I remember school as a happy time until I was in 5th grade. I was smart and enjoyed learning and all of us knew each other and were happy together. I had gone to a small parochial school and in 5th grade our school had grown so small that we had to merge with another parochial school and everything doubled except we crammed us all into one classroom. And we lost all of the teachers we knew. At the same time my Muscular Dystrophy came on, but none of us knew we had it until years later. The first part of my particular MD is a loss of facial muscles. So I couldn't smile, but I didn't know I couldn't smile because who looks at their own face? Everyone else knew I couldn't smile. As a grown woman, if I keep quiet, I'm thought of as being "stoic" in the face of adversity. If only they knew that I just keep my mouth shut because if you see my face and hear what I have to say you'll probably think I'm over reacting when in reality I'm saying what anyone else would say but with a sad face.
In fifth grade, it was pretty bad by November. I muddled through. In sixth grade our class moved to the other building across town with the "upper classmen". We had to take the bus. Debbie D and Theresa S were in the 8th grade and they were at my bus-stop. Debbie's mom had been friends of my mom for 25 years, at least although we were never quite as upper crust as them. It was an hour ride, and it was he//. We'd wait for the bus and they'd call me ugly. They called me a dog. They said I was a pizza face. If ever I did anything that made myself feel better about myself like get a new hairstyle or new coat (we wore uniforms) they'd make sure I knew that nothing was ever going to make me likable because I was a piece of dirt. The Nuns joined in. We always played Prison Ball at recess and it became a torment. You could sit by yourself which was just admitting that you were worthless, or you could play and they'd all scream and taunt and absolutely assault me. It was awful. I was smoking and drinking and smoking pot within the year. My parents thought I was worthless because I never smiled, and I acted out. I was in foster care by the time I was 14, and on my own and dropped out of high school by the time I was 16.
Years later, Debbie D's brother S had a daughter who was killed by another teen who did it because he wanted was angry at the world and wanted to know what it would feel like to really hurt or kill someone. It was a horrible thing, and the kid got a juvenile sentence in a mental facility. He probably spent 9 years or so in the State Mental Hospital for kids. S milked that for about a decade. He was super right wing and got himself in front of the legislature ALL OF THE TIME to play the "You don't keep people in jail long enough" song over and over and over. He also beat his wife and had DUII's and was generally not a very nice person. But any time bullying came up, or someone was injured in a hate crime, S was on tv talking about how unfair it was and that his daughter had been killed by someone who "just wanted to kill someone for the thrill of it."
About the time that I joined this board and I was having so much trouble with M another distraught teen who was living in the same neighborhood that M was in shot a Deputy Sheriff in the face. Everyone knew the deputy because he was the County Sheriff spokesman. It was awful. husband and I thought it might have been M that did it for a few hours. The kid was convicted of murder as a juvenile and sent to the state juvenile mental health prison, and then the juvenile prison. Of course, up pops S D on every news channel for a week talking about how "no one can possibly understand the torment he went through because a mentally ill kid decided to kill his daughter" and this boy "should be tried as an adult and face adult jail" blah, blah, blah. I had had enough.
I sent S a letter saying what his sister Debbie and her friend Theresa had done to me and how it had affected my life and that they had done it "just because they could and just to see someone else be hurt." I told him I was sick and tired of hearing him P and M about how awful it was for him, he was making quite a good living at it. After all, he had started a charitable organization, and big money from out of state was paying him to testify in our state house and pass laws. But he needed to know that if I ever heard him tell that sob story on tv again I was going to go public with what his sister and her friend had done to me and I would be sure that everyone knew that they did it just because it made them feel good to hurt someone. There would be at least 50 kids who would say it was true. They'd also say I was a POS but they'd say that Debbie and Theresa made my life he// for it. I never saw him on tv or in the papers again.
Debbie is on Facebook now. She's single and has a cat who is her pride and joy. She was always an ugly girl, in the way that a mean person looks ugly. I like that she's single and all she has is a cat. Her friend Theresa is nowhere to be found on her FB page. I hope she is as miserable as she should be, too. Am I angry about it? Not unless I think about it. I couldn't really care less about those two girls. Only in that any bad news in their lives would make me happy.
This is one reason that I tried so hard to be sure that M didn't let his weakened facial muscles define who he was. It's an almost impossible lesson to learn, especially when the only other person you know who is like you (me) is picked upon by an ex and by family for being a sourpuss. Instead of seeing the potential in himself, he still sees only the sad face. I don't know that he'll ever figure it out. He's always had such a chip on his shoulder.