It's hard to believe the amount of bullying (and other horrific BS) I could go through and still be so happy and smiling like this. It's even harder for me to think I had been a bully too for a bit and actually hurt others. I look at this photo of me at I believe my 22nd year and have a hard time thinking I would do something so mean ... sitting there in my dirty, secondhand sweatshirt and messy hair, super excited to get the cutest little xmas stocking.
...that snob was not real...
May 11, 2024
On the topic of bullying, I have been bullied in every aspect of my life from a very young age. It happened often at my residence, and really, rightfully so, we were all just trying our best to function in a very dysfunctional world. We just did what we knew, and we knew how to be bullied, and then how to bully back. It took me some time to figure out how to bully back, but I got the hang of it in my mid-teens.
However, it was worse at elementary and then middle school. High school was still pretty damn bad, but I finally learned ... "Eat or Be Eaten" ... So, I Ate!!! ... And I still, this many decades later, feel horrible for being that way...that wasn't me and I apologize to anyone I hurt.
But the girls in elementary school were just hateful. Two of them kept it up in middle school then my first part of high school as well. I had four full time bullies. Two of which were my 'best friends' and the other two I didn't even know existed until grade 6, those two were also my first stalkers as well, my only female stalkers at that.
The first two regularly, daily/weekly, god only remembers, would, at some point, be my friends...my best friends...then with no provocation on my part, they would then hate me. They'd pick fights with me and then make up a petition to have all the other students sign stating that they too "I Hate Connie!!!!!" And so now no one liked me...for whatever amount of time...an hour, a day, a week...again, only god remembers this. All of a sudden, out of the blue, one would be my best friend again. Then the other would follow suit. Then everyone would like me again ... until it all happened again ... and again ... and again ....... I was their Proverbial "Punching Bag". I never knew what I was getting into from one day to the next. My residence was bad enough, not knowing who was going to be in what sort of crazy lunatic psycho mood, but having to deal with this at school too, was far more than any little child should have to bear...not including all the other bs going down around me as well. As mentioned, before, I spoke of my bullying teachers, who got away with it because of my child molesting principal. Let me tell you, I knew crazy...and that was my childhood.
I made these quick sketches back in July 2020 when my depression was horrendous, and I was all alone. The 1st is of my "Friends" getting the other kids to sign their "I Hate Connie" petition. The 2nd is of the student's making fun of my yellow poncho, which was too bad because I really liked it, my Grandparents gave it to me and it had a Smurf on the front, it was awesome, and I didn't have any other raincoat so then I had to go without. 3rd is of the students teasing me for having long hair which I had no other choice but to have. And 4th is the principal molesting me in art class, this is when I found out what he and others had been doing to me was wrong, the term molest however was not used until my mid-teens, so I didn't know what was actually happening except that it was not right ... it took me decades to like art class again.
I stayed "friends" with those two girls from kindergarten to my first year of grade five ... my second year of grade five was pretty lonely, but much better without them...even the principal was finally sent off to a high school so he'd less likely be able to touch the young women without getting in shit. Let me say, those were some hard years being friends with those two. But I couldn't make any other friends...and so I stayed with them. I just wanted so badly to be liked...by someone...I had no one in my life, anywhere, so these two really, although complete bitches, were still the best friends I had...the only friends I had.
Once I finally got to middle school, one was gone, and the other didn't spend time with me anymore. I was not approved of in her new circle friends. This new circle also included my other two bullies that I didn't know even existed...yet they fn hated me. And boy did they make that known. The leader of those two was an actual ogre, literally, and she pulled all the strings to make everyone dislike me...as best she could. I had a very hard time making any friends but one...and she was terrible. I was just her "Excuse". She could pull any stunts she wanted with her parents as long as I was there...somehow, they must have thought that I could convince her to be a good girl just by spending time with me...haha...if they only knew. She was a spoiled little selfish snobby brat. And she got me into a ton of trouble I really didn't want or need, I already had more than enough problems, but I had no other friends, so I just kept letting her cause me all these problems just so I could have someone in my life. By the end of grade 8 though, I was in so much crap because of her I was no longer allowed to hang out with her anymore...but by then I didn't want to ever see her again anyway, so that was fine with me. I also had tons of jobs and other work to do so I really didn't need, nor have time for a friend anyway.
Then high school started, and I was completely alone. The kids I sort of knew in middle school went to another high school, so I had no one to hang out with. This is when I made my last 'best friend'...I was her "Filler". When she had no one else to hang out with she'd come and hang out with me. But the only way I could be her friend was to be snobby and "Mean Girl" type. It turned out to be pretty easy for me though, with all the extensive experience I had on the receiving end for so many years, I could turn it around super-fast and quite sharply...but sadly on others who didn't deserve it. Not saying I deserved being hurt either, but like I've mentioned before, I don't like people who use their reason of being hurt as their excuse to hurt others...but at that time, in my mind, I really felt like I had no other choice. My two stalkers/bullies were still in the same school as me, one even on my bus. They turned up the heat on me and I had no one, so I worked hard to make this new friend like me by 'Hurting others"... again, I apologize ...
This went on until the two bully/stalkers finally left high school, I was probably in grade 11. But by then I just changed. During that time, I had become quite an angry person, absolutely exhausted from working every day on top of being at school full time and dealing with some of the craziest traumatic bullshit one could think of. And I did take my anger out on anyone that crossed my path and pissed me off...but it wasn't really directed at them...it was just excessive problems that I was dealing with, and the anger had to come out...for example, the person cutting me off in the hall was just the innocent passerby that got the brunt of that anger. Again, no excuse for my behaviour, and I still again apologize for said behaviour, but it was what it was. I had a really hard life, and I was just tremendously angry and tired. But by grade 11, the school had asked me to join the Peer Counsellors group and so I did, and it really helped me gather myself somewhat, and I was also able to help some of the other kids in bad situations too. Even the other students began to realize that I wasn't actually "a bitch" as they had thought and even told me I was a nice person...boy if they only knew then what I was going through...but still again, no excuse...
This Best Friend stayed my friend into my late 20's but she was far from being a friend. She still would only contact me when she had no one else. A lot of those times was when she would be a third wheel, so she'd get me to come out too and I would be the odd man out and get ignored, then I'd leave. This happened a number of times. Also, quite often, she would try and make moves on men I was hanging around with, right from the start of our friendship, I finally had enough of all this crap, I was too old for this sort of BS, so I stopped hanging around with her too.
I was, and still am, bullied a lot by pretentious women as well, at almost every job I've had, but also at places where I volunteer, students at college, and even friends of friends. I always try so hard to be nice to everyone, but it doesn't matter, for some reason they still don't like me. So, they talk down to me or don't talk to me at all, give me dirty looks, even literally push me aside, etc. etc., but they have never been given a reason to want to bully me or dislike me, yet they still do ... to this day ... And these women don't even make any kind of effort to get to know me, they just cast their judgement on me and treat me basically like the children did in elementary school. It's actually quite disheartening that we can never really seem to get away from bullies at any age!