Disliked by my entire school year - legacy impact

[happybunny03]

I had a difficult time growing up: my home life was dysfunctional - my parents were depressed and had personality disorders. The house we lived in was a mess and my brother and I were mostly neglected, emotionally abused by our mother and I was physically abused by my father. Consequently I was left with no confidence and self esteem. I also felt very different to other children my own age. It really badly effected my academic performance at school and how I generally behaved & came across. I was also covered in eczema and looked terrible which didn’t help.
The 1 or 2 friendships I had at school were toxic and one of the girls was completely emotionally manipulative.
On top of everything, I developed a reputation for not ‘being nice’ by saying the wrong things or behaving a bit weirdly - this was due to a complete lack of social skills. Everyone tried to avoid me so I was isolated, I was also mocked behind my back (or sometimes directly to my face) and bullied. People (teachers and peers) also thought I was a bit thick.

Things changed for me after I left school. I ended up looking very attractive (according to other people), established a successful career, became
very well presented, developed social skills and got married to a lovely man. However I am not in touch with anyone I went to school with. When I have bumped into people I went to school with I have either been blanked, treated with hostility or laughed at (literally). On social media, no one from back then wants to have anything to do with me (even if I have reached out). It’s so depressing and I feel like a large section of my life is void .

What makes it a bit worse is that I made a group of friends outside of school and 10 years ago I had a fling with an ex-boyfriend of one of the girls in the group (she was 16-18 when she went out with him and we were in our late 20s when I had the fling). She obviously felt very betrayed (I didn’t mention it when I once met up with her - partly because it was literally just sex and also I knew she still had feelings for him even though she is married), however she convinced everyone that I am a bitch and they don’t want anything to do with me either. It’s just horrible knowing how hated I am by everyone and it’s really affecting my mental health.

I have moved to a different city since but feel like I carry this stigma around with me...
I know this is a personal story but has anyone been in a similar-ish situation where (swathes of) people have a negative opinion of you based on how you behaved and looked as a child/teenager.
Would be keen to hear your thoughts as it’s really getting me down - I was a vulnerable child when things started to go downhill and I’m now carrying this burden around with me. Thank you

My experience of school and home life was much like @Kerplonk above.

Anyone who says that school days are the best days of your life needs punching in the throat.

@typewrriter12

Exactly what Wheresthebiffe2r said. leave the past in the past.

The past can't always be in the past though, I was bullied and ostracised all through primary school and secondary school and in more than one workplace. I was emotionally abused by my parents and emotionally and physically abused by more than one boyfriend and then by my husband when I was married. The only conclusion I have ever been able to come to is that it is an inherant flaw in my personality which has caused my experiences and so I got what was coming to me.

I think you think you are unusual. I’m not in touch with anyone from school. I didn’t make my first proper friend until I was almost 30. She’s not in touch with anyone from school either. I hated school. The girls were bitches, I looked like E.T and I had a really shit time. Why would I want to be reminded of that! I now live hours away from where I grew up. How old are you? Friendship groups come and go. Come off social media. Concentrate on building your self esteem and a social life where you are NOW. Don’t keep trying to build a group either. You need half a dozen friends who don’t know each other (so if one turns bitchy it doesn’t impact your life). Build up individual one on one friendships and do NOT introduce them to each other. Do not sleep with their brothers/friends. Start playing this more clever and get a thick skin. Start doing hobbies where you are to make friends. Go on meetup. Reach out. Start a course. See it as an exciting time to start a new life. Why is no school friends a legacy? It’s not. Imagine if you were one of the many thousands who have moved to Australia/USA etc do you think they bother keeping in touch with school friends? Why would they? It doesn’t hold them back does it. Time to chin up and buck up ok

I had a similar experience. Home issues meant that I didn't look and behave like other people and I had very few people who would give me the time of day or not treat me like crap. Now, I'm considered attractive, am married and have a good career that I love.

What happened to you when you were at school will have shaped who you are, but it isn't who you are. People who haven't changed since their schooldays have stood still in terms of their social development - and that isn't a good thing. I personally have little desire to be in touch with anyone from school (I certainly wouldn't be attending a reunion), but if I met someone I'd been to school with I would try to approach them almost as if they were a stranger, because I haven't seen them for over ten years and I don't think that I know them anymore, realistically. You can divide your school year into two sections, there, I think - people who have also grown and changed, and who would recognise the same in you, and people who've arrested in the mean high school stage. And would you want to be friends with them anyway?

Let me add: that doesn't need to apply to someone who made your life hell, in any way. You don't owe someone who bullied you anything.

I had a similar experience at university - shunned by my year (I’m still not entirely sure why and I don’t care to find out). For a few years afterwards I’d get a pang of envy when I saw Facebook posts etc, but not any more. I’ve made new friends (one by one; not a big group) and they are awesome. I couldn’t give a shit any more about what happened a decade ago.

I didn’t have a conventional upbringing. I only keep in touch with one friend from school (we met in nursery), the rest, to be blunt, I don’t care about and if they wanted to connect with me on FB I would just reject the request. If I recognised them in my hometown, I wouldn’t say hello as I rather keep the past in the past. Apart from one or two people who were bitches to me, the rest didn’t mistreat me. No way would I attend a school reunion, no point. I think PP are right, you have moved on and shouldn’t spend time trying to gain the validation from your old school mates.

Thank you all for your kind and supportive messages - it’s really appreciated and has made me feel a lot better xx Also interesting to hear that people have had (very) similar experiences - you always think you are the only one.
Someone asked why I still care what their opinion is. To be honest I’m not sure. I think it may be related to wanting to tell them what I was really going through and the person I truly am, in other words clearing up a misunderstanding and putting closure on it.
I’ve had therapy in the past but it stopped when I moved cities. It did help me understand and overcome some of my family issues but I think more time was needed to address things that happened outside the home. Will look to re-start it where I live now when lockdown is over...

Yes, I can also relate to a lot of what you said. I also had very bad skin issues at school that further isolated me, and I constantly felt on the outside and weird. People would ask me if I was infectious, ignore me, laugh about me, stare at me...it was horrific. I had almost zero support from home about this. My past keeps coming back to me though, through various life choices and circumstances so I do firmly believe that you can't block it and we do need to face our experiences at some point. I would also recommend therapy and stay in it for a very long time, probably to hell and back. You are not going to build bridges with people from your past, arguably you shouldn't give two shits about their opinions, but you do have some significant healing for yourself that you need to do. Good luck. x

In terms of whether I have a social circle now: I have a couple of groups of friends but for the last 10 years haven’t had a ‘best friend’ or someone I really click with. In some ways that has been replaced by my husband but I miss the closeness of having a female friend you really get on with. The best friends I have had in the past (includes adulthood) weren’t healthy. I’m in a much better place now and would love a close friendship or 2 where I now live. I’m hoping that will naturally happen over time as I heal from my past.

I could have written your post op. Except I was left with severe anxiety which developed into panic attacks - this has unfortunately travelled with me but to a lesser degree now. As a result I have only ever had mediocre jobs, no career as such and I have often wondered what I could have done if I'd had some semblance of normality as a child (I have a good standard of education but no confidence to match it). I now have dc of my own. I thought that I must be the only one who has experienced this double whammy of being bullied/isolated at school and abused at home (physically and emotionally). My mother was also depressed and could possibly have had some kind of personality disorder (seeking therapy to unravel).

I have moved away from my home town and in touch with zero people I went to secondary school with - each and everyone of them seems to have a bad memory attached. I was ostracized for being too polite, well behaved, whatever it was (but I was physically abused at home if I wasn't these things). I feel angry now that this was never picked up - pastoral care was sadly lacking in the 80's/ but in loads of my reports it reads that I was too quiet. I shudder when I think back to those years of torment and my early teen age years seem obliterated.

It is true you can't go back only look to the now/future. But I think the past very much affects someone who has been through all of this. I don't want to be a victim but I have been traumatized and very few people seem to understand how this has played out for me. I am wary of people or I become too attached/needy. I often feel lonely, though I do have a couple of female friends who are lovely but not necessarily on my wavelength and I still feel like I'm an odd fit at the school gate.

I am seeking therapy now, I have counselling etc in the past and it is got me through particularly rough patches but I need something more than that now.

@happybunny03
Gosh OP, I am exactly the same regarding friends. Like you, I had one extremely emotionally abuse and manipulative friend within my teenage years who turned on me once they’d had their way with me. I really struggle with friendships now, as I worry they’re all out to get me just like that person was. I have one amazing friend from early childhood, but that’s about it. Its all very hard.

Regarding best friend OP, I think that’s largely a Hollywood movie myth. In my experience it’s better to have half a dozen close friends who you know separately and do different things with. Never put all your eggs in one basket. My mother did, one best mate and they were obsessed with each other. It made me feel really excluded as it was impossible to do anything with my mother without the best mate coming along too. She was never alone. Now she’s older and the best mate is in very poor health and can’t leave the house which has left my healthy/wanting to do things mother feeling very bereft and alone. She has nobody else to do social things with. She should have made some other friends in her nearly 80 years. Join groups, do hobbies, keep a wide circle and forget this best friend dream

@unlikeableme, I just saw your message and that is the wrong conclusion...please give yourself the benefit of the doubt. You don't have inherent flaws and you certainly didn't get what's coming to you...you were, in essence, programmed to believe that you were fatally flawed (rather than perfectly imperfect which is what we all are) and that you somehow deserved to be treated like shit. It just simply isn't true.

Up until now I've been very much of the 'move on and let bygones be bygones' approach. Sometimes though the past and its unresolved issues come back to you and there's a reason for that. If you feel the need to address it, it's because you are trying to work out who you are and there's a certain sadness about not being close to anyone who knew you as a child/ teen. I get that. I can relate as I left my country of birth at 17 and didn't look back. I don't want to go too much into it but I didn't keep in touch with anyone from there because of things that happened to me at school. It is what it is. No point dwelling but yes, sometimes it's hard to feel somehow rootless.

Sorry you had a hard time 💗
What I’m about to say sounds harsh but it’s true...I was told this by my dad after I went through something tough ‘you’re not as important as you think you are’. Nobody from your school Is sat slagging you off. And if this woman has told people you’re a bitch, people will most likely just be like ‘oh right ok’ and move on, they have lives of their own they truly don’t care!! (If they fo they’re sad with nothing better to do) Enjoy your life and please don’t care too much what other people think of you.
If people wanna be like that then they aren’t worth being in your life anyway. Xxx

Whilst my home life wasn’t the daily upset yours sounds like it was I had a similar experience to you at school. The friends I have just happen to include one that was from my school I reconnected with at 22; I don’t call her a friend from school as I wasn’t her friend at school.

I have a different perspective of school to her and she has tried to persuade me that I was not the council estate kid with the mental mum and no friends I see myself as having been. I was just a bit “different”.

Having hosted a Christmas soirée where some of her friends from school, so obviously people who i was in the same year as was nice but the most empowering thing that struck me was knowing I am no longer scratching round for the crumbs of friendship from anyone and the people in my life are those whom I’ve chosen to let in.

TL:DR - it takes giant mental steps to know your worth but work on this. Relying on friendship from your school group is a non-starter for many more folk than you’d realise. Value who you are, get out and make connections and you’ll find your tribe.

I've just been translating a study about people who grew up partly or fully in residential care, i.e. in "homes". One point that was made was that they learned at a very young age that they couldn't rely on other people; there was no-one who had their back. As a result, almost all of the people in the study said that they had no close friends. It reminded me a little of myself, in that I was moved around a lot as a child, with no access to one parent, while the other worked full time, so I was left with childminders a lot and moved schools once a year until secondary school. I get on with people fine today, but don't tend to form close friendships - I just don't contact people, for instance, as I got fed up with having to try hard to be accepted as a child. I've learned to find other ways of socialising instead - I get on much better doing things where you just have to turn up to regular group events, rather than trying to make arrangements with specific people. My dad and brother are actually similar, and my mum and her husband don't have any personal non-group friends either. I don't think it is massively unusual.

*It’s just horrible knowing how hated I am by everyone and it’s really affecting my mental health.

I have moved to a different city since but feel like I carry this stigma around with me...
I know this is a personal story but has anyone been in a similar-ish situation where (swathes of) people have a negative opinion of you based on how you behaved and looked as a child/teenager.*

The significant and sustained abuse and neglect that you suffered from your parents has most likely left you with a deep emotional wound internally. This also translated to cause issues for you in your external world as a child at school.

As an adult you have shown remarkable insight and resilience to drag yourself out of the horrors of your childhood and build a wonderful and successful life for you externally.

However this internal wound has been reopened with this interaction with this random situation with this woman.

It seems that you may have a specific emotional vulnerability from childhood, triggered by certain social situations which leaves you in an emotional ptsd state. This means you mentally get stuck in a negative catastrophic and disproportionate thought pattern that may hijack you and incapacitate you emotionally.

In these situations the adult mind is responding as the shameful distressed child. That’s what I see in your words. Factually and rationally it is incorrect that you are “hated by so many” and “that large swaths of people have a negative opinion” of you now.

Many treated you badly at school (toxic teenage nonsense) - you are just unfortunate to have crossed paths with this random woman decades later and her nasty gossip has triggered you into ptsd.

This woman’s actions won’t change, you can’t relive the school stuff but you can work to unpick all of the feelings of entrenched shame that are emotional remnants of your childhood that are still disproportionately preoccupying and hurting you and blighting your hard won social confidence.

Friendship groups come and go. Come off social media. Concentrate on building your self esteem and a social life where you are NOW. Don’t keep trying to build a group either. You need half a dozen friends who don’t know each other (so if one turns bitchy it doesn’t impact your life). Build up individual one on one friendships and do NOT introduce them to each other. Do not sleep with their brothers/friends. Start playing this more clever and get a thick skin. Start doing hobbies where you are to make friends. Go on meetup. Reach out. Start a course. See it as an exciting time to start a new life. Why is no school friends a legacy? It’s not.

This is spot on. There are so many friend issues brought up on MN. School gate cliques, tension when one has a baby, competitive parents, work colleague bitches - all of that shite is still happening in adulthood. If you haven’t experienced it then you have done really well to sniff out and swerve the emotionally unevolved - your social skills are therefore finely tuned to sense and pick up the fruit loops.

OP and other posters. I hear you! I am tearing up reading some of these posts. For you and also myself. I don't think I've ever worked through secondary school stuff. Not helped by moving and being the new girl a few times and having to leave genuine good friendships pre-social media to be bullied in new school(s). I remember being laughed at and hit/slapped and left alone and weird things said about me. Then home to abusive drunk parent. Then off to stay with other sexually abusing parent. And then both parents made me the problem in family. My last 'bestfriend' at school was openly mean to me until she dropped me.

Thing got recreated with other parents. Whatever I did or said was always wrong. It got very complicated because it wasn't overt as an adult. But say, one of them would just stop speaking to me randomly one day or block me walking so I'd get left at the back. Really hard to explain and dp didn't believe me. I think in my case I am suspicious. My mother always used to trick me and play games and be inconsistent and often deeply cruel and terrifying. So no surprise really I have problems with women.

Btw you can have therapy online during lockdown. It helps. These days I accept that I'm playing a role in this. And that for now, I don't have close friends and that's better than just having narc friends who use and drop you.
I'm trying very hard to be my own bestfriend. Finally.
to you

I'm trying very hard to be my own bestfriend.

This. I have recently come to realise that I must try and look after myself, where others have failed.

It is a shame there aren't support groups for this kind of thing in the UK.
Mental health provision is not great.

Being your own best friend is so hard isn't it? I was talking to somebody to arrange bereavement counselling tonight and she said to be kind to myself. Where do you start when you don't know how to?

Wow op. I almost think you should go into schools and do talks about things getting better and what you went through. You clearly had strength to do so well after such a difficult start. Forget the people you went to school with. You don't know them for any other reason than you lived in the same area. You've got no reason to want any interaction with them now. The ex friend was pathetic for behaving as she did about your fling. Make the most of your new start and maybe do some kind of volunteer work to widen your circle and continue to build your self esteem. Only worry about approval from people you admire.

On top of everything, I developed a reputation for not ‘being nice’ by saying the wrong things or behaving a bit weirdly - this was due to a complete lack of social skills.

This resonated with me. I was socially immature and a bit weird, and people just didn't really like me. Eventually I learned to sort of mimic normal behaviour and got on OK with others but looking back, the people I considered friends really just thought of me of acquaintances. I only have one friendship from school that has lasted.

It was never the done thing at school to bully / mock people for appearance etc, but if a girl was considered "not nice" then all bets were off

@Gutterton you are very right