Other: High School

[HarpingHawke]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

[baduhmtisss]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

I'm still going through it, right now. So far, it isn't very fun. Drama has filled my years! I do like the games though, those are fun.

[Sage]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

 
Awful. Catty, pointless, an energy suck, horrendous for someone who wasn't straight and cis and Christian.

[Sarah]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

 
horrendous, I've always been visibly non gender normative so I got a lot of homophobia and gender policing for that and I had an undiagnosed disability which made learning and social interactions hard.

[Sage]

horrendous, I've always been visibly non gender normative so I got a lot of homophobia and gender policing for that and I had an undiagnosed disability which made learning and social interactions hard.

 
(((Jake)))

[Sophia C]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

 
Bad, thanks to my (mostly undiagnosed at the time) neurodiversity/learning difficulties, and the fact that kids can spot 'different' a mile away. I changed high schools three times, which was my attempt at solving the problems. It didn't.

[LittleLapSnake]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

 
First half was bad. Got bullied. Still suffer the consequences. Latter half was better, mostly because for some reason people seemed to think I wouldn't let them mess with me anymore :confused: no idea why, but I didn't mind;)

[stephyjh]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

 
I was homeschooled, so I was completely isolated except for the friends my parents picked out for me and the people that went to church with us. It's taken me years to catch up the social stuff that I missed by being shut off from people in middle school and high school.

[Sage]

I was homeschooled, so I was completely isolated except for the friends my parents picked out for me and the people that went to church with us. It's taken me years to catch up the social stuff that I missed by being shut off from people in middle school and high school.

I used to be so jealous of my homeschooled BFF, but she's struggled with a lot of social stuff too as well as not connecting well with those her own age. Her parents were also super religious. Church and volunteering at the library (where we met) was the only outlet she had.

[Aisling]

How was it for you wonderful people?

What Naomi said about being different rings true in my experience as well.  I went to a high school that was very homogenous and where it was expected by both students and staff that everyone would fit into neat little stereotypes and cliques.  I couldn't easily be boxed into one of the existing categories, so I was labelled an outsider and treated accordingly.

Overall, high school was a PTSD-causing nightmare of ostracism, bullying, and other abusive behaviors. Horrible, awful, and horrendous all are good words for it.

[Lula]

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

 
High school was... Interesting for me. It was such a transitional time. I was a very devout Christian (which clearly didn't sit comfortably with me- I moved on soon after high school), pretty socially awkward. I also struggled with my gender and sexuality, because of the weird anti-sexuality I was learning from my religion and because I found it less empowering to be female. I was very androgynous.

All that said, high school was not really the traumatic part of that time of my life. Being young and still looking for my identity was. Plus the general chaos and emotional upheaval of divorcing, distracted parents, moving constantly, and being broke-ass-poor. When I started doing theater I really got my bearings. I was still awkward, still assertive and decisive (um, bossy), but I was also able to work on the shyness and self-rejection that made life hardest. I made some good friends as I gained confidence. Playing the roles of other people forced me to see that I could behave however I liked, and that I was capable of a whole range of expression and emotion. I also got to clown around and be rewarded for being awkward and funny-looking! Three cheers for improv comedy!

I kind of look at it as a very good thing that I was so awkward and antifeminine and conventionally "unattractive" to my peers back then. We lack sooo much perspective at that age! Friends of mine that were popular and attractive with lots of friends in those years seem to be much more self-conscious and behavior policing than I am. I have come to actually like an array of "feminine" things, and by preference I usually conform to standard expectations in my appearance- but GEEZ I am so less worried about how I appear to people! I don't obsess over being more attractive than the next person, I don't equate my appearance to my value as a human being, and I don't seek the approval and admiration of acquaintances and outright strangers to the same extent. I never believed that people only liked me for my outer shell. My shell was prickly! If people liked me, they liked ME.

So yeah, overall, high school was all right. It had some ups and downs, and I think if I had been more open minded and "cooler" I'd have liked it more. But I needed that learning time. I bloomed a bit more slowly, and in the end, I'm glad it worked that way. College was better.

[Fireof9]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

Weird.....

I was mostly home schooled and attended a really small one room Seventh Day Adventist Church school with 8 other kids all younger than me for most of grades 1-8. Then I got thrown into a public high school.

Within the first week there I ended up in a fight with this really big kid and he ended up in the hospital. This of course sparked the interest of every self proclaimed "tough guy" in the school so most of grade 9 and part of grade 10 were spent either fighting or sitting in the principals office.

I got really tired of that and discovered pot. So the rest of high school I was really really high........ for all of it. When I quit scrapping all of the time a whole lot of my "friends" didn't want anything to do with me anymore, so I ended up hanging out with all the "misfits" and built some really great life long friendships.

[stephyjh]

I used to be so jealous of my homeschooled BFF, but she's struggled with a lot of social stuff too as well as not connecting well with those her own age. Her parents were also super religious. Church and volunteering at the library (where we met) was the only outlet she had.

 
My sister didn't have that problem, because by the time she came along, there was a very active homeschooling network in our area, and she had friends. But I will never be able in good conscience to recommend homeschooling to anyone.

[Jenett]

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

 
Varied. For all sorts of reasons.

I did my first three years of high school at a suburban high school near Boston (the town I grew up in.) I had good friends, mostly didn't come in for much bullying, but was definitely in the band/chorus/orchestra geek crowd. I spent all my time outside of school either doing music or horseback riding.

(My parents, btw, said that riding was the easiest way to raise a teenager *ever* - my riding instructor was very clear that if I gave them *any* trouble, he'd tell them not to drive me to the barn. So I had about 2 weeks of typical teenage grumpy rebellion around when I turned 13 before deciding it wasn't in my best interest.)

When I was 14, my father was diagnosed with cancer, and he died when I was 15 (after all the incumbent medical appointments and related difficulties that brings.) I spent another year at public school, but in the middle of that, Mom thought it might be better for me (in a whole bunch of ways) if we looked at boarding school.

I applied to a couple - including what are two of the top schools in the country, and ended up going to one of those for two years of high school. (If you're wondering how that works, given that in the US, high school is usually 3 or 4 years, depending on how your middle school years work, it's because I was very young for my grade to start with: I barely squeaked into my public school year because I have a late-September birthday.)

I had two years there that were *fabulous* academically (I got to take ancient Greek, and all sorts of demanding English and history courses, did surprisingly well at economics, did music theory, and so on - though also very hard work: I was reliably doing 5 hours of homework a night without counting any procrastination in there) and they were fabulous musically (the orchestra and audition chorus did *amazing* music). And we were close enough to where I grew up that Mom could come up and take me out to lunch periodically, which was nice.

Socially, however, they were pretty hellish. (Not particularly helped by some of the class+money issues, or the very high pressure cookers a lot of people felt they were in - there was a lot of "If I don't get into X specific Ivy League School, my family will disown me" pressure ambiently around, for example.)

I wish I'd had the sense to make a different set of friends earlier than I did, but - well. I don't regret the experience, and I think it's absolutely the right choice for some people (and I think it was for me, or at least *a* right choice, not a wrong one), but I am rather vehement about talking to people who are considering boarding school for their kids about what the risks and virtues are, and how to get the good bits without so many of the awful.

College was *way* better for me, both socially and academically (I was still challenged, but at a level that lead to a more balanced life and lots of time to develop other interests and skills - including the techie skills that I've actually been employed with ever since.)

[Aiwelin]

I am really not sure where to put this, so apologies if it's not where it should be.

But I was just wondering. High school. How was it for you wonderful people?

Someone else said 'hellish', I think that sums mine up well.

I attended an Evangelical Lutheran school, and was regularly in trouble with teachers and ostracized by students because of my unconventional beliefs - both when I tried to be Christian and when I finally accepted I was Pagan around 16.  Shortly after finding that out, the principal and a few teachers performed an exorcism on me while I sat and cried.  I didn't wear makeup, had short hair, and wore mostly baggy shirts and pants, so I got a lot of hate for supposedly being a lesbian.  I am actually pansexual, but had no idea how to classify myself at the time - I also identify as a cis woman, though I still don't wear makeup and tend to stick with non-feminine clothing.

The worst part though was spending two years in love with my best friend, knowing she would be absolutely horrified by the thought.  It was a very confusing relationship for me - lots of lovey-dovey, hand-holding stuff that some girls do with their friends in high school - and it was something I so desperately wanted I let it go on.  I look back on that time with a lot of regret, both of my own actions and the things others did to me.

And that's not even getting into the fact that my mom (my english teacher) ran off and had an affair with my math teacher my freshman year; in a school with about 100 students, I heard about it for a long time.  Looking back now, it's a bit funny - they've been happily married for several years.