# Some questions



## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

I've been thinking a lot about my past lately, about how i was homeschooled, and i've recently been wondering a lot about how you humans grew up. *What is elementary school like?* What is it like to grow up in a classroom, surrounded with other kids? Is there a lot of interaction? What's it like to grow up in schoolyards with lots of other young peers your age to interact with? Do you find that social anxiety hinders you from interacting with people much? How do you find that this impacts your perspective of life and of people? What are all the cool things i missed out on? Appreciate any replies.


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## TheFather (Sep 20, 2012)

It's a while since I've been there, but maybe my experience can be of service. 

From what I remember, elementary school is sorta the best time of your life in many ways (for a lot of people anyway). You're a kid, you're innocent, you have no responsibilities, and your main goal in life is to have fun. 

People got assigned desks with their name written on them. They usually got re-shuffled every six weeks, and you always hoped to either sit next to your best friend or the girl you liked. You got cubby holes to put your stuff (backpack, jackets/coats, lunchbox) in when you got there in the mornings and it was usually in the back of the classroom. You develop friendships pretty easily (though some kids do not) because your little kids, the most you cared about is what video games someone played or whether they liked Star Wars or not. You get recess time to play around and act crazy, lunch time to eat and discuss things with your friends, and every now and then we got to go to the computer lab to play kid games or do math stuff. You learn the simple things like basic math, vocabulary and grammar, history, and basic science stuff. I would whisper and pass notes to my friends because I always finished my quiet work so early. You would get kids who had major crushes on people, and that would be the big gossip. You had "couples" who did little more than hold hands or kiss each other on the cheek. You had weird kids, smart kids (like me), sporty kids, preppy kids, and sassy kids (my favorite people haha). There would be the couple of class clown kids who would make everyone laugh, and there would be the spazz kid who would worry everyone. The teacher would usually be a sweet, attractive woman in her late 20s/early 30s (though I had a couple teachers who were older). There would be a few bullies, though they usually left you alone if you gave them something. There would be fights on occasion, and everyone would gather around and watch. There was the school nurse who was pretty useless unless someone was throwing up or bleeding everywhere. A couple times a month there would be assemblies everyone would file off to in the auditorium with velvet chairs from the 1950s. There would be fundraisers where you would have to sell chocolate bars or catalogue candy, and the top sellers got special prizes. There was the book-fair where they passed out little mini-catalogues the week before and you would save up your lawn-mowing or leaf-raking money to buy the set of Captain Underpants or Judy Blume books and the curly pencils with the funny erasers. You always knew where to go if you needed supplies: the kid with the huge pencil-box full of crayons, glitter glue, and eraser caps in several colors. We read books and took quizzes on them for AR points, and the people with the most points got to go on a special field trip. 

Oh yeah, field trips. Those were always really exciting. Packed lunch in a brown bag, getting $15 to spend in the gift shop. Standing outside the school at 6 AM with the teacher wearing jean shorts and a visor with a clipboard. Singing "We Will Rock You" and "Don't Stop Believing" on the two hour bus journey. Taking your camera and taking lots of useless blurry pictures because you're 9. There was always a kid's dad as the chaperone who wore white Nike's and a polo shirt with khaki shorts and the local college team baseball hat with blue sunglasses. 

Toward the end of the school year (April/May), you would have simple standardized tests to do. Since the days were all jumbled up and all the learning was basically done, by the last couple of weeks of May the teacher would let everyone have free days to do whatever. Some kids would draw and compare art, some would break out the board games and have three hour tournaments of Monopoly or Candyland. This was also the case on the days before Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. We would have snacks and sip on Hawaiian Punch and me and my friends would sit around and talk about life as if we were forty year old men swapping war stories over cold mugs of beer. The only conversation I can remember is us talking about how ridiculous it was that Kidz Bop 5 was coming out, and we laughed while saying that there would probably be a Kidz Bop 100 in the future (little did we know that it would still be going strong 15 years later).

The last year of elementary school (fifth grade for me) is when things really started to change. People are on the verge of puberty (many had already hit it). Girls start to develop and boys would stare and make comments. Guys started to grow fuzzy little mustaches and act more tough. I was this age around the time Obama got elected (the year before) so it's when iPhones and Xbox 360s and all that were really popular, so everyone was really into that. Then there was middle school and that's where a lot of bullying and verbal abuse started to occur from person to person. I never really got bullied, but it was awful to watch others get harassed day after day.

Overall I look back on those days with fondness, because it was childhood. Adulthood brings about the things none of us want to deal with, and people we don't like in situations we don't want to be in. Elementary school is where people develop into who they will eventually be, how strange it is to look back and see the seeds we all eventually grew up to be.


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## Kalakotkas (Feb 15, 2018)

I was also thinking about it recently.
I was surely happy back then, but I think I was already a weird kid. in the yard I was often playing on my own, catching bugs and stuff and I was losing hide and seek on purpose to get back to my business. I had a best friend I was spending most of my off-school time with and I was invited at birthdays... but I always avoided friendly competitions as sports for some reason. I was already quite shy and insecure about myself, but it wasn't really an handicap. I've kinda been the same in middle school, until groups started to form and I slowly retired from social life.


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## Neal (Jan 14, 2012)

Well I mean it wasn’t always rainbows and sunshine. I got bullied heavily in elementary school, starting at the 3rd grade. People started off by making fun of how I talked. Whenever we have to do oral presentations, the girls would start giggling whenever I said certain words. Then things escalated to physical abuse once people realized I wasn’t a fighter. Like once when coming back from the playground, he kid behind me pushed me into the guy in front of me, and the guy in front got pissed and punched me square in the face. Guys would slap me in the head while in class loud enough for everyone to hear and get a laugh out of. This mess followed me to the school bus too because my bullies would purposely sit behind me at all times. Eventually I became a social pariah that no one else wanted near them because they were afraid that my bullies would target them also. So if I sat near other kids during field day, they’d ask me to leave them alone. By the time I got to high school I had no social skills whatsoever and was terrified of drawing attention to myself and I still hate drawing attention to myself to this day. The girls often told me I was ugly and it destroyed my self confidence with them. I’m just now starting to change my life for the better but public school was a living nightmare for me. My “peers” broke me down into a pathetic shell of what I could have been.


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## acstar (May 24, 2014)

I didn't really have anxiety in elementary school, it was basically how TheFather described it. It was until 6th grade when I moved and had to leave all of my friends behind that I got anxiety. I never really fit in to any group after that. And I bounced around alot of groups. In elementary school there was girl scouts and tea parties and all this fun stuff. We mostly would spend time playing games we made up, everyone in my neighborhood got along, we were all just a bunch of kids. In school everybody just kind of got along with one another, we didn't care about differences, we were kids. I'm sorry you didn't get to experience a full childhood like that. Is there a reason why your parents or whomever kept you away?


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

@TheFather
Thanks for the detailed reply. Sounds like paradise lol, if i were you i would really cherish those memories and experiences. I didnt grow up rough or anything but my childhood memories are of writing in a book in a quiet, lonely house on cloudy, cold days with just my brother and parents at home. Day after day year after year till i was 12. Mom always forcing me to do extra school and to get all the answers correct. Me and my brother often bored and always devising new ways to escape boredom lol. No other kids, no girls, no action, no excitement lol. I wish more than anything that i could grow up in school.



Kalakotkas said:


> I was also thinking about it recently.
> I was surely happy back then, but I think I was already a weird kid. in the yard I was often playing on my own, catching bugs and stuff and I was losing hide and seek on purpose to get back to my business. I had a best friend I was spending most of my off-school time with and I was invited at birthdays... but I always avoided friendly competitions as sports for some reason. I was already quite shy and insecure about myself, but it wasn't really an handicap. I've kinda been the same in middle school, until groups started to form and I slowly retired from social life.


Thanks for replying. I didnt know people were so close there as to invite each other to their birthdays, i always had this weird notion that elementary school was where a bunch of strangers go to learn around each other lol. Guess you learn a new thing everyday. 


Neal said:


> Well I mean it wasn't always rainbows and sunshine. I got bullied heavily in elementary school, starting at the 3rd grade. People started off by making fun of how I talked. Whenever we have to do oral presentations, the girls would start giggling whenever I said certain words. Then things escalated to physical abuse once people realized I wasn't a fighter. Like once when coming back from the playground, he kid behind me pushed me into the guy in front of me, and the guy in front got pissed and punched me square in the face. Guys would slap me in the head while in class loud enough for everyone to hear and get a laugh out of. This mess followed me to the school bus too because my bullies would purposely sit behind me at all times. Eventually I became a social pariah that no one else wanted near them because they were afraid that my bullies would target them also. So if I sat near other kids during field day, they'd ask me to leave them alone. By the time I got to high school I had no social skills whatsoever and was terrified of drawing attention to myself and I still hate drawing attention to myself to this day. The girls often told me I was ugly and it destroyed my self confidence with them. I'm just now starting to change my life for the better but public school was a living nightmare for me. My "peers" broke me down into a pathetic shell of what I could have been.


Sorry to hear about those bad experiences. Thats pretty harsh. 


acstar said:


> I didn't really have anxiety in elementary school, it was basically how TheFather described it. It was until 6th grade when I moved and had to leave all of my friends behind that I got anxiety. I never really fit in to any group after that. And I bounced around alot of groups. In elementary school there was girl scouts and tea parties and all this fun stuff. We mostly would spend time playing games we made up, everyone in my neighborhood got along, we were all just a bunch of kids. In school everybody just kind of got along with one another, we didn't care about differences, we were kids. I'm sorry you didn't get to experience a full childhood like that. Is there a reason why your parents or whomever kept you away?


I have no idea why my parents kept me away lol. They're stupid **** heads maybe thats why lol. Pretty much demolished my life.


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## Scrub-Zero (Feb 9, 2004)

Elementary school was fun. I was shy, but made friends and played with anyone who would have me. High school was a lot harder when my anxiety and depression developed more, and eventually, I got kicked out.


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

(Added spoilers so I quit cluttering the page.)


* *







sad1231234 said:


> What is it like to grow up in a classroom, surrounded with other kids? Is there a lot of interaction?


Yes, lots of interaction.



> What's it like to grow up in schoolyards with lots of other young peers your age to interact with?


If not for school, I probably never would have had any friends, since I had no opportunities to socialize outside the school environment. (Hence why I haven't had any IRL friends since leaving the school environment in the Nineties.)



> Do you find that social anxiety hinders you from interacting with people much?


I was always shy and weird (probably autistic), but didn't have social anxiety disorder yet when I was in elementary school. That started to develop in junior high (7th grade).



> How do you find that this impacts your perspective of life and of people? What are all the cool things i missed out on?


Not sure how to answer those, especially the first one. :/

Since it's difficult for me to remember things in an orderly fashion, especially on such a general subject, I'll use @*TheFather* 's post for comparison/contrast. I believe my experience is exactly twenty years older than his; doing the math, I figure it was 1982-89 (age 5-12).

I had Head Start before this in a different school. My elementary school was grades kindergarten through sixth. K through 3 were on one side of the school, 4-6 on the other, with halls separated by a courtyard. I have some memories of Head Start, and of third grade and up, but for some reason my memories of kindergarten through second grade are almost nonexistent.

*From what I remember, elementary school is sorta the best time of your life in many ways (for a lot of people anyway). You're a kid, you're innocent, you have no responsibilities, and your main goal in life is to have fun.*

Yep.

*People got assigned desks with their name written on them. They usually got re-shuffled every six weeks, and you always hoped to either sit next to your best friend or the girl you liked.*

I can't recall how our desks got assigned. I don't recall us having our names on them but I might be wrong. The desks had a compartment under the lid where you stored your school supplies, and mine would always get so awfully messy; they had days on which we would clean out our desks so I guess this was kind of standard. I don't recall us needing to change our desks, especially not as frequently as every six weeks, though in some classes the teacher would occasionally get "creative" and try situating the desks differently, for example, in a giant square around the sides of the room so we all faced the middle, rather than in parallel rows.

*You got cubby holes to put your stuff (backpack, jackets/coats, lunchbox) in when you got there in the mornings and it was usually in the back of the classroom.*

We hung our coats on hooks out in the hallway, and put our boots (if it was winter) on a low ledge under those; I believe we brought the rest of our stuff into the classroom. I can't recall where lunchboxes or backpacks were stored but everything else went in the desk. We might have had cubbyholes in some of the lower grades (e. g., kindergarten), though I don't think we had them in the higher grades (4th grade and up).

*You develop friendships pretty easily (though some kids do not) because your little kids, the most you cared about is what video games someone played or whether they liked Star Wars or not.*

Actual friends for me were rather rare, but acquaintances were very easy to make because for the most part, people got along; you weren't seen as very "weird" if you were in fact weird, because everybody was weird. (There were exceptions, but not as extreme as after elementary school.) Everybody was also fixated on their own special interests, so if you shared those with somebody, it was easy to connect.

*You get recess time to play around and act crazy, lunch time to eat and discuss things with your friends, and every now and then we got to go to the computer lab to play kid games or do math stuff.*

We had four recesses a day, three that were fifteen minutes, and one around midday that was a half hour. If it was raining, we stayed inside and played games and whatnot; otherwise we had to go outside on the playground. There was equipment to play on like swingsets and jungle gyms and a small basketball court. My school was in the country so there was a lot of open area to run around in and my favorite pastime was pretending to be fictional characters. Girls often liked to "play horses" (pretend to be horses); boys often liked pretending to be cartoon characters like ThunderCats, or played marbles. The lower-grade kids stuck to their side of the playground, and the upper-grade kids stuck to their side. There were patrols (kids from the upper grades) who wore a neon orange band/sash and you could go to them to report problems or to snitch on other kids if they misbehaved.

Our lunch time was in the gymnasium, which doubled as the auditorium and lunch room. Seating was at long folding tables with built-in seats. You'd bring your own lunch or pay for a hot lunch from the kitchen by waiting in line. Whatever you couldn't finish, you dumped into a bucket and put your utensils and trays in their proper place to be washed. There was a menu you got from the school telling what would be available on what days and we'd stick that on the fridge at home.

Computers...were a relatively new and magical instrument when I was in elementary school. Barely anybody could afford to have one of their own; I recall visiting a friend back then and he was one of the lucky few, I spent the entire visit lusting over the computer while he fidgeted in annoyance since I guess computers were old news to him. ops I vaguely remember when our school got its first desktop computer, I think it was fourth or fifth grade (circa 1986-1988 ) based on my memory of the room I was in, though I could be wrong. We had to take turns using it for just a few minutes since it was so popular. So I never got much time with the thing. All I clearly remember of the experience was that we had to "ground"(?) ourselves before each use by running our hands along a bar under the computer desk...never did understand that.

There was no computer lab, no Internet.




(cont.)


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

* *







tehuti88 said:


> (cont.)


*You learn the simple things like basic math, vocabulary and grammar, history, and basic science stuff.*

I recall Phonics was one subject we had. Weird class, never got the point of it, but it involved writing in this ugly brown workbook. Lots of creative activities as well, such as artwork and writing stories which we would illustrate and share with the class (one such story I wrote was stolen from the book rack, never found out what became of it). I hated math but did well in everything. Plus creativity was something that was celebrated back then, so I felt very accomplished. In some classes, we kept a journal and followed daily prompts given by the teacher, and we'd hand them in at certain periods to be read and graded; I loved that. In another grade we had a reading period every day, and sometimes the teacher would read to us.

*I would whisper and pass notes to my friends because I always finished my quiet work so early.*

I was the goody-two-shoes who almost always behaved, though I was also a chatterbox and a couple of times got sent to the corner or a sort of "time-out." I usually cried with shame when this happened.

*You would get kids who had major crushes on people, and that would be the big gossip. You had "couples" who did little more than hold hands or kiss each other on the cheek.*

Perhaps I just wasn't observant enough, but my school didn't seem to have this sort of thing. There was no overt sex talk, no romance, no real crushes. Kids didn't hold hands or gossip and I don't even remember anyone crushing on celebrities or fictional characters, either; that didn't seem to start until junior high (7th grade), and was one reason I started growing apart from my peers. I remember one story I was writing around that time and there was a scene where a female character fell in love with a male character and kissed him; my best friend and I giggled over that incessantly, it was so "naughty." 

*You had weird kids, smart kids (like me), sporty kids, preppy kids, and sassy kids (my favorite people haha). There would be the couple of class clown kids who would make everyone laugh, and there would be the spazz kid who would worry everyone.*

Another thing I never really experienced in my school years were cliques; there _were_ students who were prettier and more popular, and ones who were smarter, and ones who were more athletic or geekier, but the boundaries between them all were rather blurred and sometimes people fit into more than one group. There might be _one_ class clown or _one_ sweet popular girl, but not entire groups of them. We hung out in friend groups rather than cliques. This experience held all throughout school (on into high school) for me.

*The teacher would usually be a sweet, attractive woman in her late 20s/early 30s (though I had a couple teachers who were older).*

My teachers were all women, though there was one class with a male teacher (I didn't have his class). They were of different ages, probably thirties and up. Some were nice, some were crabby, some had good days and bad days.

*There would be a few bullies, though they usually left you alone if you gave them something. There would be fights on occasion, and everyone would gather around and watch.*

I had the occasional kids (some male, some female) who would mock me, though there was never any physical violence or threats; it was just ridicule/teasing. Despite this, I was overly sensitive and cried easily and so earned the nickname of "Crybaby"; I even remember reading, "Rachal [sic] H. [sic, last name omitted] is a cry baby" written on the back of a bus seat once. There was probably a fight now and then but I never witnessed or heard of one.

*There was the school nurse who was pretty useless unless someone was throwing up or bleeding everywhere.*

I never had any reason to visit the nurse (if we even had one), so I don't know what she was like. The principal was VERY popular and friendly and would visit the class every year to teach us how to draw things. There was some kind of mentoring(?) program featuring old women called the "grandmas," but I think they dealt with special needs kids, so I never interacted with them.

A couple times a month there would be assemblies everyone would file off to in the auditorium with velvet chairs from the 1950s.

Ours were in the gymnasium; no chairs, we sat on the floor. Some classes would hold plays based on musicals (I remember _HMS Pinafore_, _Mary Poppins_...something else, _The Sound Of Music_, maybe?), and there was nobody to keep an eye on those of us who weren't involved, so we would have to sit through every. Single. Rehearsal.  Hated that. (It was the same when they had organized softball games. We were informed we wouldn't need to participate, but since they had nobody to keep an eye on the very few students like myself who didn't sign up, we were forced to keep score, which was horrible for me since I didn't understand how to.)

*There would be fundraisers where you would have to sell chocolate bars or catalogue candy, and the top sellers got special prizes.*

I ****ing HATED these fundraisers, because they were basically torture for the kids who HAD to participate--we had no choice.  They would gather us and show us all these delicious candies and such--_candies which we could not eat_--and would show us all the awesome prizes we could get if we sold the most candy, and then we'd need to sign up for a certain amount of candy and we HAD to sell it. I caught on after a while that it was a scam. The only people who could benefit from this were the school or whoever got the money, and the popular, outgoing kids who had a lot of well-off people to sell to. I was the shy, rather poor kid with a large extended family of lots of other, more outgoing kids, so guess who sold candy to all the relatives first? It sure wasn't me. I never had anybody to sell to because my relatives had already bought from their own kids and whatnot. I only had like my parents (who couldn't afford to buy much candy), and maybe a grandmother or somebody who would take pity on me and buy one item. And recall I mentioned that we had all this delicious candy in our possession and we couldn't eat a bit of it! Torture.

I don't recall ever seeing or hearing about the kids who _did_ sell the most candy and the prizes they supposedly got, either... :sus

*There was the book-fair where they passed out little mini-catalogues the week before and you would save up your lawn-mowing or leaf-raking money to buy the set of Captain Underpants or Judy Blume books and the curly pencils with the funny erasers.*

Now, the book fair, THAT was heaven for a book nerd like me. Tables and shelves loaded with books all throughout the library and hallways. (One time I got stuck backstage in this locked room because the other door was blocked by a book table. ;_; ) I only wished I had more money to spend.

We also had this thing called Weekly Reader, I believe, where we got this flyer every week(?) and it listed different books to buy, and if you bought a certain amount, you'd get a special prize, like a bookmark or stickers. I adored this and bought often, but also often struggled to afford things.

And there were weekly sales on candysticks and popcorn. (One girl still owes me fifteen cents for a candystick back then...)

*You always knew where to go if you needed supplies: the kid with the huge pencil-box full of crayons, glitter glue, and eraser caps in several colors.*

I didn't experience anything like this in school, we just had our own supplies, and/or there were supplies in the classroom (mostly paper). If somebody wanted to share theirs then I guess they would, I don't know. :/




(cont.)


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

* *







tehuti88 said:


> (cont.)


*We read books and took quizzes on them for AR points, and the people with the most points got to go on a special field trip.*

I remember occasional field trips, but I don't think they were connected to us performing well on tests, they were just scheduled outings. I don't remember these well since most seemed to be from the earlier grades. There was one to Fort Michilimackinac, but I missed it because I had chickenpox. (I didn't get to visit the fort until I was an adult.) My mother says I went to Hartwick Pines, but I have no memory of that. Oh! We went to a planetarium at the Jesse Besser Museum (now the Besser Museum For Northeast Michigan) once. All I remember is a special pencil I got with tumbled rocks in it.

*Oh yeah, field trips. Those were always really exciting. Packed lunch in a brown bag, getting $15 to spend in the gift shop. Standing outside the school at 6 AM with the teacher wearing jean shorts and a visor with a clipboard. Singing "We Will Rock You" and "Don't Stop Believing" on the two hour bus journey. Taking your camera and taking lots of useless blurry pictures because you're 9. There was always a kid's dad as the chaperone who wore white Nike's and a polo shirt with khaki shorts and the local college team baseball hat with blue sunglasses.*

I don't think this counted as our regular field trips, but a couple of times in the upper grades, we went to Camp Daggett and spent a few nights around May; this was a special outing we had to sign up for in advance. Very rustic camp though I hear they've updated it a lot since then. I remember I was sweeping our cabin once and started dancing around with the broom and singing "Sweet Child O' Mine." :lol Such good times.

*Toward the end of the school year (April/May), you would have simple standardized tests to do. Since the days were all jumbled up and all the learning was basically done, by the last couple of weeks of May the teacher would let everyone have free days to do whatever. Some kids would draw and compare art, some would break out the board games and have three hour tournaments of Monopoly or Candyland. This was also the case on the days before Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. We would have snacks and sip on Hawaiian Punch and me and my friends would sit around and talk about life as if we were forty year old men swapping war stories over cold mugs of beer. The only conversation I can remember is us talking about how ridiculous it was that Kidz Bop 5 was coming out, and we laughed while saying that there would probably be a Kidz Bop 100 in the future (little did we know that it would still be going strong 15 years later).*

I don't recall it going like this for me, though it's probably true that routines relaxed a little bit around holidays and the end of the year.

I had one teacher who refused to give us homework on the weekends. Every Friday at the end of the day she would yell, "What are we gonna do this weekend?" and we'd all yell back, _"Have fun!"_

*The last year of elementary school (fifth grade for me) is when things really started to change. People are on the verge of puberty (many had already hit it). Girls start to develop and boys would stare and make comments. Guys started to grow fuzzy little mustaches and act more tough. I was this age around the time Obama got elected (the year before) so it's when iPhones and Xbox 360s and all that were really popular, so everyone was really into that. Then there was middle school and that's where a lot of bullying and verbal abuse started to occur from person to person. I never really got bullied, but it was awful to watch others get harassed day after day.*

This didn't start to occur for me until seventh grade (junior high). (My last year of elementary school was sixth grade, BTW.) Though in sixth grade, I think it was, all the boys were taken away one day and the girls were given a presentation on menstruation. (I don't know what the boys were subjected to during this.) This wasn't news to me because my mother had already taken me to a skit a couple of years or so previously--at THAT time, it had horrified me. But anyway. Outside of special talks like that, I don't recall any talk of puberty or bodies changing, and I don't remember seeing any other students developing breasts or beards or being mocked for hitting puberty early, though maybe I just wasn't observant enough. (I started my period at age twelve.)

As of the start of junior high, there were still no cell phones or Internet, and barely any home computers. (We didn't get our first PC until I was in high school (1991-95), I believe, and didn't go online until 2000.) Bullying wasn't rampant or violent but there was lots of teasing and ridicule. In fact, I still hesitate to use the word "bullying" to this day, because back then, bullying was regarded as physical violence/threats of violence only. The mockery and ridicule and humiliation and jokes, that was all considered "sticks and stones," and wasn't taken seriously because supposedly it couldn't hurt you.

So I did go through a lot of that, but we didn't call it bullying back then, and nobody ever really did anything about it. :/ It was regarded as the fault of the person who was being teased, for being "too thin skinned" to handle it.

This mentality persisted into my first years online (2000-2001) when I underwent lots of stalking and harassing and trolling...if you complained about this back then, you were told to just turn off your computer and go for a walk because "It's just the Internet, it's not real." It's only been in recent years that this sort of thing has started to be called bullying and I feel rather bitter that there was no awareness of how damaging it could be when I was younger.

...

Not proofed. Hope this was informative or at least interesting to somebody besides me.




ETA...um, yeah...nobody's going to read all that. :um Sorry, didn't know it was that long.


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

My memory of primary school is vague now, bullying started at about age 5/6 or so from one girl, her abuse continued in one form or another until I officially got away at age 18 (though I did a pretty good job of avoiding her almost entirely from 17-18.) It was better than secondary school though.

Secondary school from 11+ was about 50% Daria. It was also a lot like prison. The only real friend I had during this period was from about 14-16 when they moved away.


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## komorikun (Jan 11, 2009)

I barely even remember elementary school. Overall it was a negative experience. I did not like other children and did not like being forced to study boring stuff. I did not like the whole group element of it. To this day I hate being in a large group and being forced to go with the flow. Did not like being pressured to talk in front of a large group. I'm very stubborn and refused to do it. Like spelling bees and raising your hand, etc. The teachers were quite frustrated with me.

Usually by the end of the school year, I'd adjust somewhat to the kids and the teacher. The problem was every year, I'd get a new teacher and be with a new set of kids. This was unsettling/upsetting. So every year, I'd revert back to my old ways and be shell-shocked.

I got bullied a bit from 4th to 6th grade. Some of the cholas (gangsterish trashy hispanic girls) took a disliking to me and wanted to fight me for some unknown reason.

I talked about kindergarten and 1st grade here:

http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f26/1st-grade-report-card-evidence-of-sad-146344/


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## roxslide (Apr 12, 2011)

Elementary was kind of so-so for me. Not the worst but not the best experience either. I attended 3 different elementary schools as a child, due to moving around a bit. I would say the biggest benefit was meeting kids from different backgrounds and making a few friends, gave me some social experiences and also allowed me to learn about different cultures/opinions at a young age. Also, I had a couple of great teachers that honestly changed my life and cemented a few interests that have followed me into adulthood. However, my biggest highs as a child were experienced out of school, so I wouldn't say you missed everything. My parents divorced when I was 7, so my experiences are pretty fragmented. I started out pretty happy and a normal kid in the first half and the last half, I started having a lot of problems and it showed in school. I was definitely bullied but not severely and I was having so many problems at home at the time that the bullying didn't really bother me that much, I was more afraid of my mother than any school bully.

I was kind of a trouble maker. I've always gone by the beat of my own drum I guess, and full of ideas so I was constantly sent to time out or the elementary school version of detention. Also I'm a huge slob so my teachers would always make me clean my desk after school or during recess. Anyway I was sent to detention because I smuggled makeup and nail polish to school and shared it with my friends (against the rules), I started fights with people (sometimes physical fights), I tried to start my own business selling stickers, temporary tattoos and hair clips to other students (against the rules), stuff like that. My teachers thought I was creative and smart but also that I was a lost cause because I was extremely lazy and would refuse to do assignments, also messy.

I had some friends but we weren't really close. Late elementary school I found myself in a clique and I hated it, I felt like my friends were keeping me around just to make them look better. I moved schools the second time not because we moved but because I wanted to start out fresh, so I pushed my mom to have me change schools. When I try to think about the positives of elementary school, I think about a couple of interesting people I met, all the books I read and also the two awesome teachers I had. The negatives were bullying, the food, being forced into a box and criticized by teachers who didn't understand my needs or what I was going through. It's kind of a mixed box, I think it's a bit of a shame you didn't go to elementary but I would try not to dwell on it. Nothing can change for you now and it wasn't a pleasure cruise for a lot of people.


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## TheFather (Sep 20, 2012)

tehuti88 said:


> ETA...um, yeah...nobody's going to read all that. :um Sorry, didn't know it was that long.


I read through all that and was very intrigued by how the situation existed 20 years prior to my own. I'm also very honored that you used my post as a template for your answers.


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## TheFather (Sep 20, 2012)

sad1231234 said:


> @*TheFather*
> Thanks for the detailed reply. Sounds like paradise lol, if i were you i would really cherish those memories and experiences. I didnt grow up rough or anything but my childhood memories are of writing in a book in a quiet, lonely house on cloudy, cold days with just my brother and parents at home. Day after day year after year till i was 12. Mom always forcing me to do extra school and to get all the answers correct. Me and my brother often bored and always devising new ways to escape boredom lol. No other kids, no girls, no action, no excitement lol. I wish more than anything that i could grow up in school.


Thank you, although this is a memory that has been filtered though nostalgia somewhat, so there were probably bad things that I do not remember. But it's sad that you didn't get those experiences as a young person. That's why I'm mostly against home schooling - kids need to be around other kids to develop properly.

I think I enjoyed going to school so much because my home life wasn't good at all. School was an escape from that for me.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

komorikun said:


> I got bullied a bit from 4th to 6th grade.


 5th and 6th grade were the worst ones for me. Really, the worst thing is moving around to different schools. My mother started me out in public school and then put me in a private school for a few years and then back to public school in 5th grade. It was especially jarring because (although I didn't like the private school any better than I liked any school) the students in the private school were not mean.

Many of the other kids in the public school I switched to were mean and aggressive, with a couple of real bullies. And of course any kid with SA is a bully magnet. Fortunately, that only lasted a couple of years. The next school I went to the kids weren't bad. I just wasn't into school though. I couldn't wait to be out of it.

I especially hated homework. It's like if you go to school all day and then it takes you 3 hours to get home and get settled down and 3 more hours to do your homework, you're basically at school for like 15 hours a day. That's crazy.

Math was the worst. I was never good at math and I just got worse at it as it got harder


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

@tehuti88
Well I read all of those 3 posts believe it or not haha. And they're actually quite interesting, it is like a whole world full of amazing experiences. It's good that you have a lot of nice experiences from that time and so many different varying things that happened. Thanks a lot for telling me what it's like  it makes me feel better to hear people's descriptions of elementary school, that way i can at least sort of live a childhood vicariously through other people's experiences lol. I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. Have you managed to overcome your SA yet after all these years? It is possible you know.

@Persephone The Dread
Bullies suck.

@komorikun
I guess not everyone enjoyed it that much,

@roxslide
Thanks for replying. Sorry to hear about what happened at home with you. By the way its cool how you started all those little business in school lol, who needs education when you have such an entrepreneur drive/passion from such a young age lol. Yeah i get that elementary school isnt necessarily heaven but it is really painful to realize that all of your life you were stuck in a house while everyone else got to grow up around each other and talk about all their experiences and talk about school like its a big family or community or something. Homeschool sucks, i was never bullied or abused but i pretty much almost never went near other human beings either lol. If i could grow up in school, then i would really appreciate being able to actually grow up as a part of the human race, as a part of a generation, etc. It might feel boring or mundane if you are really used to it, but trust me the pain of being left out of the human race is often unbearable. I appreciate your advice though.
@TheFather
Well its good that you have a lot of good memories of it at least. Yeah homeschool is horrible, obviously school can be rough but really homeschooling someone is just like putting them into a different type of hell. I'm 18 and i still sometimes switch between suicidal urges or crying or physically harming myself out of anger because i was homeschooled. I have to live with this curse for the rest of my life, even when i'm 80 it wont go away, there's no way to have another try at life, i missed out. 
@WillYouStopDave
Ugh bullies... a lot of people on this site seem to have been bullied unfortunately.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

sad1231234 said:


> @WillYouStopDave
> Ugh bullies... a lot of people on this site seem to have been bullied unfortunately.


 Yeah, well, as I've said before, I tend to kind of live in the moment when it comes to bad stuff that happens in my life. I hate it while it's happening but it usually doesn't tend to affect me as much as it does some people. Today could be the most miserable day ever for me and if things get better tomorrow I'll just see it as an unfortunate incident that's over now.

My SA was well established long before I had to deal with those kinds of bullies.

At any rate, like I said, yeah, SA people tend to be bully magnets. Not much that can be done about it. But certainly if you dwell on it for the rest of your life, the bullies win.


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

WillYouStopDave said:


> Yeah, well, as I've said before, I tend to kind of live in the moment when it comes to bad stuff that happens in my life. I hate it while it's happening but it usually doesn't tend to affect me as much as it does some people. Today could be the most miserable day ever for me and if things get better tomorrow I'll just see it as an unfortunate incident that's over now.
> 
> My SA was well established long before I had to deal with those kinds of bullies.
> 
> At any rate, like I said, yeah, SA people tend to be bully magnets. Not much that can be done about it. But certainly if you dwell on it for the rest of your life, the bullies win.


Yeah me too, i look at problems like waves of challenges. You take the good with the bad, because sometimes life is just too messed up to try to avoid problems.

Yeah, i dont really know what its like to be bullied but i guess you have to let go of it and leave it in the past somehow. And bullying builds a strongg character so it teaches you a bit i guess.


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## ShotInTheDark (Nov 4, 2017)

sad1231234 said:


> I've been thinking a lot about my past lately, about how i was homeschooled, and i've recently been wondering a lot about how you humans grew up. *What is elementary school like?* What is it like to grow up in a classroom, surrounded with other kids? Is there a lot of interaction? What's it like to grow up in schoolyards with lots of other young peers your age to interact with? Do you find that social anxiety hinders you from interacting with people much? How do you find that this impacts your perspective of life and of people? What are all the cool things i missed out on? Appreciate any replies.


Elementary school was nothing more than trash, no good memories from there... There is no cool things about it.


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

ShotInTheDark said:


> Elementary school was nothing more than trash, no good memories from there... There is no cool things about it.


Why do you think that? I think it is a pretty broad and wrong statement to make to say that elementary school had no benefits. You get to grow up as a part of a human race. I cant even imagine what that is like. All my life i have just been hidden away in a quiet litfle house with no hopes or excitement, and now i am so different to people that it hurts me so bad.

and i hope i dont get banned or anything for talking back to staff, but why was this thread moved to students? This is a very frustrating subject for me and to find that my thread is shut away in a tiny little corner is insulting. I need replies so i can get an idea of what life is like, no one is gonna reply if this thread is shut away somewhere. The Students section is for students, i never even got to be a student, thats the whole reason i made this thread.


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## ShotInTheDark (Nov 4, 2017)

sad1231234 said:


> ShotInTheDark said:
> 
> 
> > Elementary school was nothing more than trash, no good memories from there... There is no cool things about it.
> ...


I wish I didn't had that opportunity, because it is one of the biggest thing that leave me destroyed as a human... 
Being blamed for things you didn't do and no chance for standing for yourself, because no one will believe anyway. Having fake friends isn't benefit too. And there's more lots of things that I hated everyday.
Not being homeschooled doesn't mean that you actually will not be different to other people...


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## discoveryother (Sep 18, 2016)

*What is elementary school like?* 
****ty, confusing, uncaring and misguided teachers; it ruins your childhood

*What is it like to grow up in a classroom, surrounded with other kids?*
mostly just makes more opportunities to be made fun of, humiliated, confused, etc

*Is there a lot of interaction?* 
depends if the teacher and other kids like you... if not then no.

*What's it like to grow up in schoolyards with lots of other young peers your age to interact with?*
i just got excluded from most things, etc.

*Do you find that social anxiety hinders you from interacting with people much?*
yes

*How do you find that this impacts your perspective of life and of people?*
it makes me hate "people". i hate my home town, i generally think people there are child neglectors or sex offenders, or just generally morally bankrupt

*What are all the cool things i missed out on?*
mostly just being excluded, treated poorly...


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

ShotInTheDark said:


> I wish I didn't had that opportunity, because it is one of the biggest thing that leave me destroyed as a human...
> Being blamed for things you didn't do and no chance for standing for yourself, because no one will believe anyway. Having fake friends isn't benefit too. And there's more lots of things that I hated everyday.
> Not being homeschooled doesn't mean that you actually will not be different to other people...


Sorry to hear that. 


andy1984thesecond said:


> *What is elementary school like?*
> ****ty, confusing, uncaring and misguided teachers; it ruins your childhood
> 
> *What is it like to grow up in a classroom, surrounded with other kids?*
> ...


That sucks. But really, in all of your school years you didnt even experience one good thing? You never interacted with other kids? You never saw a female? You werent allowed to roam around a whole big school complex all by yourself? You werent around action? You werent in the same boat as the rest of humanity?


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## discoveryother (Sep 18, 2016)

sad1231234 said:


> Sorry to hear that.
> 
> That sucks. But really, in all of your school years you didnt even experience one good thing? You never interacted with other kids? You never saw a female? You werent allowed to roam around a whole big school complex all by yourself? You werent around action? You werent in the same boat as the rest of humanity?


all my school years? of course there were good things. on balance though, it was a pile of ****.

i had some mostly at-school-only friends at HS, we played magic the gathering. elementary school, i had a neighbour kid who was a kind of friend. we didn't discover ET and bike around on our ****ing bikes together like some kid super fun gang like you seem to be implying it must be like...

i saw females... i don't know what you mean by that. i mean i was a kid. i didn't date until after i left school. i was too ****ed up to think about girls.

roaming around was a big anxiety thing so no i didn't roam. my parents didn't take me out much, so i was afraid of getting lost until my late teens. i was too quiet for them (the teacher at primary school), so they made me walk around the school and introduce myself to every class. i can't remember how that went, but clearly it didn't achieve what they wanted it to achieve, probably made it worse.

i was around hostile actions, actions that confused me, and negligent actions.

i wasn't in the boat, i was drowning and nobody cared to do anything about it... it was more "oh andy, he's quiet, what a special boy, he's so unique" "oh he gets good grades and doesn't get into trouble so lets all just ignore his obvious problems". the same thing happened in tertiary education, one of my lecturers was being nice to me a few times and the other lecturers told him that's not how we do things in NZ (he was from south africa) so he stopped.

i guess that's my whole deal now... you'd expect people to form some kind of fellowship from those shared experiences. but i wasn't part of it, i was mistreated, neglected. i don't express myself to people in general because i don't trust them. i don't chat, i don't smile, sometimes i don't acknowledge them at all. i don't really have a social anxiety problem anymore, because anxiety is fine. i can sweat and shake and blush, i don't care. but no way am i going to trust any of those ****ers.


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

andy1984thesecond said:


> all my school years? of course there were good things. on balance though, it was a pile of ****.
> 
> i had some mostly at-school-only friends at HS, we played magic the gathering. elementary school, i had a neighbour kid who was a kind of friend. we didn't discover ET and bike around on our ****ing bikes together like some kid super fun gang like you seem to be implying it must be like...
> 
> ...


Its good that you didnt have it too bad.

What i mean is that you get to see females. When you are homeschooled you never really get to even go within sight of girls, surprise surprise lol.

Oh yikes, i feel you, i wasn't allowed outside alone till my late teens so i know what that is like. Not to mention i was too anxious to haha. **** life.

Sorry to hear. Hmm well on the bright side at least you could see the world. All my life i missed out and i'll never even be able to imagine what it is like to grow up like human beings do.

Wow the people at your school, including teachers, seem pretty awful. That sucks. By the way i "grew up" (hehe) in NZ too, christchurch to be precise, small world haha. By "grew up" i mean i feel like part of me is still waiting to be a god damn kid.

Yeah it sounds like you had a bad experience, i'm sorry to hear that. Well good people exist out there, people like you probably exist too. Yeah me too i dont have social anxiety anymore but my life ****ed me over. Anyway sorry if my reply seems kind of crappy or short, i'm just drunk and depressed lol. I dont like wondering if people think i'm not interested in them etc.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

sad1231234 said:


> And bullying builds a strongg character so it teaches you a bit i guess.


 External forces don't build anything. Everything comes from within.


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

WillYouStopDave said:


> External forces don't build anything. Everything comes from within.


well im sure it activates that internet drive to be stronger, much like steroids for muscles or something, often people who get bullied get strengthened and stuff so at least thats a benefit


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

sad1231234 said:


> well im sure it activates that internet drive to be stronger, much like steroids for muscles or something, often people who get bullied get strengthened and stuff so at least thats a benefit


 Depends on the person.


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

TheFather said:


> I read through all that and was very intrigued by how the situation existed 20 years prior to my own. I'm also very honored that you used my post as a template for your answers.


:blush



sad1231234 said:


> @*tehuti88*
> Well I read all of those 3 posts believe it or not haha. And they're actually quite interesting, it is like a whole world full of amazing experiences. It's good that you have a lot of nice experiences from that time and so many different varying things that happened. Thanks a lot for telling me what it's like  it makes me feel better to hear people's descriptions of elementary school, that way i can at least sort of live a childhood vicariously through other people's experiences lol. I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. Have you managed to overcome your SA yet after all these years? It is possible you know.


 Unfortunately no, over the years it's just gotten worse for me. :/


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

tehuti88 said:


> :blush
> 
> Unfortunately no, over the years it's just gotten worse for me. :/


you know you can cure social anxiety right? One step at a time. Start small, with something that is hard but possible. Then move in to something harder, and so on. Like start stepping outside your house or going on a walk till you adjust to it and feel comfortable, then try giving eye contact to people, then try joining a social group or something. You need to be willing to face anxiety with a mindset of wanting to improve though, just facing social anxiety without the right mindset wont really help.


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

sad1231234 said:


> you know you can cure social anxiety right? One step at a time. Start small, with something that is hard but possible. Then move in to something harder, and so on. Like start stepping outside your house or going on a walk till you adjust to it and feel comfortable, then try giving eye contact to people, then try joining a social group or something. You need to be willing to face anxiety with a mindset of wanting to improve though, just facing social anxiety without the right mindset wont really help.


I can get out of the house and be out in public just fine, it's interacting with people that's terrifying, especially if it's more than a few words of smalltalk. I've had...a _LOT_ of bad experiences with people...IRL and online...so my anxiety is something I learned to feel, and the bad experiences are ongoing to this day. I haven't had nearly enough positive experiences to counter the negative ones.

Eye contact, I've never liked, I think I'm on the spectrum because I can't quite explain how invasive it feels. This (autism) probably complicates social interactions in that I haven't much motivation to get to know people if we don't share common interests, and I've never met anyone like that.

I had an offer to go to a group meeting years ago but the woman who'd promised to take me there (so we could get to know each other better and maybe become friends) stood me up and then said she didn't want to be my friend. I'd met her exactly once, for maybe 10-15 minutes, and she decided she didn't like me, but couldn't tell me to my face. -_-

Aside from that, there aren't any social groups/meetups or anything like that in my area, and I'm unable to travel or drive even if I had one to go to. :stu


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

tehuti88 said:


> I can get out of the house and be out in public just fine, it's interacting with people that's terrifying, especially if it's more than a few words of smalltalk. I've had...a _LOT_ of bad experiences with people...IRL and online...so my anxiety is something I learned to feel, and the bad experiences are ongoing to this day. I haven't had nearly enough positive experiences to counter the negative ones.
> 
> Eye contact, I've never liked, I think I'm on the spectrum because I can't quite explain how invasive it feels. This (autism) probably complicates social interactions in that I haven't much motivation to get to know people if we don't share common interests, and I've never met anyone like that.
> 
> ...


Yeah but you can learn to interact with people  you just need to practice. Force yourself to socialize, it is the only way. I've seen your threads and unless you want to spend the rest of your life living this way then i would say definately try all that you can to cure social anxiety no matter what. You just need to endure the bad experiences with the good, who cares about anxiety, a life is infinitely more times important. I read someone's post here where he said that he still is just as anxious as he was his whole life but he doesnt let it affect him, he said he can blush and sweat and feel scared and anxious all he wants but he's alright with that, it doesnt stop him. I like that perspective, that's how i face my anxiety pretty much. I'm still scared and anxious and i'm so awkward and shy and weird, but who cares?  your anxiety can try all it can to scare you and bully you but at the end of the day it is just a fearm a feeling of discomfort. And that fear is pretty much the only thing standing between you and a good life. And social skills dont matter, you dont need to fit into people's stupid little moulds, as long as you can interact it is fine. And you can meet people like you, i have met people like me here, people that i click with, people that i get along with so perfectly even though i dont even know how to conversate normally.

Well you just need to face whatever stands in the way of a good life. Dont let your life slip away, fight for it  and i feel like eye contact is really invasive too, i have HOCD so when a guy gives me eye contact it is so horribly disgusting and invasive and i cant stand it but unfortunately unless i want to be still stuck in a house by the end of the 21st century then i need to face it. You can too, i'm sure you can! And people with common interests to you must exist, surely. Believe me i am so different to people, imagine i am so different to people that i dislike/hate almost everyone here for different reasons primarily including jealousy/inferiority/not being able to relate. But i have met people similar to me on this site. Theres always people like you, you just have to find them and never ever five up on life until you do 

Well that woman obviously sounds like a stupid ***** and she isnt a reason to not try to change your life. She's just one idiot in this world full of idiots, but there are also people who are good. People who wouldnt just invite you but would make the effort to befriend you and to make you feel invited/comfortable/wanted.

Maybe try meeting people somehow, even just in like a mall or park or something. Maybe some people regularly walk in your area or walk their dog in your area and you could talk to them, i dont know. Maybe there are some nearby shops where you can meet people who work at the counter or something. Have you tried meetup.com? Or get a job, it is one of the best ways to meet people and then you can have money to travel or to hang out with people etc. And that way you can start moving your life forward. Try anything, and never give up on trying to improve your life and change your life!


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## tehuti88 (Jun 19, 2005)

sad1231234 said:


> snip


I'm unable to work...or travel...don't know how to drive and can't afford a car/insurance anyway. I live in the country, outside a city of around 5000 (fast-food places are about all we have), and we don't have things like malls or meetups around here. (No nearby large cities or public transport, either. Nearest metropolitan area is about 4-6hrs away.)

I tried therapy and meds, too. They ran out of funding to continue treating a "hopeless" case like me.

My anxiety is more than a feeling of discomfort (I don't just blush when interacting with people, I freeze and cry and shut down)...and I've been dealing with it (and other disorders, mental and physical) for a very long time now (over twenty years). I feel like our experiences are rather different so you might not understand exactly where I'm coming from, similar to how you mention in your other thread that others don't understand where you're coming from since you were homeschooled. I suspect that when I try to explain exactly how anxiety is for me, people think I'm exaggerating or making excuses and it tends to irritate them, so I think I should end this convo before that happens, if it hasn't already. :/

Thank you anyway.


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## Ms kim (May 15, 2017)

You seem to think that people who were not homeschooled had life easier than you?

How would you've liked to be bullied?

Your parents didn't make all the right decisions. But the ball is in your court now. What do you plan on doing?


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## discoveryother (Sep 18, 2016)

sad1231234 said:


> Its good that you didnt have it too bad.
> 
> What i mean is that you get to see females. When you are homeschooled you never really get to even go within sight of girls, surprise surprise lol.
> 
> ...


i've been in christchurch for almost 4 months. i like it here. i've been going to MHAPS peer support meetings, as well as an anxiety and depression meetup group. there is a lot of support available here, some very nice people.


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## sad1231234 (Jul 10, 2016)

tehuti88 said:


> I'm unable to work...or travel...don't know how to drive and can't afford a car/insurance anyway. I live in the country, outside a city of around 5000 (fast-food places are about all we have), and we don't have things like malls or meetups around here. (No nearby large cities or public transport, either. Nearest metropolitan area is about 4-6hrs away.)
> 
> I tried therapy and meds, too. They ran out of funding to continue treating a "hopeless" case like me.
> 
> ...


Have you tried any forum of welfare? Or any form of work/study/business? Income is necessary to really live life the way you want it to. You can learn to drive. Do you live with someone? Maybe they can teach you. Yeah it definately sounds like you might want to consider moving places, somehow. But dont just give up, try something!  maybe you should try to drive somehow, maybe get someone you know to teach you. And then you can try to get a job. Once you have a job, you can start looking for places to live on your own once you saved up enough money. Like move to New York City or California or something, anything, just dont let your life slip away. You still might have half a century of life ahead of you, which is tens of thousands of days, do you really want to give up on life like that?

You can cure social anxiety without therapy or meds. I mean i used therapy to help cure it but really therapy isnt a magic wand or anything it just gives you guidance and information on how to cure social anxiety. And a little social exposure. But trust me if you are really desperate enough then you can cure your social anxiety.

I'm sorry to hear that your anxiety is so severe. My anxiety wasnt that bad but i would freeze and stutter. But you can overcome it, i'm sure you can, your anxiety might be very severe but you can cure it. Take small steps, one step at a time, from easier to harder. Learn to not care about people's opinions. Seriously, embarassment, awkwardness, anxiety, cringe, weirdness, just forget about them all. Be yourself, embrace yourself for who you are and be proud in yourself. Try thinking of things to say, or even just say whatever you feel like even if that means not talking much in a conversation. What matters is that you are comfortable in social situations. Many people will probably get bored of talking to you or think that you dont want to talk but thats fine, what matters is that you are comfortable in social situations and that you can be as friendly as you can try to be.

And with time you'll eventually develop better social skills or even maybe meet some people who arent into all that social skills bull****, real human beings who just want to talk to other human beings regardless of anxiety/communication skills. I dont think you are exaggerrating at all, i think you havw a very serious level of anxiety and i think that you should do whatever it takes to cure that anxiety. Trust me i had severe anxiety all my life, not as severe as yours but when i was 7 i would cry whenever other kids who were strangers would talk to me, when i was like almost 17 i was scared of even stepping outside my house.

Then when i was almost 18 i was still afraid of public transport and i hated giving people eye contact i had no idea how. But i decided, screw it, i'm just going to be me and live my life. Easier said than done of course but with time and practice with socializing, deciding to let go of your anxiety really helps, trust me. Just be you, who cares about anxiety, who cares about other people's opinions. Ignore anxious thoughts, realize that people arent observing you near as much as you think and who cares if they are. You can cure social anxiety, you just have to take one step at a time and focus on facing your fears no matter how hard it is. And face them with a more confident, positive, carefree mindset. It helps. Good luck 



Ms kim said:


> You seem to think that people who were not homeschooled had life easier than you?
> 
> How would you've liked to be bullied?
> 
> Your parents didn't make all the right decisions. But the ball is in your court now. What do you plan on doing?


No i didnt say that anyone's life was easier than mine, i said that i felt like many people's lives here seem a lot better than mine. And i wasnt exactly referring to people who were bullied, i dont know what its like to be in their shoes.

No point in telling anyone here about my life. 


andy1984thesecond said:


> i've been in christchurch for almost 4 months. i like it here. i've been going to MHAPS peer support meetings, as well as an anxiety and depression meetup group. there is a lot of support available here, some very nice people.


It's a nice city, beautiful, quiet, etc. Jusy very small and not much to do, but if you like quiet places then it is a good place to live. And they've rebuilt it fairly quickly after the earthquakes. That's great!


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## cinto (Jun 19, 2017)

When you're poor, elementary, middle, and high school can be difficult. You can just feel it most days. You feel degraded even of you're just a kid. I didn't really feel a part of anything.
That's not to say it doesn't have its okay moments, and you can learn a variety of things, but it feels like you're being confined. With kids who weren't taught to be nice or well mannered from their parents. Sometimes the teachers can really do a number on you Lol. This second grade teacher made me throw out small bottles of perfume that I had recieved as a Christmas gift all because she was allergic to perfume and I had put it on in the class. 
I can still recall the feelings of being singled out certain occasions. I think in general, students don't want to be students, and some teachers don't want to be teachers, so at times it was like a ticking time bomb.


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## Ms kim (May 15, 2017)

You have taken the first step in getting over your social anxiety (to some extent), and that's good. But I think you dwell a lot on past issues and that is why you're sad. If you're sad all the time then you will also feel physically weak. And if you're weak and sad, what progress can you make?


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