Day 30: More Thoughts on those High School Days

[anarchist_nomad]

Coincidentally, just days after my high school blast from the past, cassiopia was showing me some of her high school yearbooks today. I was struck by what a normal and pleasant experience she had had: Clubs and plays and a boyfriend. It all seemed so normal. Quite the contrast from the hell that high school was for me, what with running away from home (twice) and being kicked out of the house (many times!) and having my mother call the police on me and punching a hole in my bedroom wall and being almost continuously depressed and lonely... y'know, things like that.

I was undoubtedly the most colourful character in my high school, but I was certainly not very happy back then. I don't regret it per se, as those experiences shaped me into who I am now. Not in some abstract way, either, but in very direct ways that are obvious to me. Nonetheless, when I was a depressed teenager, I heard many people tell me to cheer up because those were going to be "the best days of my life." What a thing to tell a depressed person! Luckily, I had not believed them -- if I had, I probably would have truly been suicidal with nothing better to look forward to! However, my conversation with cassiopia made me wonder about other people's high school experiences. Which leads to my first LJ poll:

[Poll #591991]

I'll be curious to see the results on this. I have a prediction already (which I won't reveal, to keep the analysis somewhat unbiased) and I am curious to see how closely it resembles the truth.

Comments

[crim-ferret.livejournal.com]

I was a computer geek at a time when nobody knew computer geeks would be making 6 figure incomes right out of high school less than a decade later. At least I had a group to hang out with. Otherwise, it was pretty abissmal. I should point out that we were living in Utah at the time and I wasn't a member of the Mormon church which locked me out of a lot of social actities. There were a few bullies, but I was fairly big for my age and after a couple of smaller individuals found out I did have limits in a rather painful fashion, I was more or less left alone by all of them. They were right. I had one teacher (one of the incompetent ones with tenure just coasting until retirement) who told the class we would remember high school as the best years of our lives. If I'd believed her, I'd have probably gone home and slit my wrists.

[anarchist-nomad.livejournal.com]

I had one teacher (one of the incompetent ones with tenure just coasting until retirement) who told the class we would remember high school as the best years of our lives. If I'd believed her, I'd have probably gone home and slit my wrists.

Couldn't agree more! What kind of idiot tries to cheer a depressed person up by telling them that things are as good as they are ever going to get?!?

[anarchist-nomad.livejournal.com]

You know....... why am I not surprised? ;)