School shooters are my heroes

Great Debates
81

Well, it’s certainly more desirable to take out the source of the problem, but sometimes that’s not possible. So moving on to a so-called “innocent” is what I consider to be the “next best thing”. It’s analagous to going to a music store and not finding the one CD you wanted, and buying something else instead of leaving the store empty-handed. That way, at least you haven’t wasted the trip. (Incidentally, the last time I left a music store w/o buying anything, I got a speeding ticket. I took it as a sign from God.)

Monty: I know this is against the rules, but go fuck yourself.

J.E.T.

82

Some observations:
Nearly every kid in school believes he or she has been picked on, even the ones others assume are the most popular. Kids have a highly tuned sense of self-pity, often coupled with poor self-esteem.
You’re never going to do much about that, regardless of the number of guidance counselors and George Bush’s promises not to leave kids behind. Most kids just grow up, or they go on to wear black in college and become philosophy majors.
Recognizing that, the thing to do then is to keep the freakin’ guns out of the hands of these nut jobs, in other words, the kids.
As long as junior has a relatively safe outlet for his teen agnst, such as emulating Marilyn Mason, rather than picking up dad’s semi-automatic and using it on convenient targets, then we can get through this was a minimum of bloodshed.
Take the guns out of the equation. Why can’t anybody see the simplicity of this. And for those who will respond with the usual, tired Second Amendment bullshit, all I can say is that shootings such as this are the price that you and I will continue to pay as long as the NRA continues to fight even the most modest and commonsense restrictions. If it’s so damn important for you to be able to carry weapons that would shame a South American drug lord, then this is what you’re going to have to live with on a frequent basis. As my Republicans friends have been so fond of saying lately: Get over it. And learn to duck.

83

**

Well, I’ve matured quite a bit since my teen years, and learned some new tricks. Thing is, not everybody has the ability, either learned or ingrained, to effectively transfer rage into words as opposed to violence.

I’m aware of that, but it’s the implication that somehow these kids never did anything wrong in their entire lives that pisses me off. Ever notice when they show pictures of criminals or child molesters or terrorists on TV, they are always unkempt, bug-eyed, basically not in a “photogenic” mood, never smiling? Whereas their victims are always happy and smiling and playing with dolls or whatever. Take a very, very close look at the news someday and you’ll start to see how the media is subtlely manipulating us.

**

Yeah, well, I’m a complicated person. :slight_smile: But I’d rather have everyone think I’m something that is true rather than something that is false. See what I’m getting at?

**

What I mean is that a lot of our actions are controlled by outside forces, more than you realize. I don’t want to get off on the whole Free Will vs. No Free Will debate here, but I definitely fall into the “No Free Will” camp. This, of course, assumes that the brain is entirely chemical and therefore all our actions are unconscious reactions to external stimuli. I’m willing to change my beliefs once science proves the existence of a soul, however.

On another angle, forgetting the whole Karmic thing, Andy may have simply felt that the ONLY OPTION was to go ballistic. It’s like the old Soviet Union…the people were allowed to vote, but there was only one name on the ballot.

Well I understand the empathy bit although I don’t quite get how you can feel traumatized by the death of someone you don’t even know.

**

Aren’t the victims getting enough sympathy from the public at large, what with those memorials and all??? Why is it somehow required that I offer up compassion that I do not feel obliged to give??

You’re not the first person to say this to me, and I can’t comprehend at all how such a view is self-centered. If anything, the view that I somehow do NOT have the right to share my pain with others is not only self-centered, but tyrannical.

**

Then we’re living on a planet filled with some bizarre humanoid species, because I don’t see this as a common trait at all. Well…okay, it’s easy enough to distinguish one level of pain from another if you have some frame of reference to base it on. For instance, through losing your mother, you gained the ability to empathize for her loss of her daughter (forgive me if I got the relations wrong, this board is weird to me and I can’t figure out how to look up your original post without losing everything I’ve just typed.) But if instead of losing her daughter, she had been taken hostage by terroists, you can’t reasonably empathize with her any further than, “Boy, that really must have sucked.” Because you CAN’T know what it’s like. You may think you can, but you can’t.

For example, I have a very hard time empathizing with women who have been raped, because it’s never happened to me and I have no frame of reference on which to imagine what it must be like.

**

Okay I think I see now what you were getting at earlier. If I follow correctly, you are suggesting that when I was bullied in school, the proper recourse would be to report these bullies to the principal’s office, and all would be taken care of and I would never be teased again. Works in theory, but not in practice. I complained MANY times about the hazing, but nothing was ever done, or if anything was done, it sure as hell didn’t work, because the bullies never went away. In fact, one time I was suspended from school for attacking a bully who was teasing me. And my father asked me what I thought should be done with these bullies (this is the only time I can even remember talking to him about it) and I said they should all be lined up and killed. And he said, “Do you really think they deserve the death penalty?” Gee, way to totally dismiss my pain, Dad. My mother was even worse, she went through the same thing in school and coped with it by telling me, day in and day out, that I was going to be teased and tormented, and there was nothing I could do about it, and sometimes punished me for not wanting to talk about it.

I keep feeling for the wall but it burns to my touch.

J.E.T.

84

The problem with this argument is that it’s too late, the guns are already out there and unless you conduct door-to-door searches of every square inch of this continent, you aren’t gonna get them all. Countries like Japan and the U.K. have successful anti-gun programs because guns were never a major part of their culture to begin with, unlike the U.S.A. I personally feel that people who simply say, “Ban all guns,” are being terribly short-sighted and unaware of the scope of the problem.

There was a very good A&E program about mass murder some years ago that I have on tape, and they interviewed one professor who had obviously spent most of his life studying this phenomenon. To quote him directly: "Maybe mass murder is the price we all have to pay for living in a country that has a lot of personal freedom."

In other words, if we gave up our guns, we wouldn’t be America. At least that’s my take on it.

J.E.T.

85

I really can’t believe what I’m reading. Im essence it suggests that whilst it might not be OK, it is UNDERSTANDABLE for someone to kill someone else because they are pissed off with life.
No, it is not! Living in a country where firearms are not permitted, this thread makes me even more sure that guns should never be available to others than the military and the police.
At the risk of upsetting some of the contributers who seem to have serious problems of their own I will conclude by saying that if they seriously condone/understand these killings the place for them is not writing contributions but on a couch in some clinic

86

I find this whole thing very ironic. Here we have someone willing to share a viewpoint that many are grasping to understand and what happens?

Just like old times he is getting insulted and threatened, “why don’t you kill yourself”, “you are a sick fuck” etc.

If you (the people who are getting so upset) knew how many people around you at work, home, school, and wherever you go have these same feelings I think you would be shocked. The thing is they just keep quiet and be good neighbors or students because when they try to speak out this is what they get “go kill yourself, sick fuck”.

On another note what does this have to do with gun control? Killing is made easy with guns but so what? Do you think if someone wants to kill you they will have a change of heart based on what weapon is available?

Btw I am not violent at the moment, and as of yet have not nor do I currently plan on killing anyone but I do reserve the right to review my options.

87

aol://4344:3167.cnnbully.21071713.668526174

The above link is to a CNN article about how kids find bullying in school worse than nearly everything else.

As a former kid who was mercilessly tormented from 7th grade on up through graduation, I can understand both sides of this post.

I was skinny, shy, had few close friends, and, horrors, was not a good fist fighter nor sports player. Plus, I wore glasses!

I will not go into details, but the results were as expected. I graduated and insecure, psychotic wreck of an underachiever, convinced both of my ‘bitterness’ than the average thug/jock/macho bastard/man and of my inferior standing with humanity. I was my own worst enemy, rising fast in positions I worked at, but then failing to handle the authority properly, failing at confrontations with superiors, failing to strive for difficult jobs because I secretly just knew I was too inferior to get them, and avoiding jobs where I might have to confront too many people.

By 20 I was suffering panic attacks, only we didn’t know what they were. I started two degrees in college and just gave up on them. By 28 I realized I had a major inferiority complex, was suffering from depression, had an anxiety disorder and had become a drunk. The maximum time I lasted at any job was 5 years. I was girl shy in school, which was magnified then by the local little pieces of crap enjoying intimidating and humiliating me in front of their girls and other girls.

I mean, what girl wanted to date a Wussy? I was picked on in class so I couldn’t concentrate on my studies and while much later, I found I had an IQ of 130, I graduated high school on Cs and Ds. I did not go to the Prom because I was afraid I’d be picked on and humiliated. I avoided Senior Skip Day and while the Seniors got to play in a hotel swimming pool, party and have catered meals, I was one of a handful in Study Hall, left behind and my decision never questioned.

I was bullied in PE, which made me reluctant to play sports and, years later, we found that people like me, with nearsightedness, often cannot focus on an incoming baseball fast enough to hit it, but then I was always one of the last to be picked for a team. Eventually, I stopped ‘dressing out’ and faced the scorn of the coach, who could not comprehend that someone would avoid physical exercise with a bunch of ‘good, strong, young men.’

The lack of confidence followed me into my life. I had few girlfriends and most of them were what one might expect, defective. They were more screwed up than me. I never married. I harbored an intense hatred and resentment for most of my schoolmates for decades and skipped reunions. To this day, after years of therapy, reworking my life several times, I would prefer that certain members of my graduating class were dead.

If I could have gotten away with it while in school, without hurting my family or having to go to jail, I probably would have killed my tormentors.

Remember the phrase ‘a brave man dies but one death, while a coward dies 1000’? They ain’t wrong, but it took me years to find out that bravery is relative. That beating someone into a pulp is not the only brave thing a person could do.

I recklessly risked my life many times in several jobs proving to myself and others that I was braver than most.

I was disappointed to find that none of my graduating class was killed in Vietnam. I was not surprised when I read about one fine upstanding thug of the past, who was looked upon with fondness by the teachers and classmates alike was arrested a couple of years ago as a child molester and is facing life in prison – after he abandoned his wife who was recovering from a serious auto accident that damaged her brain.

I cheered when I found another local school thug was wanted by the police for pimping, drugs, theft and escaping and hoped the cops would find it necessary to shoot him.

Not all that long ago, a fine upstanding citizen blew his head off over a divorce. He was a thug classmate of mine, who it seemed, turned into a well thought of guy as he aged. I cheered when I read his obituary because in school he had tormented me.

I ran into another thug from school years after, to find he had suffered a major illness, and I was then bigger than he and his cocky attitude was gone, he was divorced, working in a crappy job and living in a shack as the night watchman for a junk yard. I was pleased.

Over the years I’ve discovered that several of my tormentors who went on to cushy jobs and made much money and married well turned out to be wife beaters, thieves, crooks and general failures and cheered at each downfall.

Now, though I’ve changed much, with much effort, I still detest most of my graduating class and cheer each time one of them bites the dust. I find it deliciously ironic that me, the wimp of the county, survived a whole lot more than they ever faced, have done more then most of them ever did and am still going while they are falling.

But, I often wonder just what I might have become had I not been harassed, bullied, terrified and intimidated all those years ago in school. After 30+ years, the mental scars are still there.

For those stolen years, I hate the bastards. Kids then or not, I still hate them and hate kids like them today.

Yeah, I can understand much of the shooting incidents, especially now when schools are run by kids and the ‘I got mine’ parents of the 80’s have pushed greed and selfishness on many.

I know many bullied ex-kids who admitted to harboring thoughts of killing their tormenters, but back then, did not know how and were afraid of hurting their folks and going to jail. Jail was something to be afraid off and there were no special places for psychotic kids. I know of kids who day dreamed of killing the bullies, but never would because they knew it to be wrong.

Today, it’s considered wrong to understand what these kid killers were going through, but it’s a real fact anyhow. Most of those analyzing the incidents were never bullied to the extent that some kids were.

Not all kids were bullies or victims. There was always that small segment in school which seemed to attract bullies like a magnet attracts iron. Parents and adults often saw these kids outside of school as being real nice kids who caused few problems. Probably because the kids learned protective nice behavior or the kids knew how they felt when abused and chose not to act cruelly.

I recall my first few days in 7th grade, where we went from one class in 1st through 6th, to 7 classes, with 7 different locations and 7 different groups of kids. The halls were a nightmare of shouting, yelling, laughing, shoving and motion. They smelled of dust, books, sweat, spit and gum. Kids you never met before would shove you out of their way, get in your face and insult you in passing or crowd you on the stairs.

It was scary.

Back then, kids just didn’t tell their folks about hidden fears and they don’t do it today. Kids keep a lot inside.

I recall having to find out of the way, safe meeting places for me and my friends on the school grounds while waiting for the morning bell where we found safety in numbers and security in being out of casual view of the local bullies.

Teachers seemed to consider most abuse as a normal fact of life, something kids had to handle themselves in order to grow up well ballanced and able to face society.

So, it never surprised me to find that former bullies eventually rose to run companies, which became self oriented, or got into polotics where they made sure the little guy lost and the selfish, greedy trends of the 80s came into being. International squabbling is not a mystery to me but leaders who were bullies still acting like bullies and being selfish without reguard to anyone elses feelings.

You think the average civilian wants to fight another average civilian of a different nationality just naturally? No, he has to be taught by his bully leaders to dislike the other first, then often conscripted against his will into the military.

You ever wonder about the current leaders, who seem more concerned for the powerful and wealthy than the average Joe? They’re all independently wealthy and all used to getting their way. Bullies.

Some of us ‘wimps’ adapt. Some of us suicide. Some of us develope mental problems and some of us react with extreme violence.

We can, however, thank former bullies, who are now powerful people in the media, for making all forms of violent lessons available to us because violence sells. They’ll consider their greed above common sense and now everyone has access to the knowledge of comitting mass injury with just a few home chemicals.

Like, I never knew that fertilizer and desiel fuel could make a bomb, nor knew how to make black powder, pipe bombs or how the cops could track a person down through tiny traces before. I know now. I never knew how to make time delay fuses, acid bombs, napalm, or dum-dum bullets. I do now.

Thanks to TV I know what acids dissolve human bodies, where to buy them, how to avoid being traced through the sellers and what the FBI will look for in such a crime scene. I even know where serial killers screwed up, how to take advantage of radical groups and what type of gun to buy and how to make it not only untracable, but silent.

All thanks to previous bullies being more willing to rake in big bucks over reality TV, reality publishing and standing on freedom of speach than using common sense. Their inconsideration for their actions has armed the new generation and opened Pandora’s box.

Then, folks wonder why things are getting violent.

88

JET:

Thanks again. I’m still trying to understand, though.

You’ve said voices in your head interfere when you finally start to get close to somebody (the voices in my head just whine and tell me to eat Doritos and cake.) Sorry couldn’t resist going for the yuck.

Seriously.

I’d appreciate it if you could describe a couple of incidents in detail, what the voices say, and do, and the effects of this, as well as what happens to you when you’re teased, what you go through.

That might help me get a better handle on your viewpoint.

And, I confess a selfish curiosity, even though I doubt I’ll be much help.

89

Well, especially during the 20th century, it has become acceptable if not the norm to kill large numbers of civilians during war. This is in contrast to earlier western style warfare, where the rule was generally destroy the fighting forces, with the notable exception of religious (moral?) wars.

From an absolutist stance, if one case can be justified (example, the firebombings in Dresden) then the school shootings can be too. Each involved innocents being wounded and possibly killed by the person<s> seeking ‘guilty’ targets.

90

If I’m not mistaken, I believe we’ve established that EVERYONE has a justification for murder, right? I’m not being sarcastic here, I’m actually sort of…well…agreeing. If from each person’s point of view THEIR experiences have been the “worst thing that could possibly happen” then every person on the planet can use that experience as justification for mass homicide.

I’ve done a shit load of volunteer work as an advocate for crime victims. The first thing you learn in training to deal with said victims? NEVER tell them you know how they feel. Because even if the very same THING happened to you, you do NOT know how someone else experiences it. So I will grant you that the incident that is brushed aside by some, becomes terror that grows into murderous intentions to another.

We also know that almost everyone has murderous, vengeful thoughts. I haven’t been inside too many peoples’ brains lately, but I’d say that even going so far as to make PLANS is a relatively common phenomenon. I mean, fantasizing about the demise of your nemesis is hardly rare and hardly exists ONLY in the mind of the truly “sick.”

So then, the question is NOT “Is it ever justified?” because we know that at the point it occurs, the perpetrator feels perfectly justified. Many of us also know what that feels like or we can at least concur that we can visualize a situation in which that’s the case. Or if “justified” isn’t the right word, we understand that the shooter sees no other options at that point.

With that level of understanding, the question in MY mind becomes, “What is the difference between those two people?” You know…the one who HAS the murderous rage, fantasizes about the brains of his enemy running through his fingers, yet never picks up a weapon.

I don’t know why I wasn’t more open-minded about it when I BEGAN reading this thread, but I have often said (when not faced with it directly) that it is a mistake to write psychopaths off as “monsters” or “sick.” My reason for this attitude is that I think it’s something we ALL have in us…that they are intensely human.

The only difference between “us” and “them” is that they ACT on their rages and we do something else with ours.

An awfully fine line, if you ask me.

91

What a sad little psychodrama this is. Good-hearted people trying to reason with a paranoid schizophrenic with persecutorial delusions and well-developed homicidal fantasies. The borderline and anti-social personality features only compound the tragedy.

Of course, a more likely interpretation is that JET is cynically manipulating others for his own narcissistic needs and thrives on his ability to control others, to bring them into his fantasy world as powerless bit players.

92

JET

[Moderator Hat ON]

If you know it is against the rules, don’t do it. Deliberately flouting the rules of this forum and the moderators’ authority can indeed get you banned. While you are in this forum, it is against the rules for anyone to tell you to fuck yourself, call you an idiot or a sick fuck, and so on. However, if you do not extend the same modicum of respect to your fellow posters that they extend to you, you will face the same (likely undesireable) consequences that they would face if they insulted you. Keep it in mind, and I suggest you alter your behavior accordingly. Thank you.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

93

ShadesofGreen6: Well said, absolutely true, and scary as hell. I salute you for your successes and your onging struggle to get beyond the limits your abusers created for you.

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Jeremy’s Evil Twin *
**

I think this is where our fundamental difference in viewpoint lies. You keep speaking of “sharing pain” and “redistributing misery.” I still feel that these are false concepts.

Let’s look at the sharing/redistribution of pain theory, substituting physical pain for psychic pain. Let’s say that your feet are hurting like hell; mine are doing just fine, thank you. In an attempt to “share the pain,” you then pick up a baseball bat and proceed to whomp the hell out of my feet.

OK, the situation now is that your feet continue to hurt like hell; mine now hurt like hell, too. In what way did causing this injury to me lessen the physical pain you feel? None at all. It may give you a momentary feeling of satisfaction in knowing that now you are not alone in the world in knowing what painful, throbbing feet feel like. But it in no way lessened your original pain. Instead of lessening your own pain, you are now responsible for unleashing even more pain into the world.

We’ve got this analogy going; now let’s proceed to beat it into the ground. Let’s say that your feet are hurting because they are covered with blisters because you had to walk 3 miles to school in your dress shoes this morning, because your bus driver didn’t pick you up because you were late getting to the bus stop. Let’s make him a totally worthless SOB — he saw you were running to make it to the bus stop, but he gunned the motor, flipped you the bird, and yelled “Too late, ya wanker!” as he left you behind. You are justifiably enraged at this jerk.

Let’s say that that afternoon, you lie in wait for this jerk, and when you get on the school bus, you then take your baseball bat and really lay into his feet, reducing them to a pulp. (You must carry it around with you at all times or something. :D) Your feet hurt, his feet hurt. Did it lessen your original physical pain? Not one iota. I won’t deny that the pleasure centers in your brain have probably really kicked in at this point for having created pain for this jerk, which might momentarily help you to forget your physical pain, but the original injury has not gone away. Worse yet, (just as you mentioned having been punished for standing up to a bully in school in an earlier post) this SOB will now proceed to call the police and charge you with assault. You will be thrown in jail for your crime, and your family will be turned into paupers because the SOB brings a civil suit against them and every dime they have goes toward paying legal fees and the civil suit judgement.

The net result of your action? No change in your original physical pain. A momentary thrill of satisfaction in having hurt the bastard who hurt you. An increase of pain in the world — physical pain induced by you onto the SOB bus driver, mental pain to you for your loss of freedom due to incarceration (and perhaps for guilt for what you have done to your family, and perhaps additional pain if they decided to disown you as a result of your actions), mental and financial pain to your family. Another Mercedes-Benz for the lawyer. Pain was not shared or redistributed; it was only created.

OK, that was the result if you chose to lash out just at the individual who had caused your pain. Let’s look at what would happen if you took the scatter-shot approach (ouch, perhaps too literal a metaphor) that the school shooters and bombers take. I won’t refer to “innocent bystanders” in deference to your position that no one is totally innocent, but this time we’ll assume you go after bystanders as well.

That afternoon, you get on that school bus, and proceed to go to work with your trusty baseball bat (What is it with you and that bat, anyway?) and go after EVERYONE on the bus. Once again, your physical pain is not reduced. Just as before, you may receive the momentary thrill of satisfaction in hurting the SOB driver who hurt you. But what good did it do to crush the foot of that kid over there? He was busy finishing up his algebra homework that morning, and wasn’t even aware of the incident of you having been left behind. What good did it do to you to smash the foot of that kid in the front seat? She was the one who had said “Hey, wait, bus driver, Jeremy’s on his way, you’re leaving him behind!” What good did it do to you to smash into that other girl, who had laughed and said “Look! the driver’s leaving old Jeremy in the dust!”? What good did it do you to lay into the other kid, who hadn’t even ridden the bus that morning, since his Mom had driven him to school?

Once again, no reduction in your original pain. The same momentary feeling of satisfaction in hurting your tormentor. All of the negative consequences of the earlier attack on the bus driver, but multiplied several times over. An enormous increase of pain in the world, unleashed on purpose by you. You have transformed yourself from victim to monster. By attacking at random without feeling for the victims, you have lowered yourself to the level of (and, in my opinion, even lower than) your tormentor.

I identified your attitude earlier as self centered because it appears that only your own pain matters to you. Everyone’s pain matters. It’t the jerks who don’t get this and willfully inflict pain on others that are responsible for most of the problems in the world.

94

Just a little friendly word of advice: don’t piss off the mods.

Anyhoo, I would say this-suppose the person shot at random was another one who was being tortured and picked on, who maybe stood up for the kid who was picked on? That’s his reward? What if said person perhaps was someone who would have said to the tormenters, “Leave him alone, okay?” And then he’s shot, and he did nothing, but it was okay to kill him?
In my opinion, killing the innocent victims and even some of the perpetrators (I’m not good at spelling, I’m sure some of you realize that), it hurts some others-like their family members, who certainly did nothing. By your analogy and twisted logic, these people would be justified in killing you because you caused them pain.

If people don’t have empathy, and if people think it’s OK to hurt innocent victims, then the torment will never end. It only feeds into a viscious cycle.

95

Just out of curiosity, JET, have you thought about how you’d feel if one of those shooters killed someone you cared about? Or do you care about anybody?

96

Well, you can put me decidedly into the Free Will camp — but I, too, would rather not get into that debate right now.

Minor correction: trauma for the victims and their families; for myself, I described sadness and fear for my children. (I do tend toward mile-long sentences at times.)

But must we experience the exact same pain to empathize? I know enough not to say to anyone “I know just how you feel!” No one does. There is more than enough pain in the world for each of us to have experienced some of it, and not wish it upon others indiscriminately, and feel genuine sympathy when it happens to others.

**

Well, sort of. I’m not naive enough to think that complaints of bullying would always get the proper response they deserve ---- although I sure as hell hope that in this day and age, they get a better response than they used to. My advice to anyone today who doesn’t get a serious reaction from hazing complaints to school administrators: Send a well-thought, rationally written letter describing your original complaint and lack of administrative response registered mail to the principal, cc: the local school board. May get you onto their radar screens as a troublemaker, but should shake them up enough to realize that they had better get off their behinds and do something rather than have a paper trail indicating their indifference to a very real danger.

Sorry your parents were of no real help. Sounds as if your Dad was one of the clueless legions who made it through school without suffering any major harassment himself, and therefore just doesn’t realize how major it is. Your statement that you thought the perpetrators deserved death would have indicated to ME that something must seriously be wrong, but it sounds as if he just didn’t get it.

As for your Mom: I, too, had a Mom who had suffered through the same taunting I did in school. I was obese until my mid 20’s, and suffered the usual fat taunting crap. My mother trained me in the coping mechanism which she had used: realize that it would happen, and just ignore them. (Easier said than done, right?) Her strategy did probably lessen things to some extent, since some would lose interest when they learned they couldn’t get a rise out of you. Others would continue anyway. I was saved by the fact that, in general, the teachers loved me. I was polite, well behaved, and made good grades. Even the lowest cretins in the school realized that if they ever did anything serious to me, my account of the tale would be believed over theirs in a minute.

My Mom’s strategy was only minimally helpful, but it was all she had to offer. It left me with a bad side effect, however. I created a wall of armor around myself. As long as you don’t let anyone know what you care about, they won’t be able to use it against you to hurt you, right? It also makes you a very distant person, difficult to know or befriend. Add to this the fact that I apparently unconsiously decided after my sister died that I would no longer allow myself to make any new friends (they’re just liable to move away or die, and losing someone you love is just too devastating to risk), and thus another loner is born… I functioned just fine on the “Hi, how are you, how’s the weather” kind of level, but for YEARS I didn’t have any real friends other than the ones I had in the fourth grade when she died. It took me a long time to learn to open up the armor enough to let someone know enough about myself to care about me. It’s a risk worth taking, by the way — but you have to have the ability to care about others, too.

I really wish school administrators could hear your story. A forum allowing victims to express the torment they had gone through, and how indifference to it just allowed it to get worse and worse would be tremendously educational to those who are oblivious to what is going on beneath their noses (as well as how very much their inaction only increases the damage done.)

**

If I had some asbestos gloves, I’d be sending them your way…

97

Way to go, “J.E.T.” You’ve posted in a grand total of three threads and have been warned by the moderators in two of them. What’s the encore?

98

You know, I’ve friends who were mercilessly picked on in high school – that seems to be the time of life for pickers to seek out pick-ees, and they have expressed not only resentment towards the seemingly endless hours of torture but also the ‘good’ kids who sat by and watched it all, often laughing at the antics.

Innocent bystanders can, in the tortured person’s mind, become just as hurtful.

One friend of mine had his brief case ripped out of his hands in the hall between classes by a bully, who then opened it and scattered the contents around. One of the biggest points of his humiliating experience was scrambling on the floor to get his stuff as other students walked by, looking at him with disgust, laughing at him, walking on his papers, kicking his pens and not even trying to help.

Yes, I think I can easily figure out why a kid, who has gone over the edge, will target innocents in school. You beat an animal long enough and he’ll hate everything. Kids don’t think like adults and they keep a massive amount of stuff inside for some reason.

I looked at the post where the poster expressed dislike after 30 years or so for most of his graduating class, and I’m sure that not everyone picked on him, but probably a lot stood by and watched. That can be as bad.

I still have people today from long ago high school who remember me as being the only one to step in and confront their attackers. That’s kind of nice, you know?

You have Joe Monster Stud picking on Clyde Wimp so one guy can’t confront him without getting his butt beaten, but 6 or 7 can step in and stop it without violence. Then don’t forget those hanger-on’s, you know the kids with smart mouths who hang with the bullies and start trouble by ridiculing a target kid, twisting his words around and making him look like a fool. Let the kid try to whack the little smartass and the bigger guys step in and pound him.

I knew a kid like that in school. He was a midget. Not a dwarf, but a fully formed midget around 4 feet tall. He surrounded himself with big guys and he’d go start trouble with someone, dare them to fight him and if they started to oblige, the big guys would step in. He was never caught alone without his group for as long as I knew him.

I used to watch teachers in school jump on the wimpy kid, who was being poked in the back by the bully through the ol’ hole in the back of the seat trick, for disturbing the class but never say anything to the creep who started it. In fact, some teachers seemed to admire the bullies, praising them for their work, hardly criticizing them if they acted up and coming down hard on the shy, picked on guys and girls.

Some educators and parents seem to feel that aggressive behavior among kids is natural and needed, in order to make them good folks in the outside world. Like coaches don’t teach good sportsmanship, but how to win because winning is all in real life if you want to get ahead. Ever watch a hockey game where both teams were good sports? Followed the rules? HA!!

It’s just that no one considers the casualties left behind in the form of the tormented.

In the past, we paid for this by the kids killing people as adults, becoming drunks, psychotics, misfits, druggies, unfit husbands or wives, child beaters, child molesters or major underachievers. You’ve seen them. The guy or gal who is a low paid clerk, who when you get to know them, are far too intelligent for such a low paid job, but far too insecure to rise above it.

I wonder, sometimes, just how many geniuses were ‘killed off’ by tormentors in school? Bullies might have intimidated the creator of an anticancer vaccine into never having the courage to present his ideas to his boss and so, we lost it for a few decades. That comic book reading kid who was picked on all the time might have become a great artist or designer of a safer car, but his or her self-confidence was destroyed and his ideas were never presented.

It makes me think.

It should make you do the same.

99

I have another question for you JET.

Suppose you found out one of the kids who beat up on you at school had been abused by his parents. He says, “They made my life a nightmare, the authorities wouldn’t listen to me, so I picked on you to try to redistribute the misery. It gave me relief to make someone else suffer.” If you protest you’d done nothing to him, he says, “Well, no one’s innocent, so I see no reason to spare you.”

In other words, somebody could very well use your rationalizations to victimize you. What argument would you make that they shouldn’t pick on you? This is not a purely academic question–a lot of bullies have effed-up home lives.

100

It could have gone there. My Dad had guns.

Classify me among those who are somewhat sociopathic yet holding themselves together out of fear of retribution or punishment. I have always been quite out of synch with the way most of the people around me thought, and I got picked on quite a bit as a kid, but things really picked up when I hit middle school, which was made worse because we were new in town and I had no friends (I at least had a few close friends in the old town). It didn’t help that I did and said things that embarassed myself severely, but I probably would have been picked on anyway. After my sister was killed the teasing was reduced quite a bit, I was left alone to forget most of that period of my life. Before the beginning of the 9th grade we moved again. I thought this might be a good thing, a fresh start and I was sure the teasing would reduce in high school, I could maybe just get through the rest of school without having to worry about being bullied and picked on.

High school, of course, was much worse. I was quickly grouped with the nerds, the intolerably ugly, and other ‘untouchables’. At lunch we would be forced from the cafeteria tables to sit on the floor near the lockers, where various people would come to fuck with us. One of the kids was given a bloody nose when some redneck walked up to him and thrust his pelvis into his face, banging his head back against the wall he was leaning on, while the teacher monitoring the cafeteria watched. Cuffs to the back of the head when you were in a large crowd were unavoidable. Coats and backpacks were stolen by the dozen, homework destroyed. I was too scared to do anything about it, however. I still had my fear of death, and I knew prison would be even worse. I just tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, to time my trip from one class to the other to avoid crowds, to eat my lunch fast and go find somewhere to hide.

It probably would have worn me down eventually. I wanted to kill them so much. I wanted to kill the smiling faces who did not participate but did not seem to be subjected to the same things, who laughed when I was humiliated. I could close my eyes and feel foot smashing into their mouths, or their vertebrae separating as I snapped their necks. Heh, this just reminds me of one of the few times I talked to the school psychiatrist. She asked me if I ever thought of killing people, and I said yes, and she asked me if I imagined using a gun or another weapon, and I told her no, I usually imagined killing them with my bare hands. But I’m sure I would have gone with a gun or something else more effective when I finally broke.

Luckily, I grew over seven inches my sophomore year. Coaches started asking me why I wasn’t playing football. I started hanging out with the ‘thugs’, which is what they called the kids who listened to metal, had long hair, and did drugs. It wasn’t really a fair name as the thugs didn’t pick on other kids as much as the jocks, the blacks, or the kickers, but they did look out for themselves (I was kinda drawn in because some of the smaller freshman thugs wanted me for protection). Nobody picked on me anymore. I started making fun of the kids that got picked on all the time. I started failing more classes, escaping into drugs. I made it halfway through my senior year before I dropped out, but I don’t really regret that shift in my high school role, because I don’t think I would have made it that far as a geek.

Anyway, I understand what’s going on in these kid’s heads, and I feel sorry for them when it pushes them to the point where they break, and I think most of the blame does not lie on the ones who snap. I don’t think the result of what happens is justified, though. Basically, I understand why they do it, but I’d only agree with what they did if they only went after the ones who picked on them.