When I was in high school I was a major loser. I realize now as an adult that I wasn’t as big of a loser as I remember myself to be but at the same time I bet I could find you people who would agree with my first sentence.
When I say loser I mean a target of bullies. A constant and rarely spared from humiliation hunched over ninety pound loser.
Going to school was like a game of dodge ball that never stopped.
Some days the tether was just long enough that the ball would only skim my heels and some days it would hit me square in my face.
If someone wanted to be friends with me they were also targeted. And kids can only take so much on account of another friend when all any of us want in school is to be liked, accepted and feel safe. [i thank all of you who did stay by me, with me and supported me - some of you read here and know who you are]
To make matters worse, Mrs. MG, mother to one of the most popular boys in Caledonia Senior Secondary (Terrace, BC) was also the schools useless councillor. You can just IMAGINE how much help I got from her.
It would go something like this: Someone would either threaten me, call me one of many mean names, write something on my locker, and/or write something on one my friend’s lockers, corner me and take fake jabs at my face as if they were going to punch me and I’d run off crying somewhere and hide. Then I’d head to the councillors office and the kids would get called in. I’d always be in hysterics, crying, scared. The ‘meetings’ would appear to go well and we’d shake hands and appear to make up and then once the meeting was over and I was fooled into thinking someone, ANYONE gave a shit, I’d be immediately cornered by the posse of whoever got dragged into the councillor’s office with me and ultimately things would only get worse. Hard to believe that was even possible. [in Terrace I was never physically assaulted other than a few shoves but living in Smithers I was beat up on two occasions and was completely unable to defend myself]
Needless to say I didn’t report things to Mrs. MG once I realized NOTHING was going to happen to ANY of these kids who targeted me. NOT even, when in an act of cowardice someone popped the tires on my car. TWICE. On school property.
I was able to sneak in just before the bell in the mornings but there were times when I was so afraid to leave school and go home that I would have to call the exchange students staying with us to come and pick me up.
In late 1993, not far into the 11th grade I did what I had wanted to do for years.
I was home sick from school and received some threatening phone calls. I tried to call the friends I had because I was upset and sick and just tired, so tired. No one I called was home.
I entered the bathroom with a full glass of water, the faucet running, all ready crying so hard I could hardly breathe and did it.
Poured what was left of the Anacin bottle into my mouth chasing it with water. My gag reflex must have been on a hiatus of some kind because the pills slipped with ease down my throat. I also took approximately twenty-five 250mg prescription Mefenamic Acid tablets.
I scribbled a note and left it on the desk in my bedroom: I CAN�T TAKE IT ANYMORE and I went to my bed.
Nothing was happening and I got really scared. I knew I had taken enough - there was no way I was OK.
The voice inside me screaming that I COULD NOT DO THIS TO MYSELF won and I ran over to my neighbours house, told her what I had done and was taken immediately to emergency.
A mother of a kid I knew from school was a nurse and accepted me into emergency. I don’t remember this but years later I was sneaking a peek at my medical file during a doctor’s appointment and read off the chart [while they were out of the examination room�of course] that I would not stop asking the nurses �when I was going to die�.
Before they pumped my stomach they took so much blood out of my arms I thought that alone would kill me.
The problem with having your stomach pumped when you are sick is that you already can’t breathe and then they force a tube down your throat and you’re SOBER so you FEEL it. I was barfing up past the tube because my cold would not allow breath from my nose. To put it bluntly they would NOT have let me on a plane with that much vomit covering my shirt. By far one of my most horrid memories. I can– see it like it was yesterday. Once they pumped out the poison they funnelled a bottle of black tar looking shit down the tube and told me if I barfed it up they’d make me drink it. Thank God I did not barf it up and therefore only shat black logs for over a week.
I remember refusing to let my parents in to see me but once my stomach was pumped being only sixteen I was unable to keep them out. The shame and embarrassment I felt was literally unbearable and I was not sure how I was SUPPOSED to look them in the eyes.
When you try to kill yourself people are not exactly what I’d call NICE to you in the hospital. You can be charged with a criminal offence and when you attempt it and don’t die you are viewed as an attention seeker and pretty much ONLY an attention seeker. No one really worried too much about me. I was told to never try it again because NO ONE would stand by me a second time. I struggled immensely with those who did and who didn’t come to visit me over my almost week long stay.
The Anacin I took left me with permanent hearing damage. I had almost no hearing other than a very loud buzzing sound for at least two weeks. I looked like a heroin addict because they took blood from whatever arm veins they could actually find starting every four hours, then every eight, and so on. I was a pretty sick girl for a few days there.
Once released from the hospital I returned to school the following day. How I do not know. I knew it was going to be bad, I just didn’t know how bad.
Try people saying to my face I SHOULD have died, that it was TOO BAD that I had not died. Stupid, stupid rumours that I had taken only two Tylenols or some dumb shit like that, it was just ridiculous.
And no one cared. I remember just thinking, how is this even possible - I haven’t been called to the Principals office, to the Councillor’s office NOTHING� - I was simply thrown back to the wolves.
I pretty much stopped going to school. I did FINALLY get in trouble for skipping but not knowing the back ground I know now I flipped out on my father and we had such a huge fight that I left home for a few days but stayed literally just houses away.
I graduated with exactly thirteen credits [the bare minimum in BC at the time] and still wish I had have burned that fucking school down. [I felt this way BEFORE finding out what I found out up North]
I’ll pull it forward to present day now where I will admit that until my recent trip I had never been able to consider even with therapy and the passing of time ‘letting go’ of the pain from high school that has followed me into adult hood. It has always haunted me. I could never let go of one main thing. WHY did no one care?
Up North a completely random and innocent comment was made about how I almost NEVER went to school. But unlike most jokes of this nature they are just left and taken no further. This time because so much has changed in my family and we are being all open about the past and shit my Dad says something to the effect of: I’m not such a bad Dad after all; I got your ass saved from being expelled twice.
I honestly had NO IDEA what he was talking about. Like you’ve read above, I was NEVER in the Principals office. I never even got sent to the office more than twice for being ‘bad’. I know I told off a substitute one day. BUT EXPELLED?
When my dad had called the school to tell them what I had done and that I was in the hospital the Principal, told my father to tell me to stay home for the rest of the year. That didn’t fly so well with Mr. Liscumb and I went back to school knowing none of this.
The second time was in the middle of the 12th grade when I wasn’t going.
There was a woman who my dad worked with whose son also skipped a lot of school but she knew what was going on because the school called her constantly let her know that her son was NOT THERE. My parents never received those calls until the Principal, called my father to inform him that I was being expelled that very day for skipping. My father took another few strips off him and threatened to take him to the board where I’m sure this MOTHERFUCKINGFUCKFACEASSFUCK would have been crucified. I am trying to figure out how people get jobs at Caledonia Senior Secondary. You obviously must possess ZERO compassion for bullied kids.
I can’t remember the last time I felt anger so strong. My school didn’t want me, wanted NOTHING to do with me and I didn’t know. I have talents, they saw them, they knew they were there and what they were. But instead, the fuckers just stood there and watched me be tortured. The teachers at that school when I attended are NO BETTER than the kids who watched NOR are they any better than the bullies themselves.
I HAD to ask my parents: “HOW did YOU not know I was SUFFERING SO badly.”
I got a very simple answer: “You never told us.”
I thought this was total fucking bullshit until I remembered this post/experience in my life that was insane and dangerous– I am more than lucky to be here and I didn’t tell them what happened until long after.
It is strange though, how much better I feel just because I know. I know that I was right; there was nothing I could have done with no help from not even ONE teacher. It hurts like a mother fucker but I finally know the truth and that at least gives me some closure.
