h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hmm, a knife. I'd have gone nuts at being stabed, there is no need for using such a usefull implerment to attempt to kill someone. My stuter isn't like pausing it's more subtle, although as I'v said I have tried to help myself get better and I seem to notice that people with brains don't notice it as much. and it will tell you how relaxed I am.

I gave up on anyone helping me when I was 8, I will never fight back unless I go nuts, simple as. I could probly talk down a bull rihno I got so much practice as it. tormenting never goes away. I felt happier when I quit school a year early and told the school to bugger off. and they still didn't understand why. and realy they can't, too generalised for that kind of thing. I still did my basic exams after some perswasion, but I'm glad I never went back.

To be honest it's kind of wierd, at the time I was getting alot of grief from school, I was living a double life, I was going to college and getting repect, that kind of confused me a bit.

Oh well such is the mashernations of life.

-- DoctorMO --

I was too suprised to do anything, and I was a bit to concerned with checking that I was going to be okay and working out if it had hit anything vital that I didn't really have time to chase after them and kick their heads in. Besides, that would only have made me bleed faster. They had their hoods up, and ran away in the opposite direction, so I didn't even see their faces.

I think at "people with brains" as you put it, tend to be naturally more tollerant in the first place, and so don't notice it because they listen to what you say rather than how you say it. I end up repeating the first syllable of my sentances a lot (I think that's a stammer, not a stutter, I can't remember), when I get particularly stressed, I find it quite hard to break the loop. I think to some extent it's come from being interrupted so much, especially at home. My Dad is the worst for it, you can barely start a sentance when my Dad's around before he's butted in with his own opinion.

I know what you mean about the tormenting never going away. It's always there. My Mum tells me to "get over it", but when it's been a part of your life for so long (9 years, I'm only 17½ now!) it becomes integrated into the way you think and who you are. I'm still as paranoid as hell, and I never sleep very well because I get related bad dreams. I was really suprised when I won the Students' Union elections at college, as I was so used to being a hated freak!!!

I wish I could have quit school early. It was very very weird when I got to college. Evryone treated me as a normal human being, some even tried to make friends with me!!! I got really freaked out to start with, but there was one incident when I realised that it was going to be okay here.

There was this kid (called Sam) who had been in a lot of my classes at school, throwing things at me, drawing on my back, stuff like that, who had now ended up in one of my classes at college. In the middle of my second lesson in this class - A receptionist came in and told me that I'd been shifted to anoher group, as they'd had to shift my timetable around. The other group was at the same time, in a different room. This is when Sam decided to call out "Yeah Glover, get out. We don't want you in 'ere anyway". Instead of getting the usual murmur of agreement and people joining in, the entire class turned to look at him, with whispers of "Who does he think he is?" and "I can't believe he just said that!". Even the teacher was shocked at his words!!! He didn't have a proper social life in this college ever after that. He left at the end of the first year. At Christmas in Year 1, a couple of the others that ahd given me hell at school came up and apologised (and I quote) "for being such a**eholes at school". My first term here at college was the most amazing turn-around I've ever seen!!!

One of the main problems at school was that they have "Guidelines" on how to deal with troublesome kids, and often this doesn't mean anything harsh at all, so they keep doing it!!! I ended up going to the police over the Coffee Mug incident (some student whacked me in the face with a coffee mug leaving "permanent scarring" - 6 months later, I'm £1,500 better off and she's got a criminal record for A.B.H!!!) because the school merely wrote to her parents to say that she had "been involved in an incident of bullying".

That didn't do much - however, when two policemen turned up on her doorstep to take her to the station for questioning on a charge of Actual Bodily Harm, I'm told her parents refused to go with her they were so ashamed!!! She had to wait at the station for 4 hours for a Social Worker to turn up!!! Revenge is sweet!

Lifson

I can't remeber is it's a stammer or a stutter I thought they were the same thing...

College is fun, I didn't go back for a 5th year (when I left school and everyone else went to college), it seemed unfair of me to gloat. I've got my revenge by mearly wiping there faces in my confidence, I just wish this lad about 6 or 7 who lives next door would stop trying to bully me, it's so perthetic I can't even belive it. I'm 3 times his age for god sakes.

Never had to go to the police, I always used to either hide it or complain, I probly didn't get a good rep for that. My own experances seem to pale when compared to your own, yet you have got though it. I don't know how to compare my own torment. even tho I had to deal with my parents breaking up and constently having no money of any kind, with the usual torments about clothes/media and/or trips. and forget buying things like cookery or art things, ha that was a laugh. I think I did PE about 5 times before my stuf was kindly stolen and I did the next few years of lines.



-- DoctorMO --

I think a stutter is when you can't start the words, and a stammer is where you can start, but can't progress with a word. I'm not sure though...

Hold on...just looked it up with Google. They both do mean the same thing, and they both can mean a block, where you can't start a word, and can mean involuntary repetition, like I've got.

College is fantastic. Little kid trying to bully you! There as a kid who tried that to me once. He was only very young, must have been only 4 or 5. I picked him up, and held him upside-down until he promised to stop. After a while he started again, but then I did it again. He's not bothered me since. I think they've since moved away.

Confidence: I ended up with more friends and more confidence than any of the idiots who gave me hell at school. It is kinda satisfying!!!

After I realised that no-one, not teachers, not parents, no-one was going to help me or make things better, I just used to fight back. I never cried and I rarely complained any more. I just dealt with it. This one time that we got the Police involved, we were doing it to make a point. The Deputy Head is a lying scumbag and we wanted to prove a point.

PE-Kit: Mine kept getting nicked, or filled with crunched up crisps, or water, etc...

Torment: Everyone's torment is different. Some have it becuase of the actual things they went through, for some it's the lonliness, for me it was the lack of support from people who I as constanly being told to rely on - the hypocracy and the lies.

Having your parents break up must be hard, especially as a kid, but I wouldn't be qualified to talk about that. My parents have never lived together, never got married, but also never actually split up - it's kinda like limbo. I never know quite where any of us stand. It's weird.

We never had much money, but we got by. It must be really hard to get along with no money. I know what you mean about the clothes. If I had my usual jeans and t-shirt on on a Mufti Day, they took the pi** because they wern't brand names. If I did manage to get hold of a cheap or reduced shirt, they'd still take the mick "Look at Glover, she's trying to be cool!" You just can't win.

After a while I developed an atatude were I didn't realy care what people thought, if people said I was poor so be it, the only things I coun't seem to get away from were people delibratly trying to make me out as less than them. and I have cried, a number of times out of shear shock, like when a compleate idot ran up to me (I was on a bike) and just hit me in the head, I told him he was a compleat idot (very calmly) and rode off. As soon as I was home, I just cried, not that I was upset, I was pritty angry, not enough to go nuts, but thats the way it goes.

I probly would have got alot more pysical torment if it wasn't for my brilliant balance and Scenec vision tecniques. After a while of people tring to trip you up, or going after a suprise attack when I've dispapeared. *sigh* not that they didn't get me sometimes.

Dispondence with peers and distrust with teachers, (You can't realy go to your parents if there both tring to get over depresion). Whats the point in going about it as if they've done somthing wrong, teachers always see that as tit for tat, whatever you say. and other peers probly think your being silly. To be honest now I come to reflect more deeply, how I ever got around the problem.. is probly mirrored by my atendance of about 30%...

-- DoctorMO --

I know what you mean. There's very rarely anything you can do about being poor if you're a kid. It's ridiculous how people judge each other by their wealth, and what they look like. I often got very frustrated when people gave me hell especially over my non-brand name clothes, but I used to hang on to it and save it for training. I used to go out running, and doing all sorts of things to try and make myself stronger so I could fight back better. It seemed to have worked. Also, I found that if I thought of lots of the things people had done to me when I had to defend myself, if made me very angry, and my rage would make me care less about the pain and keep fighting. I have incredible stamina when it comes to fighting, you could knock me down a hundred times and I'd jump right back up again. I don't break, I don't hurt to badly and I just keep on going. I never won fights because I was strong - because I wasn't - I won because I could keep going for longer than the other guy.

I've got pretty scary sense of balance too. People keep trying to trip me up all the time at school, but I soon learned to counter it. My balance has evolved into something great, and I often used that to my advantage with escape routes. Towards the end, I made friends with one of the ICT technicians, who let me hang around in an IT room at lunch sometimes. It was pretty safe there. However, he was only part-time, and so not always there, so I had to go outside.

Parents gave me absolute hell if I skipped class so it wasn't an option. My Dad always had "stress" and as he lives on the other side of town anyway, it wasn't an option to talk to him. Even when he did come over, both Mum and Dad always either didn't believe me, or made out as if it was all my fault. After a year or so - I just didn't bother anymore. The tachers couldn't do anything even if they had wanted to (which they didn't) and when teachers start joining in the insults and mick-taking, it really gets quite depressing.

Sometimes I was going to do something stupid, but I never did (I'm a complete coward when it comes to the prospect of drawn out pain), but I'm out of there now, and with college being great, I'm past all that. It scares me now to think of how close I came someties, but hopefully I'll never have to be in a place like that again.

Kids can be really cruel.

Lifson

hmm, yea, scares the hell out of me when I think of some of the things I _did_ do, and alot of it seems to be a bit of a waste. all that shouting all that stress, and all that peerage.

*Paragraph Removed*

I tell ya my fangled eye trianing (fist dodging) sure helps me ride to work, idots tring to curb craw and comming very close, but I can see them...

You know I've had a number of dreams, were I've died, after the inital shock, it feels quite peacefull. but it draws me ever into myself. and with that I may implode into sanity*

-- DoctorMO --

The amount of things I had to do to get through a day. It does all seem to be a waste now. I'm glad that I've got out the other side, that I'm at college, and am going out with Increase Mathers. It so often came so close to never happening.

That wasn't the mods was it? It was a bit quick if it was. It was quite a while before I could even get over some things, never mind talk about them. My constant survival of incidents just got so ridiculous that I eventually managed to see most of the rest of it in the same light. Still hurts and makes me angry though.

You can dodge punches and stuff too? I'm not great at it, but my perception is pretty neat. People throw stuff at my back and I can spin around and catch it. It's the same with shooting. I can lay down, grab the rifle and hit center in the target. However, if I concentrated for more than about ¼ second on it - It'd fail.

I've dreamed that I've been killed, but never about the bit after the instant of death. I tend to wake up shaking at the point of death. I get a lot of bad dreams, which is why I don't sleep very much. I average 4 hours a night. Thank God for Pro-Plus!!! I also drink a lot of to keep me going.

Lifson

What I mean by dodging punches is more a case of looking at someone who is gearing up for a fight and calming them down, or in other respect, looking at someone chasing you, and running like the wind...

The Above removed text was not the moderators, after carefull review I decided it to horible to share, just so you know somthing was there.

I could never hit a target, although it's one thing I've practiced, I think my staffing abilities would be better than normal, but then 6" sticks often give anyone the advantage .

And please don't talk about I've been up for 36 hours.

-- DoctorMO --

I didn't survive school without learning to run like hell!!! However, no matter how hard I tried, I never could talk people out of hurting me, so after about 2½ years, I gave up. However, my punch-dodging reflexes are pretty scary! I've not met anyone else who can do it.

There are some things I never felt I could share before I got out, I never told anyone about being stabbed until over a year after I left, and that was about 4 years after the actual event. I've managed to get around it by seeing it as quite ridiculous that I'm still alive, and now I see nearly everything in life as pretty weird. Another weird kinda coping thing I think.

6" (inch) sticks? 6'(foot) more likes!!! My brother and I used to fight in the garden with garden poles before we started getting too violent and ended up breaking/bending them all and getting hurt. I wouldn't like to be on the wrong side of me with a big stick. Had to defend myself with a metre-rule once, it was the only thing handy, and the other guy had two of them. Get a decent amount to space to swing, and you're sorted.

Lifson

sorry yes, I was deciding which to use, I should have just put the word down, yes 6 foot. although I've never had a brother so I used it against the air and serveral thugs, never thought it'd come in handy ...

If you have sisters you may understand somthing, alot of my batteling is with them on a very mental plane, I have 3, all of them would prefare to kick the nuts off your hopes and dreams than attualy kick the nuts off you. and so I have had to learn to cope with words, probly explains alot.

Of couse some people will just hurt you regardless of what you say... nothing you can do but try and defend yourself the best you can... running works quite well, and even tho' I'm on the heaver side of 6.3 foot, I'm pritty fast when I need to be. that were all my stamina is.

-- DoctorMO --

I have a brother, who despite being younger than me, somehow managess to do better than me all the time, and both he and my parents keep rubbing it in my face. I try to do as well as I can, but all I'm ever told is "you're not trying" and "if you gave a damn, you could get 3 A's and go to Cambridge". Cambridge would be great for someone like my brother, but I wouldn't be able to stand it. I'm off to Salford where I've got a bit of leeway to relax a bit.

I don't have sisters, but I have a similar mental battle with my brother.

I'm not too good at running. I can do short, fast bursts, and jumping over walls and fences, but my long distance isn't good, which is why I often ended up defending myself. My fighting stamina is frightning. No matter what they hit me with, or how hard - I just got back up, shook it off, and hit them back. Part of my "indistructable" survival thing I think. I assume so anyway.

Lifson

Oh no, males are most definetly not as mental as female siblings, I can agree that there will be the same kind of fighting, but none so malice so cunning and so desructivly simple of thought...

At least with a brother you can most of the time tell what there angree at you for, or why there having a go...

I can run until my legs get painfull, until I sprain my ankles and way past the point at which my brain would die of oxegen starvation... glad it's all in the past...

-- DoctorMO --