Therapy

Growing up I had a number of friends.  I'd never classify myself as The Popular One by any means, but I wasn't an outcast either.  Right down the middle, which was fine with me.  That's not to say that I didn't have dorky tendencies (good thing I outgrew THOSE later on huh?  HUH?  Erm. . .) that would draw some less-than-desirable attention, resulting in ridicule and humiliation.  I mean, I had huge permed hair for YEARS and in fourth grade I got braces AND glasses.  Glasses that I selected myself, and in a state of delusion chose clear plastic OCTAGON frames that literally took up my whole face.  God bless my mother who didn't laugh like a hyena and let me get them anyway because I loved them so much.  But man.  That was a special look for sure.  And don't even get me started with my whole 'turtleneck/flannel shirt phase' because that was rough too.

But I know I'm not the only one--horror stories are a part of growing up.  We ALL have to have some embarrassing baggage we're carting around.  So!  I would like us all to embrace the horrors of our childhood.  Let us share the most traumatic of experiences tucked way in the back of our psyche that make us cringe and turn beet red at parties.  And as an added bonus?  Let's laugh at each other.  Woo!

I will go first:

Starting (did you get that? STARTING.  Meaning it continued on!) in 6th grade I got made fun of on a daily basis for having no boobs.  The clincher was riding the bus home.  We were the last stop so by that time there were only three kids, myself included.  Two were boys.  So, these boys named J and M would sit in the very back.  I, however, wanted to stay away from them as I was essentially on my own so I sat in the first seat, slinking down as far as I could to hopefully go undetected.  I think my strategy was that the bus driver would be an authority and obviously protect me in some way.  Well, it seems Cheryl didn't see that clause in her contract as she offered no support whatsoever.  Thanks!

So, once the rest of the kids cleared out, they would start taunting me for the duration of the ride home--about five minutes.  THE LONGEST FIVE MINUTES IN THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE.  For those five minutes they would come up with some variation of me being flat.  Or boobless.  Or indented.  Their most genius analogy was that I was as flat as a prairie.  So for almost two years that became my new nickname.  Prairie.  I gotta say though, that was pretty clever.  J and M were clearly not satisfied with your run-of-the-mill taunts.  Oh no!  They decided to encompass our native Illinois landscape and brought that into play.  Well done, boys.  I have no doubt that their science teachers were very proud.

Yeah, I had no boobs.  And unless I'm gestating I still don't.  But see how far I've come since I'm sharing this story with the internet?  That has to count for SOMEthing.  I also have no unresolved issues pertaining to non-mountainous landscapes so clearly I am a well-adjusted person in spite of The Trauma Bus Years.  Take that J and M! 

But now it's your turn.  Don't leave me dangling in the wind here--join me.  What is horrible story from your childhood that is embarrassing and makes you cringe just THINKING about it?

Comments

[bessie.viola]

Oh, man. SO many. SO MANY. But to riff on yours:

I had boobs. I had A LOT of boobs. I had them early. Summer after seventh grade (I think?) I was at the lake with a bunch of family. My uncle offered to take us girls and his two sons out on his speedboat to go tubing. Of course I said yes.

So we all get on the boat and everyone's clicking into their life jackets. Except for me, because mine wouldn't fit. My boobs were spilling out the sides. My uncle turned 15 different shades of red and tried to help me adjust it before finally giving me a giant adult jacket that reached from my ears down to my butt. It was HUGE.

My sisters laughed and laughed and that was the beginning of the Big Boob Freak torture.

(Oh, and I also had the giant plastic glasses. Mine were pink and I thought they were super cool. What was I thinking?!)

[Jen]

oh geez. I had the octagon glasses too. AND THE TURTLENECK UNDER THE FLANNEL? wooo! The 80s were not kind, my friend.

[Dawn]

Enormous perm - check. To complement the GIANT purple plastic glasses with the ear pieces that started low & then made a nice little 90-degree angle upward? Oh yeah. And I see your turtlenecks-under-flannel and raise you overalls. With one strap undone. But the worst part? I was a scrawny, knobby-kneed little waif. The kids on the bus used to call me Ethopia. (Why does all this trauma occur on the bus? Are the drivers all secretly deaf or something?) I was ridiculed for being so skinny. For whatever reason, this made me cry. Well. Who's having the last laugh now? =P (Ok, I may not be as well-adjusted as you are. Hmmm.)

[Angella]

I had bangs that were four inches tall. And big blue glasses. And shiny blue eyeshadow and mascara. I was HAWT.

[Kate]

Oh man. I had glasses. A boy's style that changed colors in the sun. You know the ones, they turned dark when you went outside? And took forever to go back clear once you went inside? Combine those wonders with Laura Ingalls braids, buck teeth and being stick skinny and I was something.

Oh, and what about the turned up collars on polo shirts? Yah, I did that. I even wore TWO shirts at once in order to have a bi-colored collar.

I was kewl.

[Val]

Hmmm...if you want to start with the younger years, I got bus/motion sick nearly every day on the way home from about kindergarten to...3rd grade? That's a lot of puke. Once, the bus driver actually yelled at me for not telling her soon enough. Right. I'm five for fuck's sake - shut it!

One especially fun time I yakked all over the back of the "cool kid" - his nice leather jacket. Not my fault he was standing up in the aisle anticipating his stop [which was next]. Too bad for him he didn't know little Val was two steps behind him trying to get to the waste paper basket...

You keep sharing and I'll pull out the stories of two Swatch watches, peace sign necklaces, high collars and asshole ninth graders who teased me for my lack of boob-age.

[Cat @ 3 Kids and Us]

Man oh man, I'd like to think I've blocked all of those memories out. I got teased a lot, thick glasses, too skinny, no boobs, dorky clothes...the list goes on. The weirdest thing I was teased about was being a lesbian. My best friend and I were attached at the hip from pre-k to high school. Kids are just weird. Even stranger, I'm married with 3 children and haven't seen that friend in 4 years.

[Amy W]

Um, yea, I had boobs before all others.

That and a unibrow and a mustache.

Thank GOD for waxing.

[Sara]

I got my period for the very first time on the bus ride home in 7th grade, while wearing a skirt, and when I stood up there was a rather ugly spot left on the bus seat AND the back of my skirt. No one on that bus ride let me forget that for the rest of middle school. Even my best friends. Jerks.

Oh, and I turned in some kid in 6th grade for sniffing the Sharpies and making himself "sick". I just didn't think it was fair that he kept doing it and the idiot nurse kept falling for it and sending him home. I'm all about equality and if I had to sit in class then so did he.

[Mom]

Everyone gets teased for something (and boy oh boy, did I), but look how great you all turned out and I bet the ones that teased you are not
doing so well NOW!
Love to you all.
Samantha I didn't know about the teasing (did I?)
but I was teased for not having boobs, too. I didn't think of it until I was an adult but I should have said that they should go talk to my Mom about (she had small boobs, too)

[Melissa]

Those octagon glasses must have been super stylish because I had them too! And braces! And huge puffy (naturally curly, not permed) hair! HAWT.

I had the opposite boob problem, as in, too much. I was a C cup in junior high and DD by the time I graduated high school. I still hate them!

[Beyond Alice]

Okay...I thought of one. I'm with you all...I had naturally frizzy curly hair AND a perm...and braces, and 4" bangs. And I wore the turtlenecks and flannels and baggy mom-jeans. And, I had (still have) no boobs. NOT cute.

But the story I am still SO embarrassed about. There were two other girls my age in my neighborhood, and for years, the three of us were best friends. At some point, they grew away from me, and I was always excluded. They went down to the creek behind our houses, and with a marker, wrote all over the rocks "C&V = Best Friends". I was so hurt that I was left out, that I took a PERMANENT marker and wrote "C&V HATE Each Other!" all over the rocks. Well, after the first rain, their little notes were gone...mine lasted all year.

Talk about embarrassing... I hid under my bed when they told my dad what I had done to try to hide from the embarrassment.

[Kelsey]

Hey now, what's with all the flannel shirt/turtleneck bashing??? At least we were comfortable! Much better than what some kids are passing off for clothing these days. :-)

I had, um, a couple of significantly upsetting pants wetting instances in grade school, two stick out in my mind:

1) In the first grade we were told NEVER to interrupt the teacher during reading groups and I vividly recall having to use the bathroom while the teacher was conducting a reading group, and not knowing what to do. So I ended up standing next to the SRA box fretting until I finally just wet my pants.

2) In the THIRD GRADE I had an accident on the playground, but was wearing a skirt and you couldn't really tell. My mom drove up to school with some clean underpants in a plain paper bag and all was well until my little sister came marching into my classroom and announced, "I have some clean underwear for you!"

[Valria]

Oh so many stories, barfing in 5th grade. Being a complete dork with no friends, or clue.

But the one that sticks with me is Jr High. I played the flute in band. I was the girl dork/nerd/geek/ of 7th grade and the boy dork/nerd/geek of 7th grade played the drums, his name was Dyer.

It didn't matter if I had a crush on him or not, it would never matter because we couldn't really hang out or talk because if we were ever near each other and by near I mean in the same hallway the cries of putting our names together would ring down the hall and all I would hear is......

Mr. and Mrs Dyeria

[Korinna]

Amy W. and I may have been separated at birth as I too had a unibrow and moustache in junior high.

Am convinced I'd still be single and lonely if I'd not discovered Nair.

[Karly]

I used to start my period in the middle of school and then I'd have a big red/brown stain on my butt for the day. That was horrible. And it happened every month. WHY DIDN'T I LEARN TO BRING TAMPONS TO SCHOOL? Jesus.

Also, I was once roller skating at the skate rink where EVERYONE that was ANYONE hung out and my pants fell down. Like, I was skating and everything was fine and then all of a sudden my pants were around my ankles. That was rather unfortunate.

[Kristin c]

Ummmmmmmm...... Usually I did the teasing..... I think you and your little niddlers can confirm that. Unless you count the time in 8 the grade when a few girls decided to tell every one I was a LESBIAN. And I was all, well IM NOT but if I WAS WTF would be wrong with that now shut the F up before I kill you.

[Lisa G.]

OMG. I don't even care to revisit this period of my life, but I will say that being a fair-skinned, dark-haired Italian girl, I definitely sported the 'stache and unibrow until I discovered Nair and tweezers. Also, I had braces and acne. So basically, I was a triple threat. We're talking the total awesomeness package. Oh wait, I forgot about the retainer in junior high that made me talk funny. *And* the total lack of boobs (which is basically still true). Quintuple threat!

~Lisa

[karissa]

me still thinking a vagina was called a poo-poo.

devastating.

I also picked out my own glasses (3rd grade) and they were huge CLEAR plastic frames.

[Pocklock]

Oh the glasses. Oh the GLASSES! Since I was SIX! They didn't make glasses to fit small faces then. Oh...the glasses.

Flannels and turtlenecks? Guilty. Overalls with one strap undone? Guilty. Canadian Tuxedo? Guilty. Techno-color? Umbro? Leggings under cutoffs in February? Guilty.

And as popular as Big Hair was back then, I have the thinnest, flattest, straightest hair that no matter how much Aqua Net I used and how feathered they were cut, I couldn't get them to stand up! So instead, I was teased for having bangs that actually rested on my forhead. Where they belonged.

Kids are mean. How do we get Theo and Lyla to jump over puberty and just go straight to college?

[Melissa]

Roses are red.
Violets are black.
Why is her front
As flat as her back.

I heard that in 7th grade. Still can't forgive that kid. and now my boobs are awesome, so take that. I know - i'm late to your game here..but i had to share, stumbled onto you from Bradstein's blog/twitter.