WTF moments from childhood

[Lyannaa]

I vividly remember sitting in a circle at primary school and playing a game (facilitated by teachers). It was a variation on ‘spin the bottle’ and this boy named the girl he wanted to kiss. The feeling was not mutual from her end and she began running around and around the circle, trying to evade both the boy and the disgraceful teachers trying to hold her down. Vile. How was this a thing? All I remember was sitting there thinking ‘thank goodness this isn’t me’.

This was 1989…

well, that;s a great way to give a child an eating disorder.
that's what happened with my mum. at home rather than at school. she liked her school dinners.
it permanently messed up her relationship with food, and she rarely ever enjoys eating now. it's just an obligation.

I wanted to join, my cousins did. but I read one of the books, and while it all looked like fun, I wasn't willing to swear an oath to God and the Queen.

always was stubborn about stuff like that. still a proud Pagan and anti monarchy.

Enraged teacher hauled a 10 year old boy out of the classroom by his hair and threw him down a flight of stairs. Teacher stormed back into classroom, picked up boy's desk and threw it down the stairs after him.

40 year old teacher openly dating a 15 year old pupil and she moved in with him not long after her 16th birthday.

Another male teacher took my 13 year old friend to one side and questioned her closely about whether her periods had started, what bra size she was and did her breasts ever hurt!

All took place at my (supposedly) gentle, holistic Steiner school back in the early 80s.

A number of Steiner schools had to close as ordered by Ofsted because their safeguarding was terrible.

I’m so glad that child protection came about after reading all this.
Thank goodness for Esther Rantzen and Childline.

Your point?

I assume they mean it is not child porn. It is child abuse.

yeaaaaah, that's sexual assualt, not a game.

put it this way. as a child/young teenager, we all knew to avoid their dad.

Happened to me at home and at school. I hope schools don't do this now. As for eating disorders I am obese, so yes, I totally get that. My eating disorder started in childhood too.

Catholic Convent school North London 1980s - run by nuns and tightly involved with the church next door. Very charasmatic Parish Priest (rode a motor bike / leather jacket) developed a relationship with one of the sixth formers....he then 'disappeared' and rumour was that he left the priesthood and married her shortly after.

Weird WTF things I remember:

feeling anxious and scared a lot of the time when my dad was around . I was always afraid of men. I guess I took it for granted as normal that kids didn't want to be left alone with their fathers.

I had to have a weird medical examination by a woman police doctor when I was about 5 or 6. I wasn't comfortable but it wasn't painful. I remember how stern the police doctor was with me, I didn't know what I had done to make them angry? I knew I was guilty of something . It was bizarre that I was there and didn't know why. There was a social worker there and I don't think he liked me either but I was used to adults being cross with me, or annoying them somehow.

Well you're probably a nicer person than me, but I am as bad as that poster . I once joined in laughing at a nasty joke told about one of my class mates. I'm not proud of it but what I did wasn't any better or less horrible or damaging than what that other poster did. Fortunately we grow up and learn and change.

I do have outrage for the adult teachers on these posts who abused and/or humiliated children. They were grown ups, no excuse and it seems like it was on going part of their behaviour towards the kids in their care. Shocking. And you're quite right about child abuse images, I don't like the term child porn either. I will leave you alone now, have a nice evening.

@GoneWithTheWindIsMyFart I understand the point that you’re trying to make however I think this minimises the seriousness of the trauma experienced by the girl mentioned earlier in the thread. It really is not the same at all - laughing at a nasty joke vs taking part in a sexual assault and pinning someone down. Reactive abuse is indeed common, but it is abuse nonetheless.

I wish healing to everyone in this thread who needs it. So many awful things endured and normalised!

Bullying is bullying though . I was teased a lot at school and it's effected my emotional health badly. So it is the same in a way, it's had the same effect on me as it has that girl. I have diagnosis of CPTSD and related issues. I can't work due to it being so bad. I was making the pint that the effects are the same whether bullying is verbal or sexual or whatever . I felt violated when kids called me names, I have a fear of trusting people, I flinch if a !am goes near me. And I was flashed at as a child so I've been through sexual abuse.

Also at least that girl can tell herself it wasn't her fault . I endured a horrid gynaecological exam as a 5 year old child by a police doctor and it was horrible . I felt so ashamed and disgusted. I didn't realise what I had done to need that examination until I was a lot older. The man I accused was a close relative he never forgave me and I guess I don't blame him.

So I know trauma is horrific but I have suffered too. I guess I know what it's like to be pinned down and humiliated and told how bad I was for lying. Even the social worker was not impressed with me. The psychiatrist didn't listen when I tried to tell her I didn't like my dad's temper but then again no child like a being yelled at and called names do they ? So she thought nothing of it and I was returned home. I tried to end my life when in was older . I'm glad to be free now though .

I never meant to harm that male relative. I felt unloved at home and unnoticed . Except to be punished or yelled at. Sometimes the mind makes things up and we end up falsely accusing people , not from malice but from confusion .

But don't worry, justice has been served. At 15 I was raped by a stranger and I felt it was karma. My father didn't believe me, was furious with me. I guess given my history of getting confused about things. But yeah I've been punished enough . I look back at the people I hurt and I guess I saw myself reflected in that ex bully who posted. I felt that same shame for being a bit of a mean girl when I was younger . I never thought of the unpopular girls as being people with real feelings I guess. Their parents didn't have much money and mine did. I had the best of everything life could give and I did not know what it was like to be like them.

@GoneWithTheWindIsMyFart Bullying and sexual assault are not the same. Bullying is awful and absolutely an adverse childhood experience that no one should have to go through. It can absolutely lead to trauma/PTSD. Sexual assault by the very nature is traumatic- it changes a persons sense of self and threatens their sense of identity, and affects their ability to feel safe. To lump bullying and sexual assault together in one category and say they are the same is ignorant and absolutely wrong.

But the loss of sense of self and loss of identity is how I felt all my life from being verbally bullied and teased..I didn't feel safe and had horrible nightmares. I feel hypervigilant around people, unsafe with them especially men. I have identity disturbance and self harmed since age 7. I have the exact same symptoms as a rape victim and have done since I was that age I felt dirty and developed an ED which caused me digestive issues and obesity . I have diagnosis of BPD, had symptoms since age 16 and was diagnosed as an adult finally having treatment aged 30. Multiple suicide attempts and extreme paranoia, such a feeling of being dirty. I think the bullying tipped me over the edge.

I've been flashed at as a child and bullied. I know what both sexual assault and bullying are like and the effects of both. I'm not ignorant I'm someone with first hand experience of sexual abuse and verbal bullying.

@GoneWithTheWindIsMyFart This is obviously very triggering for you and I don’t want to open up your past or de-rail the thread. All I am saying is that bullying and sexual assault are not the same. Laughing at a nasty joke is not comparable to taking part in someone else’s sexual assault. I’m leaving this here.

Communal showers,no privacy in 1990s.

I have never felt safe since a small child . About 2 or 3. The men in my family were either violent or they were too intimate with me, lots of sexual banter and touching over clothing . I started hating myself and cutting myself age 7, bingeing by age 9 and purgeing at age 13.

I absolutely know what it feels like . And bullying was the worst pain of it all because I felt diminished and like I don't know who I was.

I didn't trust adults I couldn't make eye contact until age 24 because I felt so dirty.

I still don't know who I am. I don't feel real . I feel like leave my body at times..I change identity , always clinging from one thing to the next . I had a parent with undiagnosed BPD, but manifested differently with them. They were domineering and very narcissistic , I am shy and hide from people .

please listen to someone who has lived experience of both sexual abuse and bullying. Long before I was flashed at I already had that sense of never feeling safe.

you seem a lovely person @Plastictrees so I'm not having a go . But I honestly know how it feels to be SA, from a young age with the flasher and the games they used to play in my family, the touching games and that awful examination by the police doctor. I know I caused that last one by getting confused and making things up, but obviously something was going on at home for me to lie about it . Why did I desperately want that attention ? I know a trauma of some kind must have caused it , because I had a lot of memory issues from up to about age 10. I have strange feelings around people I can't explain.

Why don't you accept that I know what both feel like? I was flashed at as a child of 3. Serious sexual assault . So I do know and I have that same loss of sense of safety and loss of identity . I have diagnosed issues around identity . Why can't I have the same validation that I was sexually assaulted as this other girl was? I feel you are trying to deny I was seriously sexually abused? How do you know I don't have symptoms of being SA. Please just acknow!gee that I went through the same as this girl did .

Please just acknowledge the serious sexual abuse I suffers at age 3. Please . A stranger flashed me and it has destroyed me ..I will keep on claiming to be a survivor of sexual abuse and identity and feeling safe issues because that's how I feel .

In primary school, late 80s/ early 90s a nurse came in to tell us about the dangers of smoking. She got a plastic bottle, put some cotton wool in the top then put a cigarette in after and lit it and began to squeeze the bottle to mimic smoking. This was inside the classroom, the bottle was then passed around so we each got a turn to squeeze it, when the bottle had finished his fag, she removed the cotton to show us the tar build up while sitting in a very Smokey classroom. Interestingly none of us batted an eyelid or coughed because all our parents smoked indoors, the teachers all smoked as well, albeit in the staff room. It was probably a cig out of the nurses pack as well 😂

We of course all badgered our parents not to smoke and die, then most of us went on to smoke ourselves, it’s just the sort of thing that would be alien to youngsters now.

Our headteacher took the whole netball team to a match in his car. So seven players plus him. All piled in on top of each other. This would have been early 1980's. We got stopped by the police.