awkward on the inside

[ironymaiden]

more awkward adolescence for kijjohnson.

this one is hard to write. it's hard to write because this part of my awkward adolescence shouldn't have been a problem. it isn't a problem. no one should ever be marginalized for it. and i'm practically normal among my current batch of friends, so it's not like people reading this don't get it, and other people had it worse in one way or another.

the block on talking about it is very strong.

i was a very smart little girl.

before school started, i didn't know that there was anything odd about me. my siblings were still at home, but i was the youngest by twelve years. i lived in a house of adults, and i adjusted to them, not the other way around. i didn't know what kids were supposed to know/not know, or how kids talked to each other.

everything might have been fine if i wasn't in a small rural school district, with no access to schooling alternatives. i was the only kid my age in Enrichment (the gifted program) in my elementary school. i turned down skipping a grade the first time because i thought it would be socially miserable, although in hindsight fifth grade would have been a better grade to skip than eighth. if i had gone from 4 to 6 i would have had one awkward adjustment year in a class with the couple boys who i knew from Enrichment, and entered the high school (7-12 in one building) relatively clean.

instead i spent sixth grade doing things like being the only kid in my reading section, lonely, bored, destructive, and ahead of every child in the building. turns out i was ahead of every child my age in the district, and it was the only time this had happened, so they really had no bloody clue what to do with me when i got to seventh grade and broke the curriculum. on top of that, i had no classes with the few kids i was friends with in elementary school, not even lunch. by the time the offer came, i was happy to skip from 7 to 9, anything to make it better. couldn't be worse.

academically, it was a vast improvement. socially, it marked me as a freak to the entire school. it alienated and hurt the friends who were my age. it made teachers single me out even more as the one with the answers. (and i was, and i learned how to stop raising my hand for my own protection, but i never would pretend that i didn't know when they called on me anyway. that i still can't stomach.) that first year's classes were a patchwork that combined the usual freshman coursework with a couple things the state required for 8th grade. so for a year, i didn't belong properly to either class. in the process i lost the girl who had been my best friend since second or third grade, and had a tough time making new friends in my new class. the adjustment took almost all of high school. i didn't have a local boyfriend until i was a senior. (and that relationship was so very messed up, but i desperately wanted to have a "normal" experience...)

my family was always pretty awesome. i had some great teachers.

i'm not going to bother with details. you either know the thousand ways that other kids hate on you for being the other, or you don't. i can't dwell on it.

CTY, theatre, and band are the reasons that i'm still alive, that i avoided addiction, that i had enough hope to bother with enough of my homework to get a scholarship for college and get out. that, and i managed to make a few close friends that kept me sane. (hi Billy.)

people routinely treated me like shit for something that is intrinsically positive. saying "they're just jealous" doesn't ever cut the sting.

*sigh*

i really should have written about how i chose the wrong audition song for the spring musical my senior year, refused to take "just" a chorus part in a teary huff, and then ended up being the acting coach for the girl who got the role i wanted.

Comments

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you wrote about this.It helps me know you better, understand you better. And it makes me love you a little more.

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I'm so sorry. :(

I don't know how much similar issues were at play in my general pre-college ostracism. . . it's always been so easy to pin it on my unhealthy family/home life. *sigh*

But yes, I deeply get the role of the other/outsider.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I SO grok this.

I was reading at 2, and reading at a 10th grade level in 5th grade. I skipped Kindergarten, but was forced to repeat 1st grade because, as the principal put it, I wasn't socially ready for 2nd. I tried to skip 6th grade, but because my math scores were only at 7th grade level, instead of beyond it, they wouldn't let me.

Once a week, I got bussed out to another school for our AT classes. I was the only kid at my school in the program, so my weekly absences were definitely noted--violently.

I had one sort-of friend in 3rd grade, though we didn't become close until a few years later, and one neighbor girl I hung out with after school for a little while when I was 10 (she was 2 years older, and wasn't in my school.) Other than that, everyone hated me. My school was very tough, and for fun, the popular kids used to make the unpopular ones fight each other and bet on who'd win. Winning one of those fights was probably the only thing that kept me from being the least popular kid in school.

I was beaten, verbally abused, sabotaged, stripped, had rocks and dirt thrown at me, was almost pushed over a 2nd-story railing... practically every rotten thing that kids can do to each other. And the teachers never did anything about it except tell me to "stay away" from the kids who were abusing me. As if that was even possible, when they'd hunt me down even if I huddled close to the building during recess.

I survived this mostly by drowning in books and music--shutting myself in my room and locking the rest of the world out.

I spent about four months in 7th grade before my parents decided to go anti-government and pulled me out to homeschool me instead. So 8th grade was just me stuck in my room, doing religion-based curricula that I already knew because it was the only homeschool program available.

About halfway through my 9th grade year, my parents were pressured into sending me to a real school again, but managed to compromise by sending me to an alternative school. Normally for dropouts, druggies, cancer patients and teen moms, the school worked really well for me, and I graduated during my junior year.

College kind of derailed, but that's a longer story.

I think I'm still quite scarred to this day from what I went through in grade school. I went through some other icky stuff during that time, but the abuse from my peers, and the utter lack of compassion and protection from the adults charged with my care, sticks with me more than anything else. I didn't manage to have any real social contact at all until I was 15, and finally got a couple of friends at my new school. And I still had trouble maintaining friendships until only about 10 years ago.

No matter what else happens, the one thing I have absolutely promised myself, if I manage to have a kid of my own, is that I will never, ever ignore bullying if it happens to her. I will do everything I can to make sure nothing like that ever happens to any child I have the capacity to protect.

[mrdorbin.livejournal.com]

I have very little internal angst about being gay, but it's because the smart-kid crisis looms so large for me. Ben still rubs up against remnants once in a while. I kind of freaked out a little when he told his friends at the Thriftway that I was going to Norwescon.

Plus, I still vet my reading material before I fly home to make sure my family won't think it's weird

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

Except for the skipping a grade part (idiot mother -- my rage, let me show you it), that sounds a lot like all of school.

Also, jealousy is the wrong word. It's what parents/teachers said, but it's inaccurate. The other kids resented me because I was smarter but they weren't jealous. Jealous is when you want something someone else has, and none of them wanted to be smart. They just hated me for being it.

[ironymaiden]

They just hated me for being it.
exactly. if people had admired me, or wanted to compete with me, or even tried to undermine me academically in some way...but they didn't.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hear you on this. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad you made it out alive.

[sinthrex.livejournal.com]

"i really should have written about how i chose the wrong audition song for the spring musical my senior year, refused to take "just" a chorus part in a teary huff, and then ended up being the acting coach for the girl who got the role i wanted."

Wow.

{sigh}

That hits entirely too close to home. I auditioned for (and got) the part of the Trucker in Working, under the strict agreement that the Theatre and Music Directors knew I would miss about half of the first month of rehearsals due to cross-country. They both knew I was good for it. And I walked in the third week and they had given the part to a girl and I had to sing/act backup for my her scene. Whatever love I had for musical theatre pretty much died that month. I had worked with both Directors for a year and a half. They were my friends. The sense of betrayal was...visceral.

*blink* Great how emotions are chemically stored. Stupid brain.

*shudders*

[ironymaiden]

it was an important experience for me, that casting isn't fair or about who deserves it because they paid their dues. (it took another time or two to really sink in, but that's another story.) i had been working with the same people for three years, but the director was new and didn't know me. i was overconfident and i didn't do my best work. i lost out to a younger girl who was a mediocre actress, because i hadn't sang well enough and the director wanted someone with long hair.

i got to read the casting sheet right before i went on a field trip (with my conflicted friends - the stage manager and the two male leads) and i was curled in a ball sobbing the entire bus ride.

***

by that time next year i was doing Shakespeare and was the hot young thing in the theatre department. by the next year i had a year of voice lessons under my belt and i was doing Sondheim and tour choir. fuck high school.

[buhrger]

i never had it this bad, but there was enough awkwardness that by the time i got to uni, i decided to never discuss my marks with people.

[praderwilli.livejournal.com]

Yeah, been there done that my own self. I agree with the above poster, it ain't jealousy. At that age kids just hate anyone who is different or doesn't fit in.

That feeling is developmentally appropriate for adolescents who want the approval of their peers. I think responsibility should fall on the adults and schools to protect their students better.

[ironymaiden]

I think responsibility should fall on the adults and schools to protect their students better.

well, yes. i thought that perhaps there would be an awakening after Columbine. but the focus went to gun sales and violent video games instead of dealing with the root causes of bullying and ostracism.

it's not just about teen behavior. our society hates people for being different, and our society does not revere or reward individuals for their intellectual prowess. the way we are falling behind the rest of the world in academics has more to do with a societal distaste for schooling than the work of our educators. it doesn't matter how good your teacher is if no one else cares if you learn and there is no social benefit. kids don't see the connection between education and earning money until their school years are long gone (if they get it at all).

[praderwilli.livejournal.com]

True that. I gotta agree with ya.

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

My father was an abusive alcoholic, which made me the town drunk's daughter. Even though I could read before I entered kindergarten, I was told I would never go to college, could only do factory work, and maybe some boy would marry me. Maybe. My family was just no good.

My mother found a Polish catholic school in another part of town that didn't know my father to take me and they put me in their honor program. My brothers, who were 15 and 12 years older than I, paid for it. I spent my recesses beating the crap out of anyone who looked at me sideways because I had more rage than I knew what to do with. It kept me warm at night.

I left that little northeast factory town at 18. I took my son there once, after my mother died, to see my father's grave.

About a year ago I realized I'd kept the promises I made to myself when I was 9. No one has ever hit me again. I've never gone hungry again. I can take care of myself and the people I love. Because the rage never goes away. Not even at 53.

If I were clever, I'd write one of those true life confessional stories like "Bastard out of Carolina" and make lots of money. I've always figured, fuck that shit. No one needs to know.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

In kindergarten, I was bored; I already knew how to read. I don't remember whether I was content otherwise. That school closed, so I went to a different one for first grade. Reading class was deadly tedious, but that's all I really remember about it. But we moved away from that region, so I didn't have to deal with it another year.

In second grade, I was reported for behavior problems – because I was bored. My parents fought for me with the school administration, and pressed the school into figuring out some way to keep me engaged. It worked, and I was content with school. Somehow, other kids didn't notice that I was different; I was a loner, but it felt more like it was because I was new to the area than personal rejection.

My third grade teacher didn't seem to get the idea that some kids arrive knowing most of the material, so third grade was tedious. I withdrew into my own world, and the third grade teacher tolerated me because I never missed a word on a spelling test. It was the same school as second grade, and the social situation remained the same.

At home, I read stuff like 1984, and discovered the mathematical idea of limits on my own, daydreaming.

We moved again for fourth and fifth grade. I sucked at math class, because I was bored to pain. I did OK in drama, because I could remember lines. Again I was the new kid, and thought I was an outsider for that reason. I was bullied, but that seemed normal, because bullies ran rampant in that era, and someone had to be their victim. And to my shame, I passed on the bullying to other victims. My parents sent me to a psychologist and an eight-session summer martial arts class; I think I got more out of karate than the shrink.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

There, junior high ran from sixth through ninth grades. Somehow I managed to find a small circle of other smart kids. We didn't fit into the general crowd, but at least we fit in with each other.

In sixth grade, my worst subject (except maybe gym) was math. I was bored by the same-old-thing routine, and stuck at fourth grade level. My parents got me into a self-paced class, and bribed me ten cents per lesson. I finished fourth through eighth grade in a few weeks (exhausting the self-paced system), bought lots of model rockets with the bribes, and earned a goof-off period for the rest of the year.

In seventh grade, I got into algebra class, typically a class for above-average ninth graders. I made friends with a kid from Iran of the same age, and was treated like a trained monkey by the rest of the kids – nicely, but not like a peer.

The math class thing was largely invisible to the rest of the school, but I remained a social misfit, though with friends who were in the same boat. Some were outcasts for being smart, some for being different in other ways.

In eighth grade, the junior high had enough kids for a geometry class, so I was only one year younger than the rest of the class. The others were also enough ahead of the mainstream that I generally fit in there.

Bullies still hassled me at times. Once I responded with a lucky punch to the jaw of a tormentor, knocking him flat. The vice-principle was right on the scene – and pretended not to see a thing. I think he wished he could punch the kid out without losing his job, so overlooking a smart kid decking him was the next best thing.

In ninth grade, I was out of luck on more math. The school's accommodation was to allow me to enroll in a high school math class (and also a high school chemistry class, because that was another subject I learned well) in the morning, then take a bus back to the junior high.

That definitely set me apart socially. I didn't care; I had a long break in the middle of the day, and I liked the classes at the high school. The older kids in the advanced algebra class treated me like friends. The chemistry class was really tough, and pushed out social concerns.

In tenth and eleventh grade, I found places in a few different non-cool cliques – particularly gamers and alternative music fans (I liked New Wave, and sort of liked punk). I was half-welcome among academic high achievers – a friend in private, but ignored when I might be seen with them. Calculus class was a lot of fun.

My final year of high school, I had a morning job (computer intern at an architecture office), and only attended class half the day. I was there mostly for Spanish class (free, and better teacher face time than at university), and took filler classes to pad the schedule to the minimum hours. I helped the school write its grant proposal for the school's first computers.

University was the first place I had a real social life. That was weird. It was also the first time I had to study; in earlier years I had homework, but it was just a matter of volume that didn't fit into the school day. At the university level, I had to study because of the level of challenge. I had no idea how to study. My grades suffered, but didn't suck; I got through the first year by taking a light load and starting to learn how to take notes.

My parents deserve most of the credit, but some teachers along the way were good too.