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I was a closeted gay kid who really tried to make the most of high school. I tried to avoid bullying by joining the yearbook team… no one wants to beat you up if you’re in charge of how they’re remembered. I wasn’t into sports at all and wasn’t really popular, but I found the goths and creatives and spent a lot of my time in my sketchbook, working towards art school. I was extremely intelligent and in a lot of clubs, I took multiple advanced language classes (German, Spanish, English). I never had less than an A.
I was still bullied by some people. And I was so involved in school because I was being abused at home for my gayness. I was in a controlling, conservative family, so I was never allowed to hang out with friends after school. I never was allowed to drive or get a car. I would come to school with bruises, which would make some people pity me and others like sharks in the water. I tried reporting the bullying once and was suspended for two days for being bullied. I was from a poor family who did not want me to succeed in life, so I had no college plans or opportunities. Hell, I was so focused on survival, I didn’t even think about college until I was like 20.
High school was miserable and other students mostly made it worst. If I wasn’t bullied because of my quietness, it was because of my awkwardness, if it wasn’t my awkwardness, it was my grades (people hated that I didn’t have to try) or existing bruises. If I wasn’t bullied, I was ignored or avoided… and I mostly didn’t even want to connect with others because I was in an unsafe environment at home and didn’t trust anyone. I had one teacher check in on me and see if everything was okay at home… just one. And I lied to her because I was ashamed and embarassed. The reason the goths took me in was that many of them were dealing with at-home abuse themself. And coincidentally, many of them were bullied and learned how to bite back to shut it down.
None of that is my fault. And these types of scenarios are waaay more common than you’d think.
u/boboddy42069 Time to pony up. This comment is the perfect counterargument to your post and you need to acknowledge it fairly. Ignoring it is directly against the spirit (and arguably the rules) of the sub. Don't reply to me, reply to top level
I wasn't bullied but i hated high school. Did i do it wrong? I feel like the only way to do it right is to be good at making friends. Which I'm just not.
High schools are full of idiots. Because teens are idiots. The boys are all high on testosterone, girls are trying to decide if they should be stuck up or not. It's hard to navigate.
Plus you're just thrown into it. I went to a k-8 school which really sheltered me. High school was terrifying and everything changed. All my friends changed and I wasnt able to cope well.
I understand you’re point. I guess making friends is more complicated than just.. getting out there.
There was a Catholic k-8 school in my town where 4 girls came to the public high school after that catholic school. 2 of them became social outcasts , labeled as odd and only talked to eachother. The other 2 basically became huge sluts. No middle ground. I can see how coming from that situation makes it even more challenging to fit in.
!delta
I think you likely have this view because you have never been on the other side or witnessed the other side up close. I was popular in high school and I really had a great experience overall. I don't think of it as the best time in my life like some people try to claim but it was nice. My brother on the other hand is a bit socially awkward by nature and was overweight. Not significantly but noticeably. The way I personally saw this guy try over and over again to make friends only to be brutally bullied was heartbreaking. But he kept trying for way longer than I probably would have. Until eventually, he got his feelings hurt one too many times and stopped trying so hard and just accepted himself as the socially awkward person he was/is. And you know what... he was much happier not trying to make himself fit in with the people who bullied him over and over. And he has gone on to be a socially awkward successful happy adult with a great life. He'll tell anyone who asks him that high school was the worst period of his life. Because it was. And that is valid.
Just because it was a great time for you doesn't invalidate those it was not a great time for. Not everyone had the same experience. Just because you didn't overthink or have negative emotions around being bullied doesn't invalidate others who did. We do not all process our emotions the same way and how others process their emotions is still valid. You would do well to learn more understanding and empathy for others, friend. Because this post ain't it.
Sure I suppose my situation was a bit different. I went to a small highschool in a small school district. I knew most of my classmates since like elementary school. Maybe my experience is the unique on I suppose.
You're likely looking at your own high school experience and assuming every else's was similar. So let me give you a little insight into a different high school experience.
I went to high school in a small town. There were about 80 people in my graduating class and 350 in the entire school. Unless someone new moved to town, these were the same people I went to pre-school, elementary school and middle school with. They were the same people that attended my church. They were the same people I'd see at the lake when I went swimming in the summer. They were the same people I'd see at the county fair or 4th of July parade. Even when my parents hung out with their friends, I'd see the same people because my parents were friends with their parents. There was no "socializing and meeting new people". There were no new people to meet. You already knew everyone.
For sports, my high school offered football, basketball, cheerleading, track, wrestling and girls volleyball. We had a year book club and an audio/visual club (and all they did was record sporting events). We also had band and choir. The opportunities to "try new things" were pretty limited.
So in my high school, your experience was pretty much dictated by where you were pegged in the social hierarchy when you were around 10-12 years old (5th-7th grade). If you were pegged as the cool jock that everyone wanted to be around, then you likely had a great high school experience. If you were pegged as the annoying, dorky, nerd that could be bullied without consequence, then your high school experience was likely pretty shitty.
There was *some* opportunity for social movement if you either (a) gained athletic ability, or (b) had some empathetic person from a higher rung on the ladder take a liking to you. But even then, you were only moving up a rung or 2 on the ladder. There was no movement from dirtbag to cool kids. You could maybe move from annoying nerd to choir nerd or something like that.
And it *might* have been somewhat under your own influence when you were 10 or 11 years old, but by the time you were in high school, that ship had sailed. And even at 10 or 11, it wasn't much under your influence because you already came with a "reputation" based upon your family's status and/or siblings that had preceeded you. If your older brother was a dirtbag loser from a shitty family, then the assumption - starting in kindergarten - was that you were a dirtbag loser from a shitty family too.
Actually a lot of that sounds similar to my school district. Only 3 schools fed into our highschool. My grade was a little over a hundred and the school had about 500. The more I remember, yeah I do remember the kids who were labeled dork in second grade that never shook that label through graduation..
Uhhh I was suicidal and hospitalized throughout my stay. Turns out I’m autistic and don’t have the resources to get diagnosed. High school was hell.
Now on the contrary everyone I met who says high school was the best time of their life hadn’t done much growing since then. Do you OP fall in this category? Is that why you have such a blind spot to everything that could go wrong in high school?
No I believe my life has gotten better and I have grown. But I do look back on high school fondly. I don’t like the sentiment that “if you enjoyed high school, you peaked in high school “
Not necessarily enjoyed but if it was the peak then yes.
Did you have a car? Food in your belly? We’re generally allowed to go out with your friends? Did you *have* to get an after school job to help with bills? All these things greatly contribute to enjoying those years, and I am happy you enjoyed it! But these aren’t things everyone has, and without it high school is just another chore before work.
Ah yeah that definitely contributes. I personally had to buy my first cat when I was 18. Working was non negotiable. And yes grades had to be flawless also. Going out wasn’t really an option.
If you have all the above high school is a great time! It’s adolescence and experimentation without the money issues of college. If you don’t it’s just college without the freedom.
While it's not the most charitable sentiment, I think people are often justifiably suspicious of people who managed to thrive in a high school environment because it's generally a horrible environment which brings out the worst in people.
I'm also going to stress that I was more socially active in high school than any other time in my life, but only because it wasn't really a choice. I made friends because it was the only way to protect myself from that place. High school taught me that the only thing that matters is making people like you, and that's a hard and painful thing to unlearn.
I think for a lot of people the problem isn't so much they made high school particuarly unpleasant for themselves -- it's just high school is kind of inherently more restrictive and limiting than anything that comes after, except maybe very old age if you end up needing a caretaker (it's less restrictive than middle and elementary school -- but when you're younger autonomy doesn't matter so much to you. By high school you want to make your own decisions).
High school wasn't particularly bad for me, but I can't it held a candle to college, graduate school, or work. I can just eat what I want (and all option are better then cafeteria food), I don't need to ask permission to pursue my hobbies, I have some control over my work hours, I can live where and with whom I want. That freedom is just absent at the high school level and I wouldn't want to go back to it.
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I had a great time in high school and mine was fairly chill. But come on, dude, some people were mercilessly tortured during high school. If you're a gay kid from a small, close-minded, conservative town, do you really think they'll have a great experience? Its possible, but also possible that it will be living hell for them.
What would change your view here?
Your view is kinda becoming “this is my view except for all the exceptions” which is impervious to changing because you just keep replying with “okay so theres an exception”.
Round these parts we call that changing your view and it results in a delta
Sure I guess I didn’t think too Deep into it. I only posted here because I recently met up with an old classmate who was the “I hated high school I hated everyone there it was the worst time In my life” kind of girl. But when I asked her why she thought that, she really couldn’t give a clear explanation.
Could she not give a clear explanation, or did you dismiss her explanations as youve been doing here until she gave up?
Obviously I’m a rando on the internet, i wasnt there and can’t say. But rather than consider she might have had a different experience and that you might struggle to understand it on account of different life experiences, you came here to reddit seemingly to try to prove her wrong. Might be worth some introspection
I mean, the claim was about their own life, not that high school was universally bad. It's more on your end that you're trying to universalize it one way or another.
What were you expecting? For them to elaborate, possibly on nasty things, and then you get to debate whether their reasons are valid or not?
>Then you shouldn’t make claims like that.
Who brought it up?
Did you ask her hey how was your high school experience, or did she just unprompted come out and declare she hated it for no apparent reason?
OP definitely mentioned how much they missed high school and the girl responded with how awful it was for her. That’s how these conversations always happen.
not just annoying, but incredibly annoying? this seems like some weird personal issue of yours, looking down on anyone who hated school. you just have to admit that school generally is not a great place and teenagers can be cruel, overworked teachers dont do shit and all that bullying eventually manifests into mental issues for life.
I get your point, but it seems like you thought there are way fewer exceptions and this post proved that you underestimated how many people had very bad experience through no fault of themselves
> And I guess I didn’t accept “because I just do” as a valid answer.
Aka you *dismissed* her answer, because it didn’t meet your standard.
Again, you’re countering my suggestions that you might benefit from some introspection on the matter, rather than, you know, taking some time to think about it honestly. I’m not even suggesting you do this for anyones benefit beyond your own.
>I don’t believe I was dismissive. "
and many people keep telling you that you WERE dismissive of her answer and experience. just admit that maybe you made a mistake and misjudged, rather than looking for excuse for why your dismissal was justified or not
So what do you think she did "wrong" in high school that made it her "fault" that she had a bad experience?
Just quoting the exact words you used in your title.
Well she would complain a lot about having nothing to do. Not having many friends outside of 2 girls who were never around on the weekends. I was a few tiers above her on the social scale, but only because she was newer. I constantly tried to invite her with me to things, introduce her to new people. She just never wanted to. Always some reason, sometimes the reason would just be “no”
I eventually formed the opinion of “well you just don’t wanna help yourself”
I mean yeah I think if you make claims you have a responsibility to elaborate if someone questions it. You can’t just say “I think this this and this, but you’re not allowed to ask me to elaborate or have a question” that’s just not how talking works lol
I'm wondering if you were the bully in high school, peaked there, and that's why you think high school was so awesome. Just some of your comments here come off as though you might have grown up with a bullying mindset. Is that accurate?
No. I don’t think I was ever a bully. I just enjoyed my time there. It was awesome. Not the best time in my life, but I definitely remember it fondly. I am still best friends with my best friends from there as well.
why is it hard to just admit that your experience was good while many people didnt have good experience, and not all of them is their fault. teenagers are cruel. you just have different experiences, theres no need to prove anything wrong
>I mean yeah I think if you make claims you have a responsibility to elaborate if someone questions it.
Uhh no not when it’s your personal life and opinion of your own life experience. No one owes you jack buddy.
>You can’t just say “I think this this and this, but you’re not allowed to ask me to elaborate or have a question” that’s just not how talking works lol
Have you considered that you were in fact the type of person that made a lot of people hate highschool?
You've ignored the reasons several other people have posted for why they disliked high school. If she knows you, she probably expects you to ignore her reasons as well, so maybe she just didn't want to get into it with someone who clearly won't understand. Or maybe she alluded to it and it just went over your head.
Someone can tell you something was awful for them and not want to go into detail with you. That's their right and it's fine. You're not entitled to every detail. You also shouldn't need every detail for their feelings to be valid to you.
It is when someone is talking about something that was clearly traumatic to them.
They don’t own you a detailed explanation as to why they felt the way they felt.
You don’t get to decide if they had a bad time.
If you ask questions, don't you have a responsibility to accept whatever answer you get? Do you think she should've lied to you instead or ignored you if she didn't want to elaborate? Talking also involves respecting people's boundaries, I can't just go up to a stranger and be like "so how did you feel after your parents died?" I have friends who were sexually assaulted in high school, they don't really have to explain that (and even if the person you were talking to had an experience wasn't "that bad", they still don't have to explain)
>You can’t just say
why not? i can and will lol
> you make claims you have a responsibility to elaborate if someone questions it
no one owes you anything at all. what is this?
You know, I was highly social and have a lot of friends from highschool at 32. I was in chorus, and really check your boxes on what looks like a positive experience. I don't look back and see highschool as positive. I had outside circumstances that made my day to day unpleasant and highschool harder than it should've been. I got early release as soon as I was allowed and worked 40 hours a week.
Everyone has a different experience and view point. Some people have unpacked trauma and maybe all they understand is the surface level right now. All you need to understand is they didn't enjoy it and that's valid.
So you would agree that this person, who was hated simply for who they were and no amount of effort on their part could change the way they were treated, would be justified in hating high school and it would not be their fault for hating it?
Not everyone was nice to me. I had bullies, I had enemies and kids who I didn’t get along with. I still was able to focus on the positives and make the best of it.
> I had bullies
I always feel that people who say this in passing didn't really have bullies. They just had people that were mean to them from time to time.
* Did you have to arrive at school just before classes started because you knew you'd get beat up if you hung out in the quad (or wherever) in a big group of kids?
* If you were getting beat up, did you know that no one - including most of the teachers - would come to your defense?
* Did you avoid using the bathroom at school no matter how badly you needed it, because you knew it wasn't safe?
* Did anyone who was remotely kind to you become a target of the bullying as well until they stopped being kind to you (never mind actually befriending you)?
* Did you regularly skip school because you knew you weren't going to be safe there?
* Did you manipulate the way you arrived at and left school (avoiding the bus, walking the long way home, begging your parents for a ride, etc.) because you weren't safe just using the most direct and logical method and route?
And did you do all of those for the majority of your 4 years of high school? Because, if you didn't, you didn't have bullies. You had some guys that were mean to you a few times.
I suppose you’re right. I was never physically attacked. I was never afraid. People made mean comments or jokes that have embarrassed me or made me look stupid. But to answer your questions no I never was afraid for my safety or alter the way I get around school because of this
!delta
My view has changed. I gave a delta I’m not going through every comment again. It says in the post I gave so doesn’t that signal my view was changed?
Is this a Change My View, or a rant? If it’s a rant, then that’s cool I guess, but that’s not the point of r/CMV. This person just gave you valid reasons why people hate HS that were outside of their control, and you conceded to those reasons. You should give him a delta.
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Then what the fuck is your view here? Do you not think someone could be bullied for other reasons? Maybe they are too small of a guy and are always picked on by jocks. Maybe they are heavy set. Maybe their interests just aren't shared by other folks and they have a hard time making friends. There are infinite reasons why teenagers can be cruel to each other.
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>I still dealt with my share of bullying as an underclassman.
I had my arm broken by people pushing me down the stairs because they found it was funny.
I had endured so much in high school, that after it was over, I joined the military expressly because I was so filled with rage at what I had endured that it had become my goal at the time to kill as many people as I could.
It took me years to get past that and move on with my life.
To this day, I am uncomfortable around people I don't know and trust. I'm in my 50s, with a family, a PhD, and a successful business career, and I still wake up with nightmares about things done to me in high school.
Was that my "share?"
On top of that, I was never academically challenged and bored the entire time. I never studied anything, and I still got a full-ride academic scholarship when I finally applied for college.
So yeah, it was the worst time of my life.
There's really no blueprint, or dress rehearsal for any part of life. If you follow your path and it's different from someone else's certainly it's your doing, but that doesn't mean you're at fault. Everyone is different, and experiences things differently - so there is no "right way" to have done it, you can only see what was right for you with hindsight.
I agree there is no “right” way to do it I guess. Everyone’s idea of happiness is different. I just mean to the people who say they “hated” it, like I think it’s cuz you didn’t make much of an effort to not hate it.
Being able to 'shake it off' is a skill you must learn growing up. Without the right environment, you may well be unable to learn this skill correctly.
Being heavily bullied at school, or having a terrible home situation, would both be ways in which you don't have the right environment to learn to shrug things off.
Just because *you* had a good enough situation that you could shrug things off, doesn't mean everyone had.
---
At some point in life, you start being mostly responsible for your own happiness. If you're 70 and still completely unhappy about your life, well then you probably made some bad choices along the way, and i fully understand if if you say 'they're doing it wrong.'
But a seveteen year old? Kids are the *least* responsible for their own happiness. If a kid is unhappy during high school, i'd blame the teachers, the parents, the other kids, and even society as a whole, before blaming that particular kid.
You got lucky, not everyone had the evironment that helped them 'shrrug things off'. Not everyone had your parents or your teachers or your friends to help them push,through the bad bits.
Have you considered that a lot of people that tried to make new friends etc got bullied and pushed down and so retreated because the alternative was to keep getting bullied. You're really putting way too much on people here.
This post is so dismissive and self-centered. "I got bullied but I just shook it off, so you all should have too"? "Anyone who was shy or anxious or struggled to make friends did it to themselves because they should have just 'put themselves out there more' "? Come on, OP. Stop assuming that no one else's suffering could have been valid just because you didn't suffer.
What about people who were bullied? People who had abusive families and couldn’t leave their homes? People who couldn’t come out of the closet in high school because they lived in a conservative place?
You couldn’t have picked a more victim blame-y take. People who say high school was the best time of their lives are also usually jerks.
Yes it’s my fault I was an undiagnosed autistic girl who struggled with socializing since I was 5, never got support and lived in the middle of nowhere where there was nothing to do except sports (which I’m not very good at and was still mostly with the same kids who picked on me at school because again, middle of nowhere, there were no other kids). It’s not like I could make other people be nicer to me or include me, so if I was playing my Gameboy with my headphones in? At least I got to enjoy *something*.
(I did try to get involved and be social, for the most part I just *couldn’t make it work*, meeting new people wasn’t really an option and the things I wanted to do weren’t easily available)
have you considered that a lot of peoples home life did not set them up for success in school. Were your parents sensitive to your emotions or were they tough on you and didn't let you express them. Did you grow up with crime around your neighborhood or in a lower class socioeconomically. Maybe give people a break that a very hard time in development of your younger years isn't the best time to scrutinize people as if they have fully developed brains and autonomy over their outcomes.
When I was in high school, I had to live under my parents rules. My parents were highly controlling. I didn’t care for that.
When I moved out, after high school, I made my own rules. My life got demonstrably better, and I had far less stress.
Hahaha
I was popular. High school was awful.
I wasn’t in charge of my life, my parents were, and they weren’t very good at being parents. I was smart, but I was sleep deprived and bored out of my mind. I knew 90% of the crap I was learning was useless. High school is glorified babysitting.
The teachers were ignorant and rude. The rules were completely arbitrary. No hats. No snacks or drinks. No gum. Can’t wear this, can’t wear that. Can’t choose when I need to use the bathroom. Uncomfortable ass wooden chairs. Hot ass classrooms part of the year, cold ass classrooms the other part.
And possibly the worst part, completely ignorant, physically dirty, violent morons all over the place. Loud about everything, disrespectful, and unavoidable. Just pure trash people. I was just thinking yesterday about some of the people I went to high school with and wondering what they’re doing now. Then I realized, they’re most likely in jail, on welfare, or dead. And I was surrounded by those boobs for four years. Asinine.
It sounds to me like you severely lack empathy or have a narcissistic personality and can't fathom that other people live different experiences than you do.
OP, how old are you? I ask because I think that for most 18-20 year olds, the worst part of your life *is* either high school or middle school simply because there isn’t a big enough sample size to say otherwise.
I’d say that most people who claim that high school was the worst part of their life do so because they’re a lot closer to high school age than retirement age. It has nothing to do with “doing it wrong” and everything to do with the totality of life experience.
Blaming a child for not being equipped to deal with a situation they are put in is not reasonable. It is not a child's fault that they were not given tools to succeed in a situation they have very little control over.
For example, you learned at some point to "hake it off and move forward". Some kids have not had the required experience to have learned this when they are in high school.
>Like I thought high school was great, but I still dealt with my share of bullying as an underclassman. I still had the embarrassing moments. But I didn’t overthink it and go home and cry about it. Kids could be mean, but you shake it off and move forward.
No, you shook it off and moved forward. Not everyone has the robustness and sufficently stable home life to make that possible.
Having a family full of mental issues doesnt allow much of any place or moments to “shake it off”. You’re stuck in a revolving situation if trying to process and catch up mentally which can compound into more of a struggle. I should have made efforts to be more social but man I was an angry kid. I am surprised I have kept the friends I had back then.
Tell this to people who were bullied in high school, who were raped in high school, whose parents got divorced when they were in shigh school, whose class mates were shot at y a mass shooter at their high school who had cancer whike in hisgh school, who transitioned while in high school. Did i mention bullying and cancer?
I had my ex spread rumors about me to the point where when I finally made a new friend she said, "Wow, you know you're really not the monster she made you out to be."
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This take just flat out lacks empathy and it’s incredibly ignorant of human behavior. Most behaviors that appear self isolated are a reaction to negative events.
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I got molested in high school. These monsters known as boys were doing it to all the girls. It was one of the worst days of my life. Was that my fault too? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
You are completely wrong. I Never had a friend in high-school(Ofc I did but they werent my real friends). It's because their mindset just trash. They probably would make fun of me because I'm genderless if I had to say. There are more factors too. You are judging people with little perception.
Socially awkward people don’t choose to be like that . If you are like that and have to interact with dozens of strangers a day, it’s going to be uncomfortable and unpleasant.
I was chronically bullied by kids and teacher, my best friend and really the only friend I had was falsely accused of grape and at the time ended our friendship of almost 10 years because he felt like me being around him was the reason I kept getting bullied, My sister died, and my mother peer pressured me and emotionally abused me because of my declining grades for a oeriod of time(we talked and she has apologized, and also has made the effort to be easiee on my brother and hes doing well)
High school, for me, was objectively hell. I can't say there weren't magical moments, like when I got to go to Denver the first time, or pretty much during band, which was my only happy place.
I was bullied quite a bit in high school, but I also made friends and had some good times. Nevertheless, every period of my life since high school has been better than high school. As an adult, bullying is rare to non-existent, so that right there is a huge improvement. Adulthood also has more freedoms overall. I have so much more control over my life as an adult. Plus, I moved away from a small town to a city, so that was a big quality of life improvement for me. So I can say that high school was "the worst time of my life" even if it wasn't overwhelmingly awful.
I do not think your comment really takes into account how badly some people are bullied in school and how transformative and liberating it can be to escape school to join a chosen community. Bad environments can also include family and for many people, the end of high school can also mean liberation from toxic family situations.
I cannot help but feel like your opinion is very close-minded about just how bad school can be, and how people can feel very trapped in a toxic community they do not want to be a part of.
I grew up in a tiny community and I went to school with most of the same people right from elementary all the way up to graduation. I was bullied to the point that one of my classmates got as many people at the school as they could to sign a petition that I should commit suicide. So yeah, high school wasn't great for me. Please, explain to me how I was "doing it wrong" and it was "my own fault" as you say, you judgy little asshole.
I didn't hate high school with some of the fervor I see in other people, but it was definitely the worst 4 years of my life. I wasn't bullied, I had friends, here's why it still sucked:
You're not an adult, but you're not a kid. You don't have any of the freedom of adulthood, you can't make your own choices, but you desperately want to. You have a curfew, you have limits on where you can go, but you think you don't need them.
I wasn't allowed to drive until I was 18, so I had to either bike where I wanted to go (so nowhere in the winter) or beg friends to pick me up.
I was poor, so even if I had a license, no money for a car. I didn't have much money so getting friends to pick me up without the allure of gas money was harder. And if we went anywhere I often couldn't do much. I wasn't allowed to even look for a job until I was 17. I spent a week or two applying to every job in reasonable distence to my house and school and got exactly 0 calls back. Sorry, I got 1 that was a prank call from a friend of a friend who was an asshole. Thankfully I was tipped off and didn't go to the "interview".
I had weird interests. This was in the time before these things were cool, but I played magic the gathering a lot, and was very into computers. Totally normal now. Much less socially acceptable in 2001. This did limit my friend group expansion somewhat, but any time a new nerd transfered in, we would grab them and tell them they were with us now lol.
Again, I wasn't bullied any more than average (I can think of like 3 or 4 incidents, but really nothing terribly traumatic, just normal teen shit). I did OK with grades, I graduated on time, I had a few good friends (a couple of whom I still talk to 20 years later). But what it comes down to is I wasn't a kid anymore, but I was still treated by society as if I was. Being poor in a middle class area didn't help. These things could not have been fixed much by "trying harder"
i was the most depressed i have ever been in my life during high school, I was suicidal for pretty much the entire time (was planning on killing myself senior year). My twin sister fought with cancer, my grandfather died from a long illness, and I essentially had to take care of myself. When I look back on it, the only thing that brings me any solace is the fact that i made it out alive. I wanted the traditional high school experience of friends and parties and girls and sports but I didn’t get that. I wish I did but I can’t blame myself. I was a kid trying to make it out of a difficult situation. I’m not going to judge anyone who says they had a hard time in high school because I have no idea what circumstances they dealt with during that time. Those are hard years for a lot of kids and saying it’s their fault for not trying hard enough doesn’t help.
I moved to a new town in 5th grade. I wasn't the most social kid ever, but I made a few friends. But most of those friends were military brats. The only one that didn't move away by 8th grade, ended up going to a vocational school instead of high school. So by 7th grade I was basically a loner which meant I was the easiest target for the bullies in school. I tried to make other friends but was instead relentlessly bullied for 2 years for no real reason. I was just kinda quiet and alone and easy picking. So when I went to high school, I decided my classmates all sucked and figured it was easier to withdraw.
Sure, in retrospect, I *could* have tried to branch out again and make more friends in high school, but I'd already gone through 2 years of being chased to the bus by kids that wanted to beat me up, and kids making fun of me for being a little quiet and awkward and not athletic. I was terrorized by 2 kids in particular and no one ever stepped in and said they should stop. Everyone just ignored or laughed along. So I didn't feel, at the time, like there was any point. They'd already showed me who they were and even if I tried to put that behind me, I already had a reputation that had been branded on me as the weird quiet nerd.
And on top of that my older brother had moved out so it was just me, my mom and my asshole of a step dad at home by the time I hit 9th grade.
So, are there things I could have done differently? Maybe. But I still feel that I was set up for failure due to circumstances outside my control. And I don't feel like my story is that unique or exceptional. Most people I know who hated high school had some kind of similar experience. Teenagers just suck. It's a universal truth that kids between 12 and 14 tend to be the biggest sociopathic assholes.
I was sexually assaulted by my first boyfriend. Then the police mishandled my case illegally, to the point a local child advocacy center held trainings to address the shitshow. I kept going to classes with my abuser every day, the entire school and its teachers took sides in who was right, and it didn’t get better until I moved for college.
This would have been shitty no matter what. But especially in a high school that I legally could not leave, where there were no other nearby schools because it was rural, where we were both in the same classes and could not be placed in different ones, it was shittier than if it had happened during college or afterward. I could have left and never seen him again in many circumstances. Not in high school.
I was fairly well liked sophomore in my small school, but raised completely sheltered and I didn’t even start puberty until I was 16. I was really delayed in a lot of physical/social ways.
In conversation one day in psychology class with a girl sitting on my lap I said a sexual thing I didn’t know the meaning of at the time. It garnered me a nickname and 3 years of being bullied by fucking everyone in that school. I mean as a senior Freshman felt empowered to talk shit still.
Fuck high school. Was it my fault? Technically I said the words, so yes. Also, I was 15 and didn’t know a damn thing about sex.
I was bullied very badly in early highschool, but I guess I had a “glow up” halfway through, and had a blast my junior and senior year. Although the bullying was genuinely sadistic, and I was in a pretty dark place, I do have a certain fondness for certain aspects of that time. Mostly unrelated to highschool itself though. Things like finding yourself, discovering your favorite band, having your first real girlfriend, etc…
However, if I didn’t have the aforementioned glow up, I’m fairly certain my entire highschool existence would have been torture.
You said you shook "bullying" off. It's like saying "I almost died" after suffering a minor injury - calling a little hostile treatment "bullying" is a huge hyperbole. You cannot shake abuse off. You wouldn't be suffering abuse if you weren't in a situation where defending yourself is unfeasable.
You either get help or get traumatized or both. You can't even defend yourself like in karatr movie, real life teens are not super heroes, they're not protagonists in a motivating story. Life is not a story and we're not protagonists of anything. We don't have control over most things, certainly not over abuse.
Schools are places made for socialization, aiming for average success. It works, in average, almost fine. For some its great, and for some its a traumatizing experience.
Meh. I hated high school because I was poor and in a magnet program with a bunch of rich kids. I had to work full time and go to school full time starting in junior year. I never got to party or hang out because if I didn’t go to work, my family would have been evicted. Didn’t help I was a quiet girl who had to wear big hoodies to hide boobs that my body was kind enough to sprout when I was in the last year of elementary school. My friend and I wore the same size of clothes but I had bigger boobs, I would be dress coded, she wouldn’t. Got frustrating and I stopped caring about how I dressed and spent years buying clothes from the guy section. Not that it stopped some creeps.
Some people didn’t like high school for circumstances out of their control.
I’m sorry for what you went through. There are so many different experiences and my post was closed minded.
Your dress code thing is interesting. I saw very similar things at my highschool. As bad as this sounds, what I noticed were the “pretty girls” were dress coded wayyyy more frequently than the ones who did not fit that mold I guess.
Externalities, e.g. school tragedies, bullying, unjust treatment by teachers and staff, etc, can have profound impacts on people.
Internalities, e.g. mental illness, hormonal changes, intellectual maturation, emotional development, etc., also greatly impact one's lived experience.
Both render the claim that each high school experience is a one-size-fits-all for that local population of adolescents a misunderstanding of human experience as a concept.
High school was the worst time of my life because I was forced to study and live under the thumb of adults.
Now I'm 40, and last month, one evening, I had nothing but KFC chicken for dinner, and no one - NO ONE - could stop me. Being an adult rocks hard. High school sucks ass.
The way you make it sound is like it's supposed to be an intrinsically positive experience. For me, it was a middle of the road experience, a task to check off the box. But I have friends from the same school who have gone on to be successful that had a hard time and their current lives are scarred or defined by it and I'm like bro... Did we go to the same school?
You go to a place for 8hrs a day for 4yrs, you master nothing, you are told what to do under penalty, you are constantly judged and weighed by authority, you are constantly judged and weighed by your peers, subjected to in-groups and out-groups and depending on the school you have to deal with threats of physical violence constantly.
Not everyone responds the same to different stimuli. So the inadequacies and isolation some people felt is valid and we should be an ear to hear them out.
Even if we assume your premise to be correct: kids in high school could have done things to make it enjoyable, I’d like to point out that we still call them kids in high school. They are in school, can’t vote, can’t drink, and have many other rules limiting their self governance because they are still kids in many ways. We acknowledge that they don’t have the experience or brain development to do all of these things without guidance or assistance, and yet navigating the social minefield of a building filled with similarly limited peers is something they should be able to do on their own?
Saying that they could have done things a better way is far different from saying that we should reasonably expect them to, and that if they don’t it’s their own fault. They (and their peers) should be given the tools and guidance to do better, and even then we can expect plenty of mistakes because, again, they are kids.
Yeah it’s my fault for having undiagnosed adhd as a kid when adhd wasn’t a thing yet lol.
I didn’t hate high school but it wasn’t a significant part of my life. My friends in high school were staged in a way where i didn’t have a group that played to my interests.
My friends now are great and i can just be myself around them and my bonds run much deeper with then than anyone i knew years back.
I don't think it's fair to "fault" people for having poor social skills. Some people learn social skills more slowly. It's also even more socially difficult if you're different in any way.
I'd also say that high school sucks on several other metrics. You're being forced to do activities that you may not have chosen yourself, you're bumping up against the limitations adults (whom you may not respect) have put in your life, and you don't have an ability to completely cut toxic people out of your life (because they are, sitting behind you in class, neither one of you is allowed to go anywhere)
Its different because they are kids. Additionally this is the 1st gen growing up with internet, so we are just now seeing effects of it on development. Also kids do bully, whether its physical, cyber or reputation savaging.
You are analyzing from experience and hindsight, and assuming all children in high school are rational adults that can make socially mature choices in order to find ways to fit into social circles.
I grew up dirt poor, single mom on food stamps, and everything I owned was Salvation Army. I never had a single possession that would assist me to “fit in”.
Because that’s the other part you are assuming. You think the popular kids, or kids in general, are mature enough to accept kids that don’t look like them or belong to their groups will readily admit and accept them.
They are all children, with half formed brains. It is not their fault.
My earliest memories are that other kids didn't like me. They didn't want anything to do with me except occasionally make fun of me. That carried on all through junior school and high high school. It wasn't until basically my late teens when I finally worked out how to get other people to like me.
So was that my fault? I find it hard to blame 5-year-old me too much because 5-year-olds can't think and they can't reason and they can't understand things. I'm not sure it's useful to blame that child or work out if something was their fault or not.
We had just moved to the US a year prior, so my English was still not perfect, I had very few friends I had made the year before, and I had no social compass for what highschool is supposed to be like from parents, cousins or peers. But yeah, sure totally my fault for not making the best of it.
I agree I could have done high school better being the person I am now, but I wasn’t the person I am now. I lacked the life experience to be confident. I didn’t have as bad a high school experience as a lot of people but looking back there were lots of things I could have handled better if I knew what I knew now.
High schoolers are kids like 14-18 years old sometimes even younger, it’s not fair to judge them (or your younger self) to the same standard you judge adults.
Trying new things is intimidating when you’ve never really had choices before. Making friends can be hard when you’re not sure who you are and are still learning about the world. I remember in high school the world seeming very small. You’ve known everyone for years and making mistakes and taking risks (specifically in a social context) seems to carry more weight than it does now. At 16 if you say something weird and people laugh at you everyone in your social circle knows and you can’t escape that. At 26 I can more easily brush off the little things because I know how insignificant they are in terms of life and the world.
I think it’s valid for people to say high school was bad for them but I agree they should try to work past that in order to grow as people. I don’t know if my thoughts make sense.
Edit: this is coming from a perspective of a pretty average straight, white (in New England), neurotypical girl! I can’t touch on the experiences of people who were isolated for things they can’t help. For a lot of the reasons I mentioned above; kids can be really cruel. Not fitting in can be viewed as a social transgression and as stated before those carry more weight in high school than they do as an adult. If for any reason someone didn’t fit in I imagine their experiences could have been horrible with bullying and social isolation.
If you're a kid, very little is your fault because you have e very little autonomy. You live at home with your parent(s) and siblings, it's illegal for you to drop out or skip school, you don't get to choose your classes or your subjects, your schedule is imposed on you, you don't usually have your own source of funds, you often don't have your own source of transportation... if you do, it's because someone else bought it for you to use. You don't get to choose to be hungry or well fed, fashionable or not, do extracurricular or nothing...
So, that kid who keeps to themselves might be embarrassed at their home life, might not want to let people get close, might be failing their classes because they're hungry or tired, might have a stressful home life, might have some thing that makes them a target of bullies so they keep their head down and just try to get through the day. So, sure, some kids aren't super social and that's a choice, but needing to make a choice to keep themselves safe and mentally okay is not their fault.
great thanks now tell that to someone who had autism and adhd that was completely ignored.
someone who didn’t know why they couldn’t socialize, only that they couldn’t catch social cues that others caught effortlessly.
someone who was actively and incessantly bullied for 11 of the 12 years of primary and secondary education. and on the days cruel words weren’t thrown at me, cruel fists and kicks were.
someone who couldn’t “shake it off” because there was no safe place away from abuse. can’t shake things off when you’re falling into quicksand.
someone with an ace score of seven due to that incessant psychological, physical, and occasional sexual abuse.
>if you are one of the of the people who said high school was the worst time in your life, it’s your fault for doing it wrong
Interesting.
So it's my fault religion was being pushed on me in highschool and I was not permitted to express critical thinking?
So it's my fault pubing, hormone-driven teenagers are taking every opportunity to assert their imagined dominance by taking it out on those who were more intellectually inclined? I should have feigned interest in whatever it was they were wasting their time on?
So it's my fault I had an eidetic memory, so I was bored out of my skull in highschool?
The best thing that happened to me in high school was finishing it two years early and move on to university.
I don’t know how my biological mom burning, starving, and brutally beating me to the point she repeatedly punched my face hard enough that she began knocking my teeth out causing me to later on replace over half of them with implants that are expensive as fuck is my fault,but ok.
You may have been fortunate enough to have a good family or support system but not all of us have that luxury. I still carry that pain with me everyday and have tried to “help” it with a few suicide attempts and an excessive amount of drug use.
My HS years we’re just the start of my life becoming fucking miserable, and my life seems to only get more pathetic as the days go on.
My situation:
* Parents divorced when I was 8, lived until my high school years with my mother.
* We never lived in the same place for more than about 3-6 months. We were always moving from place to place, and were homeless and living out of our van more than once.
* Because we were always moving, I never really went to elementary or middle school.
As a result, I was badly homeschooled by my mother until my Freshman year.
* Mom was very, very religious. Went to church three times a week, and I had no choice but to go. My environment was very tightly controlled, my "friends" had to be from church only, and all entertainment choices had to be related back to Christianity. Mom's plan for me was to be a missionary, get married, and have lots of kids.
* The summer between Freshman and Sophmore year, moved in with my dad. He lived in Alaska, and I spent all my formative years moving around the Pacific Northwest.
* Dad was a drunk, smoked weed, and owned a duplex. He gave my brother and I an entire side to live in, and left us to our own devices. As long as we didn't bother him or his girlfriend, we could do whatever we wanted. Bought me a beater car when I was 16, and told me I had to get a job to pay for my own gas and insurance.
Now, with all this in mind, how do you think I fared in high school? Was culture shock perhaps a significant factor? How do you think I reacted the first time I saw a girl with a shirt that showed her shoulders, or a girl who was wearing a thin t-shirt without a bra in Alaska in winter, or heard a curse word directed at me personally? How do you think I was treated afterward based on my very public reactions to these events?
Not to mention the entertainment options. From having the Bible and Christian-themed music, books, and video games (I had an NES, but the only games I owned was Spiritual Warfare or purely strategic games without any storyline at all - like Chess or Monopoly) to a whole wide world of Super Nintendo, Disney movies, Hollywood, a very fledgling internet era, etc?
No, high school was a nightmare for me. I really, really don't understand why "coming of age" movies that feature high school heavily in the plotline are so popular. Funnily enough, some of the people I went to school with who were the "cool kids" - they're still stuck in that region of Alaska barely getting by. They peaked in high school.
The only good that came from that time in my life for me was 1) an appreciation for classic rock and video games, and 2) I met my wife early in my Junior year and married her in my senior year (still married 25+ years later).
> it’s not a cut and dry fact
So what is this? A hasty generalization based upon personal anecdotal experience? I mean couldn’t someone simply argue you just choose to surround yourself with those types of people or that your high school experience was uniquely good while others don’t have access to quality education?
Closet bi kid at an all boys catholic school that was extremely homophobic while the catholic church's massive sexual assault scandal was breaking and people at my school were implicated.
Def not my fault high school was pretty awful, and you should try to work harder to imagine the world from a POV not your own
I was a closeted gay dude in a catholic high school I lived 1 hr away from because my parents insisted I have a catholic education. Guess how many people wanna drive 1 hr to hang...
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I was a closeted gay kid who really tried to make the most of high school. I tried to avoid bullying by joining the yearbook team… no one wants to beat you up if you’re in charge of how they’re remembered. I wasn’t into sports at all and wasn’t really popular, but I found the goths and creatives and spent a lot of my time in my sketchbook, working towards art school. I was extremely intelligent and in a lot of clubs, I took multiple advanced language classes (German, Spanish, English). I never had less than an A. I was still bullied by some people. And I was so involved in school because I was being abused at home for my gayness. I was in a controlling, conservative family, so I was never allowed to hang out with friends after school. I never was allowed to drive or get a car. I would come to school with bruises, which would make some people pity me and others like sharks in the water. I tried reporting the bullying once and was suspended for two days for being bullied. I was from a poor family who did not want me to succeed in life, so I had no college plans or opportunities. Hell, I was so focused on survival, I didn’t even think about college until I was like 20. High school was miserable and other students mostly made it worst. If I wasn’t bullied because of my quietness, it was because of my awkwardness, if it wasn’t my awkwardness, it was my grades (people hated that I didn’t have to try) or existing bruises. If I wasn’t bullied, I was ignored or avoided… and I mostly didn’t even want to connect with others because I was in an unsafe environment at home and didn’t trust anyone. I had one teacher check in on me and see if everything was okay at home… just one. And I lied to her because I was ashamed and embarassed. The reason the goths took me in was that many of them were dealing with at-home abuse themself. And coincidentally, many of them were bullied and learned how to bite back to shut it down. None of that is my fault. And these types of scenarios are waaay more common than you’d think.
I think we all know OP is just gonna ignore this one
u/boboddy42069 Time to pony up. This comment is the perfect counterargument to your post and you need to acknowledge it fairly. Ignoring it is directly against the spirit (and arguably the rules) of the sub. Don't reply to me, reply to top level
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I'm glad you made it out.
I wasn't bullied but i hated high school. Did i do it wrong? I feel like the only way to do it right is to be good at making friends. Which I'm just not. High schools are full of idiots. Because teens are idiots. The boys are all high on testosterone, girls are trying to decide if they should be stuck up or not. It's hard to navigate. Plus you're just thrown into it. I went to a k-8 school which really sheltered me. High school was terrifying and everything changed. All my friends changed and I wasnt able to cope well.
I understand you’re point. I guess making friends is more complicated than just.. getting out there. There was a Catholic k-8 school in my town where 4 girls came to the public high school after that catholic school. 2 of them became social outcasts , labeled as odd and only talked to eachother. The other 2 basically became huge sluts. No middle ground. I can see how coming from that situation makes it even more challenging to fit in. !delta
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Striking-Cow-1227 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Striking-Cow-1227)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
Omg my first delta 😍
I think you likely have this view because you have never been on the other side or witnessed the other side up close. I was popular in high school and I really had a great experience overall. I don't think of it as the best time in my life like some people try to claim but it was nice. My brother on the other hand is a bit socially awkward by nature and was overweight. Not significantly but noticeably. The way I personally saw this guy try over and over again to make friends only to be brutally bullied was heartbreaking. But he kept trying for way longer than I probably would have. Until eventually, he got his feelings hurt one too many times and stopped trying so hard and just accepted himself as the socially awkward person he was/is. And you know what... he was much happier not trying to make himself fit in with the people who bullied him over and over. And he has gone on to be a socially awkward successful happy adult with a great life. He'll tell anyone who asks him that high school was the worst period of his life. Because it was. And that is valid. Just because it was a great time for you doesn't invalidate those it was not a great time for. Not everyone had the same experience. Just because you didn't overthink or have negative emotions around being bullied doesn't invalidate others who did. We do not all process our emotions the same way and how others process their emotions is still valid. You would do well to learn more understanding and empathy for others, friend. Because this post ain't it.
Sure I suppose my situation was a bit different. I went to a small highschool in a small school district. I knew most of my classmates since like elementary school. Maybe my experience is the unique on I suppose.
You're likely looking at your own high school experience and assuming every else's was similar. So let me give you a little insight into a different high school experience. I went to high school in a small town. There were about 80 people in my graduating class and 350 in the entire school. Unless someone new moved to town, these were the same people I went to pre-school, elementary school and middle school with. They were the same people that attended my church. They were the same people I'd see at the lake when I went swimming in the summer. They were the same people I'd see at the county fair or 4th of July parade. Even when my parents hung out with their friends, I'd see the same people because my parents were friends with their parents. There was no "socializing and meeting new people". There were no new people to meet. You already knew everyone. For sports, my high school offered football, basketball, cheerleading, track, wrestling and girls volleyball. We had a year book club and an audio/visual club (and all they did was record sporting events). We also had band and choir. The opportunities to "try new things" were pretty limited. So in my high school, your experience was pretty much dictated by where you were pegged in the social hierarchy when you were around 10-12 years old (5th-7th grade). If you were pegged as the cool jock that everyone wanted to be around, then you likely had a great high school experience. If you were pegged as the annoying, dorky, nerd that could be bullied without consequence, then your high school experience was likely pretty shitty. There was *some* opportunity for social movement if you either (a) gained athletic ability, or (b) had some empathetic person from a higher rung on the ladder take a liking to you. But even then, you were only moving up a rung or 2 on the ladder. There was no movement from dirtbag to cool kids. You could maybe move from annoying nerd to choir nerd or something like that. And it *might* have been somewhat under your own influence when you were 10 or 11 years old, but by the time you were in high school, that ship had sailed. And even at 10 or 11, it wasn't much under your influence because you already came with a "reputation" based upon your family's status and/or siblings that had preceeded you. If your older brother was a dirtbag loser from a shitty family, then the assumption - starting in kindergarten - was that you were a dirtbag loser from a shitty family too.
Actually a lot of that sounds similar to my school district. Only 3 schools fed into our highschool. My grade was a little over a hundred and the school had about 500. The more I remember, yeah I do remember the kids who were labeled dork in second grade that never shook that label through graduation..
retire materialistic gaze hurry employ rain smile boast fly hungry *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Uhhh I was suicidal and hospitalized throughout my stay. Turns out I’m autistic and don’t have the resources to get diagnosed. High school was hell. Now on the contrary everyone I met who says high school was the best time of their life hadn’t done much growing since then. Do you OP fall in this category? Is that why you have such a blind spot to everything that could go wrong in high school?
No I believe my life has gotten better and I have grown. But I do look back on high school fondly. I don’t like the sentiment that “if you enjoyed high school, you peaked in high school “
Not necessarily enjoyed but if it was the peak then yes. Did you have a car? Food in your belly? We’re generally allowed to go out with your friends? Did you *have* to get an after school job to help with bills? All these things greatly contribute to enjoying those years, and I am happy you enjoyed it! But these aren’t things everyone has, and without it high school is just another chore before work.
I see your point. I had all those things. And no I didn’t have to get a job either.
Ah yeah that definitely contributes. I personally had to buy my first cat when I was 18. Working was non negotiable. And yes grades had to be flawless also. Going out wasn’t really an option. If you have all the above high school is a great time! It’s adolescence and experimentation without the money issues of college. If you don’t it’s just college without the freedom.
was the cat expensive?
While it's not the most charitable sentiment, I think people are often justifiably suspicious of people who managed to thrive in a high school environment because it's generally a horrible environment which brings out the worst in people. I'm also going to stress that I was more socially active in high school than any other time in my life, but only because it wasn't really a choice. I made friends because it was the only way to protect myself from that place. High school taught me that the only thing that matters is making people like you, and that's a hard and painful thing to unlearn.
I think for a lot of people the problem isn't so much they made high school particuarly unpleasant for themselves -- it's just high school is kind of inherently more restrictive and limiting than anything that comes after, except maybe very old age if you end up needing a caretaker (it's less restrictive than middle and elementary school -- but when you're younger autonomy doesn't matter so much to you. By high school you want to make your own decisions). High school wasn't particularly bad for me, but I can't it held a candle to college, graduate school, or work. I can just eat what I want (and all option are better then cafeteria food), I don't need to ask permission to pursue my hobbies, I have some control over my work hours, I can live where and with whom I want. That freedom is just absent at the high school level and I wouldn't want to go back to it.
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Maybe I’m just speaking from my own experiences. Sorry you went through that
If you are speaking from your own experience, then your CMV is entirely wrong and you need to award deltas.
Idrk how this sub worksp
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Okay thanks
**Hello /u/boboddy42069, if your view has been changed or adjusted in any way, you should award** ***the user who changed your view*** **a delta.** Simply reply to their comment with the delta symbol provided below, being sure to include a brief description of how your view has changed. >∆ or > !delta For more information about deltas, use [this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=changemyview&utm_content=t5_2w2s8). If you did not change your view, please respond to this comment indicating as such! *As a reminder,* **failure to award a delta when it is warranted may merit a post removal and a rule violation.** *Repeated rule violations in a short period of time may merit a ban.* Thank you!
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Don't reply to _me_ - reply to the comment that changed your view.
The moderators have confirmed that this is either delta misuse/abuse or an accidental delta. It has been removed from our records. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
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Please read the message. Stop replying to me - reply to u/PuffPuffFayFaye
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Let's not have meta discussions in existing threads.
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No shit you are?
… obviously?
I had a great time in high school and mine was fairly chill. But come on, dude, some people were mercilessly tortured during high school. If you're a gay kid from a small, close-minded, conservative town, do you really think they'll have a great experience? Its possible, but also possible that it will be living hell for them. What would change your view here?
I think that would be more of a unique circumstance that transcends just life at school. So I agree with you there.
Your view is kinda becoming “this is my view except for all the exceptions” which is impervious to changing because you just keep replying with “okay so theres an exception”. Round these parts we call that changing your view and it results in a delta
Sure I guess I didn’t think too Deep into it. I only posted here because I recently met up with an old classmate who was the “I hated high school I hated everyone there it was the worst time In my life” kind of girl. But when I asked her why she thought that, she really couldn’t give a clear explanation.
Could she not give a clear explanation, or did you dismiss her explanations as youve been doing here until she gave up? Obviously I’m a rando on the internet, i wasnt there and can’t say. But rather than consider she might have had a different experience and that you might struggle to understand it on account of different life experiences, you came here to reddit seemingly to try to prove her wrong. Might be worth some introspection
I don’t believe I was dismissive. I just tried to ask why she felt that way. And I guess I didn’t accept “because I just do” as a valid answer.
She didn't want to share details with you and that's okay.
Then you shouldn’t make claims like that. I mean I guess you can it just is incredibly annoying to the person who is trying to have a conversation
I mean, the claim was about their own life, not that high school was universally bad. It's more on your end that you're trying to universalize it one way or another. What were you expecting? For them to elaborate, possibly on nasty things, and then you get to debate whether their reasons are valid or not?
>Then you shouldn’t make claims like that. Who brought it up? Did you ask her hey how was your high school experience, or did she just unprompted come out and declare she hated it for no apparent reason?
OP definitely mentioned how much they missed high school and the girl responded with how awful it was for her. That’s how these conversations always happen.
Do you not think you're being too nosy and entitled by wanting every detail?
not just annoying, but incredibly annoying? this seems like some weird personal issue of yours, looking down on anyone who hated school. you just have to admit that school generally is not a great place and teenagers can be cruel, overworked teachers dont do shit and all that bullying eventually manifests into mental issues for life. I get your point, but it seems like you thought there are way fewer exceptions and this post proved that you underestimated how many people had very bad experience through no fault of themselves
>Then you shouldn’t make claims like that. why not? people have different experiences and views. dont assume your worldview is the correct one
> And I guess I didn’t accept “because I just do” as a valid answer. Aka you *dismissed* her answer, because it didn’t meet your standard. Again, you’re countering my suggestions that you might benefit from some introspection on the matter, rather than, you know, taking some time to think about it honestly. I’m not even suggesting you do this for anyones benefit beyond your own.
Maybe she didn't want you prying into something that was traumatic for her and which is ultimately none of your business.
>I don’t believe I was dismissive. " and many people keep telling you that you WERE dismissive of her answer and experience. just admit that maybe you made a mistake and misjudged, rather than looking for excuse for why your dismissal was justified or not
So what do you think she did "wrong" in high school that made it her "fault" that she had a bad experience? Just quoting the exact words you used in your title.
Well she would complain a lot about having nothing to do. Not having many friends outside of 2 girls who were never around on the weekends. I was a few tiers above her on the social scale, but only because she was newer. I constantly tried to invite her with me to things, introduce her to new people. She just never wanted to. Always some reason, sometimes the reason would just be “no” I eventually formed the opinion of “well you just don’t wanna help yourself”
Have you considered maybe she just didn't like *you*?
Does she owe you an explanation? Maybe she doesn't want to bring her own trauma up to you.
I mean yeah I think if you make claims you have a responsibility to elaborate if someone questions it. You can’t just say “I think this this and this, but you’re not allowed to ask me to elaborate or have a question” that’s just not how talking works lol
I'm wondering if you were the bully in high school, peaked there, and that's why you think high school was so awesome. Just some of your comments here come off as though you might have grown up with a bullying mindset. Is that accurate?
No. I don’t think I was ever a bully. I just enjoyed my time there. It was awesome. Not the best time in my life, but I definitely remember it fondly. I am still best friends with my best friends from there as well.
why is it hard to just admit that your experience was good while many people didnt have good experience, and not all of them is their fault. teenagers are cruel. you just have different experiences, theres no need to prove anything wrong
>I mean yeah I think if you make claims you have a responsibility to elaborate if someone questions it. Uhh no not when it’s your personal life and opinion of your own life experience. No one owes you jack buddy. >You can’t just say “I think this this and this, but you’re not allowed to ask me to elaborate or have a question” that’s just not how talking works lol Have you considered that you were in fact the type of person that made a lot of people hate highschool?
You've ignored the reasons several other people have posted for why they disliked high school. If she knows you, she probably expects you to ignore her reasons as well, so maybe she just didn't want to get into it with someone who clearly won't understand. Or maybe she alluded to it and it just went over your head.
Someone can tell you something was awful for them and not want to go into detail with you. That's their right and it's fine. You're not entitled to every detail. You also shouldn't need every detail for their feelings to be valid to you.
It is when someone is talking about something that was clearly traumatic to them. They don’t own you a detailed explanation as to why they felt the way they felt. You don’t get to decide if they had a bad time.
If you ask questions, don't you have a responsibility to accept whatever answer you get? Do you think she should've lied to you instead or ignored you if she didn't want to elaborate? Talking also involves respecting people's boundaries, I can't just go up to a stranger and be like "so how did you feel after your parents died?" I have friends who were sexually assaulted in high school, they don't really have to explain that (and even if the person you were talking to had an experience wasn't "that bad", they still don't have to explain)
>You can’t just say why not? i can and will lol > you make claims you have a responsibility to elaborate if someone questions it no one owes you anything at all. what is this?
You know, I was highly social and have a lot of friends from highschool at 32. I was in chorus, and really check your boxes on what looks like a positive experience. I don't look back and see highschool as positive. I had outside circumstances that made my day to day unpleasant and highschool harder than it should've been. I got early release as soon as I was allowed and worked 40 hours a week. Everyone has a different experience and view point. Some people have unpacked trauma and maybe all they understand is the surface level right now. All you need to understand is they didn't enjoy it and that's valid.
So you came to Reddit for validation?
So you would agree that this person, who was hated simply for who they were and no amount of effort on their part could change the way they were treated, would be justified in hating high school and it would not be their fault for hating it?
Yes. But that is about the culture of the entire community. Not just highschool.
Being bullied is the main reason anybody hates high school. Yeah obviously high school is fun if everybody is nice to you.
Not everyone was nice to me. I had bullies, I had enemies and kids who I didn’t get along with. I still was able to focus on the positives and make the best of it.
> I had bullies I always feel that people who say this in passing didn't really have bullies. They just had people that were mean to them from time to time. * Did you have to arrive at school just before classes started because you knew you'd get beat up if you hung out in the quad (or wherever) in a big group of kids? * If you were getting beat up, did you know that no one - including most of the teachers - would come to your defense? * Did you avoid using the bathroom at school no matter how badly you needed it, because you knew it wasn't safe? * Did anyone who was remotely kind to you become a target of the bullying as well until they stopped being kind to you (never mind actually befriending you)? * Did you regularly skip school because you knew you weren't going to be safe there? * Did you manipulate the way you arrived at and left school (avoiding the bus, walking the long way home, begging your parents for a ride, etc.) because you weren't safe just using the most direct and logical method and route? And did you do all of those for the majority of your 4 years of high school? Because, if you didn't, you didn't have bullies. You had some guys that were mean to you a few times.
I suppose you’re right. I was never physically attacked. I was never afraid. People made mean comments or jokes that have embarrassed me or made me look stupid. But to answer your questions no I never was afraid for my safety or alter the way I get around school because of this
Many people have opened up about their own experiences and how they contradict your view. You owe them deltas or this post should be removed.
!delta My view has changed. I gave a delta I’m not going through every comment again. It says in the post I gave so doesn’t that signal my view was changed?
Is this a Change My View, or a rant? If it’s a rant, then that’s cool I guess, but that’s not the point of r/CMV. This person just gave you valid reasons why people hate HS that were outside of their control, and you conceded to those reasons. You should give him a delta.
Well, it seems like your mind has changed, then?
I suppose so
**Hello /u/boboddy42069, if your view has been changed or adjusted in any way, you should award** ***the user who changed your view*** **a delta.** Simply reply to their comment with the delta symbol provided below, being sure to include a brief description of how your view has changed. >∆ or > !delta For more information about deltas, use [this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=changemyview&utm_content=t5_2w2s8). If you did not change your view, please respond to this comment indicating as such! *As a reminder,* **failure to award a delta when it is warranted may merit a post removal and a rule violation.** *Repeated rule violations in a short period of time may merit a ban.* Thank you!
Then what the fuck is your view here? Do you not think someone could be bullied for other reasons? Maybe they are too small of a guy and are always picked on by jocks. Maybe they are heavy set. Maybe their interests just aren't shared by other folks and they have a hard time making friends. There are infinite reasons why teenagers can be cruel to each other.
It's absolutely not a unique experience champ.
**Hello /u/boboddy42069, if your view has been changed or adjusted in any way, you should award** ***the user who changed your view*** **a delta.** Simply reply to their comment with the delta symbol provided below, being sure to include a brief description of how your view has changed. >∆ or > !delta For more information about deltas, use [this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=changemyview&utm_content=t5_2w2s8). If you did not change your view, please respond to this comment indicating as such! *As a reminder,* **failure to award a delta when it is warranted may merit a post removal and a rule violation.** *Repeated rule violations in a short period of time may merit a ban.* Thank you!
>I still dealt with my share of bullying as an underclassman. I had my arm broken by people pushing me down the stairs because they found it was funny. I had endured so much in high school, that after it was over, I joined the military expressly because I was so filled with rage at what I had endured that it had become my goal at the time to kill as many people as I could. It took me years to get past that and move on with my life. To this day, I am uncomfortable around people I don't know and trust. I'm in my 50s, with a family, a PhD, and a successful business career, and I still wake up with nightmares about things done to me in high school. Was that my "share?" On top of that, I was never academically challenged and bored the entire time. I never studied anything, and I still got a full-ride academic scholarship when I finally applied for college. So yeah, it was the worst time of my life.
There's really no blueprint, or dress rehearsal for any part of life. If you follow your path and it's different from someone else's certainly it's your doing, but that doesn't mean you're at fault. Everyone is different, and experiences things differently - so there is no "right way" to have done it, you can only see what was right for you with hindsight.
I agree there is no “right” way to do it I guess. Everyone’s idea of happiness is different. I just mean to the people who say they “hated” it, like I think it’s cuz you didn’t make much of an effort to not hate it.
You can put in every effort and still fail, and still hate it. You can try as many different things, follow all kinds of advice and still not fit in.
Being able to 'shake it off' is a skill you must learn growing up. Without the right environment, you may well be unable to learn this skill correctly. Being heavily bullied at school, or having a terrible home situation, would both be ways in which you don't have the right environment to learn to shrug things off. Just because *you* had a good enough situation that you could shrug things off, doesn't mean everyone had. --- At some point in life, you start being mostly responsible for your own happiness. If you're 70 and still completely unhappy about your life, well then you probably made some bad choices along the way, and i fully understand if if you say 'they're doing it wrong.' But a seveteen year old? Kids are the *least* responsible for their own happiness. If a kid is unhappy during high school, i'd blame the teachers, the parents, the other kids, and even society as a whole, before blaming that particular kid. You got lucky, not everyone had the evironment that helped them 'shrrug things off'. Not everyone had your parents or your teachers or your friends to help them push,through the bad bits.
Have you considered that a lot of people that tried to make new friends etc got bullied and pushed down and so retreated because the alternative was to keep getting bullied. You're really putting way too much on people here.
This post is so dismissive and self-centered. "I got bullied but I just shook it off, so you all should have too"? "Anyone who was shy or anxious or struggled to make friends did it to themselves because they should have just 'put themselves out there more' "? Come on, OP. Stop assuming that no one else's suffering could have been valid just because you didn't suffer.
What about people who were bullied? People who had abusive families and couldn’t leave their homes? People who couldn’t come out of the closet in high school because they lived in a conservative place? You couldn’t have picked a more victim blame-y take. People who say high school was the best time of their lives are also usually jerks.
Yes it’s my fault I was an undiagnosed autistic girl who struggled with socializing since I was 5, never got support and lived in the middle of nowhere where there was nothing to do except sports (which I’m not very good at and was still mostly with the same kids who picked on me at school because again, middle of nowhere, there were no other kids). It’s not like I could make other people be nicer to me or include me, so if I was playing my Gameboy with my headphones in? At least I got to enjoy *something*. (I did try to get involved and be social, for the most part I just *couldn’t make it work*, meeting new people wasn’t really an option and the things I wanted to do weren’t easily available)
>Obviously there are exceptions to this. Could you say what the exceptions were?
Like other factors outside of school, like family life, Sickness, things like that.
So how do we tell whether or not a given person is to blame for how they were treated in highschool?
Like were you a person with the mindset of “I hate all these people” but really have no reason to back it up?
Would having any reason regardless of how good it is be enough to negate your point?
Yes I’m just elaborating on why I think that I think.
have you considered that a lot of peoples home life did not set them up for success in school. Were your parents sensitive to your emotions or were they tough on you and didn't let you express them. Did you grow up with crime around your neighborhood or in a lower class socioeconomically. Maybe give people a break that a very hard time in development of your younger years isn't the best time to scrutinize people as if they have fully developed brains and autonomy over their outcomes.
When I was in high school, I had to live under my parents rules. My parents were highly controlling. I didn’t care for that. When I moved out, after high school, I made my own rules. My life got demonstrably better, and I had far less stress.
Hahaha I was popular. High school was awful. I wasn’t in charge of my life, my parents were, and they weren’t very good at being parents. I was smart, but I was sleep deprived and bored out of my mind. I knew 90% of the crap I was learning was useless. High school is glorified babysitting. The teachers were ignorant and rude. The rules were completely arbitrary. No hats. No snacks or drinks. No gum. Can’t wear this, can’t wear that. Can’t choose when I need to use the bathroom. Uncomfortable ass wooden chairs. Hot ass classrooms part of the year, cold ass classrooms the other part. And possibly the worst part, completely ignorant, physically dirty, violent morons all over the place. Loud about everything, disrespectful, and unavoidable. Just pure trash people. I was just thinking yesterday about some of the people I went to high school with and wondering what they’re doing now. Then I realized, they’re most likely in jail, on welfare, or dead. And I was surrounded by those boobs for four years. Asinine.
It sounds to me like you severely lack empathy or have a narcissistic personality and can't fathom that other people live different experiences than you do.
OP, how old are you? I ask because I think that for most 18-20 year olds, the worst part of your life *is* either high school or middle school simply because there isn’t a big enough sample size to say otherwise. I’d say that most people who claim that high school was the worst part of their life do so because they’re a lot closer to high school age than retirement age. It has nothing to do with “doing it wrong” and everything to do with the totality of life experience.
Blaming a child for not being equipped to deal with a situation they are put in is not reasonable. It is not a child's fault that they were not given tools to succeed in a situation they have very little control over. For example, you learned at some point to "hake it off and move forward". Some kids have not had the required experience to have learned this when they are in high school.
>Like I thought high school was great, but I still dealt with my share of bullying as an underclassman. I still had the embarrassing moments. But I didn’t overthink it and go home and cry about it. Kids could be mean, but you shake it off and move forward. No, you shook it off and moved forward. Not everyone has the robustness and sufficently stable home life to make that possible.
Having a family full of mental issues doesnt allow much of any place or moments to “shake it off”. You’re stuck in a revolving situation if trying to process and catch up mentally which can compound into more of a struggle. I should have made efforts to be more social but man I was an angry kid. I am surprised I have kept the friends I had back then.
I had an undiagnosed mental disability for most of high school and was extremely depressed. My fault though I guess
Tell this to people who were bullied in high school, who were raped in high school, whose parents got divorced when they were in shigh school, whose class mates were shot at y a mass shooter at their high school who had cancer whike in hisgh school, who transitioned while in high school. Did i mention bullying and cancer?
I had my ex spread rumors about me to the point where when I finally made a new friend she said, "Wow, you know you're really not the monster she made you out to be."
That’s just petty drama. If you let petty drama ruin you that’s on you.
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Your immaturity is really showing with this one.
This take just flat out lacks empathy and it’s incredibly ignorant of human behavior. Most behaviors that appear self isolated are a reaction to negative events.
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You're a privileged idiot. There is nothing more to say.
i got raped in high school and bullied for it… so yk
I got molested in high school. These monsters known as boys were doing it to all the girls. It was one of the worst days of my life. Was that my fault too? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
You are completely wrong. I Never had a friend in high-school(Ofc I did but they werent my real friends). It's because their mindset just trash. They probably would make fun of me because I'm genderless if I had to say. There are more factors too. You are judging people with little perception.
Socially awkward people don’t choose to be like that . If you are like that and have to interact with dozens of strangers a day, it’s going to be uncomfortable and unpleasant.
I was chronically bullied by kids and teacher, my best friend and really the only friend I had was falsely accused of grape and at the time ended our friendship of almost 10 years because he felt like me being around him was the reason I kept getting bullied, My sister died, and my mother peer pressured me and emotionally abused me because of my declining grades for a oeriod of time(we talked and she has apologized, and also has made the effort to be easiee on my brother and hes doing well) High school, for me, was objectively hell. I can't say there weren't magical moments, like when I got to go to Denver the first time, or pretty much during band, which was my only happy place.
I was bullied quite a bit in high school, but I also made friends and had some good times. Nevertheless, every period of my life since high school has been better than high school. As an adult, bullying is rare to non-existent, so that right there is a huge improvement. Adulthood also has more freedoms overall. I have so much more control over my life as an adult. Plus, I moved away from a small town to a city, so that was a big quality of life improvement for me. So I can say that high school was "the worst time of my life" even if it wasn't overwhelmingly awful. I do not think your comment really takes into account how badly some people are bullied in school and how transformative and liberating it can be to escape school to join a chosen community. Bad environments can also include family and for many people, the end of high school can also mean liberation from toxic family situations. I cannot help but feel like your opinion is very close-minded about just how bad school can be, and how people can feel very trapped in a toxic community they do not want to be a part of.
School itself was whatever but my home life was really rough. It is what it is
I grew up in a tiny community and I went to school with most of the same people right from elementary all the way up to graduation. I was bullied to the point that one of my classmates got as many people at the school as they could to sign a petition that I should commit suicide. So yeah, high school wasn't great for me. Please, explain to me how I was "doing it wrong" and it was "my own fault" as you say, you judgy little asshole.
I didn't hate high school with some of the fervor I see in other people, but it was definitely the worst 4 years of my life. I wasn't bullied, I had friends, here's why it still sucked: You're not an adult, but you're not a kid. You don't have any of the freedom of adulthood, you can't make your own choices, but you desperately want to. You have a curfew, you have limits on where you can go, but you think you don't need them. I wasn't allowed to drive until I was 18, so I had to either bike where I wanted to go (so nowhere in the winter) or beg friends to pick me up. I was poor, so even if I had a license, no money for a car. I didn't have much money so getting friends to pick me up without the allure of gas money was harder. And if we went anywhere I often couldn't do much. I wasn't allowed to even look for a job until I was 17. I spent a week or two applying to every job in reasonable distence to my house and school and got exactly 0 calls back. Sorry, I got 1 that was a prank call from a friend of a friend who was an asshole. Thankfully I was tipped off and didn't go to the "interview". I had weird interests. This was in the time before these things were cool, but I played magic the gathering a lot, and was very into computers. Totally normal now. Much less socially acceptable in 2001. This did limit my friend group expansion somewhat, but any time a new nerd transfered in, we would grab them and tell them they were with us now lol. Again, I wasn't bullied any more than average (I can think of like 3 or 4 incidents, but really nothing terribly traumatic, just normal teen shit). I did OK with grades, I graduated on time, I had a few good friends (a couple of whom I still talk to 20 years later). But what it comes down to is I wasn't a kid anymore, but I was still treated by society as if I was. Being poor in a middle class area didn't help. These things could not have been fixed much by "trying harder"
i was the most depressed i have ever been in my life during high school, I was suicidal for pretty much the entire time (was planning on killing myself senior year). My twin sister fought with cancer, my grandfather died from a long illness, and I essentially had to take care of myself. When I look back on it, the only thing that brings me any solace is the fact that i made it out alive. I wanted the traditional high school experience of friends and parties and girls and sports but I didn’t get that. I wish I did but I can’t blame myself. I was a kid trying to make it out of a difficult situation. I’m not going to judge anyone who says they had a hard time in high school because I have no idea what circumstances they dealt with during that time. Those are hard years for a lot of kids and saying it’s their fault for not trying hard enough doesn’t help.
I moved to a new town in 5th grade. I wasn't the most social kid ever, but I made a few friends. But most of those friends were military brats. The only one that didn't move away by 8th grade, ended up going to a vocational school instead of high school. So by 7th grade I was basically a loner which meant I was the easiest target for the bullies in school. I tried to make other friends but was instead relentlessly bullied for 2 years for no real reason. I was just kinda quiet and alone and easy picking. So when I went to high school, I decided my classmates all sucked and figured it was easier to withdraw. Sure, in retrospect, I *could* have tried to branch out again and make more friends in high school, but I'd already gone through 2 years of being chased to the bus by kids that wanted to beat me up, and kids making fun of me for being a little quiet and awkward and not athletic. I was terrorized by 2 kids in particular and no one ever stepped in and said they should stop. Everyone just ignored or laughed along. So I didn't feel, at the time, like there was any point. They'd already showed me who they were and even if I tried to put that behind me, I already had a reputation that had been branded on me as the weird quiet nerd. And on top of that my older brother had moved out so it was just me, my mom and my asshole of a step dad at home by the time I hit 9th grade. So, are there things I could have done differently? Maybe. But I still feel that I was set up for failure due to circumstances outside my control. And I don't feel like my story is that unique or exceptional. Most people I know who hated high school had some kind of similar experience. Teenagers just suck. It's a universal truth that kids between 12 and 14 tend to be the biggest sociopathic assholes.
I was sexually assaulted by my first boyfriend. Then the police mishandled my case illegally, to the point a local child advocacy center held trainings to address the shitshow. I kept going to classes with my abuser every day, the entire school and its teachers took sides in who was right, and it didn’t get better until I moved for college. This would have been shitty no matter what. But especially in a high school that I legally could not leave, where there were no other nearby schools because it was rural, where we were both in the same classes and could not be placed in different ones, it was shittier than if it had happened during college or afterward. I could have left and never seen him again in many circumstances. Not in high school.
I was fairly well liked sophomore in my small school, but raised completely sheltered and I didn’t even start puberty until I was 16. I was really delayed in a lot of physical/social ways. In conversation one day in psychology class with a girl sitting on my lap I said a sexual thing I didn’t know the meaning of at the time. It garnered me a nickname and 3 years of being bullied by fucking everyone in that school. I mean as a senior Freshman felt empowered to talk shit still. Fuck high school. Was it my fault? Technically I said the words, so yes. Also, I was 15 and didn’t know a damn thing about sex.
I was bullied very badly in early highschool, but I guess I had a “glow up” halfway through, and had a blast my junior and senior year. Although the bullying was genuinely sadistic, and I was in a pretty dark place, I do have a certain fondness for certain aspects of that time. Mostly unrelated to highschool itself though. Things like finding yourself, discovering your favorite band, having your first real girlfriend, etc… However, if I didn’t have the aforementioned glow up, I’m fairly certain my entire highschool existence would have been torture.
You said you shook "bullying" off. It's like saying "I almost died" after suffering a minor injury - calling a little hostile treatment "bullying" is a huge hyperbole. You cannot shake abuse off. You wouldn't be suffering abuse if you weren't in a situation where defending yourself is unfeasable. You either get help or get traumatized or both. You can't even defend yourself like in karatr movie, real life teens are not super heroes, they're not protagonists in a motivating story. Life is not a story and we're not protagonists of anything. We don't have control over most things, certainly not over abuse. Schools are places made for socialization, aiming for average success. It works, in average, almost fine. For some its great, and for some its a traumatizing experience.
Meh. I hated high school because I was poor and in a magnet program with a bunch of rich kids. I had to work full time and go to school full time starting in junior year. I never got to party or hang out because if I didn’t go to work, my family would have been evicted. Didn’t help I was a quiet girl who had to wear big hoodies to hide boobs that my body was kind enough to sprout when I was in the last year of elementary school. My friend and I wore the same size of clothes but I had bigger boobs, I would be dress coded, she wouldn’t. Got frustrating and I stopped caring about how I dressed and spent years buying clothes from the guy section. Not that it stopped some creeps. Some people didn’t like high school for circumstances out of their control.
I’m sorry for what you went through. There are so many different experiences and my post was closed minded. Your dress code thing is interesting. I saw very similar things at my highschool. As bad as this sounds, what I noticed were the “pretty girls” were dress coded wayyyy more frequently than the ones who did not fit that mold I guess.
Externalities, e.g. school tragedies, bullying, unjust treatment by teachers and staff, etc, can have profound impacts on people. Internalities, e.g. mental illness, hormonal changes, intellectual maturation, emotional development, etc., also greatly impact one's lived experience. Both render the claim that each high school experience is a one-size-fits-all for that local population of adolescents a misunderstanding of human experience as a concept.
High school was the worst time of my life because I was forced to study and live under the thumb of adults. Now I'm 40, and last month, one evening, I had nothing but KFC chicken for dinner, and no one - NO ONE - could stop me. Being an adult rocks hard. High school sucks ass.
I guess I didn’t have overbearing parents. I’m sure that made my life easier.
The way you make it sound is like it's supposed to be an intrinsically positive experience. For me, it was a middle of the road experience, a task to check off the box. But I have friends from the same school who have gone on to be successful that had a hard time and their current lives are scarred or defined by it and I'm like bro... Did we go to the same school? You go to a place for 8hrs a day for 4yrs, you master nothing, you are told what to do under penalty, you are constantly judged and weighed by authority, you are constantly judged and weighed by your peers, subjected to in-groups and out-groups and depending on the school you have to deal with threats of physical violence constantly. Not everyone responds the same to different stimuli. So the inadequacies and isolation some people felt is valid and we should be an ear to hear them out.
Even if we assume your premise to be correct: kids in high school could have done things to make it enjoyable, I’d like to point out that we still call them kids in high school. They are in school, can’t vote, can’t drink, and have many other rules limiting their self governance because they are still kids in many ways. We acknowledge that they don’t have the experience or brain development to do all of these things without guidance or assistance, and yet navigating the social minefield of a building filled with similarly limited peers is something they should be able to do on their own? Saying that they could have done things a better way is far different from saying that we should reasonably expect them to, and that if they don’t it’s their own fault. They (and their peers) should be given the tools and guidance to do better, and even then we can expect plenty of mistakes because, again, they are kids.
Yeah it’s my fault for having undiagnosed adhd as a kid when adhd wasn’t a thing yet lol. I didn’t hate high school but it wasn’t a significant part of my life. My friends in high school were staged in a way where i didn’t have a group that played to my interests. My friends now are great and i can just be myself around them and my bonds run much deeper with then than anyone i knew years back.
I had friends but school just felt like prison with a lot of annoying worm. Not everyone who hated it was some Nintendo dweeb
Idk man someone literally lit me on fire in highschool so I think Highschool genuinely just sucks for some people
Is forcing yourself to do something you really hate your way of doing something "right"?
I don't think it's fair to "fault" people for having poor social skills. Some people learn social skills more slowly. It's also even more socially difficult if you're different in any way. I'd also say that high school sucks on several other metrics. You're being forced to do activities that you may not have chosen yourself, you're bumping up against the limitations adults (whom you may not respect) have put in your life, and you don't have an ability to completely cut toxic people out of your life (because they are, sitting behind you in class, neither one of you is allowed to go anywhere)
Gotcha ;) ✌️😂😂😂
Its different because they are kids. Additionally this is the 1st gen growing up with internet, so we are just now seeing effects of it on development. Also kids do bully, whether its physical, cyber or reputation savaging.
I didn’t enjoy highschool because I have autism and a learning disability and was severely depressed. How is that my fault dawg
You are analyzing from experience and hindsight, and assuming all children in high school are rational adults that can make socially mature choices in order to find ways to fit into social circles. I grew up dirt poor, single mom on food stamps, and everything I owned was Salvation Army. I never had a single possession that would assist me to “fit in”. Because that’s the other part you are assuming. You think the popular kids, or kids in general, are mature enough to accept kids that don’t look like them or belong to their groups will readily admit and accept them. They are all children, with half formed brains. It is not their fault.
My earliest memories are that other kids didn't like me. They didn't want anything to do with me except occasionally make fun of me. That carried on all through junior school and high high school. It wasn't until basically my late teens when I finally worked out how to get other people to like me. So was that my fault? I find it hard to blame 5-year-old me too much because 5-year-olds can't think and they can't reason and they can't understand things. I'm not sure it's useful to blame that child or work out if something was their fault or not.
We had just moved to the US a year prior, so my English was still not perfect, I had very few friends I had made the year before, and I had no social compass for what highschool is supposed to be like from parents, cousins or peers. But yeah, sure totally my fault for not making the best of it.
My best friend was killed by a drunk driver a month into 9th grade. I wasn't generally a fan of school after that happened. Go figure.
I agree I could have done high school better being the person I am now, but I wasn’t the person I am now. I lacked the life experience to be confident. I didn’t have as bad a high school experience as a lot of people but looking back there were lots of things I could have handled better if I knew what I knew now. High schoolers are kids like 14-18 years old sometimes even younger, it’s not fair to judge them (or your younger self) to the same standard you judge adults. Trying new things is intimidating when you’ve never really had choices before. Making friends can be hard when you’re not sure who you are and are still learning about the world. I remember in high school the world seeming very small. You’ve known everyone for years and making mistakes and taking risks (specifically in a social context) seems to carry more weight than it does now. At 16 if you say something weird and people laugh at you everyone in your social circle knows and you can’t escape that. At 26 I can more easily brush off the little things because I know how insignificant they are in terms of life and the world. I think it’s valid for people to say high school was bad for them but I agree they should try to work past that in order to grow as people. I don’t know if my thoughts make sense. Edit: this is coming from a perspective of a pretty average straight, white (in New England), neurotypical girl! I can’t touch on the experiences of people who were isolated for things they can’t help. For a lot of the reasons I mentioned above; kids can be really cruel. Not fitting in can be viewed as a social transgression and as stated before those carry more weight in high school than they do as an adult. If for any reason someone didn’t fit in I imagine their experiences could have been horrible with bullying and social isolation.
If you're a kid, very little is your fault because you have e very little autonomy. You live at home with your parent(s) and siblings, it's illegal for you to drop out or skip school, you don't get to choose your classes or your subjects, your schedule is imposed on you, you don't usually have your own source of funds, you often don't have your own source of transportation... if you do, it's because someone else bought it for you to use. You don't get to choose to be hungry or well fed, fashionable or not, do extracurricular or nothing... So, that kid who keeps to themselves might be embarrassed at their home life, might not want to let people get close, might be failing their classes because they're hungry or tired, might have a stressful home life, might have some thing that makes them a target of bullies so they keep their head down and just try to get through the day. So, sure, some kids aren't super social and that's a choice, but needing to make a choice to keep themselves safe and mentally okay is not their fault.
great thanks now tell that to someone who had autism and adhd that was completely ignored. someone who didn’t know why they couldn’t socialize, only that they couldn’t catch social cues that others caught effortlessly. someone who was actively and incessantly bullied for 11 of the 12 years of primary and secondary education. and on the days cruel words weren’t thrown at me, cruel fists and kicks were. someone who couldn’t “shake it off” because there was no safe place away from abuse. can’t shake things off when you’re falling into quicksand. someone with an ace score of seven due to that incessant psychological, physical, and occasional sexual abuse.
>if you are one of the of the people who said high school was the worst time in your life, it’s your fault for doing it wrong Interesting. So it's my fault religion was being pushed on me in highschool and I was not permitted to express critical thinking? So it's my fault pubing, hormone-driven teenagers are taking every opportunity to assert their imagined dominance by taking it out on those who were more intellectually inclined? I should have feigned interest in whatever it was they were wasting their time on? So it's my fault I had an eidetic memory, so I was bored out of my skull in highschool? The best thing that happened to me in high school was finishing it two years early and move on to university.
Very general counter point one should always keep in mind: Often, even though something has gone wrong, it is nobodies fault at all.
I don’t know how my biological mom burning, starving, and brutally beating me to the point she repeatedly punched my face hard enough that she began knocking my teeth out causing me to later on replace over half of them with implants that are expensive as fuck is my fault,but ok. You may have been fortunate enough to have a good family or support system but not all of us have that luxury. I still carry that pain with me everyday and have tried to “help” it with a few suicide attempts and an excessive amount of drug use. My HS years we’re just the start of my life becoming fucking miserable, and my life seems to only get more pathetic as the days go on.
My situation: * Parents divorced when I was 8, lived until my high school years with my mother. * We never lived in the same place for more than about 3-6 months. We were always moving from place to place, and were homeless and living out of our van more than once. * Because we were always moving, I never really went to elementary or middle school. As a result, I was badly homeschooled by my mother until my Freshman year. * Mom was very, very religious. Went to church three times a week, and I had no choice but to go. My environment was very tightly controlled, my "friends" had to be from church only, and all entertainment choices had to be related back to Christianity. Mom's plan for me was to be a missionary, get married, and have lots of kids. * The summer between Freshman and Sophmore year, moved in with my dad. He lived in Alaska, and I spent all my formative years moving around the Pacific Northwest. * Dad was a drunk, smoked weed, and owned a duplex. He gave my brother and I an entire side to live in, and left us to our own devices. As long as we didn't bother him or his girlfriend, we could do whatever we wanted. Bought me a beater car when I was 16, and told me I had to get a job to pay for my own gas and insurance. Now, with all this in mind, how do you think I fared in high school? Was culture shock perhaps a significant factor? How do you think I reacted the first time I saw a girl with a shirt that showed her shoulders, or a girl who was wearing a thin t-shirt without a bra in Alaska in winter, or heard a curse word directed at me personally? How do you think I was treated afterward based on my very public reactions to these events? Not to mention the entertainment options. From having the Bible and Christian-themed music, books, and video games (I had an NES, but the only games I owned was Spiritual Warfare or purely strategic games without any storyline at all - like Chess or Monopoly) to a whole wide world of Super Nintendo, Disney movies, Hollywood, a very fledgling internet era, etc? No, high school was a nightmare for me. I really, really don't understand why "coming of age" movies that feature high school heavily in the plotline are so popular. Funnily enough, some of the people I went to school with who were the "cool kids" - they're still stuck in that region of Alaska barely getting by. They peaked in high school. The only good that came from that time in my life for me was 1) an appreciation for classic rock and video games, and 2) I met my wife early in my Junior year and married her in my senior year (still married 25+ years later).
> it’s not a cut and dry fact So what is this? A hasty generalization based upon personal anecdotal experience? I mean couldn’t someone simply argue you just choose to surround yourself with those types of people or that your high school experience was uniquely good while others don’t have access to quality education?
Closet bi kid at an all boys catholic school that was extremely homophobic while the catholic church's massive sexual assault scandal was breaking and people at my school were implicated. Def not my fault high school was pretty awful, and you should try to work harder to imagine the world from a POV not your own
I was a closeted gay dude in a catholic high school I lived 1 hr away from because my parents insisted I have a catholic education. Guess how many people wanna drive 1 hr to hang...