The Eight Punch Rule
Nov. 7th, 2007 01:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whiteadelphiWhen I was a child, I was susceptible to bullying. Well. I was very intelligent and a little younger than everyone, and still let my grandmother dress me, and didn't have the social grace to know that a) becoming the favourite of a teacher was automatically a stigma, whether you intended it or not, and b) keeping your head down and ignoring people because they said mean things was not, despite every parent's advice, the best way to get them to stop. It encourages them. Because they'll keep going until they get a response.
No. Didn't work that way. It's the same reason you never react to someone approaching you on the street by bowing your head and scurrying off as if you hadn't heard them. Children are little bastards. Those guys on the street are malicious little fucks that never grew up.
Anyway, I tried to ignore them, and as such was bullied all the way up until late Year 9, when most of us were 13ish and just getting to that stage of knowing what malice could do to someone's self-esteem. And as home life was anything but happy, you might say I was a quiet and withdrawn child.
Year 9 Science class. When our teacher took us down to the oval for a science experiment (something about mixing chemical A with chemical B, I don't know) and then told the class to head back for the science room and he'd catch up. I immediately turned and did as I was told, and was in front of everyone. And there were pine cones littering the ground, and some little shit decided it would be fun to pick one up and pitch it at my head. Others thought it was funny and joined in. And within a few moments, I had a whole class of people ditching things at me and calling insults and laughing, because I never once looked back at them. Even when the damn things cracked into the back of my head, I just kept walking. They weren't worth my time, right?
So I soaked it all. I'm very good at soaking things. Didn't really listen (except I did) and didn't look around (except it hurt - a lot - on many levels) and thought, it will stop when we get back to the classroom. And I didn't say a word, and I didn't react.
And when we returned, the teacher wandered through, blithely ignorant (I hope) of the class mood, and told us to take our seats and he'd be back in a few minutes, and vanished.
So the mockery continued, although they'd run out of pinecones. I went back to my seat and stared at my bag, and considered just picking it up and leaving, because the teacher had just walked out and wouldn't be back for a while. And there were people dancing around me, slinging insults and shoving at my back, because they were so entertained that I was ignoring them, and finally (ignore, I'm ignoring them) some boy jumped up onto the science bench and yelled "Try this!" and kicked me in the head.
Tried to, anyway.
I caught his foot. And yanked him down off the bench hard enough that he crashed into the floor. There was a lot of uproar on that one; the sort of sound a crowd makes when, you know, a cheerleader has just flung her top off and run across the oval on live television ... I didn't give him time to recover. Pulled him back off the ground by his shirt - enough force that I ripped it from collar to stomach - and punched him in the head. Eight times, in absolute calm, clinical precision, counting it off like a drum beat.
Then I dropped him on the ground, picked up my bag and walked out while the room was still screaming. Just padded out like I was heading home. I don't think I made a sound.
Well ...until two minutes later when I was sobbing so hard as I rounded a hallway the school nurse flung open her door with great alarm and dragged me inside, but those kids didn't have to know that.
Nobody at school ever touched me again. Verbal harassment and ostracism, yes. But that stopped a year later when I learned how to stare at people until they shut up and went away. Come to think of it, all my best survival and street tactics were learnt at school.
There is a reason I'm posting this. I think it comes under the heading absolute limit (or maybe, in a geeky way, limit break. Boom!). And the certain, calm knowledge that I don't have to sit there and take some things.
I know what I'm responsible for. And I know when I assume too much blame. I've done much thinking.
I guess what it comes down to is: there's only so much I am willing to ignore.
You can take from that what you will.
No. Didn't work that way. It's the same reason you never react to someone approaching you on the street by bowing your head and scurrying off as if you hadn't heard them. Children are little bastards. Those guys on the street are malicious little fucks that never grew up.
Anyway, I tried to ignore them, and as such was bullied all the way up until late Year 9, when most of us were 13ish and just getting to that stage of knowing what malice could do to someone's self-esteem. And as home life was anything but happy, you might say I was a quiet and withdrawn child.
Year 9 Science class. When our teacher took us down to the oval for a science experiment (something about mixing chemical A with chemical B, I don't know) and then told the class to head back for the science room and he'd catch up. I immediately turned and did as I was told, and was in front of everyone. And there were pine cones littering the ground, and some little shit decided it would be fun to pick one up and pitch it at my head. Others thought it was funny and joined in. And within a few moments, I had a whole class of people ditching things at me and calling insults and laughing, because I never once looked back at them. Even when the damn things cracked into the back of my head, I just kept walking. They weren't worth my time, right?
So I soaked it all. I'm very good at soaking things. Didn't really listen (except I did) and didn't look around (except it hurt - a lot - on many levels) and thought, it will stop when we get back to the classroom. And I didn't say a word, and I didn't react.
And when we returned, the teacher wandered through, blithely ignorant (I hope) of the class mood, and told us to take our seats and he'd be back in a few minutes, and vanished.
So the mockery continued, although they'd run out of pinecones. I went back to my seat and stared at my bag, and considered just picking it up and leaving, because the teacher had just walked out and wouldn't be back for a while. And there were people dancing around me, slinging insults and shoving at my back, because they were so entertained that I was ignoring them, and finally (ignore, I'm ignoring them) some boy jumped up onto the science bench and yelled "Try this!" and kicked me in the head.
Tried to, anyway.
I caught his foot. And yanked him down off the bench hard enough that he crashed into the floor. There was a lot of uproar on that one; the sort of sound a crowd makes when, you know, a cheerleader has just flung her top off and run across the oval on live television ... I didn't give him time to recover. Pulled him back off the ground by his shirt - enough force that I ripped it from collar to stomach - and punched him in the head. Eight times, in absolute calm, clinical precision, counting it off like a drum beat.
Then I dropped him on the ground, picked up my bag and walked out while the room was still screaming. Just padded out like I was heading home. I don't think I made a sound.
Well ...until two minutes later when I was sobbing so hard as I rounded a hallway the school nurse flung open her door with great alarm and dragged me inside, but those kids didn't have to know that.
Nobody at school ever touched me again. Verbal harassment and ostracism, yes. But that stopped a year later when I learned how to stare at people until they shut up and went away. Come to think of it, all my best survival and street tactics were learnt at school.
There is a reason I'm posting this. I think it comes under the heading absolute limit (or maybe, in a geeky way, limit break. Boom!). And the certain, calm knowledge that I don't have to sit there and take some things.
I know what I'm responsible for. And I know when I assume too much blame. I've done much thinking.
I guess what it comes down to is: there's only so much I am willing to ignore.
You can take from that what you will.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-07 02:56 am (UTC)[some of my early schools were quite violent. you couldn't ignore the gangs.]