Hanako's Broken Heart Club

[Broomhead]

I started writing this post in Google Drive, but I was only halfway done by three pages, so I'm going to drop a link here and leave a summary on this thread. The document above has the full story.

Elementary: I am a slender male, and, as I have stated before, an INTJ, so I was withdrawn and inquisitive for much of my school life. By 8th grade, I was nearly 6 foot, taller than 75% of the kids at my high school. I matured quickly emotionally and physically, often coming to concepts and ideas common to teenagers a year before the norm, and I never went through the stage where girls were avoided, I simply treated them like any other being. I was extensively bullied all through elementary, my earliest momery of it being in first grade, when a girl chipped my tooth with a see-saw. I fell in with whoever was using my favorite play equipment at the time: The tunnel. If no-one was up there, I’d just sit up there and look out over the school. If someone asked me to come down, I’d play for a while then sneak away to hide back up there. In second grade, I was attacked by my "friends" until I snapped and ran away from them one day. After a while, I befriended another person, only one however. He was tall, and thicker (both in mind and body then me) and also another lonely soul. He made the first steps towards me, trying to eat with me once or twice (I Hanako’d him the first week) before I finally was cornered and he talked at me. (I neither listened nor responded.) In the third week, (he had given up halfway through the second) I followed him to his corner and shared my food, quietly thanking him for the weeks before. He was with the group I had left, chumming it up with the two who had attacked me. Later, I was cornered by G, T, and H, and verbally attacked. I eventually jumped around G and ran back to class, and hid near the door until lunch was over. (Rabbit-Kicking people is one of my many useful skills when against a wall.)

In 5th grade we had a substitute art teacher who didn't like reading the notes left for her by the teacher. I was washing off my hands in the sink, when she asked me why I painted a ship rather than a chimera, the assigned art project. I told her to read the teacher notes, I could do it if I wanted since I was bad at art. She said that she knew I was lying (I wasn't.) and I asked to finish washing off the brushes before we talked. She grabbed me by the shoulder and forced me to turn around, (I found out she left a distinct hand mark two hours later) which caused me to freak out and sprint across the class. (Apparently I got her shirt with the paint on my hands, so she was understandably pissed.) She then left me alone until the end of class, when she told me to stay after class. When everyone else was gone, she yelled at me and slammed the table in front of me. When she left to go get the principal, I grabbed my backpack and ran. I jumped the fence and ran home. (I lived nearby.) I realize now I was crying the entire time, so I was quite the sight for my mother. The next week (it was a Friday, if I recall correctly) I was pulled into the principal's office. I was told the sub would never teach again in the district, and I could ask any questions I needed to. I chose not to, and went to class, and saw only blank faces and stony interactions from the teacher.

Middle School: I was extensively bullied, even when compared to elementary. As a tall, slender, glasses wearing minority kid, I was an easy target. I told teachers and the office, but nothing was ever done because “tattling is not allowed.” In almost every class, I was called names by the kids and the teachers ignored it. In P.E, if we played a physical sport, I would be elbowed and shouldered whenever there was a chance. I learned to keep my arms around my sides, so they couldn’t get my ribs. I have little enough muscle that a jab to the obliques could put me on the floor at first.The abuse continued until I started puking every day before lunch. It was no trick, no planning involved, I just felt horrible during math class and would run to the bathroom and puke my guts out. This happened for about a week before I stopped coming to school altogether. After a lengthy medical process (seeing a doctor, neurologist, gastrologist) I found out I had chronic migraines, leading to constipation and searing pain on occasion. It also caused vertigo, bright lights in my eyes, and nausea. Around the last two months of the year, I came back. I was later assaulted by a couple of bullies. I escaped, no harm done, but they were out for blood. I had been learning about the various rumors and blackmail in the school, but then I used my power for the first time in offense, and brought ruin to their social lives. Rumors are powerful things, and they were driven, slowly but surely, into hiding. Some fell apart from their friends, others simply couldn’t socially interact with others, (nasty, nasty things they had done came back up.) and others failed to supply the goods to their friends. (there was a freaking black market ring. I got knives, I got cash, I got backpacks, I got earbuds. A friend of mine in high school got a second christmas at graduation! The ones who were selling didn’t deserve it, and the buyers stole the money from other victims. I checked.) They stopped bullying me, and I was risen out of my melancholy again. Sure, I had been happy at home with the migraines, but it kinda sucks to not be able to walk without falling over in agony every hour. It is perhaps sadistic to think, but I am glad that I snapped on them, and caused them so much pain. They did not understand what they were doing, so they would now suffer all the humiliation in a week that I had for 6 years.

That's all I'll post here. But the full story is here if you want it. It's a long read, so bring popcorn. I'm happy to answer any questions either there or here, but I'll be spottier over there since it's not my real email. (I'm not very trusting about communication.)

[azumeow]

STORY

Damn. You...became quite the avenger, huh? I went through a rather toed-done version of that, where I was hurt a lot less, had a few friends, and never exactly made it as anything. I ended up being an officer in my high school's JROTC, but my cowardice cost me the Commanding Officer position because I didn't join until I was in tenth grade.

Still, I'm glad things got a bit kinder by the end there.

[Broomhead]

Azu: Heh, yeah. I went a bit power-mad, if you read the full version you'll understand a bit better though. For all of my wit and castles, I was still a child. The pain needed to stop, so I stopped it. The more pain I saw, the more was needed to stop it. I'm a bit eccentric still, but I'd say that I'm a bit warmer than the first year of middle school and a bit more forgiving than the second. I do not forgive and forget though, I just forgive.

[azumeow]

I do not forgive and forget though, I just forgive.

I have to warn you about that: it's difficult to do. If you've found a way to do it, good on you, but...in my experience, unless you let it go from your mind, you can never truly forgive it. And if you can't bring yourself to forget it...it probably isn't worth forgiving.

[SpunkySix]

I do not forgive and forget though, I just forgive.

I have to warn you about that: it's difficult to do. If you've found a way to do it, good on you, but...in my experience, unless you let it go from your mind, you can never truly forgive it. And if you can't bring yourself to forget it...it probably isn't worth forgiving.

And to be honest, some things shouldn't be forgiven as far as I'm concerned.

[Broomhead]

To the above: For me to forget something, I must wipe it from my memory entirely, like burning a book you've had on the shelves for years. I can hide things and temporarily not notice them, but ignoring the issue only makes it worse in most cases.

[Khalego]

I must wipe it from my memory entirely

That is essentially what forgetting is, and exactly why forgetting is a terrible idea. It makes for great platitudes but actually just forgetting large pieces of life experience is the worst advice anyone could ever give anybody.

[LordMarluxia]

@Broomhead

Wow mate, thanks for sharing. I still haven't read the big version but I intend to do so this weekend.
You were right, we had pretty similar experiences. But you managed you to come up with your own way to climbing to the top like a boss.

I still go to Wonderland sometimes. Kind of... it doesn't look the same anymore.

But DAYUM you got them good. I never managed to took vengeance for what was done to me.
Apart from changing my order at the local McDonald's twice when one of them are serving my food. That feels great.

[azumeow]

That is essentially what forgetting is, and exactly why forgetting is a terrible idea. It makes for great platitudes but actually just forgetting large pieces of life experience is the worst advice anyone could ever give anybody.

Well, to be fair, what I meant was basically that if it's worth forgiving, it probably wasn't a huge catastrophe that you'll never be able to forget. Like, you forgot that there was a full moon out the day you first kissed (I shit you not, I have experienced this before and she seemed just a bit offended that I didn't remember). That disappeared.

Now, the time she pretended to have cancer to get my attention....yeah, you can't forgive or forget that...

[Zarys]

That is essentially what forgetting is, and exactly why forgetting is a terrible idea. It makes for great platitudes but actually just forgetting large pieces of life experience is the worst advice anyone could ever give anybody.

Well, to be fair, what I meant was basically that if it's worth forgiving, it probably wasn't a huge catastrophe that you'll never be able to forget. Like, you forgot that there was a full moon out the day you first kissed (I shit you not, I have experienced this before and she seemed just a bit offended that I didn't remember). That disappeared.

Now, the time she pretended to have cancer to get my attention....yeah, you can't forgive or forget that...

What ? the problem is definitely not you, but those around you.

[HarvestmanMan]

Now, the time she pretended to have cancer to get my attention....yeah, you can't forgive or forget that...

Hoo boy. Been there, done that - but it was after she pretended to have been violently raped to get my attention.

[azumeow]

Now, the time she pretended to have cancer to get my attention....yeah, you can't forgive or forget that...

Hoo boy. Been there, done that - but it was after she pretended to have been violently raped to get my attention.

HULK. SMASH. That's....FUCKED. UP. Jesus.

Also, my grandmother died this morning. Venty vent vent.

[HarvestmanMan]

Now, the time she pretended to have cancer to get my attention....yeah, you can't forgive or forget that...

Hoo boy. Been there, done that - but it was after she pretended to have been violently raped to get my attention.

HULK. SMASH. That's....FUCKED. UP. Jesus.

Yep, it is. No decent human being does that. I wasn't even the only person she lied about it to...after making me promise not to tell anyone else about it.

The person who helped me quit her (for lack of a better term) and see through the bullshit is now a close friend. But man, that's a hell of a bullet to dodge...

Also, my grandmother died this morning. Venty vent vent.

Sorry to hear that, it's never easy when that happens. My condolences.

[metalangel]

Yep, it is. No decent human being does that. I wasn't even the only person she lied about it to...after making me promise not to tell anyone else about it.

I knew one person who had it happen and told anyone who'd listen about it. Another claimed it happened but it was actually a case of regretting who they had sex with (luckily, they didn't try and ruin that person's life with a false accusation to the cops)

[HarvestmanMan]

To be fair, she did sort of attempt to make it believable. She created a black eye and a bruise on her throat with makeup.

What tipped me and others off was the lack of coverage. No report of the attack when it first happened, no coverage of an arrest when she told me they found the perpetrator...

Don't lie about rape, folks.