kids are probably less than a third of the school? And she's a large, pale, blue-eyed blondish kid: apparently she occasionally gets into situations where she feels as if she's getting blamed for centuries of racial oppression in a way that's not connected to anything she's ever done. But it doesn't sound as though it's terribly intense or frequent, and I have walked her through keeping her temper and really taking apart anything of the sort anyone says to her to see if it's actually addressed to her, personally, or if she's taking stuff personally that's actually reasonable in the abstract. And then once she's done that, she can push back if people really are being personally unpleasant without cause.
37: "It sounds terribly melodramatic and non-traumatizing"
It sounds pretty awful to me. Parents can be clueless in any number of ways, but the default assumption that your kid is the problem and forgetting just what adolescent social dynamics are like can feel especially cruel for the child going through it.
Sally does complain a bit about racial stuff -- the school is very integrated; white kids are probably less than a third of the school? And she's a large, pale, blue-eyed blondish kid:
Has she considered dying and curling her hair, wearing a full face of makeup, and joining a Salvadoran gang?
She speaks fluent Spanish, with what has apparently turned out to be a Mexican accent, so she'd probably want to hang with the Mexicans. I mean, she does anyway -- because they're all in the native-speakers Spanish class together, she's more Latina-identified than not in school.
I was basking so hard in no longer being an utter pariah that worrying about what the popular kids thought of me wasn't an issue
My school had popular kids, but they were organized by ethnicity. So there wasn't any crossing over or worrying about what they thought of you. They thought you were a big nerd, and you weren't ever going to be cool and a size 2 Korean girl with teased bangs, so it was easy to drop the whole thing and hang out with the nerds some more. There was no possibility of crossover, which took the whole issue away.
Besides, I was the only girl who was allowed to hang out with boys outside of high school hours (as long as my grades were high). We weren't having scandalous parties or anything dramatic, but I was always in the loop to hang out with the guys. Guys are fun! I still love chilling with groups of men.
no pushback on the "middle school is the worst 2 years of your life" thing, I take it?
I think this is pretty uncontroversial. 9th grade for me, though (1 year out of middle school, age 14-15) was my maximum height of coolness, never to be attained again.
Also, "worst two years of my life"? No.
Of course I had more autonomy as an adult, and better perspective on what was going on, but breaking up with my ex and ex-best friend simultaneously was a worse year (early thirties). Being scared of being single and childless was deeply bad, even as I had a lovely quality of life and a good job.
There are other problems in life, and from what I've heard of divorces and bad marriages, I think over-emphasizing junior high is strange.
from what I've heard of divorces and bad marriages, I think over-emphasizing junior high is strange.
Those suck, but at least you're not 13 and FREAKING OUT INTENSELY all the time.
I was 13 and I knew that I was going through a rough patch, but even then I had perspective. I wasn't FREAKING OUT INTENSELY. But, like I've said before, I was born a forty-year-old.
Man, 9th grade was sweet. Fly ladies from the high school with the hottest women in the world, illegally driving cars, sneaking into Sunset Strip clubs, heading off to the beach all summer. Good times.
48: I was going to remark that Unfogged is defined by being made up of people whose lives didn't peak in Jr. High, but I guess I was somewhat mistaken.
No, 9th grade was the first year of senior high. Junior high sucked it. I can still hang out here, right?
So, LB's daughter shouldn't be Salamander, but rather Salopezmander.
Four of my worst years*, in descending order of awfulness: 7th grade (first year of junior high), 10th grade (first year of senior high), sophomore year of college (first year living with upperclassmen), and first year in the workforce after college.
Conclusion: I am most unhappy when I am at the bottom of a social hierarchy.
Take it away, bob!
* There was a worse year that came later, for completely unrelated reasons.
|| Does anyone have good high contacts in the WH, DOD, DOJ, DOS? Email me offline.|>
Cruel, vicious things were both done to me, and done by me in middle school, and it kind of bums me out when I remember them. I did have a hell of a lot of fun, though. My baddassery peaked around that time (I was an early bloomer).
I have a sister in middle school. She seems to like it.
Conclusion: I am most unhappy when I am at the bottom of a social hierarchy.
Take it away, bob!
I had the White Sox, SF, and parent/family troubles of violence and poverty.
I was totally indifferent, even unaware of school and it's social hierarchies with a slight failure in my Senior Year. I was not liked, I think. Within five years of graduation I had forgotten the names of all but 5 of the 400 in my class, and the 1500 I was in school. Three of those five married into my extended family.
It was all ok, no thrills, no spills. Hoyt Wilhelm was terrific.
IOW, the Buddha say for all the delusions, and especially social heirarchies:
The only way to win is not to play.
61:Yeah. I took little, I gave little.
I don't want to give the impression that I was hiding in a corner or in the last row. I had activities (still have my letter jacket), friends, mischief. I was mostly quiet, but intermittently as obnoxious a bright 15 yr old as you might imagine, knowing me now.
But status? I don't remember a moment caring what other students or teachers thought of me.
I punched a couple kids, got beat up twice. Whatever. I was a boring target.
I did watch my large extended family, like twelve within five years of me. They had a lot of fun. They suffered hell. I never saw the point.
apparently she occasionally gets into situations where she feels as if she's getting blamed for centuries of racial oppression in a way that's not connected to anything she's ever done.
Whitey's been saying this exact thing for hundreds of years.
Middle school sucked, but elementary school was SIX YEARS LONG.
Yeats laying down a marker to himself: "When you grow up, never talk as grown-up people do of the happiness of childhood." Words to carve in stone.
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The mood swings associated with this damned approaching death anniversary are making me nuts. I'm okay one minute, happy the next, and trying to decide on the best of the many available ways to kill myself the minute after that. (I'm not going to off myself 'cause I don't want to give Al any ideas she doesn't already have but I can think about it, right?)
Yeah, it's "normal" and all that, time heals, blah, blah, blah. I know, I know all that, been here before, have the death certificates. It's still a pain in the ass. Okay, the rant is over, no comments needed, keep on.
||>
no comments needed
Blah, blah, blah.
Thinking about you during this stressful, horrible time. Hang in there. Im glad you are commenting here more.
Well, I know no comments are needed, but I and I am sure everyone else are thinking of you (and always of the much missed DE).
She was great, Biohazard. Of course you miss her. We do too.
65: unsolicited, then, but b/c I typed it all one-handed: my advice for dealing with suicidal ideation in general is to rent all of these movies and also purchase all of these Skittles. That is: a) if you crank up the dopamine to borderline-psychosis levels, it can be (with that many Skittles, literally) cathartic; and b) giving yourself an absurd and minor physical problem -- like a bad stomachache or freezing cold hands from biking in subfreezing weather -- takes the edge off self-destructive ideation. Whatever specifically works for you, as long as it's both unwise and harmless... Then, once the edge is off, you can do the appropriate thinking, crying, yelling, etc.
Not that I ever set out to do it per se, but it usually had the desired effect.
I guess "lurkey" is going to become a permanent pseud despite no longer being a lurker?
Actually, thinking back on it, middle school was fairly mixed. I was bullied a lot, but also had some really close friends. Plus, I was some kind of semi-celebrity for leading the school to victory in all kinds of state academic competitions. People would shout my name in the hallways and congratulate me on stuff all the time. It was... a little odd.
Ninth grade, first year of high school, was kind of a low point because it took a while for me to make many friends, and my lunch period overlapped with that of no one I knew, so I ate by myself for a lot of the year and was kind of lonely. So maybe that was worse than middle school, in some ways. The rest of high school was generally fantastic, despite an intermediate low point where other people were hanging outside school a lot and I couldn't yet drive and lived at the wrong end of town to see people often. But, looking back on it, I'm still impressed by how awesome my high school was. The "finally I'm around other people who understand me!" thing a lot of people reported feeling about college wasn't true for me. College wasn't so different from high school. Lots of really smart and talented people gathered in one place.
The last two years of high school were the worst time for me. Me: wanting more independence. My parents: filled with anxiety about where I would go to college. Also my best friends were Mormons, so we didn't drink. It was pretty weird.
No no! I will resume lurking. I just didn't (don't) have anything better in the interim.
But fwiw: my college years were orders of magnitude worse than middle school. Which is really crap.
no, don't be like that lurkey!! c'mere, lurkey lurk! [makes gobble-gobble noise).
bio: I'm so sorry, I really can only imagine what it would be like to be approaching that anniversary. even knowing DE only through the small lens of unfogged it's clear she was just an awesome person, funny and kind. I'm be thinking of you. I've appreciated your support too.
Ninth grade, first year of high school, was kind of a low point because it took a while for me to make many friends, and my lunch period overlapped with that of no one I knew, so I ate by myself for a lot of the year and was kind of lonely
Sounds like a pretty good low point to me, though no doubt it was not fun at the time.
bio: I'm so sorry, I really can only imagine what it would be like to be approaching that anniversary. even knowing DE only through the small lens of unfogged it's clear she was just an awesome person, funny and kind.
I would like to echo these sentiments in their entirety.
On the shore a bat, or possibly an umbrella
Detached itself from the shrubbery
Causing those nearby to recollect the miseries of childhood.
--Edward Gorey, The Object-Lesson
Well, Alameida, you are my bat (or possibly umbrella).
England, mumblety-mumble years ago, when I was young, did not have middle school. Would that it had. Its short duration limits the pain. I, at eleven, went to a school that I would not leave until I went up to University. Seven years. By the end, I was not a well person. I cannot pick out any specific aspect: ajay above talks of mandatory rugby; though I hated that, I also hated mandatory hockey (backsticks anyone?) and cricket. It wasn't that I had no friends, though I hadn't many. It wasn't that the masters were unfeeling, though they were. It wasn't that the older boys beat me; rather, they ignored me. Yet the entire experience was both deeply unpleasant and inescapable. Even now, decades later, I cannot look back on it without loathing.
69: Lurkey, thanks for the site and the hints. I've been living with the ideation since I first understood what "dead" was, some sixty years ago or so. I'm sure I'll take that step when my health deteriorates to an unacceptable point but not just because I'm sad. Some extreme exertion/danger rush is my antidepressant of choice, always has been.
Thanks to the rest of y'all too, I'll make it through this shit okay. I promised her I would so I don't have a choice.
I pretty much enjoyed all my schooling, despite having objectively miserable existences at primary school. (Well, not really. But.)
High school was fun all the way through.
I don't remember school below college being terrible. 'Twas mostly boring. It got less so once I conned a bunch of teachers out of whole pads of library passes.
Lurkey, run! Alameida has a rock!
I'd agree about there being a coffin-corner around 11-14. The tolerance from earlier is gone, but you don't yet know that you don't have to buy in to whatever bullshit is going. An evolutionary bottleneck, if you like.
aw, way to fuck up my game, walt. I was only going to dumpster lurkey once, like a "welcome to unfogged' thing.
lurkey lurk would be an acceptable pseud.
Wasn't there a Lurkey McLurkersen? I liked that pseud.
I was only going to dumpster fruit basket lurkey once
I am going next week to talk to the literary society at one of my old schools and the first thing I need to tell them is that I hated the place more than I have ever hated anywhere before or since. It's dreadful to be miserable when you're eight but I think that thirteen/fourteen are the years when you are most vulnerable, perhaps because there is some idea that things won't last forever. It's easier for small children to give up hope entirely. That, in a way, is easier to bear.
But, Jesus: how could anyone who had ever been a child suppose that human nature is essentially good?
And I wish I had more time to spend here.
88: Huh. I was suicidal at 8, but not at 14, in part because having no hope at all was far worse than feeling like patience might be rewarded. By then, I had a job, and I was soon going to be able to drive, and I had some cool older friends who mentored me. At eight, I was just lost.
88. Please come back and let us know how that information is received. I don't think any adult admitted to me that they hated being kids until I was an adult myself. It's a conspiracy!
The best (only?) real coping mechanism is to realise that you're going to grow up one day and all this shit will go away. (There'll be a ton of new shit instead, but you don't necessarily grasp that.) The understanding that it isn't a life sentence, all appearance to the contrary, is really important. I suppose that's what AWB is saying in 89. The sooner you can gain that understanding, the better for your chances.
90: but at boarding school at eight, I was too stunned to have lost hope, if that makes sense. I had to believe that patience, or some virtue, would be rewarded. But at 13, having survived five years in a boarding school where at least cleverness was rewarded, to be plunged back to the bottom of a whole new shitpile, in a school where unpopular children were ass-raped with broomsticks (which did not happen to me), was much much worse. Because in the new place, being clever was just being a nerdy misfit.