What labels were you given in school by your peers?

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Nerd
Geek
Spastic
Weirdo
Perv
Toff
Gay
ret*d
Loner
Freak
Ginger(I'm not anymore)

The usual for a person who keeps to themselves, I suppose. Not that it had any permanent impact on me. I just resent that sort of crap.

I was usually known as "freak", "lesbian", "pokemaniac" and occassionally "the human clock" (In maths once, we had to count a minute in our heads and then see how accurate we were, and I kept counting it exactly. I just didn't mention that I was counting along to the ticking of the clock in the room... ). In college I was known as "the prog rocker" (particularly by my tutor, who was a punk rock fan), "Sega fan" (my class used to have "feuds" over whether Sega or Nintendo was better ) and "the voice of reason".

Last edited by tantopat on 23 Aug 2007, 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

ugly
buck tooth beaver (Not anymore)
Metal mouth (Not anymore)
wierd
smart girl (They meant it in a mean way)

But those are now painful memories in the past for me. But I look upon them and laugh, knowing they're over now and now I have some friends.

Weird, crybaby, walking dictionary, too serious (when it came to studies), crazy cat girl

I don't remember any particularly bad ones, but generally I just got called things like weird, nerd, robot, humourless (just because I don't find the same things funny as the majority of the school), Dutch boy (due to my surname and odd accent), know-it-all, etc. Towards the end when I began missing quite a bit of school due to illness, some of the kids became convinced I was a secret agent .

Fortunately I was generally liked (I had few close friends, but I didn't have many enemies, either), so I didn't get picked on very often.

Listen without prejudice.

I got called the French equivalent of "dirty fa***t" for my entire miserable childhood and early adolescence (well, not that miserable, I had a super rich and fantastic inner life, full of wild imaginings and fun creatures, which seemed more real to me than the "real" life, filled with ugly people who inexplicably and illogically seemed to take great pleasure in hurting me on a regular basis).
Then, things changed dramatically: I won the diving championships for my school, and then went on to win regionals and finally I competed on a national level.
I LOVED diving, there was something so reassuring and strangely friendly about the vast emptiness and great silence of a pool hall at 5:30 in the morning.
It was just me, almost naked, way, way up on top, on a narrow sliver, in front of a great echoing space, and the calm, welcoming water below me. It was like being on my own little planet...
I also won the regional Math competitions and I was the only one in my school in 9 years who got 100% on my Math and Quantum Physics "Terminale" exams.
I was interviewed and photographed for some local newspapers.

After that, they shut up and left me alone.

And suddenly, as if by magic, I started getting invited to all kinds of stuff, but by then, I had retreated so far inside my own complex yet comforting inner world, that I had great trouble socializing.

After all these formative years of taunting and ridicule, I had become a social cripple.

I felt foolish and clumsy attempting conversation, so, at gatherings and parties, I just stood there with a blank look on my face, staring in the distance over people, playing games in my head to pass the time, trying desperately not to look anxious or nervous, and avoiding any discombobulating eye contact. Still, I was happy to be finally accepted by the people I lived with for a big part of my life.
I had grown up to be handsome and well built, and quite stylish, so I went from being called a "dirty fa***t" to a "poser", "Mr. Stand and Model", "He thinks he's too good to talk to us".

And maybe I was too good to talk to the very same people who used to mock me and shove me around, but I certainly didn't think so at the time. I hated myself.

It takes a long time and lots of work on yourself to get over stuff like that...

That's great. Everybody just assumed I was pretending to be ill. Which was frequently the case.

I also pretended to be sick for sometimes days on end. I loved staying home in my room, imagining stories and living inside myself.

The principal called my mom and asked "what kind of illness does your son have that he misses every Monday?" she said "The Monday blues"

Heh, I came down with bouts of that one quite often. My mom was really nice, to let me stay home when I felt I just couldn't cope.

I'm still baffled that nobody ever caught on to what was really wrong with me. I loved to learn and I loved my friends, but I'd get those days when the very thought of immersing myself in that sea of people was too much to handle. I was unsuccessful at articulating why, at the time. Most of the faculty brushed it off as deliberate disobedience.

I'll never forget Fr. B., my eleventh grade English teacher. He trusted that there was a good reason for my inconsistent performance. He was a good man.

Michel, your story really strikes me. It's so sad, how people will be quick to judge someone who inspires jealousy. You've managed to be a beautiful soul in spite of that treatment. I suspect that in your place many of us would have grown haughty or bitter.

The principal called my mom and asked "what kind of illness does your son have that he misses every Monday?" she said "The Monday blues" [/quote][quote]

That's hilarious!

Great mom story. She set them straight.

Thanks. You know, the worst is that when you're little, you don't have the protective mechanisms that grown ups have, so you take everything innocently, at face value. You're like a sponge, absorbing all the jeers and internalizing them until they transform into deep rooted self hatred. For years, I absolutely hated myself, I thought there was something so fundamentally wrong and awful about me that made me deserve all that name calling and all the constant shoving into lockers. And I tried so hard, in my little boy way, so hard in every way I could possibly think of, to be helpful to others and to try and be liked. I did other people's homework, I fixed their stuff, I gave them my desserts, nothing worked. So I gave up and invented my own world where I was safe and liked. I loved that world. It was magic.

And how incomprehensibly fickle are people that they can go from jeers to cheers almost overnight.

I still had the same heart as before I won all those trophies and contests, why wasn't I loved for that?

Oh yeah, once some of my enemies in grade 9 or 10 wrote "slut" on the back of my shirt... in grade 7 or 8 I was called a b***h... in grade 9 a "f*****g idiot"... I was called a ret*d in grade 9... I was asked in grade 9 why I acted so dumb when I was supposed to be so smart... in grade 4 or 5 or 6 a boy threw a book called "The Loner" at me and said that it was for me, that I was a loner... a friend in elementary school said no offence, but that I was a real bookworm... I was called slut also once in grade 7... I was called smart in grade 9 or 10, ironically by enemies, who also said that I was supposed to be smart... I was asked once in grade 9 why I was so wierd... I was called stupid in grade 9 once... in grade 12 a guy from my school rode by me on his bicycle as I was walking down the street and shouted "Freak!" at me... I was called "garbage girl" in day camp when I was 9 after someone threw something I had made onto the top of the pile of trash in the trash can and I picked it out... people said in grade 9 that I had no friends... I'm sure there are more.

Labels? I was called weak - in the physical sense.
No one can say that about me now. Ok I'm not exactly that strong but I ain't weak lol.
I was also called thick, which is very ironic because I know I'm much more intelligent than those who called me that - some people these days, even when I'm shy and a bit vulnerable, will say that I'm an intelligent guy who says stuff that they perhaps don't understand. But there are many forms of intelligence - those nice dudes now in College who said that are perhaps more intelligent than me in other areas. Ah yes, they're possibly the best 2 guitarists on my course. Reece and Kris.
I'm good lol *joking arrogance... but I am good lol* but them 2 are possibly the best.

These days, I get labelled yes... but I can tell it's not them bullying it's more of a joke thing... not nasty labels but things my friends call me as a term of endearment and some just people around but they just call me things because I'm known in College for stuff lol.

One of my mates often says "Sam you crazy bas****" lol and other times says when introducing someone to me "This is Sam, aka the crazy kid" lol
Others call me pervert lol but thems are weird people - so therefore people I may get along with... I just take it with the act... perhaps it freaks some people out - I ain't really a pervert lol... it's a label for some reason... lol.

Some people still don't think I stick up for myself enough but I can say that's only when I'm in slightly worse form. Ok it's part of my nature is it not? There's only so much you can do... I'm not 'Ghengis Kahn' or 'Julius Ceasar' for crying out loud. I'm 'Sam the pretty good guitarist and beginner Tae Kwon Do-ist' lmao But I do stick up for myself... some just say 'not enough'. We probably have different perceptions of what's enough and what's not.

Last edited by samtoo on 23 Aug 2007, 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh, and I was once asked "Are you mentally challenged?" by an enemy in grade 9, and "Are you sick?" by another enemy, and that same enemy told someone in front of me that I was a bit slow... I don't think she really believed it though! None of them really believed it.