For me I don’t look back on my adolescent years fondly we had recently moved to the Syracuse area when my father lost his job. This move brought us away from an area where my family was very involved in scouting and were well known in the community, even though it was a bigger community it had a small town feel to it. This was had to have been the biggest life changing even in my life, this one event lead me on a totally different path in my life. I went from having numerous friends that accepted me for who I was to have no friends and being bullied on a daily basis.
During this move my parents were the most worried about my sister who was changing school also but was a junior, my parents assumed since I was going to be changing schools in my old home town that I would be fine. In reality my sister fit into the new school with ease, even liking the new school better than the old. Where in stark contrast I did not fit in well, I was picked on because I did not wear girly clothes, I did not wear make-up and I was smart. At one point in school the other kids would take a drink out of the water fountain and then spit it on my back, this humiliating experience even got me to the point of being suicidal. I was called names and there was not a good day of school ever, I begged my parents to send me to Catholic school knowing I would have to wear a dress something I just did not do. But because of lack of income they could not send me. This brought on a new stress as the Wadsworth, et. al. (2008), article stated I began to worry about my parents not being able to pay their bills, I was aware that the house that we used to own was not selling and this was causing extra financial stress upon my parents. The greatest social pressure I felt during this time; was having to walk into that building and being happy about it, I ate lunch alone, I went to classes alone and generally just felt alone while I was being bullied to no end. The one thing that put an end to this all was I broke my finger very badly in gym class resulting in me have five surgeries but this meant I had to stay home until I recovered, I was so happy to hear that I did not go to school the extreme pain of my broken finger was a lower priority on the list. It has been only recently that my family knew that I was that suicidal during this time period, with the recent new stories of other teens completing suicide due to bullying my mom asked me if I felt suicidal during that time and I looked at her with tears in my eyes saying yes tried to do it at least once a week.
I responded to this extreme negative social pressure by doing everything in my power to stay home from school. My parents eventually allowed me to stay home every tenth day. I honestly did not care about perfect attendance or how poor my grade would be if I continued to miss school. Additionally I began to play the piano as a release of my frustration; this escape provided a much needed outlet of my frustrations in life.
The guidance counselor of my school tried to do everything in her power; she had me meet up with other students so I would have someone to eat with at lunch. While this was nice it backfired on her and my parents because then I was known as the looser that had to get a staff member to help me make friends. She reprimanded the students that did the most bullying on me, but this also backfired and their parents called me at home yelling at me stating I was causing trouble and their son was innocent. Later on I continued to see their wonderful son spit water on other students as well. I think during this time the most helpful thing would have been if my parents had even tried to contact the local Catholic school to see if they could have gotten a scholarship. Another resource that would have been more helpful is if my parents and my sister had not belittled me asking me to be more like my sister and make friends. Looking back on it I know what I would have done if this situation happened to my child, I would have had my child homeschooled until the year was done. In the end this is what my parents did. After I went back to school after my finger surgery, I started having horrible migraines the doctors tried to say it was psychological but in the end 6 months later my seizure disorder was discovered. I stayed home the last two months of school and only went in for final exams. I was able to pass them without issues since my new school district was a two years behind in their educational teaching than my old school was.
In conclusion I would like to start a program within the school systems about overall acceptance of everyone through their differences. I feel that I will be able to emphasize with other teens that are going through this because I know the horror that I went through.
References:
Wadsworth, M., Wolff, B., Santiago, C., & Moran, E. (2008). Adolescent coping with poverty-related stress [electronic version]. The Prevention Researcher, 15 (4), 13-16.
Ingrid
Dr, Robinson
ReplyDeleteThis is the part of the posting that I was not able to post on the blackboard.
Once into High School things did change the teachers in that school did not accept bullying and there was a close family friend that taught in that school that I could go to if things got too severe. My sister was now out of the house at college and my parents were not able to compare her attitudes to mine. In the school the teachers did not know my sister so they were not able to compare me to her either. Those two years were some of the best years of my adolescents years. Towards the end of my Freshman year my brother moved in with me and the custody battle began for my oldest nephew. This too was a great time, I loved my brother and looked up to him and was happy to have him living with us again. But then my sister moved home after failing out of college and after some time my future brother in law moved in with us. This is when the sexual abuse began from sister's boyfriend at the time, now the man that she is married to. Since we were going through a tough custody battle for my nephew I had the foresight to know not to tell anyone about the abuse knowing that we would loose my nephew. I felt if I had told this secret that everyone would blame me, to this day family members know what happened and still do not believe me that this happened. This abuse that I endured again led me on another life path that I did not expect. This life changing event still to this day causes pain and uncertainty with relationships with others. Yet I look at it that I will be more aware of other children are being abused.