Blame the victim...usually me.

Post Reply New Topic

Throughout my life, Ive noticed something. I started to figure it out about the 7th grade (halfway through Middle School), and it was fairly simple.
I got blamed for everything.

The first incident I can remember where this occured was on the bus back in 1st grade, I think.
For about a week, this kid had been sitting behind me and kicking my seat continually. After a week of asking him to 'please stop', and three days of asking for help from various teachers, bus drivers, etc, I decided to stand up for myself.
Of course, I was helped along by the teachers, who told me to 'resolve my own problems', usually 'through talking'. Talking hadnt worked, and if I said this, I was told that I wasnt trying hard enough.
So, one day, I calmly turned around and punched the kid in the face.
Ten seconds later I was hauled off the bus and literally thrown into the principals office, where the kid and a friend of his sat.
I then learned that I had 'called him names', and 'been mean to him in class'. I, of course, had no way to prove that I hadnt done this, as none of my friends were present in the principals office, and I was not givin a chance to prove my case anyway.
Ah, Jackson Elementary School, taking the 'pal' out of Principal.

I wont even go into the number of times I was told off for 'tattling' for things I was often sent to the principals office for.
The only other incident worth mentioning was the kid I tackled for repeatedly tattling on me and getting me in trouble. I ended up with in school suspension for it, but it was worth it. I even got to thumb my nose at the principal when my mother informed him that I would not be spending the night at the school, even if I was grounded for two weeks.

I cant remember the exact grade, I think it was third, but in any event, it is possibly my most vivid childhood memory. I was outside, and this kid I knew fairly well threw a snowball at me. Not knowing that he was attemping to be an as*hole, I playfully threw a snowball back at him.
He promptly rushed me and kicked me square in the balls with cowboy boots. Yeah. Ow.
While our teacher helped me hobble to the school nurse, she told me to stop crying and that 'it doesnt hurt that much'. My mother works with dogs, so I knew a few terms most kids at that age dont, and I was sorely tempted to use certain ones on her. The kid in this case was transfered to another class.

The ONLY case where, in my opinion, justice was successfully applied was in the case of a true homocidal maniac named Andrew. He was the kid you remember as five feet tall and shaving, the sort who brought razor blades to school to show off.
He threatened to kill me and several of my friends, in graphic detail.
This being the early 90's, he wasnt suspended or expelled, but merely made to wait ten minutes after school let out before being allowed to go home. Not that I ever met him on the way out of school in any case.
There is also reason to beleive that he tourtured one of the class gerbils in his home over summer back when the teachers hadnt figured out that he was a total psycho. When it came back it would bite anybody that put their hands in its cage and spent the rest of its life in the little plastic house we bought for it. The missing ear and toes were explained away in some fashion I dont clearly remember.

The next incident I clearly remember was in Middle School. A kid was throwing rocks into a puddle in order to splash me, being in a good mood, I responded. I took a rock and threw it sidewise into the water, creating a veritable tsunami.
Of course, it then hit me that this kid was the leader of one of the worst groups of kids in the school.
I took off. Many people think that fat kids cant run, but I can keep up with most of the schools athletes for a while. To quote LoTR: "We dwarves are natural sprinters"
Anyway, my bus wasnt at the pickup bay. My good luck that on the one day I needed the bus, it wasnt there. I decided that any bus was better than a beating, so I made for the stairs. Just at that time, one of the gang grabbed me and hauled me off the bus. I had time to squeak out 'Help', but the bus driver either didnt hear me, or ignored me (I think the later, because a moment later I was thrown agains the side of the bus).
After a few seconds of staring, one of the kids says "Just do it here", after which I was kneecapped.
So, I promptly fell to the ground crying with an injruy that, to this day, still causes me problems. The gang split up and took off.
A moment later the VP (one of the worst administrators I know of) comes rolling out of the door, performs a cursory inspection of my knee and hauls me into the nurses office, where he, for whatever reason, takes a report.
A few days later I find myself in the councilors office.
Note, not the VP's office.
Here I found out that the reason this whole event took place was that I 'hit Dustin's ingrown toe with the rock', thus enraging him.
So, because the VP was one of those who sucks up to the 'cool' kids, the kid who nearly broke my knee was givin a warning and (possibly, I wasnt informed on the matter) a one day suspension. I was warned against throwing rocks. I, naturally, remember the rock hitting the middle of the puddle, presumably the location of this four foot long ingrown toe.

After that, I was hauled into the councilors office again. This time I was confronted with two kids. One of these kids was relativly innocent, if stupid. The other was the worst kind of bully, in my opinion. You may well know of the weak, smart kid who likes to inflict pain on anybody weaker and stupider than he is, while at the same time conviencing them that they are his only friend.
Yeah, thats the kid. This one was named Kumar and was possibly the most annoying person I have ever known. On my list of hate he ranks far above Dustin, who later apologized to me and reformed himself significantly.
Kumar had his own little gang, who once tried to beat me up. Problem was they were all to weak and stupid to inflict serious harm on anything except a terminally ill rabbit. They gave up after five minutes of punching to no effect.
On this particular occasion, I learned that I had recently been forcing this kid to punch somebody when I said a certain word. I cant remember the word now, but it seemed terribly clever a the time. Of course, I had been doing this. Six months ago. I had apologized to the kid at that time, realizing that the joke was old and that inflicting harm on stupid people was pointless.
Now, I am confronted with the same situation as I was in the 1st grade.
Naturally I got the blame, I had to apologize and write an essay on why I shouldnt bully people. Fourtunatly the school shrink was as dense as weapons grade plutonium, and didnt catch the blinding sarcasm in said essay.

The most recent I can recall was in High School and was relativly minor. Somebody stole someones Magic the Gathering cards, and the VP decided to make it my responsibility to find them. Naturally, selecting the least popular person in a group to make somebody fess up is a brilliant strategy.
Being the selfish bastard that I am, I threatened to reveal the location of their marajuana smoking grounds unless the cards were produced. This won me about half a year of anger, but it was better than the alternative.

This string of incidents has bred an instinctive lack of trust in authority figures in me. Im very good at pretending to respect them and their ability to enforce the rules, but under the 'game face' Im usually laughing at them.
It seems like people are so keen to punish somebody with minimal effort that they take it out on the victim, who is usually closer and hand and will put up less of a fight.
If I were giving a chance, I would gladly line up every educational administrator I have ever known, along with several recess aides and lunchroom monitors, and kick them in the knee. I might get tired, but I think the sight of those still standing would energize me.

So, thanks for taking the time to read my little essay dealy, Im sure others have similar experiences they would like to share, and I will be sure to read them. I always feel better myself after putting these things into words.

I am moderatly sure that most of these events are related to my aspie-ness, I continue to think that if I was better able to read people, and to react to their emotions, I would be able to appeal more to those in charge in these matters. As it is, College is far better than High School

Last edited by DGNT on 19 Sep 2006, 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It was a long post but well-written and funny, lol. Thanks for sharing. Being female my schoolyears were more quiet bullying.

I did however have a similar snowball-incident.

At this time I was in my thirties. One kid were I lived, with really bad manners, threw a snowball at me. I also thought it was for fun so I, like you, threw one right back. I don't know if it was the fact that I hit him, but he got furious and ran towards me throwing snowballs all over the place.

I thought this was curoius, I am a grown woman he is an eleven year old kid, why is he attacking me? When I was eleven I would never attack an adult.

A couple of weeks later I saw him and a friend in the distance, and you now, the idiot start throwing small rocks at me! I decided if I wanted this to end I had to take action, and started walking towards him who continued to throw rocks at me. Luckily he got scared and ran, calling me names. I never had trouble with him again.

Huh, wow...shows what great parenting skills people have.
Back when I was a kid, adults were sort of Godlike figures, able to curb the authority of the Evil School People, and only to be called upon in the most extreme circumstances.
And now kids throw rocks at them?
O_O

The kid came from a family with 6 children. And a low income. And no father. A mother and grandmother.

It was a ghetto area, many parents who where absent. You would see children being out till midnight or one o'clock down to the age of 5.

Most adults who work with children mainly just don't want to be bothered. It doesn't matter what the kids are doing, so long as they can turn a blind eye to it and pretend it isn't their problem.

One wonders what your average teacher would do in the following scenario...

She's out shopping somewhere one day, and gets hit over the head and her purse stolen. She tells the police what happened, and they yawn, look totally uninterested, and say, "We didn't see it happen." Upon insisting that it did happen, she'd be told to "take care of the problem by talking to the guy."

Yes, can you imagine how angry and let down by she'd feel? Why does she imagine that children feel any differently, when constantly set upon by child-sized criminals, who beat them up, steal their things, and so on?

And why does she imagine that children deserve any less protection than she does, herself?

And remember... we're the ones who supposedly lack empathy. Irony....

Excellent idea. Ill try to find out where my elementary school principal lives

I wasn't advocating it, just throwing it out as a probable course of events if something like that did happen and the police responded in the way adults usually respond to children's troubles. lol.

And the police wouldn't tell the principal the stuff in the example, anyway. They know they'd probably get sued or otherwise have a gigantic stink raised over it.

It's sad, but in this country, the day you can sue seems to be the day you actually get human rights. People are still as self-serving and self-absorbed as ever, but now you can cause them so much hassle that they fear stepping over the line on you.

Aye, I know it would be a bad idea. He was in Greenpeace or PETA or something, I would be swarmed by hippies if I attacked him

Still, he tried to blame me for vandalizing the bathroom on the last day of school, my teacher noted that I was in the time out corner when the event supposedly occured. Im glad we moved during summer that year...only we went to the town where I went to Middle School, which was sort of like a very localized Hell for me.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone into education. A teacher who actually prefers the outcasts... it would be a refreshing change, no?

WOW....hope you are pursuing writing....I look forward to reading your novels(not sarcasm)I wasnt bullied in school....I think I am invisible?But my mom and brother tried to make up for that as best they could,so I do know what it feels like to be on the wrong side of a stick,foot,elbow.Anyway,you learned some important lessons in school(an isnt that what school is for).

1)most of the people in charge are morons.
2)might equals right(Bush is good ex. of this.)
3)Never underestimate the stupidity and cruelty of humans

At my high school, there was a vp who everybody loved, and he stuck up for the outcasts. He even had computer programming books in his office and several framed mathematics diplomas. But as a Colonel in the army, he was called to Iraq, and he was replaced with a disabled football coach (he was in a car accident) who was just too deranged to determine whose side he was on.

LOL. That's way cool man. So many people smoked pot at my school that I know how much that meant to them and I know how much you could use that as a bartering tool...

Whenever there is something wrong and someone accuses me of something I cant help feeling a bit guilty, this makes me look guilty, which makes the accuser think I'm guilty and then I get blamed for whatever it was despite me having nothing to do with it.

I have the same experience...annoying isnt it?

Ah yes, the joys of being the scape goat of society.

Been there, done that. Whether at school or work, I've learned to just take the blame for things that happen and be a good little yes boy. Even if I had nothing to do with whatever, it won't matter since the blame always makes it way back to me and people in power have never shown even the slightest interest in hearing my side of the story.

When my kids were small, I used to tell them, "The world doesn't run on excuses." I quit saying that when I realized the world does run on excuses. Anytime something goes wrong, the blame goes to the person with the least skill in making excuses. The benefit of the doubt is rarely given to people they dislike.

I'm looking for an upside to this. Can't find one.

In what seems to be the unlikely event I'll ever have kids, I'm thinking I'm going to tell them not to get too upset if they are the victim, and get blamed.

It's almost tempting to tell them that they should show a complete disrespect for authority in those situations. But then usually bad things happen(tm).


I know if I got called in to the principals office for something, I'd probably laugh at the accusations, and tell the guy to stop wasting my time with the ridiculous lies.

Well, they'd be ridiculous if I was a good parent at least. Which also might be pretty unlikely.



I was in a few situations like this myself. Mind you I also was something of a trouble maker too. Fortunatly, there wheren't too many situations in which authority types over reacted, and push me along further.

I don't know what it is about negative reinforcement/punishment that people are so in love with. It get's terrible results, but there are a lot of people that absolutely refuse to recognize this. Then again, it's damaged people damaging others. So I wouldn't go so far as to say it doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense if you're trying to effectively solve behavoir problems.


Glad to hear College is going better though.