Things re:self I probably should've noticed before.

[jecca_mehlota]

Had a bit of a revelation while talking to my mother earlier this afternoon.

We'd been to the bank and I was looking over my credit card bill, which contains the hotel cost from BotCon, and I was talking about the mysterious "800" written on the page I'd used to note my spendings in Cincinnati - I have no idea what it's supposed to represent, and all I can guess is it it's either supposed to be "8.00" or it's something completely unrelated to BotCon expenses. This prompted my mother to ask what happened to the extra Alternators Mirage that I took away and didn't bring back. Had I traded it? Sold it? Where did it go?

Told her I'd given him away, and she seemed surprised by that, and that eventually lead to a tangent about what I did at BotCon - I'd given both my parents a brief story, but never got around to much in the way of details. I had Finals all that week, my father had to work, and my mother was busy with other things, and then it had been too long and it was out of our minds.

While I was telling her about my weekend, I realized something that is kind of sad, both in general and in that I've not had enough cause to notice it before.

I don't know how to handle people being nice to me. Like, sincerely nice. Not falsely nice, or I-feel-obligated nice, but just ... actually nice to me. As if I am a person of any degree of worth. People were nice to me all weekend - people I'd never even met before. And that, that, of all things, made me feel awkward. I kept waiting for someone to stab me or something. What is this? Why are they being nice? I can deal with people being passive-aggressive or even overtly mean, but nice? It puts me off my balance point, and then I start worrying I'm being annoying and they're just better at faking niceness than other people.


... Thank you, classmates, for doing your best to break me. Breaking might have been easier, in retrospect. The fractures are more than enough. Thank you, teachers and school counselors, who never stepped in, even when I asked for help. Even after bullying was called to attention because of shootings. Thanks especially to those of you who aided in and encouraged it. Thank you, public schooling. I like continually finding more things wrong with myself, even all these years after I've finished with you. Thanks a lot.

Comments

[aerinity.livejournal.com]

It is unfortunately how these things plague us for years and years after the fact. It always makes me sad knowing that my friends have problems like this, I really wish that things like this wouldn't be a problem and people would have received the help they needed, when they needed it. I offer a hug if you'd like it however, though it's not much.

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I just I could just figure it all out and start working through it. I knew I was incapable of dealing with compliments (actually, I do appear to be getting a little better with that, in that I no longer try to correct everyone on their occasionally-positive opinions about me and what I do), but now I'm realizing just how much deeper than that it goes, and... ugh.

It's stupid, because figuring that out shouldn't make me feel worse, but it completely does. "oh noes. more stupid problems. YAY I'M EVEN MORE HOPELESS THAN I THOUGHT I WAS," while I still know it's not my fault and I'm doing all I can and working myself through it best I can and, you know, that's pretty good, really. I'm a whole lot better than I was, or so I'd... really like to believe. In some ways, I'm sure I must be. Others, I might be worse, but maybe that's because I'm calling it back up to get past it? I DON'T KNOW.


Why doesn't anyone do anything, is what I want to know? Every year, more is put out on the detrimental long-term effects that sort of treatment has on kids, so why doesn't anyone ever listen to the kids who do manage to ask for help?


... yay hugs!

[wyntir-rose.livejournal.com]

*hugs* They are all bastards. Every single one of them. ... It's not easy to deal with the kind of emotional abuse that those of us who were bullied dealt with every day. My mother's response to my being bullied was "Oh come now, they just like you and don't know how to express it", and the counsellors told me I was being overly emotional. I still have to fight that feeling of "what's the catch" every day, thanks to those jerks, and I'm always so sorry to see a bright light like yours dimmed because of it.

From what I saw and Botcon and what I've come to know on-line, you are a great person. I'm just sorry that I didn't get time to get to know you better over the weekend. Next time we really have to arrange time to all got to dinner or something. We need to get all of us together *grin*

[twilit-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I think the people in charge of students must all have been the kids doing the bullying. It's the only possible excuse for why they all either never see anything wrong with it or blame it on those of us having to live with it. I'm so sick of being excessively wary of everyone I talk to, especially initially, and of being convinced they're only talking to me now to laugh at me later. I try very hard not to let it rule over my life, though.

One of the unfortunate things about roaming conventions is that they make it hard to arrange things prior to arrival... You have to set up in more of a "5 o'clock by the entrance to the Dealer's Room and hope we can find somewhere to go" manner. But yes! Hopefully next time!