River: Sometimes my body tells me things...

[mdlbear]

Sometimes my body tells me things. Usually I listen to it, but sometimes the message isn't what I thought it was. Sometimes it's a little disturbing.

My left shoulder has been very tense and sore for the last couple of days. My original guess was that it had to do with manhandling a heavy suitcase on the trip home. That may still be what started things off.

But this morning I found it getting suddenly more tense and painful while reading this article about our latest local school bomber. (Warning: may be triggery.) WTF? The article's title is "Police: 'Techno-wizard' suspect fooled family" Oh.

The law enforcement source described the boy as a "techno-wizard," an assessment echoed by his grandmother. Shirley Youshock said the boy was skilled on the computer and had earned straight A's in school.

Youshock called him a quiet boy and said she knew of nothing that would have prompted Monday's attack.

Right. Me. I remember feeling somewhat the same way around Columbine. (I say "somewhat the same way" without being able to give a name to the feeling. Still.)

I honestly don't remember much about junior high and high school. I remember that I hated them. I remember getting a lot of teasing. Some of it was the anti-semitism that was prevalent at the time, though I didn't recognize it as such until years later. Some of it was the fact that I was fat, slow, clumsy, and shy -- a perfect target. I'm pretty sure my hatred of sports comes from this time; I was never particularly interested in sports, and always spectacularly bad at anything that involved running, or kicking, throwing, catching, hitting, or anything else with a ball. I don't think it was active hatred until sometime in junior high.

Junior high is when I went to a school dance, went home without having actually danced with anyone, and never went again. Junior high is when I and a couple of my equally-intelligent classmates were suspended for our "negative attitude" and had to get notes from our parents before we could come back to school. That's when, long before word processors, a social studies teacher made me write on graph paper to improve my handwriting. High school was when the US history teacher's only criterion for grading the term paper was whether you had enough references, and whether all your spelling and punctuation was correct.

Yeah, I was smart, I was quiet, I was shy... I don't think I had any thoughts of blowing up the school or killing all the teachers, but that may just be because it was another 40 years before anybody did it. I did have fantasies about the gigantic screws that held my junior high's exposed steel girders together...

I have no idea what other emotional baggage I've been dragging around for the last half-century, give or take. It seems to be pretty nasty stuff.

So,... yeah. Funny, my shoulder doesn't hurt quite as much now. But it still hurts.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Please note that Columbine actually wasn't committed by the techie loner types at all. Or indeed by the bullied, socially inept kids with the slow burn that it was first described as. Columbine was committed by young sociopaths, in at least one case -- adept liars who managed to be extremely popular thereby, while simultaneously convincing people when it suited him that he was bullied and persecuted.

I'm not saying this case is the same. There probably are instances of the loner, bullied kid, harrassed beyond endurance, blowing up the school that tormented him, or suchlike. But the iconic instance of it was simply misrepresented in the initial press reports, and later investigations have proven such. I wouldn't be too quick to assume that there exists, let alone that this particular image is, The Kind Of Kid Who Does Such Things, or that you ever had too much in common with same.

[mdlbear]

http://www.slate.com/id/2099203/ describes the FBI's findings; you're certainly right about Harris. Klebold was a depressive, and most likely was bullied.

I was never bullied physically that I can recall, but the verbal abuse was a constant. No, I almost certainly wouldn't have gone off the rails and actually killed anyone, but I suspect I fantasized about it.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I know anybody who never fantasized about killing someone who was giving them trouble, especially during adolescence. It's all in what you do about it, or don't.

[mdlbear]

Point. But I'm only now beginning to get a handle on whatever I did do, to myself, about it.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

It's so sad that our schools don't identify the bright kids and throw them all together with teachers who can appreciate them, instead of having them be just as much a "sore thumb" as the kids who don't want to learn.

One of the things that I'm impressed about Milwaukee Public Schools is that they have a gifted and talented school that starts with third-graders, and they make an effort to find the kids who are headed into being troublemakers due to boredom, and get them referred to said school. Not that the school has enough seats for all of them, but at least they try to make it possible for some of those kids to go to a school that really suits their learning style, rather than leave them all in neighborhood schools being frustrated that their classmates would rather goof off than learn.

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

They do the same thing here in Arizona. My daughter Eli, who is now 26 was moved to the honors track in third grade and became an IB scholar, which certainly contributed heavily to her current lifestyle. She has a degree in International Relations, speaks four languages and is married to a career employee with German Embassy. I frequently joke that although I didn't know it at the time, raising my only child in fandom was probably the best early training I could have given her for her future "career" as a wife of a diplomat. She assures me that fandom did a good job of preparing her for expat politics. Learning at a young age how to feed a crowd of hungry filkers and engage even the most socially stunted in pleasant conversation taught her how to entertain lavishly on a tight budget and have all her guest go home feeling pampered and special, which is a skill her husband greatly admires in his American wife.

As far as the honors teachers appreciating the bright kids, in our experience, only up to a point. We had a lot of problems with the Paradise Valley District, especially once she was in high school. Some of her AP/IB teachers really resented their honors students. Of course, honors kids are usually high maintenance, but we tangled repeatedly with teachers who seemed to hate teaching AP/IB and made no bones about it. I asked one teacher point-blank why he taught them if he disliked them so much and his reply angered me more than his baseline crappy attitude. He said it was better than teaching the stupid ones, but not by much.

That is why although I have some good friends who are teachers, I think our public educational system needs an overhaul. All the teachers we encountered who resented the students who were smarter than they were had tenure. Entrenched, bitter and not doing anything except making the lives of their gifted students miserable. Of course Arizona isn't exactly known as a shining example of quality education and although Eli's high school was the satellite for our district's IB program, they certainly didn't administer the international curriculum with any enthusiasm. I think most teachers and administrators at North Canyon High resented not just the kids, but the program itself. Here is the sobering thing: if the bright kids don't want to be there, the slow kids drop out, and all the rest are just there to socialize or mark time until graduation. Our high schools are failing on an epic scale. That leads to shootings and the kinds of feelings that we are talking about here. I'm 50. It seems a lot worse now than it was when I was in high school 35 years ago, and it certainly wasn't a picnic then.

[mdlbear]

Yeah. It's especially bad in smaller districts. I remember that my high school physics teacher was the soccer coach, and I'm pretty that was what he'd been hired for.

There were a few good teachers, but they were pretty rare.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I've been mostly impressed with the teachers at my daughter's IB school. (-: Of course, it's not only IB, but has been named the best HS in Wisconsin several times in the last decade by one of the big national magazines, and is one of the handful selected by the SAT committee to study what works.

That high school is the biggest reason that I'm committed to remaining in Milwaukee at least until she graduates.

I feel so lucky in having gotten her into first the gifted and talented grade/middle school, and now the IB school here.

[mdlbear]

Connecticut had one of the better school systems at the time, and I was consistently tracked with the other bright kids. Didn't help with things like PE (which I loathed), homeroom, the hallways, and so on.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I think it's different when the bright kids are in a separate school; they don't have to be "different" within the larger system, for a while at least. They get to learn the basic socialization skills with other kids who are similar. It doesn't eliminate all bad things (some kids will always loathe PE, just as others will always loathe math), but it reduces them enough, I think, that the kids don't learn most of the coping behaviors that really seem necessary for a kid who has no power to "vote with the feet" by leaving a situation, if you are constantly picked on by everyone your age--and which are really not functional skills for adults in any setting.

[mdlbear]

Sounds plausible, but I have no way of knowing.

Nor do I have a good handle on what set of "coping" behaviors I picked up. I only know a few of them.

[shadowe_wraithe]

Sad to read the story, truly. Many very bright kids have similar things happen to them when in school...been there, done that, so has my son Chaos.

However addressing the part of your post:

I have no idea what other emotional baggage I've been dragging around for the last half-century, give or take. It seems to be pretty nasty stuff.

We have lots of baggage buried, all of us. One thing to remember is that one reason it is buried is because that is one of the psyche's self defense mechanisms...and it helps us deal with the daily stuff, rather than the deeper stuff.

Much of my own deeper baggage, I have to forcefully dredge up, to work through. It is not an easy task, nor pleasant in any manner. But it is necessary to begin healing and growing. Slowly little bits of things will come to you. As you begin to open up to your feelings (and memories) you will find that you can begin to assimilate them into the conscious of who you are now. One thing I always remind friends working on these sort of things is this:

Without your life experiences, both good, and bad, you would not be the person you are today.

This can be both a positive thing, and a negative. The positive is the part you need to be proud of, and nourish. The negatives are the part that you learn from though. They teach you about how you did not cope with certain things properly, or at all.

Long journey down the road to wholeness, but one well worth all the bumps, bruises, ups and downs, trials and triumphs. Because in the end, if the journey is truly taken, you become the best you can be.

Love, Hugs and Blessings,
Shadowe
*Who shouldn't try to write too much when she is so very weary that she has to correct her typing. ;-)

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

Shadowe is right on the money about baggage. Corrected typing and all :)

[mdlbear]

Thanks. Sounds like it's time for me to do some working through.

I have no idea how to go about that; writing will probably help.

[shadowe_wraithe]

*HUGS* are a good start at starting...Hug YOURSELF for the wonderful person you are, even if you don't accept all of that praise at the moment.

Writing is a good way, as is simply thinking things through...and analyzing them from a more accepting frame of mind. There are many ways to look and work through things, depending upon your personal baggage and spot on the journey.

A site I use quite often is:

http://joy2meu.com/

I stumbled across it when working on some re-emerging codependency issues I am working on (it is a life long journey this one). I had lost myself again, due to some stuff, and was needing to get back on track, and the site helped a lot with clarifying things (again) and with the Inner Child work I needed (still need) to do.

If you have time, it is a good site to peruse with certain things becoming clear as you wander about...hopefully it can be as helpful to you as it was/is to me.

Love, Hugs and Blessings,
Shadowe

[mdlbear]

Hmm. Possibly, though as far as I know I _don't_ have codependence issues, and I find the emphasis on spirituality off-putting, at least at first glance.

I'll certainly give it a closer look, though.

[shadowe_wraithe]

I can understand the being put off by the spirituality part...some people don't feel the need or want to explore that aspect.

The main thing I think I learned/re-learned from the site is that we are all wonderful beings with the absolute right to be ourselves, without the world/society judging us. And that we are all unique and precious.

Hopefully you can find some helpful stuff between the spiritual stuff...

Love, Hugs and Blessings,
Shadowe

[mdlbear]

Maybe. Actually, spirituality can be fascinating stuff. What's off-putting is the 12-step program stuff, and the idea that, even if you're not a Christian or a Muslim, surely you can believe in a Higher Power that you can't solve your problem without leaning on. Sorry, that's where I get off. It's *my* problem, whatever it is, and solving it requires changing either my behavior or the way I think about myself, or both.

Even though I believe that the Universe, personified, is beautiful and wonderful and powerful, I also believe that it doesn't give a rat's ass about me and my problems, so solving them is *my* job.

[shadowe_wraithe]

Ahhh, that aspect of spirituality stuff. Yes I agree, I am not fond of the 12 step stuff myself either. I simply try to read around it when possible. And you are fully correct, fixing you is Your job, and I am in total agreement with that...though for me I do at least believe in a higher power aspect. I think that if we look at the "higher power" aspect, as a deeper part of ourselves, we are on the right track. So I try to re-align my thoughts along those lines when reading on the site. If that makes sense? I think of the higher power as my soul/spirit in it's (probably impossible to attain) perfect state, as being that higher power...still not sure if I am making sense here.

With my beliefs I simply meditate on what I need to work on, and take it from there. Not so much leaning on but requesting guidance in whatever form it may come. I have found that by allowing myself to ask for guidance, it usually comes. Admittedly it is usually from more meditation on the problem, and realizing what steps need to be taken. I feel it is my subconscious giving me the guidance, whether it is...well who will know 'til their time comes. ;-)

[mdlbear]

Yeah, that might work.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I did have fantasies about the gigantic screws that held my junior high's exposed steel girders together...

I like the way you think ;-D

[mdlbear]

:) That was one of the things that kept me sane.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I find those gargantuan industrial fasteners fascinating. There are some suspension bridges that have what looks like enormous hex bolts with six-foot-wide heads holding the suspension cables in the concrete anchors at the ends; I've always wanted to see the wrench that turns that, and watch it in use.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I used to imagine that I was the only real human being at the school and the other kids were all androids, explaining why they were so completely lacking in any vestige of human empathy.

High school was somewhat better. College was *much* better, which was why I loved it so much.

[mdlbear]

Hmm. I used to imagine that I was an alien, lost among the incomprehensible humans.

I liked College a lot, but it was still pretty lonely.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I didn't just imagine - I was positive I was either a mutant or an alien, having no more in common with the inferior beings around me than I did with a chimp or a fish. I was just lucky enough to be in my late teens when the whole hippie phenomenon hit, and for a few brief years it was a social asset to be severely weird...

[septemberlilac.livejournal.com]

"...a 'techno-wizard,' [snip] skilled on the computer and had earned straight A's..."

SIGH. I am so fed up with the media-driven hysteria that ensues every time something like this happens - the whole "the internet is the root of all evil", "any kid who can use a computer and owns a black t-shirt is probably dangerous", blah, blah, blah. Technology as the latest incarnation of the bogeyman. (My age is showing here, but does anyone remember the wickedly amusing and deadly accurate song "Blame It on The Stones"?)

I was not subjected to physical bullying, but the verbal variety was the norm for my years in grammar school and as a painfully shy, socially awkward child, I had no coping mechanisms. Oddly, I never fantasized about killing my tormentors but I spent a lot of time daydreaming about killing myself. High school was much better for me, with the exception of one sadistic teacher - I *did* have very cold, clear fantasies about removing him from the planet. I was very lucky in one respect; although my grades weren't sterling, I did extremely well on tests and thus was placed in classes with the brighter kids in my high school. That was probably my salvation.

[mdlbear]

There's a bit of truth in the media's portrayal -- kids who don't fit in with the prevailing jock culture are the ones who are most likely to have a long history of abuse to resent.

Warning - rant in progress

[kayshapero]

Frankly I think we owe the current sad state of physical education (unless PE has improved a LOT since Vicky left HS) to at least one generation being essentially taught that PE is for the natural athlete only, and anybody else in the class is there to be bored or harassed for an hour. So since the natural athletes for the most part stuck to athletics, it's the REST of the class who grew up and became in charge of the school. So PE is seen as unnecessary and gets minimal treatment at best with the possible exception of specific sports played in intramural competition. Oh, and chasing kids around the track to prove they're getting "exercise". No training in any kind of exercise past simple calisthenics (by the time you get warmed up, class is nearly over), almost no introduction to the wide variety of sport and exercise activities out there that individuals who aren't super-athletic might actually ENJOY.. Pheh...

[kyrielle]

I spent a large chunk of junior high and high school (and early college) amusing myself by imagining having a very powerful bow and shooting arrows into the blackboard, desks, walls...whatever I happened to be staring at. Never imagining hitting people, just things.

(On rare occasion, I will still call up this imagery when in a particularly tedious meeting.)

[brmj.livejournal.com]

Let me draw everyone's attention to Paul Graham's essay Why Nerds are Unpopular. In addition to what the title implies, it also addresses some of what's wrong with the school system in general. There are parts of it that didn't match my experiences at an admittedly unusual high school and a conclusion or two that I'm not sure I agree with, but there also seems to be a lot of truth in it.

[mdlbear]

Many thanks for the link.