Diary of a bullied boy...20 years later

My worst physical abuse

To better help people understand how to recognize abuse when it is happening to themselves or others, it is often classified into three sections: Physical abuse, sexual abuse, and verbal abuse, also known as mental and emotional abuse, but I would argue that any abuse causes mental and emotional consequences. I want to take a moment to reflect upon the most intense memories of physical abuse I suffered while in the public school system.

In eighth grade, a boy whos name I shall not mention here, asked me if he was "white". I seriously had no clue what the hell this freak was talking about. He was troubled, but who wasnt in that town. He was caucasian but I think he wanted to be seen as black. He thought he was a gangster. He wanted to be perceived as dangerous, which he was. He asked me if he was white. He is white. I answered "yes". I never saw a face turn so angry. I saw the blood rush through him as his face turned red and his body grew rigid. He kicked me in the shin as hard as he absolutely could. He was a rather large guy. I was not. The pain sent me to tears. My knee hurt for the rest of the day and even worse the next morning.

One morning in high school I was waiting in the unsupervised back foyer where all students were made to remain until released to class. I was standing near one of the few people I would somewhat associate with as we seemed to find a sense of a safety net near each other. Unlike the guy I just mentioned who was white and wanted to be black, this one was black but seemed to identify better with whites. We never identified what we had as a friendship, despite the fact we had more or less known each other since sixth grade. To this day Im still not sure why this is. Like myself, he was a bit awkward. A loner. A good person. People would always ask me if he was gay. I did not know the answer. Should it have really mattered? Keep in mind, in this school being gay was not usually acceptable. I was one of the few people he would hang out with. Lets call him J. His main buddy was a large, antisocial Italian guy who thought he was too intelligent to have to associate with anyone else. Why J hung out with him I shall never know. This particular morning, J's buddy was stressing out over some piece of paper and acting so irate it was making both of us uncomfortable. J attempted to calm the guy down by playfully taking the sheet of paper and suggesting he just not worry about it so much and take a break. The guy snapped at J and snatched the paper back, degrading him as if J was too unimportant and too unintelligent to understand what he was going through or why this stupid paper was so important. Seeing J get hurt by his friend really upset me. I do not know why I did what I did next, perhaps I wanted to ease the intensity of the situation, but I also playfully took this guys paper from him. He made a fist with one hand bigger than I could have made with both of mine. He pressed it firmly to my chest. I could not breathe. He screamed and spit in my face, explaining he did not need his dumbass friend taking it from him and that he did not need me making things worse. This was followed by even more force. My chest never hurt so bad in my entire life.

One particular morning I recall my ears being flicked for the duration of the entire bus ride. Not exactly sure what I did to the universe but even if I switched seats this problem plagued me. If I turned around to see who it was, Id see 2 or 3 boys pretending to be asleep. I would put my hands to my ears for protection. As silly as it looked, I would gladly accept looking silly over another second of this agonizing pain. There was one of me. I was outnumbered. My hands literally got pulled away from my ears so this game could continue. I tried not to look at my hands. Not only did I feel ashamed of them for not being able to protect me, but by this time they had blood on them. I never wanted a bus to move faster. Not that I was looking forward to school. I just wanted this bus ride to end.