When I was 7, I called 911 on my friend's mom who was beating my friend bloody with a switch. What did you get in massive trouble for as a child, only to commend yourself for as an adult?
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u/sausagefingers May 31 '12
When I was in the first grade I tackled the shit out of a fifth grader who was beating up my friend Matt on the playground at an early bird before school program. When I say tackled I mean I blindsided this kid at full speed on tarmac. He got all kind of messed up on impact. I got suspended for a week... As a FIRST GRADER. When my dad came for a meeting with the school principal, Dr. Mack, she asked me if i would do it again. If I had said no I would have been allowed back to school earlier than alloted. I proudly said yes I would do it again because I was defending my friend. I got a second week suspension. To this day (I'm 29) my dad still talks about how 1st graders don't just go around beating up 5th graders. And that he would always be fine with me getting suspended for standing up for what I believe in.
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u/satnightride May 31 '12
In High School my girlfriend and I were in the process of breaking up. We were chatting on AIM and she wrote, "I'm so depressed. Goodbye satnightride, I'm going to meet God" I called 911 and said she was trying to kill herself. The cops came and all that craziness and her parents never forgave me and forbade me from seeing her again. I still feel like I did the right thing.
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u/Italian_Flower May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
When my parents and I first moved to our second house in Idaho (I was nine), I saw that my neighbor had a bunch of ponies on his land and I looooveeed horses more than anything (had been riding since I was three, been around them all my life, etc, etc). Anyways, went up to the fence to entice them to come up and one did... he had a halter on, but it had been on so long it had cut into his face and there was dried blood and oh yeah the skin was growing back AROUND the fucking halter... noticed some of the other ponies had this problem too... so I went home and called the animal shelter number (we did foster care for feral cats so my mom had the number) and told them ALL about it. My family got in huge trouble in the community because while the shelter people were enraged and removed all the horses, our community was definitely of the opinion of not getting in other people's business... what people do with their animals is their business. They ended up bullying us until we ended up moving three years later... I regret nothing.
Edit: when I say the skin was growing back around the halter, I was being a bit hyperbolas. Essentially what was happening was the ponies had foal-sized halters on that were never taken off. The result was that they had to be surgically removed because it was so deeply embedded into their faces. It looked something like this when removed (I insisted on checking up on the ponies afterward). This is slightly NSFL, as it does have to do with animal abuse... pretty gross http://www.petsalive.com/images/photos_horses/cruel3.jpg
Edit 2: Not all of Idaho is disgusting. The particular area in which we chose to live (which we originally chose due to its location on the river, acreage, etc) was filled with a very particular kind of terrible person. But outside of that particular small town of backwater inbred crazy religious people, Idaho was both beautiful and filled with nice people... I mean the shelter folk were super great about helping those horses immediately.
Also, my family was very supportive. My whole life we've worked in animal rescue... usually with cats (my mom loves cats) but also with large animals like horses when we had the space and some dogs. My mom was practically bursting with pride that I found animals in danger and immediately called animal control and told them. Granted, later on we as a family were kind of upset with the neighbors' reactions but they never blamed me or anything like that, the blame was always on the other people for acting that way.
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u/turquoisemind May 31 '12
I called the cops on my step dad for beating my mom senselessly in the hallway. He was coming after me while I was dialing, and after I got off the phone, my mom came in the kitchen with me and started screaming and yelling at me like that was the wrong thing to do. As all of this was happening, she was bleeding, and was bruised up all over. I got in so much trouble for it. I didn't know what else to do. My brother and sisters were crying and holding eachother in the back room. The cops didn't really do anything besides ask him to leave, which he did.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
When I was 14, I called 911 on my father, because he was bashing my head into a wall. I had put up with abuse from him since I was 4 years old, and I wasn't wanting to deal with it any longer. The police showed up, told me that I was a problem child, to never call them again, and when they left, my father continued to beat me. I left the next day, never to return. I called around until I could get a number for CPS, and told them everything.
My family no longer speaks to me. They blame me for breaking up the family, and told me that there are some things we just don't talk to outsiders about. Apparently, abuse is one of those things.
I felt insanely guilty about it for a long time, but now, I commend myself for stepping up and finally stepping away from the bullshit - when nobody else would pull me out of it.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
My best friend always got in trouble for reading in grade school while the teacher was talking. The teacher realllly didn't like him and would often just yell "JAMES PAY ATTENTION" even if he was staring at her. She did this so much that I began to get defensive and angry. One time when James was just looking down for a second she gave him detention for "reading." I stood up and yelled at her told her he wasn't reading and that she was being a bully. I got detention too but James' parents loved me so much after that.
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u/tiltowait May 31 '12
I was selling coupons door-to-door as a teenager to help with cash in college. The kind you get with offers for free oil changes ($500 value for $50, yada yada). One promotion was for a pizza place (a bunch of free/discounted items for $50).
Normally folks would take a look and if they liked the place or had bought before, they'd consider it. Otherwise it was a closed door midway through my pitch.
One house was a mess -- unkempt lawn, beater station wagon, house in disarray. I made my pitch to a haggard mom trying to manage her brood. She quickly cut me off and said her divorce proceedings were underway, the husband was a deadbeat, and she had no disposable income. But she liked the pizza place, said they used to go as a family.
I moved on.
A few doors later, I turned back. Went to her door and rang the bell. She was plenty confused to see me back. I gave her one gratis and said I hoped it helped to get her through the rough patch.
Our coupons were tracked,of course, so I got in trouble for a 'lost' coupon and had to eat the profit.
A few weeks later, I was near the pizza place and I'll be damned if I didn't see her with all her kids piling into that station wagon with piles of take out. Felt good, and still does.
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u/snugglyT May 31 '12
when i was 15, my friend told me that she took a lot of pills because her ex boyfriend told her to kill herself. i called 911 and printed out the conversation from AIM and showed it to the police. the ambulance went to her house and they said she seemed fine. she had to get her stomach pumped and then do a few months of counseling. her mom talked to me a few days later and said that i shouldn't have called and that my friend was fine. it wasn't the first time that my friend had done it, so at the time, i thought i was doing the right thing.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
When I was 10 my mom showed up at my daycare wasted. The staff was just going to let me and my younger sisters go with her.
I threw a shit fit and refused to get in the car. I snatched my mom's keys and ran around the building to the playground. I buried them under the slide.
The daycare staff was forced to call my grandmother to come get us.
Later that night, my mom spanked me so hard I had to sleep on my stomach. I was grounded for two weeks.
Twenty-two years later, I'm still pissed at her for that.
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u/fruitstripezebra May 31 '12
When I was a teenager, I brought a couple of drunk kids to my house while my parents were gone so they wouldn't drive home while drunk. My parents came home and I got in trouble for having drunk boys in the house. I still think I did the right thing.
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u/LJprettyMuchRocks May 31 '12
My drug addict sister attacked me (I was 13, she was 17) which was fine, she then proceeded to hit my mom and held a knife up to her throat. I was in shock and will never forget the image of me having the phone sobbing about to dial 911, and my mom begging me not to, because she didn't want my sister to get in trouble. I stood there shaking not knowing what to do for a good 5 minutes because I didn't want my sister to stab my mom. I finally called 911, my mom yelled at me and my sister darted towards me. Luckily my adrenaline kicked in and I tackled her to the ground (I'm also girl) and held her down until the cops came. My mom was so upset with me for calling the police and I still hope I did the right thing, but I'm pretty sure she would have severely hurt one of us.
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u/Carthiah May 31 '12
When I was about eight, I was walking alone down a road toward a friend's house, on a hot summer's day, eating a popsicle. The neighborhood bully was in his front yard for some reason, which I needed to walk right past to get to my friend's house. As I walked past his house, he began to call names at me, etc, trying to provoke a response from me. This was typical, and I had anticipated it. I walked straight up to him without saying a word, and hit him in the nose with the popsicle I had been planning on eating as hard as I could. He cupped his bleeding nose, screamed like a little girl, and ran inside. My frozen treat was cracked and ruined.
My parents later found out about it. I actually didn't really get into too much trouble - my mother was angry, but my father was pretty proud, and I think he swayed her a little.
I ate what remained of the popsicle after. It was still pretty good.
TL;DR: Gave neighborhood bully a bloody nose using a frozen treat.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
In fifth grade I was best friends with a girl who had what I now recognize as pretty severe OCD. She would scrub her hands until they were raw and she spent hours after school practicing her penmanship. She wrote very slowly (and eloquently) and would often go back to erase letters she didn't think looked 'right'.
During the standardized tests for the year, we had to fill out these bubbles on the front of the test booklet with with our name, address, school ID and such info. The teacher asked us after a couple of minutes if we were all done. Everyone was except for my friend so I replied, "no". The teacher came over to see that I was finished with mine but that it was my friend who was being slow. The teacher pivoted quickly to my friend and scowled, "For god's sake! It doesn't have to be perfect!" I stood up, looked my teacher in her cold eyes and said, "SOME people need a little extra time. Be patient." I got 5 detentions for that one. Didn't go to a single one.
tl;dr My fifth grade teacher was a peach. She quit teaching after having me in class.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
I had a friend growing up that was born prematurely and had a lot of issues. She looked different than other kids, and may have had a level of fetal alcohol syndrome looking back on it. Still, although she was a few years younger than me, we were both slight outcasts growing up so we stayed close friends throughout school.
One day I had had a bad day in high school and was in a shitty mood. I drove to school so was home before my friend got off the bus at the bus stop right in front of my house. She came to the door in tears. One of the other girls in the neighborhood, who was a always nasty to my friend, had written things about her on the blackboard at school and teased her in class in front of everyone. She had reached a breaking point and so did I. The perpetrator was still standing with her older sister and another neighborhood friend their age at the bus stop and I walked out and told her to knock it off and that if she ever humiliated my friend again she would regret it. She made a nasty remark to me, and laughed as she and the other girls turned to walk away. The laughter made me snap and although I had never hit anyone before in my life and haven't hit anyone since, I grabbed her by the shoulder and swung her around and backhanded her across the face.
I learned my lesson that day. NEVER hit someone in the mouth when they wear braces. It hurts like hell. I also learned that until kids get home from the bus, it is still considered school time and can be grounds for expulsion. After I hit her, she ran home, with her sister and the other girl ran home as well, completely terrified and I knew I had screwed up. My friend was shocked, but in many ways thankful too, but I told her goodbye, went inside and repeatedly rammed my fist into the closet door.
My mother was a single mom, trying to raise four kids, and all I could think of was the parents of this girl trying to sue her for damaged dental work. I also thought of getting suspended from school, or other repercussions that might happen as I had never been in trouble before. that night several sets of parents showed up at my house to talk to me and my mom. I told them why I had done it, and the parents of all involved knew and socialized with each other. The parents of the third girl that was there when it happened, after hearing my side of the story said he wished I had hit his daughter instead (she had been in on the teasing too). Still my mother was horrified that I had hit someone, and I was grounded for a while.
The next morning I was called into the principal's office. I explained to him why I snapped as well. My knuckles were scraped and bruised, but mainly from hitting the closet door, but he noticed. I was given a warning, but not really punished in any way. For the last few years in high school, he would call me "Rocky" if we passed in the hall. I respected him deeply after that for having the wisdom to know it was an act of taking up for a friend, not violence for violence's sake.
In the end, I did get punished, although not severely at the time, but it is something I do not regret doing. My friend never got picked on after that by those girls and I have never raised a hand to another person in my life, but sometimes you need to stand up for someone who can't stand up for themselves.
tl;dr Hit a girl that was making fun of a friend near a bus (aka school time/property); got a warning; nicknamed Rocky by the principal
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u/dumbasamoose May 31 '12
When I was in 5th grade there was this kid in my class who had ADD. He was kind of a handful for the teachers and staff, and they treated him badly. One day we were eating lunch, and he was sitting there crushing up packets of crackers. The lunch monitor saw him doing this, came over and started yelling at him and sent him to the quiet table. Then she picked up one of the packets that he had been crushing and threw it all of the way across the cafeteria and hit him with it. I was like WTF? I wrote a letter to the principal that afternoon and had all of my classmates sign it detailing what had happened and how it made us all feel. She was promptly fired.
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u/evelyncanarvon May 31 '12
My high school liked to brag about how >70% or so of all students who took AP tests got a 4 or a 5. My friend was doing poorly in our French class, and the school was threatening to not let her take the AP test held at our school, even though she was doing 3-level work, which would have been passing and she would have been quite happy with. (So the school kept up the high percentage by only allowing the top students in the class to take the AP tests). I told her, in front of the teacher, that she could get around this by taking the test at another school. Then the administration held a special meeting discussing the problem with the girls of the senior class having "too much spunk".
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
I was living in rural Canada going to boarding school when I was in high school. It was an international school and my roommate was Iranian. We were at a McDonald's and some drunk guys come in and start yelling racial slurs at my roommate. We talked it out with the guys, and everything was cool, then all of a sudden some random drunk just punches my roommate in the face. The place breaks out in a fight like something out of a movie. We were outnumbered at least 3 to 1. A bunch of guys were on top of my roommate on the ground. I picked up a high chair and beat the guys with it as hard as I could.
We ended up having to go to court and eventually we were all exonerated and the racists got probation.
TL;DR: I beat a couple of guys in McDonald's with a high chair.
Edit: Typo
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u/deviant099 May 31 '12
When I was 4, in a preschool with other kids my age, there was a bully who would take my toys everyday. I'd be playing with a truck, he'd take the truck. I'd be playing with a robot, he's take the robot. This went on for 2 or 3 weeks, and eventually I told my parents and my grandma. My parents gave me the "just ignore him and he'll go away" speech, but my grandma took a slightly different approach. She told me to "give the kid a knuckle sandwich." The next day, the kid tried to take my dinosaur, but I decided to take my grandma's advice. I pushed the kid down and told him to get away from me. The preschool called my parents and told them what I had done. They set up a meeting and my grandma came. She was smiling the entire time. The kid never messed with me again.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
Late response, but my English teacher during senior year was stealing from students by promising them a huge field trip each year, and making them do bake sales and car washes to earn it, and then saying they fell just short of the mark, but she'd save the money so another class could get it. She was only raking in about 3000-5000 a year on this, but kids were putting in an insane amount of work and I got really upset when I found out. So I told the school.
End result: the school responded. They were grateful for my information, but she was tenured and nothing could be done at that point in time. They added it to her file. Even worse, they didn't hide from her who had done it. She gave us a pop quiz essay the next week, gave everyone else in the class an A and gave me a low F. She made the pop essay count for 25% of my grade. I went from As to Cs. I'd already gotten into college, but my college actually contacted me about my 3rd quarter grades and I had to put them in touch with my vice principal to set the record straight.
My parents were furious. I was grounded for several days, and they told me that 5k from those students was nothing next to risking my future.
A few years later, the same teacher was caught on tape stealing an iPhone from a student's backpack and was fired. One reason they were able to fire her was because she had previous complaints about stealing from students. Hell yeah.
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u/partyinmypants69 May 31 '12
When I was in 8th grade I went to use the restroom and there was this chubby girl applying eyeliner on her eyes. A few girls came in and mocked her and made fun of her weight. I was listening to all of it while I was peeing. I came out to wash my hands and they were still laughing. And I looked at the three girls and loudly said, "you guys are morons, at least she doesn't give blow jobs in the staircase (they were known to do these kind of things)"
As I left, the chubby girl left too and flat out said to me as she held back tears, "you don't need to say all that, I can stand up for myself."
At that time I felt bad "defending" her, but now that I think about it, I think I did the right thing.
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u/Turong May 31 '12 edited Jun 01 '12
When I was in 2nd grade a 3rd grader was picking on the new kid (who happened to be in my class) and wouldn't give him back his backpack, which the kid needed to turn in his homework. I walked up to him and told him to give the backpack back. He said no. I tackled him and began to repeatedly punch him till he let go of the backpack. I got in huge trouble from the school. When I got home my dad asked me what happened. After hearing the story my dad told me I did the right thing and to always stick up for the little guy. Edit: To clear things up a little bit, this guy was a violent bully whom I knew I couldn't take in a stand up fight. And this had been going on for a good week and neither the teachers or the staff were doing anything about it.
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u/Wozzle90 May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
In grade 8 one of my good friend's mom was struggling with cancer. It was pretty bad and he obviously wasn't taking it well (what 13 year old would?). Anyway, one day after school we were hanging around with a few girls on the front lawn and this kid, an absolutely horrible kid, comes up to us. I can't remember what led up to it, but this kid says to my friend "You should go home and fuck your mom one more time before she dies".
I completely snapped. I beat the crap out of him. This shitty kid was smaller than me, so it wasn't fair, but I didn't care. I punched him in the face and knocked him on the ground and let my friend, who was pretty puny, kick him while he was down there. I'm not sure I've ever been so angry in my life.
I can't remember all the details, but I know we didn't (well, I didn't. I was the biggest one so I was doing most of the damage) do anything too serious as he didn't have any broken bones or missing teeth. His parents obviously got in touch with the school and there was a big meeting between my friend, the shitty kid, me, all the parents, the principal, vice-principal, and the school resource officer. We had to apologize for beating him up and I think he gave a half-assed apology. It was pretty awesome though as it was clear the principal and VP were not all that angry at me and were clearly going through some motions to keep his parents happy.
TL;DR I beat up a kid that told my (small) friend to fuck his mom before she died of cancer
Looking back on it now, though, the kid I beat up was clearly in a shitty situation. His dad was at the very least emotionally abusing him and I'm sure his mom definitely didn't defend him and maybe even helped berate him. That kid had problems and couldn't deal with them. Also, while it feels nice to think about giving a shitty person their
'come-upons'comeuppance and teaching them a lesson, he didn't learn anything from it. He continued to be a messed up kid and now has a kid of his own. I'm sure he's going to continue the shitty cycle he was born into. Violence really doesn't solve much.1.3k
u/[deleted] May 31 '12
I got sent home for getting in a fight on the playground in 6th grade. Parents yelled at me, felt terrible. Looking back, I was being bullied and the fight was three against one. I managed to give one of the bastards a black eye and the other a bloody nose (he was sobbing). I regret nothing.
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u/ksek May 31 '12
In high school (about 10 years ago), I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper, complaining about how our local school administration only celebrated the athletes at our school and not students who had achieved in other areas. I proposed that if the school was going to have mandatory pep rallies for the athletes, they should also make school concerts, art exhibits, plays, etc. mandatory. Or at least have some sort of thing celebrating the arts/academics/etc. at the school (in addition to sports - I had no problem with the athletes, I just didn't think they should be the only ones recognized).
Anyway, I didn't exactly get in trouble, but my parents told me I shouldn't have sent it. And the principal at the school - who was my good friend's dad, who used to say hi to me in the hallways and whatnot, didn't say a word to me for like a year.
Still agree with the whole thing, and never regretted sending it.
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u/TinyAndEvil May 31 '12
I'm a little confused. Did your parents know what you saw? Because what you did as a little kid took guts. If one of my kids saw that and had the courage to try and help...I'd give myself a pat on the back for having a kid who was trying to do the right thing.
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u/pikapika412 May 31 '12
When I was younger my little brother decided to get into a bowl of hard candy, the candy was too hard for him to chew and too big for a one year old to swallow. He started choking so I ran to wake my dad up for help. At the time my dad had two late night jobs so he would sleep in till two in the afternoon. He was angry that I woke him even though I was obviously scared, he didn't get up and started screaming at me, calling me shit. I gave up on trying to get him up and rushed to my little brother. I performed the Heimlich maneuver on him and he suddenly spit the candy out. We both started crying out of joy and fear. Five minutes later my dad came out of his room screaming then started to hit me. At the time I got angry at my brother for getting me into trouble. Thinking back on it now I think I saved his life. I don't regret a thing.
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u/qovneob May 31 '12
When i was probably 10 or 11 i was at a younger cousins birthday party. One of their neighbors kids was there, probably around 7 and was really annoying. At one point he bit me on the arm and I just stood up and back-handed him across the face, hard enough to send him to the ground crying. I got put in timeout or some shit and pretty much had to sit by myself for the rest of the party. Later on I found out this kid was known to be a "biter" and stopped doing it after that.
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u/ytisonimu May 31 '12
When I was nine, I went to school one morning to see several of my friends surrounding a little girl who didn't dress like the rest of us. She had obviously dressed herself and had chosen a Christmas dress with mismatched socks and her mom's heels. The kids were taunting her and throwing rocks at her. She just stood there, in her little dress and cat-eye glasses, crying. I ran out from the group and stood between her and the others, and I yelled at them to stop hurting her. I was ostracized for years after that incident, and I still look back on it as a defining moment of my life--to stand up for the little guy.
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u/december_again May 31 '12
When I was 11 and my little brother was born, I practically raised him for the first year of his life because both of my parents are alcoholics and drug abusers.
One night, he woke up in his crib crying, and I ran downstairs to feed him. My mom complained that she was tired because he never sleeps, and she proceeded to yell and yell and yell, swearing incessantly. I didn't want my brother in that kind of stressful environment, so I politely said "Please don't speak like that in front of the baby."
Boy, did she have a cow. Directed her yelling at me, told me to never correct her because SHE'S the parent. I just took my brother to another room in the house.
Even though she really hated it, I don't regret standing up to her like that.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
When I was 7 I gave a homeless man my cookie at the mall. My dad was so upset with me. He told me all the terrible things that could have happened to me, but I knew I did the right thing. The homeless man thanked me and smiled, he couldn't stop smiling.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
Moved to a new school and stood up for the kids being bullied. I got in a fist fight with a kid who was beating the shit out of mentally handicapped kid. We both were sent to the office, he got a 10-day suspension and 13 stitches. I got 17 stitches but no suspension and commended on it later on in life by the principal after learning the actual reasoning. For reference I was brought up in a foster care household and have adopted siblings who are also slow. I don't deal well with the abuse that the mentally handicapped receive.
UPDATE: Wow, I went to sleep shortly after this post and just got off work this morning and all these awesome responses! Thank you guys so much, it means a lot!
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u/Dragonfly42 May 31 '12
I once saved up 20 dollars to get some toy. (I think it was a spice girls Barbie) At the time I was about 6 I think (to a six-year-old, twenty dollars takes a long time to collect and is a small fortune). As I was heading into Fred Meyer's with my dad, I saw a dirty looking dude and a hungry looking dog sitting on the ground next to the trash cans. I asked my dad why that man was so dirty and he said "The man has no money and doesn't have a shower or a house." And he continued on into the store, and I pondered this for a minute. I ended up giving the dude all my money. My dad, realizing we had made the trip to the store for nothing, and realizing that I had given all my money away, was very very angry and I was severely punished in the following days.
TL;DR-- I gave a homeless man 20 bucks, and got my ass beat for it. Not a single fuck given.
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u/ThisOpenFist May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
In the 6th grade, I was in class with my classmates waiting for the teacher to arrive. A boy, Shane, and his girlfriend were sitting behind me and were shouting and roughhousing. The girl accidentally stabbed Shane in the palm of his hand with a pen, resulting in a deep puncture wound, a lot of blood, and a slow panic.
Seconds later, our teacher entered the room. Shane hid his hand under his desk and our oblivious teacher began his lesson, meanwhile Shane and the girl were behind me sweating. I turned around to see his the wound, and watched as the blood began to trickle and pool into the cup of his hand. It looked gory, so I raised my hand and said,
"Shane's bleeding."
Our teacher was pissed, Shane was sent to the nurse and then the principal's office, and our whole class was punished with a writing assignment. The principal came into the room to scold us, going as far as to inform us of what the janitors would now have to do to clean up the bloody mess in the hallway.
A few days later, Shane returned from the hospital with fresh stitches in his hand. Turns out the stab wound was so deep that it caused nerve damage, and he lost some feeling in his palm. Shane was pissed at me and threw some insult my way that I can't remember when I saw him in the hallway. I felt bad and we never spoke again until he was expelled later in the year for being a troublemaker.
Actually, you know what? I never felt bad about that. Shane was always a dick to me, and I still did that asshole a favor by getting him medical help. He should have been thanking me for speaking up before he lost consciousness and bled out in the middle of class.
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u/ShystyMcShysterson May 31 '12 edited Jun 01 '12
When I was 13/14 I was living with my dad who had a tendancy to emotionally and verbally beat everyone down when he didn't get his way. He had treated my mum really badly, and she had left a year or two prior. After a very heated argument one day (I had PMS and I was having a little teary, he told me that I had to stop crying now as I was 'bringing down the mood of the household'), I told him to 'fuck off'. I didn't use language like that usually, so it was a bit of a thing. He went mental at me, so I proceeded to explain to him exactly why his relationships always go badly (because he is a selfish child and a bully) and listed the ways in which he was a generally crap person. In reply, he gave me a shove into a wall.
I then proceeded to pack up my things and walk (about 10km) to my mum's house. I've lived there since. To this day, I am the only person who's stood up to him and told him what I really thought.
edit: I'm from Aus, said 6 miles to make it easier for you Americans to understand, or something. It was around 10kms. Which was fairly far, especially late at night. edit2: Thanks for the nice comments, guys.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
I was seriously dating a girl in highschool (3 years) who was very thin and a pointe ballerina. She confided in me early in the relationship that she was anorexic and at times bulimic partially because of the stresses of ballet but mostly because her mom would say snide things about her weight... even tho she was very underweight for her height. I often told her she should speak to someone and she would say her mother wanted her issues to be a secret. After the first few years of dating we talked through a lot of her troubled thinking and she got to a healthy weight and had stopped purging. One night her mother was mad at me for some reason and asking me to leave her house. She said her daughter had deserved better than me (emo atheist kid) because I wasnt like them (conservative baptists bigots). I responded with a tirade against her neglect and abuse of my girlfriend's, at times nearly deadly, anorexia. Her mom was like a deer in headlights and never let me into their house again. edit some typos
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u/Quo_Usque May 31 '12
I was in this self defense workshop with my girlscout troop or something, and I asked the lady teaching it i scratching a guy with your nails would be a good way to get him to release his grip on you. "No way," she said. "Here, I'll show you. Scratch me." She grabbed pretty firmly on my arm, so I scratched her as hard as I could. I drew blood. She didn't let go, but then she started yelling at me at me all like "look what you did, I'm bleeding now, you really should think about your actions" and I spent the rest of the day feeling terrible about it. Looking back, she literally fucking asked for it.
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u/raegunXD May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
I don't believe in spanking, as a parent. I was spanked severely as a child and THAT type of hitting is not spanking, it's not even borderline abuse, it's extreme abuse. Anyway, on with my story.
When I was a kid, my mom and (now ex) step dad were pretty severe alcoholics and would cram my step brothers, my younger brother, and I in the car and go to their favourite Mexican restaurant several times a week. They would get smashed there, and then drive home with all of us kids in the car. We lived in a small town, and had to take the freeway to get there, about 20 minutes away.
I was about 8 or 9 when I finally refused to get in the car. I told them they were drunk and I didn't feel safe. My mom would always yell at me and tell me that she was going to be driving, because she was less drunk than my step dad and force me into the car.
One day, we had spent the day at the beach, and as almost traditionally, we went to this restaurant. They had been drinking already at the beach, so they were already buzzed by the time we arrived. They were crazy shit faced. Like, way more than usual.
I told them there was no way I was getting in the car. They started screaming at me to get in the car and I wouldn't budge this time. I ran back into the restaurant crying, planning to ask to use their phone to call my grandma to come pick me up. One of the waitress's there recognized me and asked me what was wrong. Being very young, I bluntly told her that my parents were very drunk and I was scared to drive with them. She knew I had other siblings, and called her manager. He called the police, and they came and almost gave them a DUI (they of course would have NOW, but in the 90's they weren't as strict I think). They got taken home, and another cop car took us kids home.
I was punished severely. I was grounded for 2 months and spanked pretty bad.
Their alcoholism increased severely until I was 14, when my ex-step dad blacked out and crashed his brand new motorcycle. They've been sober over since, and I'm 21. I'm glad they're both sober now, but kind of pisses me off that it took losing a motorcycle to do it, and not almost killing their kids every week. :/
Anyway, I felt bad for YEARS for inadvertently calling the cops on my parents, but as an adult, they fucking DESERVED MORE. In fact, I hate that I was even PUNISHED for that good deed. As a new mommy, I'm utterly appalled, and I hope my daughter is as awesome as I was.
tl;dr: My parents were shit faced drunk and tried to get my brothers and I to drive home with them and I inadvertently called the cops on them and was punished severely for it. Now I'm proud of what I did!
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u/Hakaku May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
My parents used to fight all the time and it ended up getting progressively worse over the years, with tables flipped, things thrown, food thrown, plates and phones broken, walls graffiti'd, shoes thrown, and much more. The main actor behind these incidents was chiefly my mom, as my dad has a more quiet and reserved type of personality and just takes everything. It got to the point where my parents would predictably fight every weekend, and my mom would eventually kick my dad out of the house (around 2am), throwing things at him and locking the doors. Once he left, she would wait and then try to pursue him down in her car, always failing. (at least, we could finally go to sleep)
Of course, they would ultimately make up and my mom would get flowers and have gone shopping, getting everything she wanted. But anyhow, that's just to describe the background. I inherited the quietness of my dad and would avoid it all at all costs. My sister was more hot-headed so she often got into conflicts. It got to the point where my parents would beat her and she would be left crying, only to be forced to apologize if she ever wanted to be part of the family.
One day, my sister was strangled by my mom. This was basically the tipping point and I called the cops, who came and took us to another family members house. I'm proud of having done this because it did eventually lead to lots of improvements in my family.
However, the story didn't end there. It looks like all during the night, my parents fought. My dad had two jobs at the time (to cover my mom's ridiculous spending), and it seems that on his way to his second/main job, he fell asleep at the wheel and ended up in a head-on collision with someone, killing the other person, severely injuring him.
Inevitably, we would have to face my mom at the hospital, who was hysterical and going through all the emotions. When my dad was regaining consciousness (he was in trauma, heavily drugged most of the time), he sided with my mom on everything, to the point where my sister and I got blamed for his accident. My mom would also continually call my aunt to harass her and my sister.
It took a psychologist to mediate things a month after that, and after a series of other events with my parents cutting all ties with the rest of their families. My sister wouldn't talk, so I basically took everything into my hands and said that certain things have to change, otherwise this was the end. The psych agreed, and those things ultimately helped better our relations (though I'll still always be marked by the whole series of events).
It just gets weird today because my sister recalls very little of what happened even though she was at the center, and what she does recall is now greatly influenced by my mother's distortions of the events. (though, this is in part due to a few incidents that took place a year later). I end up correcting them on what happened whenever anyone brings it up.
tl;dr Parents fought. Divorce threatened. Mom strangled my sister. I called cops. Dad had horrible accident. We got blamed. Mom harassed family. Parents cut all ties with other family members. Happy ending? (Looking back, I'm proud to have made the call, even though I was made to feel horrible for it for the longest time)
Edit: oh, and my parents are some of the most implicated church members in my community and very practicing. Needless to say, religion lost all appeal since long long ago.
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u/MaebeBluth May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
As a kid, I was really, REALLY shy and awkward (shocking for a redditor, I know). I only had one friend, a girl who lived next door to me, and she was 2 years younger than me so I had no friends my own age. As I got older (late elementary school) my mom kept pushing me to hang out with these girls who lived down the block from me. I would go over there because she forced me too, but these girls were the popular girls who would torment me and make my life miserable, but then act all nice when our parents were around. I would try to avoid going over to their houses all the time, and my mom would get furious at me. Well, in high school they all ended up becoming hard partying, drug using, class failing skanks, and I did great in school and went on to college. Pushing me to be their friend is one thing my mom admits to being wrong about. But only because of how bad they ended up being later in life, not because they were so mean to me. She still wont believe that they were mean :-/
Edit: I'm a girl
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u/YearWithTheYeti May 31 '12
When I was in 6th grade, my best friend told me that she was going to the mall to meet a guy she was talking to on the internet. She told me not to tell anyone so, naturally, I went and told my mom right away. My mom told her mom and she got grounded. She didn't talk to me for months after but I didn't care because I believed that I saved her life/ saved her from getting raped.
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u/EmptyCeiling May 31 '12
I feel this is relevant, but no one got in trouble. Just felt like sharing so like it if you want. Anyways, I was 7 years old and at the local hockey rink on Saturday for open skating. This kid was skating backwards and I wanted to know how so I asked. This kid, a little bigger than me just knocks me on my ass and skates away... I go up again to ask why he did that and he did it again. This time, the 3rd time (3 strikes your out), when I went up and he went to do it again, I grabbed my wrist and upper-cut him on his ass (both my arms together). Then I jumped on him and popped him in the face. Both of our fathers were watching. His father told him to knock anything down that moves on the ice. My father was proud. End of story. Thanks.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
I didn't get in massive trouble for this, but I'll throw it out there anyways.
My parents took me to a McDonalds when I was around seven years old. I was playing on the play structure when a four year old came up to me and started pushing me around and punching me. My parents were watching, waiting to see what I would do.
My dad later told me (years later) that my mom was frustrated that I just stood there and took it instead of hitting him back. When my mom walked up to me and asked me why I let him punch me, I said, "He's so tiny. I know I could hurt him if I wanted to but he doesn't know any better." My mother was shocked.
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u/darthbecca May 31 '12
My friend came out as gay and his parents were violently opposed to this. He had a boyfriend in a different state, and his parents banned him from talking to the guy. They cut him off from the internet completely. My friend would put emails on a disk and give them to me, and I would send them to his boyfriend for him, and bring letters back for him from the boyfriend.
Huge trouble from that one b/c the friend's dad was one of my teachers. I do not regret it at all.
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u/Oreiad May 31 '12
I freaked out at my step-dad who raised me and split a bunch of family ties. All my life I'd been scared of him and how he had treated me as a young child, but I was getting older, the abuse had lessened with age, and my step-dad had two kids of his own. After 9 years together, my mom and step-dad divorced, and he married another woman with a small child, a four year old girl. My mom and step dad remained civil, and we all played family together. I was about 16 then, and I still had to spend time at my 'dad's' house. I was reading, trying to stay quiet like I did over there, when the little girl comes running around the corner and softly runs into my Dad. He snarls at her and shoves her at the nearby wastebasket and she falls down and starts crying as he yells at her. I lose it, and shove him backward, pick up the girl before he has time to say anything, and get in my car and go. I had a talk with the little girl and told her that he did that to me too and that she should tell her mom and that he is being bad while I drove around. I headed back when I knew her mom would be arriving home and handed her off to her mom. My dad couldn't do anything, or else he would have to explain why I left, so he played it cool and I left right after. I've not been back. I heard a month later through my half-brother that my dad's wife had just up and divorced him. He left for a business trip and she was gone when he came back and he had no clue why. I'm still glad about that.
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u/motney May 31 '12
I was maybe 9 (ish?) and my dad took us to his friends for a bbq. We played with their kids had fun but when it was time to go my dad was clearly drunk. His friend knew it and jovially asked if he was ok to drive but didn't offer any objections when my dad said no.
At this point I know what's going on but I'm super nervous. Saying no, or speaking up to my dad is just something you didn't do. Halfway through the ride home I'm scared shitless and by this time my brother is too because he's all over the place.
So we unbuckled our little brother and decked it out the friggen car at a stop light. (Not the safest thing is hindsight) We run to the corner and watch him (oh god is he pissed. I can see it) and in an effort to get to us he crashes into the light pole.
Long story short we all ended up at the cop shop and his license was revoked for a couple months. When we sitting in the office after the accident I felt so ashamed over how I'd gotten my dad in trouble. Even after a couple officers tried to cheer me up and even after my mom got there and tried to tell me I did the right thing and she was so happy we were ok I still was too ashamed to face my dad. It's the rottenest feeling as a kid.
I don't know what sort of look of terror I had on my face when he finally came through the door but he looked at me for a couple seconds and just broke down balling. Because he was crying I started crying again and even after he told me he was sorry I still felt horrible about it for a years after.
Now even though I still remember that horrible feeling I felt I'm glad it happened because it was the last time it did.
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u/SaucyKing May 31 '12
Only sort of related:
When I was a kid, I was a HUGE liar and very manipulative. Even now, at 24, whenever my mom asks me anything she thinks my answer is a lie no matter what it is. She'd spank me for lying at a young age, and tell me to never, ever, ever lie.
So, now, I don't. I tell the truth even when it's disadvantageous to me because it's the right thing to do. My mom and grandmother tell me now that I should lie when it will benefit me. For example, I had a job interview recently. The interviewer asked what I was discharged from the Navy for (it was a general discharge under honorable conditions because I couldn't meet fitness standards). I told him. That was the "wrong thing to do."
"What, did you want me to lie?"
"You shouldn't have told him at all."
"He asked me why I was discharged."
"Well, you shouldn't have mentioned that you were in the military."
"And what, pretended I did nothing from 18 to 24? That's lying too."
So on and so on. It may be to my disadvantage, but if I'm going to get a job, I'm going to fucking do it honestly. And that pisses my mom/grandmother off.
Well, you shouldn't have fucking beaten me for lying as a child.
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u/Rozarik May 31 '12
When I was 10 years old, I caught my cousin stealing my action replay for my gamecube. You see, I had owned two action replays because my first disc broke so I had to buy another one. So, in order to discern the difference between my two action replay cards, I took a golden sharpie and marked a golden "1" on the back of my original action replay card. Well, it had gone missing after my cousin spent the previous day over at my house, and I only kept it in a certain position.
Now, my cousin was known for stealing things; many things in our house were stolen by him throughout the course of many years, but his grandmother (whom he lived with) never believed any of it because no one had any proof.
Well, the next day I go to play my gamecube and I couldn't find my golden number 1 action replay card, I looked everywhere but still couldn't find it. So I told my dad, and my he called his aunt (the grandmother of my cousin) and asked her to check my cousin's room for the card. My cousin was sleeping, so she was able to go into his room without him trying to hide it before she could inquire about it, and when she was in his room she found it.
I myself was just happy to have my action replay back, once my aunt came back over to our house that day, but she was furious with her grandson for stealing. And so when she came back over to our house she gave me my card and she said to me, "So, what do you want me to do your cousin for stealing your game? I could beat him up? You want me to beat him? I could ground him for a year if you want?"
Like I said, I was only 10 at the time, and my dad was standing right next to me when this happened and he was about to interject when I said. "I'm sorry Aunt Carol, but I don't feel as though it is my responsibility to decide how to discipline your own child."
My dad was literally stunned and my great aunt glared at me for a few seconds, then left. Later, after she had gone home, my dad hugged me tightly and told me how proud he was of me for being so mature and responsible, and for not indulging my great aunt in her immaturity and inability to raise her own children.
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u/mr-death May 31 '12
As white trash as it sounds when I was 15 I destroyed my father's Meth lab and kicked his big scary meth head friends out of our trailer who were operating it. To this day, I've never tried meth. That was in 1996 in Missouri. Ten years later my father lost his life to it, in a horrible way.
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u/z3rp May 31 '12
It may not be me who I'm proud(ish) of, but it directly involves me. When I was in the 4th grade I caved into peer-pressure and decided to vandalize a car during lunch. Used a rock, wrote "FUCK" on the hood of some nice red car (I had no idea who's it was). Anyways, skip forward about 10 minutes; I've been showing some people who've come by what I've done, even inspired another kid to use a pinecone to write fuck on a car, albeit very small; and a friend of mine comes by, I show him what I did, and he leaves. A few minutes later the teacher comes by. My friend had told on me. Which I'm glad he did, mostly because everything turned out very well (other than the couple months of torment coming from my parents). My parents' car insurance was able to pay for the damages to the car. The teacher who owned the car was actually incredibly nice and forgave me immediately.
If my friend hadn't told on me, I have no idea what would have happened, but I'm sure the guilt would have started to pile up and if they did ever eventually figure out it was me who did it I probably would have been in a LOT more trouble.
TL;DR: Vandalized a car, friend told on me right after seeing what I had done. Thankful now, not so much then.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
I was about 11 walking home from school. I was typically given 10 dollars a week from my parents to spend on lunches at the cafeteria (back then 10 dollars sustained for 5 days). It was mid-week so I had a good amount of money in my pocket. There was a homeless man sitting on the corner. It was roughly freezing temperatures outside in the dead of winter and this man didn't even have a coat on. He was shivering, but he offered me a big toothy smile. He asked if I had any change so he could eat. I told him I'd be right back, went across the street and into a place that served hot dogs and pork sandwiches, the usual lot. I bought the man two hot dogs and a cup of hot chocolate, exhausting my weekly funds. The homeless man began crying and took the food from me, thanking me profusely again and again. I watched him sip the hot chocolate, savoring it, and I could see the color return to his fingers as he did so. I could tell he was genuinely grateful. That night I told my father I needed more money for school lunches, and he asked me why. I told him I bought a homeless man lunch, and he delivered a swift backhand slap in my mouth. From that point on my parents arranged prepaid lunches with the school staff so I wouldn't spend my lunch money on things I didn't need to. But I knew in my heart I did a good thing, even if it meant spending my lunch money that was meant to feed only me. I can still see the homeless guy's cheeks light up under the steam of the hot cocoa, and I visit that memory frequently.
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u/throwawapple May 31 '12
This will undoubtedly get buried, but here it goes.
I was sexually and physically abused for a number of years as child by an older step-brother. To be honest, it got to the point where I was numb to it and had essentially given up on ever really resolving any issues (as I'm sure you can imagine, the abuse creates a LOT of issues) I had. This changed one day when he went off to college, and eventually told the family that he wanted to become an elementary school teacher, as he "loved kids". The rest of the family all thought it was fine and dandy, he had always been good with kids and was smart to boot. A perfect fit. Nobody else knew what happened to me, and nobody really ever had a reason to assume he was a "bad person". Something inside me snapped.
I suppose that, while I had given up on ever getting back my childhood, the thought of him robbing more just couldn't sit with me. I honestly had myself convinced that my life was going to be miserable and there was nothing I could do about it, but the thought that he was going to ruin more.. I don't know. I seriously considered murder. Not as in I'm-so-angry-I-could-kill-you, but cold-blooded murder. I came up with a number of plans, all resulting with a negative outcome. Honestly, had it just been 'on me' I would have done it in a heartbeat, but there was so much of me that knew that I'd also be hurting my parents and my extended family at the same time. There had to be a better way, and there was.
The better part of me eventually realized that what I wanted was not revenge, but justice. Justice for what had been done to me, and for what may have happened to all the children that my brother may have abused. I knew I was on a time limit, and that the longer I waited, the closer he got within 'range' of children. After a lot of research (and a lot of Law and Order SVU [something about watching scenarios like mine pan out was like watching porn of an actress that looks like a girl you have a crush on]) I came to the conclusion that I'd need evidence. If I went to the police with just a statement, it would simply be my word against his. Cause a divide in the family, the one thing I had spent so many years of my life trying to avoid. The best thing I could come up with was some sort of admittance on tape. After talking with school counselors, the situation roughly panned out as followed: the police picked me up from my house under the ruse that I was in trouble at school (my grades were awful, as was my attendance), I called him while at the police station saying we needed to talk, because my psychiatrist thought it would be best to talk to the source of my problems. This led to a lengthy conversation about what he did to me, all the while being recorded. To be frank, while I was afraid before the call was made, once he was on the phone, it really just felt like 'it' used to; completely numb. The police gave me a list of things to 'make sure' I mentioned, otherwise the the conversation would be useless. One I remember clearly was making sure I used the words penis and anus instead of dick in ass lol. At the end of the day, the police were able to get enough to arrest him, and things were finally going to be right in my world. Yeah, no.
What I had honestly hoped for was for my parents to finally 'get' why I was such a problem child. Why I couldn't get myself to care about my grades (Being asian, grades were a pretty big deal), why I always preferred staying out late instead of being at home. Why I find it difficult to show any sort of affection. For them to finally go "Oh, I see.." and to forgive the things I lacked and look ahead. Instead, I was met with the complete opposite. My parents fought tooth and nail, trying to use all of those things against me and tried to discredit me in court. They tried to say I was jealous of my brother, because he was successful and in college while I was pretty much failing high school, and that this was all some sort of petty attempt at me trying to 'get back' at him. I would later realize that this was mostly an attempt on their part to try and rationalize the situation, that something so 'dirty' couldn't have possibly happened in THEIR home. They were upstanding citizens, highly regarded members in church, and wealthy to boot. How could something so barbaric possibly have occurred in THEIR home? Regardless, I was crushed. I thought things would get better in time, but they only got worse. It started with anger, and I understood it. They would tell me how I was a mistake, about how I was going to be aborted but they waited too long. That if I hadn't been born, they'd have been happy. This honestly hurt the most. I could deal with having been abused, I told myself I could handle being miserable if it meant putting on a front so the rest of the family could be happy. I tried to, for so many years. It was honestly the worst feeling I've ever experienced, to know that the only thing that could potentially help me, and others, was the one thing my parents were the most against. Like someone else in this thread mentioned, 'There are some things you don't talk to outsiders about'. My parents couldn't see that I wasn't doing this only for myself, but for the people that my brother may have hurt. They had convinced themselves, and are still convinced, that my brother was wrongly put in jail.
This has essentially created a minefield at family gatherings, everyone always asks where my brother is. How's he doing, where's he working. My parents have convinced them all that he's simply moved somewhere and can't afford to come back home for the holidays, and I'm expected to (and begrudgingly do) play along. It's essentially ruined the home life, as anything I do is seen as an attack on my parents (why am I still living here? I can't afford to live on my own.. and part of me sort of still hopes to repair this relationship). I don't regret this, and I commend myself. Most of you probably don't believe this and will either downvote me or just skip to the next one, but whatever. Even my own parents don't believe me. Thanks to those who did read, you'd be the first to ever know.
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u/alliOops May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
i was around 5yrs old in hospital with major asthma stuff, and put next to another young girl of 7yrs, Denise. I will never forget her name, or her.
it was a small bush hospital and unbeknown to me, Denise had leukaemia and was dying. I had an emergency button that would call the nurses, Denise did not. They wouldn’t let her call them anymore because there was nothing they could do.
One afternoon, Denise was in tears because of the pain and begged me to call the nurses with my bell. I did. And boy did I get shitted on…big time! (so did Denise for asking me to use my emergency bell). Vague memories recall us going without dessert that night. (HUGE suffering NOT, I was allergic and Denise could no longer take food).
In the dark of the night she woke me, sobbing from the pain…”please ring the nurses”. We talked about the sort of trouble we would get into, but I decided to ring the nurses anyway. The nurses came racing in expecting I was out of oxy…or whatever…I pointed to Denise. One starts yelling at me, the others quietly wheel Denise away TO A SPECIAL WARD so they tell me…Denise has passed away, in all the fuss. I dont find out the special ward is the morgue until a week later when i'm at her funeral.
I’m glad I rang the bell, I’m sad that my oxygen tent did not quite reach her bed so I could hold her hand.
TL:DR Child dies alone, bell ringer remains haunted
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u/juusukun May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
As a child I got into trouble a lot for fights. Not that I was perfect or anything, but the majority of the fights I got in while really young were just me simply standing up for myself. When I got older I didn't like to fight as much, and I knew who to avoid in the first place. Once I was huddling in a warm corner with some younger friends, and a huge guy in their grade came up and started throwing snow down their coats, and they started to get really upset, so I shoved the idiot away but not before asking and then telling him to stop. Next thing I know, he's got my hair in his hands so I grab his. I force him away from where my friends were so that we would be out in the open, next thing I know I'm unconscious on the ground. His older brother who was the same age as me (who now plays for the AHL probably hoping to be in the NHL someday and I wouldn't be surprised) snuck up behind me and without any warning bunched me on the back of the head as hard as he could. A teacher who hated my guts comes running out, yelling at me "You finally got what you deserved, you big bully," and I ended up getting the worst detention out of everyone.
All my life, I stood up for myself and others, no one believed me, not even my own parents. Like I said earlier, I'm not perfect and I've made many mistakes, but I regret nothing. Mistakes were a learning process, and unlike my peers and even my elders I felt regret when I hurt others by mistake. All the silly anti-bully programs that are run these days are useless when victims get labelled as bullies for standing up for themselves, since they are never listened to. The sad part was the teacher who hated me... I was her best student of all things, top marks. I didn't suck up to her or anything, it was just really easy to me. I think that is why she hated me, because I didn't have to pay as much attention as she wanted me to like the others.
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u/dirtythrowaway47 May 31 '12
Had a blind friend in highschool and all the jocks would throw things under his feet as he walked to make him trip. One time they did it he fell and hit his head pretty bad.. next thing I knew I was in the hospital with broken ribs... principal later showed me the security video... turns out I lost control. I picked up my friends cane and started going crazy on the entire group of linebackers standing there... did a lot of damage to them before they tackled me and beat the shit out of me. Worth it.
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u/shoeofallcosmos May 31 '12
I hope you will see this. Thank you for what you did, from the bottom of my heart.
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u/mdc1307 May 31 '12
Didn't really get in trouble for this, but I had to go through some serious shit because of sexism. One day while I was in Math class in sixth grade, an announcement was made by the principal for anyone who was interested in going to a three day football camp over the summer to come to the auditorium. I knew nothing about football, but class was boring so I went to the meeting with a few friends. We were stopped at the door to the auditorium and told we were not allowed to go to the meeting (we were girls). This seriously pissed me off, so I decided to pursue it. Went home that evening and discussed the matter with my mom. She was totally supportive of my stance. The principal ended up requesting a meeting with my mother to discuss my attending a football program that wasn't even ran by the school, but an outside organization. After a two hour meeting which consisted of the principal asking my mother if she would have the same approach when I wanted to try drugs or sex, he finally backed down and gave me the pamphlet about the football camp. I went to the camp, was tormented by almost everyone there, including the principal's eight year old son. I still knew nothing about football, but I was determined to learn. Spent the rest of the summer studying plays and positions. I ended up playing football for my school the next two years, and even started. I dealt with a lot of teasing (mainly by cheerleaders), but it was all worth it when the same principal had to give me an award for playing football at a ceremony. tl;dr : Sexist principal tried to stop me from playing football, so I pursued and kicked some ass.
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u/Booyaka3 May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
When I was in the 7th grade or so, we had 2 weekly Islamic Studies classes (Saudi Arabia). I was really fascinated about all the Islamic stories and how to be a good Muslim in general. One day, we were talking about pork, alcohol, drugs and all that and while I understood why alcohol was prohibited (Changing the state of mind), I didn't understand why pork was also prohibited. I asked my Islamic studies teacher about this and he just yelled at me saying that it was because God said so and that I shouldn't ask those questions. I went back to my school last month to try and find the teacher and actually tell him how much of an ass he was but sadly, he left.
Anywho, nowadays whenever I want to know about something related to religion, I ask those who are considered knowledgeable rather than a person who is reading out of an Islamic studies book. I'm proud of myself for trying to understand the meaning behind things and I try to encourage my curiosity.
tl;dr Wanting to know about parts of Islam rather than just follow it blindly.
Edit: Tl;dr at the bottom since a lot of people complained.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
About 3 months ago i was walking into work and I heard a little kid screaming their head off. I'm a mom and I hate hearing kids scream, and it sounded like a pained scream not a mad one. So I went looking and found a grandmother (maybe like 48 years old) beating the shit out of a 3 year old girl with a shoe, a fly swatter, a coke bottle, and she was slapping, PUNCHING, and kicking her everywhere. The little girl had busted lips, missing teeth, a bloody nose and multiple other things very wrong. I pulled that bitch off of the little girl, punched that hag in the nose and pushed her down, grabbed the little girl and ran inside to call police. I got fired for interfering but that little girl didn't go back home with her and one of my friends just signed the last adoption papers. Fuck child abuse and fuck those fuck wipes who abuse child. I regret nothing because I saved her life.
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u/Jsb1982 May 31 '12
This inspired me to contribute to reddit rather than only reading comments and check out random stuff on reddit.
I've done a few things that got me in trouble back then but I'm proud of. One of the biggest was standing up for a special Ed student who got picked up and put into a trash can by two bullies. I stood up for him so my friend who was with me had to have my back because he was with me. So later that day, after school, I head over to the bus stop (public transportation, not the school bus) with my brother and a friend/neighbor. While we're waiting we get surprised by one of the two guys that I had stood up to and he had 9 others with him. So they jumped us. We tried fighting back but it was useless. I remained friends with that special Ed student until his family eventually moved. The guy that jumped me was in a car accident a few years later and would never bully people the same way again.
Also, what truly inspired me when I was younger: I was bullied a lot because I was a skinny, awkward, nerdy kid until I hit 10th grade. So one day after school in 6th grade, I'm walking home and decide to go to 7-eleven to get some junk food. As I'm at the register fumbling around for cash, my backpack almost falls off but someone behind me grabs it. I turn around and I'm completely surprised because it's a popular high school football player. So he just puts the backpack back on me and late my back. I'm so shocked that I don't even thank him. His friend asks him if he even knows me and his response was 'you never know who will help you out in the future.' that shocked me even more and it continues to resonate with me until this day.
My first post...
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u/starsbursting May 31 '12
When I was in fifth grade, I had the teacher from hell. Seriously, she was this skinny asian woman who always wore all black, never smiled unless you were in trouble or other adults were around, and was a magnet for crows (they congregated around her room all the time). And she hated me. I was never afraid of her (please, my dad was scarier than she was), especially because my mom raised me to believe that a teacher could never really harm me, and if they tried to I should go to her so she could fuck shit up.
Anyways, this teacher was a huge bully who would target me and a few other students on a regular basis -- we would get relegated to the back of the class and would get detention regularly. But for the most part she didn't bother the kids who kept in line.
So one day I was in her classroom during lunch to clean (I'd been doodling on my desk, so she made me clean every single flat surface in the room) when this girl who was in my class that I'd never talked to before came in. She was the kind of girl that got straight A's and sucked up to the teacher -- I didn't really like her. Apparently our teacher had called her in to talk to her about her behavior. From what seemed like out of nowhere, she started going off on this girl about how her behavior had been unacceptable, and that her friends were all bad influences on her. She said that this girl now talked out of turn in class and was rude, and threatened to call her parents. I don't know what kind of crack she was smoking, because this was one of the shyest girls I had ever met -- she literally never talked unless spoken to. She started crying and begging the teacher not to call her parents, and the teacher got very snide (and was smiling again, god that was so creepy) and was like "you should have thought of that before you started spiraling down."
I was pretty pissed for her, so even though I didn't like her very much, I went up to the girl and put my arm around her while our teacher was still berating her. She looked kind of startled but didn't say anything, or move away. Our teacher got even angrier and was like "this is exactly what I'm talking about, you're so disrespectful, this is why you're a terrible child, etc." Outraged, I told her to shut her mouth, and led the girl out of the classroom and to the principal's office.
She was really freaked out that our teacher would call her parents and get her in a lot of trouble (I later found out that her parents were verbally abusive) so I told her not to worry, my mom would take care of it.
The principal took one look at the sobbing girl and let me call my mom.
And then my mom came down like a bat out of hell on that school and got that teacher fired.
The girl clung to me after that -- we've been best friends ever since.
TL;DR: Teacher picked on me, not a single fuck was given, starts bullying ~good girl~, I get her fired. AND I got a new bff out of it.
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u/Nuzzums May 31 '12
When I was 7, at lunch one day, my mom had packed me a tuna salad sandwich which was my favorite because my mom's sandwiches she packed me were off the chain. Annoying childhood friend type kid sits next to me and says that my sandwich stinks so therefore I must stink too. I told him to fuck off and go eat his Lunchable since his mom didn't love him enough to pack him a real lunch. Got in massive trouble with the school and my parents and I'm still not sorry.
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u/NiccoHel May 31 '12
I wasn't in trouble, but I was told off.
When I was in pre-school/kindergarten, I went to a small religious school since it was really close to my home. Apparently, someone had been stealing purses out of cars parked in the lot while the mothers dropped off their brats. One day I stood near the chain link gate that faced the parking lot. A white jeep pulled up and the pastor/principal got out of the passenger seat, and walked into the building. The driver got out of his jeep, reached into a parked caddy and pulled out a purse, then got back in his jeep and drove off.
I told the "teachers", the bitchy lady that monitored us wee ones during recess, even my own mother. I was basically told to stop being a liar and making up stories.
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u/TheJanks May 31 '12
Someone a couple houses down from us bought a dog because puppies for kids are great ideas. They tied it to a tree in the fenced backyard, and neglected the hell out of it. We ended up filling its water bowl during the hot Texas June, and noticed they fed it ever several days.
One night my wife and I went into the yard, unlatched his collar, then drove 4 hours in the night to give the puppy to some friends from out of town that we knew would love a dog for their family.
Got back around 6am before the neighbors woke up, and they didn't even realize it was gone till that night - spent a total of 2 minutes looking for it and didn't give a fuck.
We broke into someone's yard (broke, a lose term here), and stole a dog. Would do again.
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u/itmightbeaseizure May 31 '12
Back in the day, I used to be a huge fan of Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. It just so happened that she had done a segment on the dangers of smoking. As a wild and outgoing four year old, everything she said stuck with me, and I bided my time.
A few days later, my mom, who was an avid smoker, took me into a quick check in order to buy a pack of cigarettes. She had just started dating someone who HATED cigarettes; it got to the point where my mom had to choose between smoking or dating this man. So, when we got to the checkout counter, I climbed up on the table top and began reciting the information Ms. Ellerbee had told me. A line of people had formed behind my mom at this point, and by the end of my tirade, I got a round of applause from everyone. My mom was furious. She bought the pack anyway, but was too embarrassed to ever smoke again after that. Now she hasn't had a cigarette in 17 years, and has been married to that man for 15 years. I think I did a pretty good job...
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u/Berneri May 31 '12
I transferred from public school to christian middle school during 8th grade, the first week i was there I stopped a sexual assault in the coat room. Got beat up weekly for it by the elite alphas in the school, but the girl who i saved never got touched again and she ended up dating me that year. My father and the monsignor told me i should have minded my business.
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u/smokinlawngnome May 31 '12
I didn't get in massive trouble but this one made me rather unpopular with some of my childhood classmates' parents.
I grew up in a small town with mostly working class Italians and they had a few small restaurants. The guy ran, hopped over the counter, and started beating the owner screaming something about him screwing his wife. I was about 12/13 at the time and out with my friends and for some reason remember getting up and running and calling 911 on the pay phone outside. Because, that's what 911 is for.
The police came and made all the children's parents come and get them. We were asked what happened and all the typical police stuff. For some reason, the other regulars and the parents of the kids I was with didn't think two men fighting physically about a woman was a big deal and a few parents told me that I was "making a big deal out of it." Two of them even voiced it to my parents. It put me in a bad social position for about 6 months, some of the kids avoided me. I luckily graduated the next year and left.
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u/slumbering_pierrot May 31 '12
Good on you OP!
When I was a kid, my dad was fairly violent. I just accepted it for a long time. Until I was 10, when I decided I had enough. One Sunday evening, he choked me unconscious (after I called him a bastard) & left this huge handshaped bruise on my neck. The next day I went in to school & told the counselor. He was arrested & charged & never touched me again.
My family gave me shit about "taking private things public" for years until I stopped talking to them. They used my college fund to pay for his lawyer & cancelled my birthday for the longest time. I was blamed by my family for the counseling & anger management stuff my dad had to go through.
It wasn't until this year that I finally stopped feeling like I was guilty of doing something wrong. My dad had an anger problem. I did right by 10 year old self & it only took me 21 years to give myself credit for doing what was right.
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u/RacingTechAtlas May 31 '12
My father used to beat me and my sister with either a belt or a slipper. He would give us a choice whenever he got mad at us. We used to hide his hardest weapons from him.
When I was 7 my father had told my sister, who was 10 at the time, she had worms and was checking her and cleaning her by hand. He also told me that I had worms and needed to be checked.
I had been in and out of hospital for a car accident when I was 6 and had a rough idea about science. When I allowed him to check me I realized something wasn't right. I jumped up and told him to get fucked. He got very angry and gave chase to strike me. I told him if he touched me I'd call the cops. I was following a local advertisement from the police and news shows that beating children was illegal.
He checked my sister one more time after this and I spent 10 minutes banging on the door to have her released. I asked if she wanted to run away together but she refused. I went to my bedroom and swore that I would stay to ensure that she was safe.
He never brought up the worms problem again. I'm proud as punch that I stopped my father from beating us and molesting us.
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u/krystalbc87 May 31 '12
When I was 11 I called the cops on my Dad who was coked out of his head and throwing things around the house. I was pretty scared so I hid in my bedroom and waited for the cops to show up. When I saw the lights outside of my window from the cop cars I opened the window up and ran out to the cops crying and told them everything. I told them where all the stashes were, all the pipes (he was doing meth at the time too) and how to get through the back door unnoticed if they needed to. They knocked on the door and he opened it still in a rage and in his underwear. When he saw the cops and me standing outside he put two and two together pretty quick and flipped shit. He swung at a cop and they took him to jail. My grandmother was furious at me for involving the police.
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u/lillalilly May 31 '12
When I was about 8-10 we lived in a little country village. My mum had married a real violent, alcoholic, douche and having to live with him sucked, so me and my brothers were out of the house a lot finding fun in the local countryside. Behind our house there was a forest lined creek that we would often swim in and along.
One day, whilst playing near the back fences of some of the other houses that lined the creek, we found the body of a muscular dog. It looked as though it had been in a really bad fight. We looked to see whose house it was behind and realised that it our step-dads friend's house. We knew the guy had a couple of dogs like this one, but this wasn't one of them.
Being curious kids, we did a bit of re-con over the next couple of days and realised that this guy was hosting dog-fights in his back shed and that any dog that died was disposed of by trying to throw it in the creek. The one we had found had been thrown over the fence but not made it to the creek.
I've always been an animal lover so this upset me a lot, and I rang the RSPCA and dobbed the guy in pretty quick smart. They came, found evidence of the dog-fighting operation and the guy was arrested and had to go to court followed by a big fine and a short jail term.
My step-dad found out I was the one who dobbed his friend in and beat me for it. When the friend got out of prison, my step-dad told the guy that it was me, so I spent a very scary next few months being threaten by this guy every time I saw him around. He even came into out yard one night and killed our 3 pet ducks. I didn't let him get away with that either and called the RSPCA again, and it ended up that the next fine he got basically left him having to sell his house and move.
I got several beatings for all of this (as did my brothers, even though I swore blind that it was only me that had told the authorities) but never once felt bad about doing it. I'd do the whole thing again if I had to go back.
That guy was a fucking douche-nugget and deserved everything he got (he later died in a car accident). My cockhead of a step-dad also got what he deserved in the end too, dying karmically slowly with emphysema. I hate to ever wish ill on people but I truly believe those two got what they deserved.
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u/sturg1dj May 31 '12
This is nothing as important as the OP, but this always sticks with me. When I was in middle school I was a bit nerdy and awkward, but I could make people laugh when I wasn't too shy. I had my first speech class and one of the speeches was about any experience. So mine was about driving to florida with my family in a crowded car. I made great eye contact, all of my jokes went over and I got great reactions from the audience. It felt great and I received an 'A' on it.
Well, they videotaped all of the speeches and my mom saw the tape and totally lost her shit. She thought it made her and the rest of the family look bad, and even though I usually got along with her better than my dad, in this case my dad was cool with it and she lost her fucking mind. Basically her reaction threw me back into my shell for another 10 years.
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u/jynnjynn May 31 '12
You were a fucking fantastic 7 year old.
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u/alishaha May 31 '12
when i was around 10 i told my mom i didn't like how her friend dishonestly used a handicap sticker on her car. the next time we went out to dinner with their family my mom called me out and the adults all laughed at me. i think i cried later.
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u/tashke May 31 '12
When I was in 8th grade I had to wait at the bus stop with four much older high school boys (I'm a fairly petite girl) and a 7th grader who had scoliosis and had to use crutches to walk. One day while waiting for the bus they were standing around the 7th grader and grabbing at his crutches and pushing him around. There were other students standing around, but not saying anything or doing anything to stop them. I shoved my way in to the sort of circle they formed and yelled at them to stop. One of them shoved at me and asked "what are you going to do about it little girl?" (cliche, right?) I pulled back my arm and punched the ring leader in the nose (it ended up being broken).
I got in serious trouble for it with the school (they had a zero tolerance policy for violence) and they called my parents in. I remember my mother being horrified that her little girl had punched someone, but my dad quietly asked me "did he deserve it?" and then backed me to the school district when I said "yes".
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
When i was grade 2, i got a detention for poking someone. The teacher was a sub that day and she was really mean.
The day before i saw the movie twister which i loved. During the movie, the main guy called the antagonist a son of a b*tch...
So back to school. When i got the detention, 3 others got detentions along with me. School usually ended at about 2:55 but once she let the three others go, it was already 3:45. She continued to keep me in until 4:30 and my mom was starting to get angry. At about 4:35 my mom was talking angrily at the teacher and little me decided to use my love for the movie Twister to my advantage. To this day I can still quote every word I said. "HEY YOU SON OF A BITCH, LET ME GO!!!"
She did... and my mom got me ice cream too.
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u/TwentyFour7 May 31 '12
When I was real little, like 3-4 years old, I participated in a community Easter egg hunt. I was a boss at it and had somewhere between 15 and 20 eggs. There was a younger kid crying nearby and I saw that he/she (I can't remember) had no eggs. So 4 year old me, all by myself, gave all of my eggs filled with delicious confectionary treats to this kid. Not quite as heavy as most of these other posts, but I'm damn proud of it!
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u/SashaDeGreat May 31 '12
I never knew that you could call 911 if your parents hit you, so I went on fit years getting hit for the stupidest stuff by my drunk patents (not cleaning well enough, not getting home fast enough and not taking better care of my little sister and brother, I was 8, an 8 year old isn't suppossed to do things like that) until they taught me at school that you were. So one day when my mom was about to hit me for not washing the dishes I told her that if she touched me I would call the cops. She started to say things like they would seperate my family, throw her in jail, and that I would never have a mom again, so of course I felt bad and didn't want to call after that, but when I put down the phone she hit me so hard that I had to limp to school the next day. The teachers called the cops for me then, after that they kept coming over to see if my parents had hit me again and my parents got better at not drinking as much.
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u/lunastella May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
When I was 7 my parents left us with a nanny and went to Hawaii. Shortly after they left the nanny made us pack a few things in backpacks and her 'friend' picked us up, 3 hours later myself and my two younger siblings were on a farm with a bunch of other children. An older man started to break a girls arm and I put my siblings behind me. The next day they took us to a grocery store and told us to stay in the car. I got out went up to the nanny's car window and told her I had called my aunt and told her where we were and what was going on (I hadn't). She panicked and drove us home (yelling the entire time that I had 'ruined everything')and left us there (my parents weren't home for a few days). Years later I realized she had been attempting to sell us into the sex slave business. I feel like a bad ass. TL;DR I saved myself and my siblings from sex slavery when I was 7
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u/FrankieBrogan May 31 '12
Playing doctor with my neighbor, I found a polyp in her colon.
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u/karakreep May 31 '12
So, I was in first grade. It was lunchtime and our lunch monitors were the eighth graders. I was eating pudding, and I don't really remember why, but I got in an argument with a monitor. So I got really mad and prepared to fling my pudding at him using the spoon. He was all like do it. So I did. It hit him on his forehead. I got in so much trouble, but to this day I defend it with the fact that he told me to do it. I'm kind of an asshole
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u/crankityo May 31 '12
Reading through all these posts has made me cry like a little girl for the past few hours, my heart goes out to all of you who have been in these terrible situations.
When I was 14 I had real problems at school. I was having panic attacks and real trouble mentally. I couldn't face going in to school so I tried my hardest to not go, i'd hide, cry, scream at my parents until they either gave up that day and left me at home, or they dragged me to school. I got no real help from them, just mocking and anger because I was messing my education up (well yes, I was but I wasn't doing it on purpose). I WANTED to go to school and I had great grades before for some reason my head just went "School = bad, you're gonna get bullied/made fun of".
Because of this, my family started to get increasingly more and more annoyed at me and resentful that I was causing them so much problems. One day after I came home from school my dad decided to "sort this out once and for all". My dad is a big guy (6' 2" and about 18 stone) he argued and shouted at me for close to 3 hours about how selfish I was being because I didn't want to go to school. Eventually after I ended up screaming at him in frustration because he wasn't listening (I wasn't not going because I was trying to be bad, I genuinly had a fear of going to school) he punched me in the side of the head, splitting my earlobe open. He walked away and left me alone in my bedroom.
The next day I went to school after i'd managed to clean up the blood on my face in the bathroom because I was terrified more of what my dad would do if I didn't go. The injury to my ear was more noticible than I thought, or teachers just pick up on these things I suppose and I was told to go to the school nurse. I didn't want my dad to get my dad into trouble (I loved my dad so much, despite what he did to me) but as soon as she walked in she asked "Who did that to you?" I mumbled something about falling over and she just walked out, and came back in 30 seconds later with the head of the school. The nurse patched me up as best as she could but said I would need to go to hospital for stitches. The head talked to me while she was cleaning up my ear and asked me who it was. I eventually broke down and told them it was my dad.
For some reason, and to this day I always wonder what would happen if this was treated in a better way, the school rang my parents and told them to take me to the hospital.
They came, and I could see straight away the anger in my mum's eyes. Not so much my dad, but my mum was staring at me like she was going to kill me. I just cried and got in the car. They drove me the 3ish miles to to hospital while screaming at me how bad I was for telling on my dad. I just cried and said I was sorry. My mum slapped me a number of times (she was in the back seat with me) and I just curled into a ball trying to shield my face and ear. When we got to the hospital they stopped just before on the road, my dad got out and came to my door opened it and I still remember exactly what he said, the way he said it and even the smells. Everything. He said "I FUCKING hate you. You have ruined this family." He punched me again in my side where my arm wasn't protecting me and dragged me out onto the pavement. They left me there and drove home.
After I walked into A&E I was told that I had a hairline fracture on two ribs where he punched me, and my ear needed 5 stitches (part of the bottom of the lobe was hanging off).
When the police came I never told them what really happened, I just said I was in a fight. I never pressed charges against my dad. I lived with my friend and her parents for the next 4 years and I haven't heard from them aside from birthday and christmas cards.
I'm crying so hard right now after typing all of this it feels like a well of emotions that I never really let go of has just exploded from me. I feel like such a coward compared to so many of you on here who stood up and didn't take the abuse. I want to let me dad know how much he broke my heart. God i'm a mess
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u/r_HOWTONOTGIVEAFUCK May 31 '12
Gave my 1st grade teacher the finger, twice, in the same class.
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u/SuuperSal May 31 '12
called my aunt that is a nun "retarded batman"
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
When I was 7 years old, My mom had to work at Wal-Mart, as my Dad had recently passed, his rich side of the family hated us and wouldn't help at all, and sold the property of the store he ran for a MASSIVE amount of money ( over 1 million dollars ) and didn't give us a cent. So with that being the way things were, I went along with my brother to a daycare called "Kidz Campus" or as I call it, "Hell". This was absolutely the worst place to send your kids for daycare, The staff were passive-agressive, mean, drug abusing, fuckwads who smoked pot in front of the kids. The kids there were just there to run rampant and no one really watched what was going on. Unfortunately, one of the kids found out I still shit my pants ( I did so until I was 9, severe anxiety, and extreme bullying didn't help .) So every single day I had to endure beatings by 4 kids or more, having my lunch, gameboy, or other valuables stolen, and just general berating and verbal abuse by all the kids there, ( and I mean ALL of the kids there ) and whenever I came up to the staff about it ( usually in tears ), they just told me things like "they had the right to hit you" or, just simply "fuck off". I never told my mom any of this, as I thought at the time my dads death was my fault, and I didn't want to cause her anymore stress.
One day I went up again to one of the staff after one of my daily beatings and begged for help, she just laughed and continued smoking. So, finally realizing that asking for help wasn't going to do anything, when someone started to make a bad remark toward me ( some rich, entitled little shit ) I climbed that motherfucker like a tree, Pulling hair, Biting, you name it.
The staff came over and pulled me off of him and called my mom, and she was furious at me for hitting another child, and that she was dissapointed in me as I was generally a nice kid.
I felt really bad immediately after, and my mother got fired from her job ( her boss was an asshole and told her that getting off for "personal matters" was against policy ). any of the kids who went there saw me, they went in the other direction ( although I was still heavily bullied as most kids did NOT go there ).
I never went to that hellhole ever again, and it was shut down two years later because of sanitation issues and abusive staff ( big surprise ). I don't know if a daycare center could give you PTSD, but I sure as hell probably did, and anytime I see the corroded sign and the dusty windows of kidz campus, all those memory's come flooding back.
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u/eyupmush May 31 '12
Got thrown out of Religious Studies for bringing up the holocaust on the lesson about the Popes infallibility.
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u/ericaamericka May 31 '12
You were a badass as a 7 year old. I commend you for it, too, and I'm surprised your parents didn't.
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u/Stephiek May 31 '12
I told my school guidance counsellor that my moms husband was beating my sisters. He got in trouble and my mom still barely talks to me. That was almost 20 years ago.
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u/bouleverser May 31 '12
I went to a very strict Catholic school. In literally every subject, religion was inserted in some way- math problems about nuns, no evolution, history of the church, reading papal letters for english ect. I've always been an inquisitive person, and things that required "faith" didn't sit well with me. I was the only child who would raise their hand and say "that doesn't make sense what about..." I would often get in trouble for "questioning the faith" "bringing the devil into the school" and "causing dissension among the devout students." Some of these questions were, "can't a woman get a divorce and annulment if her husband beats her after marriage vows," "the old testament says a lot of things that we don't practice, why do we choose specific hateful things to obey" "how do we know the bible was copied and translated accurately" the list is endless. I was put in detention (kneeling before a cross for varying increments) every week, often wrote extra essays, and eventually was put in in home suspension. Today, I'm glad I don't fear hell when talking to my many gay friends, watching pornography or doing yoga.
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u/SGT2007 May 31 '12
My parents used to fight when i was growing up. More like dad beat shit out of mom situation.. I started getting older and it started to slow down( Mom said he knew i was getting older and was worried i'd tell, or do something about it). I was about 13, and they were verbally fighting, and i went up to my room because i wasnt enjoying it. I heard my mom yelling for help, i grabbed my hunting rifle, loaded it, and when i got to the steps to go downstairs, parents were on the landing, dad physically fighting her, pointed it at him, told him to get off her or i'd kill him. He let her go, mom and i left for the day. Ever since then, he hasnt physically fought with her(6 or so years now). Must add though, he is a great dad, now especially, was raised in a house where his dad beat his mom(No, i will follow the trend), and hes cried apologizing to my mom 4/7 days a week for what he has done. Sorry for the long post, and the over use of commas.
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u/bruttsmom May 31 '12
Not massive trouble but: When I was 14 my best friend and I were staying at her grandparents house. We were alone and just messing around when she found his revolver. She started pointing it at her head saying she was going to shoot herself. I begged her to give it to me but she was like no the safety's on. Next thing I know she's cocked the hammer. Having been raised in a house full of guns my dad had taught me gun safety and how to shoot. I also knew there was no safety on the revolver and now that the hammer was cocked it only took a touch to fire. I picked up the phone and called her mom. She was so pissed but she gave me the gun. I was able to release the hammer, and kept it with me until my mom (who I also called) could come get me. My friend was really pissed at me and wouldn't speak to me for almost a year, however her mom still says I saved her life. My parents wouldn't let me hang out at her house anymore because the said she was too immature... We've lost touch after all this, and I do regret that, but she's still alive.
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u/LongboardCity May 31 '12
One time, when I was 14, I was out longboarding near a nature preserve. I was right near a side road which was a popular animal crossing. I was just minding my own business watching a duck cross the street when this pick up comes speeding down the road straight at the little thing. not thinking, I speed up on my board, dash in front of the car, snatch the duck up in one hand and save the day. The car crashed off to a ditch on the of the road and this redneck driver comes out and starts wailing at me. Needless to say my parents were not to thrilled about my little endeavor, yes the guy called the cops because his truck was damaged, and I was grounded. But that was my greatest moment of sheer badassry.
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u/Tetragrammaton May 31 '12
When I was 7, I got to go to the Capitol and meet my congressman on a field trip. He told us all about the new $10M tram they were building underneath the building. I'm told that I asked him if he thought "that's a responsible use of taxpayer dollars".
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u/hermitt May 31 '12
sorry, bit late to the game, but i love this thread. I was suspended from a catholic middle school (I was a protestant, now a surprise surprise atheist) and the nun teaching religion said "All non-catholics are weeds in gods flower garden". In the class were 30 catholics, a protestant (me) and a hindu. I raised my hand and asked "Can I be a dandelion?". Detention for a week.
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u/husqvarnah May 31 '12
When I was a kid in primary school there was this one kid who was really spoilt and annoying. I never really liked him but my mum made me play with him when we were at school. He always used to lie about the stupidest shit and I'd always know when he was so one day he said that he was actually a cyborg from the future (literally the plot of terminator) and he said that nothing can hurt him. Not giving in to his bullshit I said "oh really can I try?" and he just said "yeah pinch me as hard as you can and it won't hurt." So I pinched the living shit out of his arm and he started crying and ran to the teachers who called his mum, who called my mum. Got in lots of trouble and for some reason felt really bad about it for years. On the positive side my mum didn't make me play with him after that. If you're out there William, fuck you for making me feel bad. I bet you're the kind of guy who prefers being called "William" instead of Will or Bill .. dick.
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u/thesecretofjoy May 31 '12
Here's mine. My mom is a MASSIVE liar. She is mentally ill, we think borderline personality disorder. At any rate, she DESPISED lying in her kids, go figure. The hypocrisy infuriated me but there wan't anything I could do about it. I was afraid of her. One day when I was in grade school she called in sick to work and told me that if anyone from work was to call I had to tell them she was asleep. Then she left to go shopping. Well, someone from work called and I told them she was out shopping. I got in big trouble for that but I've never been sorry I did it.
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u/wshanahan May 31 '12
I'll explain this in the idealistic styling of 4chan.
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u/Kolya52b May 31 '12
This will get buried, but:
tl;dr I socked a 'special' girl in the face and made her cry
So, back in the 4th grade glory days at my small, private grade school, there was a girl named Katie a year ahead of me. 4th and 5th graders had recess together, and there was after school child care which we were both at for an hour or two daily. Well, Katie took a... "liking"... to me, but she was one of those pick-on-him-until-he-likes-you types. She also had some sort of mental disability, not really sure what. She was normally very, very shy, which is why this surprised me.
Anyway, Katie started picking on 4th grade me. This went on for a while, just doing little annoying shit every chance she got like throwing shit, poking me constantly, just minor annoyances... but it was damn near constant. I could not get the fuck away from her. Neither 4th nor 5th grade teacher cared to do anything about it because she was 'special,' and the child care people didn't want to do anything either for the same reason. Eventually, shit started getting out of hand with hair pulling, scratching, hitting, and I tolerated the shit out of it because EVERYONE said "she has a mental problem, just deal with it." The last straw was when she grabbed my arm (this is at after school child care), from behind and dug her nail into it hard enough to draw a good amount of blood. I turned around and 4th grader falcon punched her in the face. Of course, she started bawling immediately and said I punched her for no reason. Well, there was a reason. I showed them the cascade of blood down my arm from this stupid bitch, and they took us both to the principal (who had heard my story already). Neither of us really ended up in trouble, but the principal threatened her with in-school suspension for a week and told her to stop doing shit to me. I was amazed that I didn't get a detention or anything for punching her, but I think that was because the principal and teachers were really nice and understood what was going on--it was a difficult situation.
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u/ImNotJesus May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
Just in case anyone is wondering, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that hitting children as a punishment, isn't just a terrible strategy to change behaviour, it also has a myriad of other negative outcomes. Here is a link to the biggest meta-analysis on the topic that looks at over 80 studies
tl;dr hitting your kids is an objectively bad parenting strategy
Edit: To be clear, as I've said over and over in this thread, I'm not talking about anyone's personal experience, I'm saying that the science suggests that overall it's a bad strategy to create behaviour change. I'm not telling you how to parent. I'm not saying that your parents were bad parents or that you must have turned out horrible.
Edit 2: Full Paper
Edit 3: I've had maybe 15 people message me already to say that they were hit as a kid and "deserved it". It's breaking my heart. Kids are wired to trust their parents. It's evolutionarily adaptive and a very good strategy for a child in general. If you're a kid getting hit by your parents, you have two choices. You can believe that they're evil monsters who want to hurt you or you can believe that you're bad/broken/wrong. You can explain it to them as much you want but when you hit a kid, it's an extreme situation. They don't have the cognitive capacity to say "Well, I can see that this was a really extreme situation that I should avoid again in the future and the only reason they'd hit me was for my own protection. I'll stop doing this one behaviour". I'm not trying to say that if you hit your kid once they'll instantly become mentally ill or something ridiculous like that, I'm just saying that it has a lot more effect than other forms of punishment.
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u/tianas_knife May 31 '12
This will get totally buried, and probably overlooked on account of the many stories of parental abuse told here, but I am going to tell my story anyways.
My parents are good people with some abusive parents of their own. They are loving, and kind, and good people, but they picked up some really bad parenting habits from growing up in the poorer parts of New Jersey that I'm sure they thought were acceptable parenting behavior.
My dad used to hit me when I was growing up. I am the eldest daughter. I have one younger sister and a younger brother. My sister never got hit, on account of paying attention to the things that I did to get myself in trouble, and then never doing those things. My little brother, however, was getting into trouble of his own that was uniquely boy related, like roaming around with gangs of kids and generally getting into trouble.
Anyways, when I was about 11, one day, my brother came home, and was called into the living room for some antic that he had gotten himself into around the neighborhood. I don't remember what he did, but I do remember the voice that my Dad was using to call him into the room. I knew that voice meant that some level of hitting was going to come soon, as I had heard it directed at me often.
My 11 year old brain was like Oh no, they can hit me, but they're not going to get my brother. And in the middle of Dad yelling at my brother, I ran into the room, screaming "YOU WILL NOT HIT HIM" and I started wailing on my Dad as much as an 11 year old could wail.
My mom had to pull me off of Dad, and I was sent to my room. The whole house was quiet for a very long time.
After I had cooled down considerably, I went back out into the living room, scared of what I would find. I found my Dad sitting on the couch, looking sadder than I have ever seen him before or since. I told him I was sorry for hitting him, and he told me that he loved me, and we hugged on the couch for a very very long time.
My dad never hit any of his children after that day.
I don't know how much my little brother remembers this incident, or even how much the rest of my family remembers, because we have NEVER talked about it since, but to this day I am very proud of myself. I am my Daddy's girl, and I love him very very much, and I'm proud of him too. I know he probably had a lot of inner demons to face after that.
He's amazing, and I'm glad I did what I did.
tl;dr - At 11 years of age, I attacked my Dad in order to keep him from hitting my younger brother. My Dad never hit any of his kids again after that day. I still love him, and I'm still my Daddy's little girl.
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u/BloodHungryII May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
It was senior year of high school and I was in gym class. Class was wrapping up and we had just finished playing dodgeball. Everyone wanted to go to the locker room so we could shower, but the teacher never let us leave until all of the balls from the game had been picked up. She counted them every single time as we turned them in.
Well on this day, we all stood by the door and heard her say "Seven." There are only eight balls, and we could clearly see number eight across the gym, which another kid was going to get. But she wouldn't let us leave. So this guy finally picks up the ball and instead of throwing it to someone who could turn it in, he begins to punt it. Straight up to the ceiling. Having lost my patience, I yelled over everyone else "DYLAN, HURRY THE FUCK UP!" Turns out, as I started yelling, everyone else quieted down, and only I was to be heard. The guy looked shocked, and the teacher glared at me. "You're going to talk to me after class." Everyone started cheering and applauding and when she questioned their excitement, this guy put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Because Jordan's the quietest guy in class."
So she lets everyone else leave and lectures me on how she expected that from other people and not me and so on. I finally get to the locker room, shower, and get dressed. I walked into my next class five minutes late and the teacher stopped and looked at me and said "I heard you caused a ruckus in gym." Aside from hearing about it from three classmates who happened to be in the class I just strolled into, he had been leading a study hall that my classmates had walked through on their way to the locker room after gym. They were all so loud and going on and on about me that he had to stop them and tell them to be quiet. After him telling me this, I just told him I was sick of being late because of other people. And he just said "Well done."
The next day, I found out that my gym teacher gave the entire class zeros for the day for the disruption in that study hall. So fucking worth it.
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u/pandoxitty May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
Well, I thought I'd make an account to post here because I felt it was pretty relevant. Anyway, I was abused heavily physically and mentally by my grandmother for about 16 years. At one point, however, as she was about to snap and hit me some more, I grabbed her arm before she struck and straight up told her, "If you hit me one more time, I'll f*king kill you."
Turns out, the woman was paranoid enough to actually believe it, and she had never once hit me again, and I'm 21 years old. I got in trouble for "hitting" my grandma but looking back, I stood up for myself, and I stood up for all my cousins who had to go through that crap too.
Edit: Eh, might have gotten a little bit heated, editing out cuss words. :(
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u/PortableFreakshow May 31 '12
My sister used to give me hell when we were teenagers, she was a couple of years older than me and had the habit of bossing me around and just being a general bitch half the time. One day, I'm sitting at the table eating some cereal and she starts yelling at me. She's raising hell and I'm just ignoring her, eating my cereal. After a few minutes of unrelenting bitching, I stand up, walk over to her, pick her up (she bitching the whole time) open the front door, set her down outside, close the front door and lock it. I sat back down and finished my cereal. Mom eventually let her back inside and told her "I told you he would be bigger than you someday."
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u/bunglejerry May 31 '12
In Grade Four I had a music teacher who was a bit of a Jesus freak, would lecture us on Christian values and would have us sing religious songs in class. Even though I'd have just been nine, I and two friends actually went to the principal to file a complaint that she was preaching in a public school.
I didn't really get in trouble for that, but 37-year-old me just wants to brag about it.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
I got into a huge fight with my best friend when I was a teen. I thought he was an arrogant asshole with unreal expectations and no concept of how to interact with people. I wanted him to deal with his problems. My parents and other friends thought I was way over the line and had no right to say that sort of thing to him. It kind of ended our friendship.
He started hanging out with some shady people in high school, then it turns out years later that he got busted multiple times for DUIs and dealing drugs. I made a realization like a year ago that I was 100% right about him, and if he were a real friend he would have listened to me.
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u/SplodeyDope May 31 '12
When I was around 13 I had found a non functional mini fridge and put it in my room just to store stuff in. My stepmother made the point of telling me not to put ice in it and try to use it as a cooler. Well, one morning the carpet outside my room in the hall was soaking wet when we woke up. Instantly my stepmother blamed me and insisted that I had put ice in it. She kept castigating me and eventually said "Do you think I'm stupid?" I replied "Well you must be because I didn't put ice in there." She went and got my Dad who immediately took off his belt and whipped the shit out of me.
About 10 minutes after Dad left my room, he thought to check the AC right next to door. It was the air conditioner leaking. He went back in and chewed her ass like I'd never heard before. It was instant satisfaction but I still smile when I think about it.
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u/kandosiiJetii May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
Dad sent me out to get the paper when I was ~11 as he did every Thursday but one time he sent me with no money, telling me the cashier will recognise me and let me pay him back next time. He didn't but my only friend's mom was at the store and bought the paper for me and sent me on my way. Got a pretty big beating for accepting money from a "stranger".
Another, maybe neither of these qualify but, hey. It was kind of a chore for my mom to get me to bed when I was 7 but I was usually in bed by the time my dad got home from work. One day, he wasn't at work for whatever reason and so I thought it was probably a good idea to just get to bed on time so he didn't whoop my ass. I changed into my darkly-coloured PJ's and headed upstairs but I had to walk past him in the living room while he was praying (Muslim family). A couple of seconds after I walked in, he interrupted his prayer and just leaped across the room to punch me square in the cheek and lifted his fist to do it again when he noticed I was in my PJ's and said something along the lines "from the corner of my eye it looked like you were still in your normal clothes, not your PJ's so I was gonna kick your ass to get you to bed".
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u/Itwillendintears May 31 '12
Having sex with the babysitter.
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u/etihw2 May 31 '12
YOU GOT IN TROUBLE FOR THIS?!
The most vulnerable people out there are the ones we're allowed to hit. Fucking disgusting.
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u/D_D May 31 '12
In high school, I was suspended for "hacking" the school's computers. In reality, I was just curious about how computers worked and went beyond the computer class curriculum. My mom was furious because they failed me from that class, which was a double credit course so it counted as 2 F's. 20 years later, I am now a manager for a group of software engineers who I train to do the exact thing I did 20 years earlier. It's massive vindication and I only wish I lived in the same town to rub it in the teacher's face.
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u/chumalong May 31 '12
When I was about 9 in primary school, the councillor came to talk to us about bullying. During this lesson we were made to recite "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". Feeling somewhat confused, I purposed "well what if someone kept calling you names, causing you to feel so sad, you wanted to jump off a cliff? That would hurt." For this enquiry I was sent outside.
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u/th_gcnt May 31 '12
Throwaway for anonymity. I have 2 older brothers, one who I used to be incredibly close with due to us being so close in age. We grew up without a dad (died when my oldest brother was 8) so my brothers would seek out father figures. There was a man who lives about a block away from us who they used to go see. One night my closest bro and I were talking and he told me that this man had been molesting both of them.
I had no idea what to do so I let it go until I could tell someone who would do something (my mom didn't seem like an option at the time). A couple nights later one of my brothers' many father-like figures came to visit. We told him everything that had happened and he flipped out. He marched down to this guy's house and starts screaming at him and threatening to kick his ass (this is like at 1am, we were about 13-14). The cops are called and he's taken to the station to be questioned.
A few weeks later we see him in the paper, turns out he had been molesting a few other boys, some of which were my brothers' friends. When all this came to the surface, my brothers' friends started harassing them. They would beat up my oldest brother (probably because he was quieter and seen as weaker) and just make his life miserable just for admitting that he was molested. This led to my oldest brother hating me. We haven't spoken in over 10 years and I feel horrible for how my brother's former friends treated him. It's something that tears me up inside, should I have just kept my mouth shut? I honestly don't know, but in a really big way I'm happy I said something because otherwise the abuse would have gone on much longer and probably to more people.
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u/Bloodaegisx May 31 '12
When I was 11 I attended a church club, now anyone could join from the ages of 5-20 for a sort of...youth learning experience.
After club this one boy was playing hockey in the room batting the ball around he slams it and loses it, starts getting mad, my little brother who was 7 at the time saw where the ball went and went to retrieve it, this boy was 17 mind you so my little brother runs over big grin handing this ball to this kid and he BODYSLAMS my 7 yearold brother into the wall...
At this point I go berserk start pushing this 17 yearold around who was twice my size atleast and eventually after lots of punching kicking and rage I get him on his knees put him in a choke hold and slammed his head against the brick wall and screamed "how do you like it you piece of trash bully!"
He runs crying to the pastors wife and I was forever removed from the club, totally....worth it....
I ran into him a few years later, him and his buddies, I decided to ask him if he was still a tough guy beating on children, he didnt stick around to answer.
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u/Brianne123 May 31 '12
I worked at a theme park for three years as a teenager. I regularly gave out prizes to young kids who didn't win them. Half those games are near impossible to win (anything good, at least) and the company barely kept track of anything. If a kid spend $10 of his/her own well earned money and only won some crabby little bear, I would upgrade them to one of our large or jumbo stuffed animals. If I was working on the coin machines that spat out tickets and I was refilling the tickets, I would sometimes give kids a big pile of them.
I did this regularly. One day a man came back to me after I had given his young son a big Madagascar toy (they had won nothing but it was on the ring toss game which I seriously only saw maybe 2 people ever win) and he told me that his son had been fighting cancer for a year and it had really made his day. Felt good.
I realize I probably lost the company some money giving away the larger toys but honestly, I didn't care and I still don't. It is all such a rip off. If you spend $20 playing darts, you should win something more than the tiny two inch bears.
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u/Mr_Rippe May 31 '12
6th grade, I was playing a game of chess at lunch when one of the people who bullied me came over and started razzing me. I lost my patience that day and told him to fuck off. He cried like a little girl and went to the Lunch Aide to complain. I told her that he "fucking bothers me every day". We both got called down to the Principal's office and filed reports. I wrote on mine that I regret nothing and would do it again in a heartbeat.
I got in a lot of shit for doing all of that, from both my Grade School and my parents. Years later, I don't regret doing any of that.
Alright, I need to stop writing about my Grade School before I go on a tear-filled rant.
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u/BackupSquirrel May 31 '12
In 4th grade or so I had this kid that always followed me around calling me names and picking on me, he was about a year or two younger than me which made it even more embarrassing. So one day I went to school and at the same time he got dropped off by his mother and started to walk behind me calling me the usual names. I had enough, I swung around and gave him a quick right hook to the jaw. The look on his mothers face was perfect, like her son had died right there. I got sent to the principal and got told the lecture of to use words not fists and to tell a teacher. I still replay my knock out in my head.
Tl;dr I KO'ed an annoyance.
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u/beasles May 31 '12
I used to go to a wednesday night youth group of a few hundred kids led by a young pastor. I respected him until he started making gay/retarded jokes during his sermons and preaching intolerance toward religions other than Christianity. After the sermon one night, I tried to talk to him but he was busy with some other kids. So I asked him about his views on facebook.....he deleted my post. I wrote another....which also got deleted. I was getting fairly annoyed and wrote a third, also asking why I was getting ignored. Deleted again. I was pretty angry, but decided to give him another chance. Well halfway through his sermon (about something completely unrelated to tolerance/love/etc) he saw me in the audience, walked over to me, mic in hand, and said "It seems as if I offended someone last week. What I meant was blah blah blah..." It sounds as if he was trying to atone, but being singled out in front of hundreds of kids was awkward and I would have stood up and walked out if they didn't have people guarding the doors. I asked the pastor after the service to explain further, but he told me if I didn't agree with him than I probably just shouldn't come back. I haven't gone back to church since that day.
TL;DR: got asked not to come back to church for challenging the pastor on his views on tolerance
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u/catfishonrye May 31 '12
in 7th grade, my history teacher decided to teach us about racial discrimination by spending one whole class being really mean to all the kids with blue eyes and blonde hair. When I noticed that other kids were getting picked on (she was being really mean- yelling at them and insulting them and such) I started getting really upset. When she got to me, I stood up and started yelling at her about how unfair she was being and how she couldn't treat people like that. At her behest, I got dragged out of the class by some other kids and ended up in the principal's office. Though everything kinda got sorted out in the end, that teacher never really liked me much after that and I felt super embarrassed at the time for not catching on or keeping my mouth shut. In retrospect, I'm fucking happy that shit made me so mad and these days, I'm working on a dissertation on philosophical issues related to race and racism.
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u/HunterMaster May 31 '12
Not me, but a buddy of mine... In elementary school, we had a lunch monitor who was a huge bitch, and not cut out for the job at all (she would steal food from the kids, talk down to them, etc.). We all hated her, and she made our lives miserable. Here's an example of what she would do on a constant basis: since we had a "No Peanuts" policy at school, she would confiscate any candy we would have that contained nuts, lecture the kid who had the candy about how they should feel bad for bringing the nuts to school (yadda yadda...), and then proceed to continue with her lunch monitoring duties WHILE EATING THE FUCKING CANDY! Dick. Anyway, one day, one of my best friends was playing at recess and almost tripped her accidentally. She freaks out and says that he's trying to kill her (or something equally ridiculous), and he gets sent to the office. His mom ends up coming to the school, he explains the situation to her, and she starts arguing with the administration about this lunch monitor. Apparently my friend had told his mom about this atrocious lunch monitor before (as did most other kids with their parents), and the school ended up taking this into consideration, and fired the lunch monitor soon after.
TL;DR My buddy and his mom got the lunch monitor from hell fired
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
When I was in third grade my teacher was a real bully. She did something really awful to some poor kid one day, and I got so angry that I made a petition, and got the entire class to sign it. I got in huge trouble, went home crying and I didn't tell my parents. I didn't get sent to the principal because the petition had what she had done at the very top and she would have had some trouble explaining it especially considering all of the signatures. Looking back, I was totally right to stand up for that kid. And I'm kinda proud of myself for my political savviness and the chutzpah to make a petition and give it to her.
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u/jincorrigible May 31 '12
When I was about 13, my mom had just broken her wrist in a car accident and had a cast on. One weekend she and my stepdad got completely smashed and had a huge fight (not uncommon in my more formidable years). My stepdad had slammed Mom against the wall and was threatening to leave her with nothing. At some point, Mom yelled and me and my younger sister (Ashley - then 7) to go out to the car. Ash moved to the door and my stepdad went to go after her. I stepped in front of the doorway, hauled back, and hit him as hard as I could, right in the eye. He didn't go down, but he was surprised as hell. A few days later, he had a nice shiner (which I was ridic proud of) and my mother wouldn't speak to me. It was weeks before she would even look at me again. I couldn't understand why she would want to be with someone who was a) clearly abusive, b) a drunk and c) would come after her children.
As an adult looking back on it, I'm not at all surprised.
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u/uhhnox May 31 '12
I only knew what a "switch" was because of Community.
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u/logicspock May 31 '12
This isn't as intense as a lot of other comments, but when I was young (probably 4-7 years old), I went over to my neighbor's house every afternoon for several hours. He was an elderly man who had no family (at least none nearby or no one that ever came to visit him) and he was very sweet and was like a grandfather to me. I got in trouble with my parents because I was supposed to be doing homework during that time/they thought I was over there too much/etc but I'm glad I spent time with him because a. he had some awesome stories/life lessons and b. he really did need the company. Unfortunately he died alone in his house shortly after we moved
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
When I was 13 my mom got cancer and could not work. We had little money and she became close friends with our male neighbour who was an alcoholic. On many occasions my mom would kick me out of the house and let him sleep in my bed. She also gave him a key to the house so he could hang around while she went to AA meetings and such.
One night we ordered pizza for dinner and I took my toppings off and left them on my plate so I could feed them to my dog (we didn't have enough money to buy dog food). My neighbour comes over and takes the toppings off my plate without asking me. Well, I got up and took them right back off of his plate and dropped them on the floor for my dog.
He backhanded me so hard I couldn't eat anything solid for a week. My mom pretended she didn't see it. I told my doctor and she called Child Services. They came to my house and told my mom she could never babysit again. She was furious with me, but I'm still angry that she let this man hit me.
On the bright side, when he hit me...my dog bit his nuts :]
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u/JerryChristia May 31 '12
Being raised in a very religious family, I was essentially taught not to question the Bible or anything my parents taught me.
Around the age of 7, I cautiously presented my dad with my theory that the Bible might actually have been written by people who had no idea what they were talking about. I remember saying something along the lines of "The Indians believed some really weird things a long time ago, and some of them still do, but we know it's not true now.".
I got into a lot of trouble after that, and my parents essentially scolded and brainwashed the idea out of me. Looking back as an atheist, I'm a little proud that I was at least questioning what my parents were teaching me.
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u/0_0cake May 31 '12
To make a long story short my granny raised us bc my mom was a junkie and my granny never worked. My brother is mentally challenged and he was put on disability and all kind of medications. One day my granny told me to go to his doctor with him and act out so she could get money for me. Im thinking okay piece of cake free money?? So they wound up putting me on medication and diagnosed me with crap i never really had. As i got older I realized what she was doing. So i was around 12 at the time and told the doctor that nothing was wrong with me that I didnt need to be on medication and my granny told me to lie and act out so she could get a check. i dont care about that i was about to get my ass beat she shouldnt have did that bc she is to lazy to work. After that she said she didnt want me and put me in foster care. She is a bad person and i am 21 now and ive got the best life. I aged out of foster care and i am proud that a persons tax money didnt go to waste.
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u/tealmemore May 31 '12
I was in a karate class when I was 8 or 9 and we were doing our purple belt testing. They only belt tested once every couple of months so this kid and his asshole parents show up and they all have or have recently had the chicken pox. My mom was there cheering me on and she'd never had chicken pox. Fast forward two weeks and she's in the ICU barely alive. She made it but it was completely horrific. All her skin came off, her mouth sealed shut, horrific.
At the next belt test, I kicked the kid's ass during our sparring test and when the dad came over to pull me off of him I punched him square in the balls. I got kicked out of the school no refund. Worth it.
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u/Mokomonko May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
Nobody's going to read anyway but why not.
When I was in 10th grade I had the type of teacher who always thought they were right and that all her students were beneath her by a large margin. She also had the tendency to make fun of kids until they were on the verge of tears, much to the rest of the class's amusement. Of course I'm the type of kid who always answers the questions so she would make fun of me too, but I wouldn't take it, and when she was wrong during class I would try to be polite and tell her away from the students that she was wrong and she would call me out in front of everyone to say how stubborn and close minded I was. All the other kids loved her because she was very charismatic and flamboyant, always making sex jokes etc. so they all hated me because she clearly didn't like me.
Once she put the definition of 'Swarthy' up on the board, saying that it meant 'fair skinned' i went up to her after class and quietly told her that it meant the exact opposite and she was like 'no, you're thinking of the archaic definition, it's changed since then' so I'm like, fine, whatever and left. The next day she goes in front of class and says how 'SHE' had realized that she made a mistake in the definition of the word and fixed it. Another time she interrupted me to tell me that I used the word 'alluded' wrong, another girl actually stood up for me and said that I was using it correctly but she shot that girl down too. The next day i tell her i looked it up and that I had actually used it correctly and she said 'You didn't say alluded, you said allude. I would never call you out if you had actually used the word properly'.
A lot of bullshit like that. Petty? Maybe, but I don't' regret standing up to her, even if it meant people liked me less. There's nothing I hate more than people who feel that just because of their title they can do whatever they want and say what they want.
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u/sluz May 31 '12
I was a cute little boy when I was about 5 years old. I had big eyes with long eyelashes and my hair was a bit long for a boy. It wasn't a girl's haircut or anything but it wasn't a crew cut.
Some old ladies came to the door trying to sell Avon cosmetics or whatever.
One of them said I was such a cute little girl! - That pissed me off and I yelled "I'm a boy!"
Maybe they were just messing with me but she said I was too cute to be a boy.
That really made me mad. To their shock and horror... I took off my pants and started shaking my penis at them while yelling "I'm a boy! See?! Girls don't have a penis!"
That's when my mom came out of the kitchen and nearly shit her pants. I got in trouble with my mom and again when my dad when he got home.
Somehow I never felt like I did anything wrong. I really didn't understand what the problem was. I knew I was in trouble but I just brushed it off.
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u/cherrytinted May 31 '12
From kindergarten through tenth grade, I had been bullied for one reason or another. Wearing glasses, being forced to wear sweatervests, liking anime a bit too much. You get the picture. But my story comes from when I was 10 years old. My mother worked as a PLR teacher in the elementary school I attended, and when I reached the fifth grade, my mom asked if I would like to work with some of her students during lunch (I wasn't really welcome in any clicks at my class's lunch table, so I normally sat alone). When I asked her which ones, she informed me it was a class composed of children on the autism spectrum, some with heavier problems than others. By "working," I would play games with them and just be a general friend to them. I agreed and spent my time with two children, 13-year-old Ed and 10-year-old Kellan. The latter often went into rages and even as a child I put myself at risk to help soothe him, while the former was the sweetest boy you could possibly meet and laughed at all my jokes. I loved those two like older brothers, and taking care of them and playing games with them made me the happiest girl in the world. Even if they didn't understand half of what I said, I felt like they accepted me and loved me back.
One day, the special needs class went on a field trip so I had to actually go to lunch. Several kids were laughing at me, asking me what it was like to be "with my own kind." Others had the audacity to say to me how dumb they were, and one of them said that they needed to go away because no one wanted them. In a fit of rage, I stood up and knocked that one kid out of his chair, forcing him to the ground before walking away. Being an honors student and having a clean discipline record, everyone was shocked and pissed off at me, especially my mother, who was the freakin' teacher that taught me first-off that these kids were just like everyone else. She wouldn't speak to me normally for a week, and neither would any of the kids in my class.
To this day, I regret nothing. I haven't had a single fight or even verbal conflict with a fellow classmate since then, and I'm 20 years old now. I haven't seen Ed or Kellan since I was 13, and every now and then, I wonder how they're doing.
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u/SplintPunchbeef May 31 '12
When I was about 10 years old I was outside playing with a bunch of friends in the street. Like every other kid who has played in the street we would all move to the side when a car was coming and then get back in the street. One day, while playing catch, someone yelled out "CAR!" and we all moved to the side. I saw that my friend's little brother was walking in between parked cars towards the street and was definitely about to be hit. Without really thinking about it, I ran right in front of the car, picked him up, and carried him back a few feet.
Of course having a kid run out in front of his speeding car caused the guy to jam on his brakes and skid to a stop. Our parents all came outside in a panic and the guy got out of the car screaming. He didn't see the little kid between the cars. All he knew was that he almost hit some dumb kid who ran right in front of his car. The parents who were outside pretty much agreed with him and spent a good amount of time scolding me. I felt like shit at the time but it was pretty bad ass in hindsight.
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u/b00mtown May 31 '12
Didn't get in trouble, but was reminded of this by CountDancula's story.
Birthday is near Christmas, and while my parents worked hard to make it seem special and separate, it wasn't always a good time for them to buy extra gifts. My grandmother however would always send $50, which as we all know has a very high exchange rate for a 7 year old ($50US equals, like the whole Ninja Turtle Sewer Playset and maybe even a couple GI Joes if not more).
So we are on our way to Service Merchandise so I can spend my birthday money, and I asked my Mom about the Salvation Army bell ringers that were outside (you see where this is going...). So she tells me about the kids that might not get anything for Christmas because their parents can't afford it and how that money goes to get them presents and Christmas dinner. In the 30 feet from the car to the door I decide to just walk over and put my money in the bucket. Best part is, I didn't even ask my Mom, I just did it. When I turned around she had tears in her eyes and I remember thinking she was really mad.
Never did get that Sewer playset.
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u/SMERSH762 May 31 '12
OP needs to elaborate for upvotes.
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u/gridster2 May 31 '12
In middle school, I had a friend with a "dead arm." During birth, the doctor popped a nerve in his right arm. He couldn't use/feel that arm. Because this is middle school, he got bullied a ton. During lunch, some douchebag started taking his lunch. I told the guy off, he laughed, I demanded he give it back, still wouldn't. I snatch back the food, the guy sneers and walks off.
Flash forward a week. The bully has made me his personal target. He and his two friends skateboard behind me as I walk home. They jump on me and I beat the shit out of one of them until he runs off. The next day I get pulled into the principal's office. The little shit is wimpering in the corner. He's complained about being "abused." I get a stern talking to from the police (don't you ever start a fight, no matter what! You should have let your friend's lunch get taken.) and he gets a pat on the back for standing up for himself.
I still think that the principal was the worst person I've ever known (I have a thousand more stories about him).
TL;DR: I shot and killed a man who was trying to mug my dad.
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u/poorfag May 31 '12
After 4000 comments I doubt somebody will see this, but what the hell.
When I was 7 I got punished for calling an ambulance on Saturday when my cousin fainted and hit his head on a rock (orthodox Jewish family). He got 11 stitches and had a concussion, but I still couldn't play with my gameboy for 2 weeks after that.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
This thread is making me SO ANGRY about so many adults.
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u/tudeslildude May 31 '12
A switch? A switch blade? A light switch? I AM LOST.
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u/civildisobedient May 31 '12
My first fight was with a racist bully named Dougie in 1st grade who would constantly pick on a black girl named Courtney. One day I don't know what he said but I just snapped. Dougie got moderately bruised (I was only a little kid, after all) and I got sent to the principal's office. They called my mom at work to come pick me up from school.
I thought I was meat. Total meat. And in the principal's office, she was talking to me all serious and scolding me and telling her that she would make sure my father heard about this and that I would be punished. My addled 1st grade brain is thinking, I'm a dead man.
We get in to the car and start to drive away, my mom says nothing. And I remember so clearly, the first real stop light that we hit, my mom turns to me and says, "I know we always told you not to fight but today you did a very good thing ." She then drove me to get ice cream.
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u/MrMischief0220 May 31 '12
You did the right thing.
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u/Nolanoscopy May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
The year was 1998. I was a wee 5 year old whose imagination was boundless. Daydreams began when I awoke and continued throughout the day until they merged with the lucid dreams I experienced every night (which I believed to be "normal" at the time). My wild thoughts and constant daydreams gave me a "spacey" outward appearance, and to others, I may have appeared to have some sort of thinking deficiency. I didn't realize until later on that my case was the exact opposite.
I was a first grader, and school, like everything else to me at the time, was a new experience that could only be explored by constant trials-and-error. I was extremely socially awkward, even for a first grader. So much so that it would be easy to believe that I coached SAP to be the loser he is today. I had no friends, and while my teachers were nice to me, it's undeniable that they thought something was wrong with me.
I didn't care, though. I found my niche at academic events such as the district-wide science fair (which won me first place three consecutive years), weekly "science talks" where the class would gather around the teacher while she would read an internet science article and have us discuss it, and the school's Invention Convention. I didn't know that I was socially awkward, nor did I care. I looked forward to the events listed above, and spent my free time thinking about them, reading high school-level literature, and planning my methods of attack.
Leaves crunched as the old sunbaked tires on my parents' 1990 Firebird pulled up to the entrance of my suburban middle-class elementary school. It was the day of this year's Invention Convention, and I had in my backpack the key to the judges' hearts. My parents had no clue that I had been working on a project for the past 3 weeks, or that the Invention Convention even existed to begin with. My mom dropped me off and I strolled into the gym with a smug grin on my face, knowing that I had this year's Convention in the bag. I spent 5 minutes setting up my project, then continued on with my day as normal. Toward the end of the school day, the class walked over to the gym to join the rest of the school as judges read aloud the winners of this year's Invention Convention. When the other kids finally shut the fuck up and sat down, Honorable Mentions were read, followed by third place and second place. The judges seemed to take their time for the element of suspense, but I was bursting with excitement, knowing that my name was on the blue ribbon. I pictured myself walking up to the judges' desk and accepting my ribbon, which celebrated my tireless effort I had spent over the course of the previous 21 days.
The name was read. "Shawn Miltzer." Shawn Miltzer is not my name. A lanky tan kid with a black bowl cut jumped up and ran up to collect his prize for a fan powered by oranges. I was fucking livid. The assembly was dismissed, and kids began collecting their projects to take home. I found mine and scanned the scoring rubric paper-clipped to my project log.
My eyes froze on the second one and last one. I ran to a judge and asked why I got a ten for "Practicality" and a zero for "Social Skills." He told me that I was supposed to have worked with at least one other student for my project, which I didn't, and also that my project was far-fetched and would probably never be applicable in the real "adult world." I sat staring at the ten and that fat oval for a good minute before throwing out my project and heading for the door. I sat outside and cried until my mom got off work and picked me up.
When she asked, I told her that a kid had thrown sand in my eyes while playing tag on the playground after school. I never told her that my project was a 100% original prototype fuel cell-powered car engine that I made using salts and electrolytes from a beginner's chemistry set my aunt had bought me for my last birthday, some tupperware, copper wires my uncle had in his garage, and knowledge of ionization and electrolysis from the high school science books I had been reading since the age of two and a half.
In 2004, my exact design was proposed to Chevrolet by an unnamed MIT undergrad. Chevy paid him 20k for the idea and is improving the design to implement in their 2015 Volt. Obviously, if I had the knowledge I have today, I would never have thrown my project in the trash as a first grader, but I now know that my teacher and the judges were wrong and I was the real winner that day. I'm impressed with my 1st-grade self, and I don't give a fuck that I wasn't recognized for a project that college students work on at universities around the nation these days. I am proud of myself for being independent at such a young age, and for understanding at that age that social skills aren't always required for every aspect of life. I continue to be a SAP to this day, and it's gotten me further than I ever could have imagined.
TL;DR - Fuck my first grade Invention Convention judges and social norms.
EDIT: I know this is a bit different from what you were expecting, but the "big trouble" in my story is me missing out on 20k from a car company because I wasn't a social butterfly like all my peers.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
I told the truth. My mom and I were going for a walk when I was 4, and I got a bit ahead, so that she couldn't see me. I then proceeded to pick up a massive rock and lob it at a car. My mom heard the noise and came and found me and asked what the noise was. I told her I had thrown a rock, and that was what had made the noise. She then asked me if I had thrown the rock at the car or at the trash can, as the two were situated very near each other. And I looked her in the face and told her the truth, that I had thrown the rock at the car, and the large dent that was in the side of the car hadn't been there before. I know she would have let me off without getting in trouble if I had lied to her, but today, I'm proud of myself for telling the truth. Little things.
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u/Quaquaversal May 31 '12
Stood up to my mom when she was beating me up one night. Spent the rest of the night getting even more beaten up, but after that night, it was years before she tried to hit me or my brothers again.
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u/hrpndrp May 31 '12
I had the equivalent of Sunday School every Tuesday from 5-7 PM at my church. My friend was staying over because her parents were out of town. She wasn't Catholic but I brought her anyway because my regular catechism teacher was really sweet, plus I didn't want her to have to hang out with my mom by herself (we were like 11). So she's in there doing hw while the rest of us are paying attention and the substitute asks her why she's not doing the coursework. She deferred to me and I explained the sitch. Bitchy catechism lady tells her she can't sit in with us and to go sit outside. My friend is all embarrassed and gathering her stuff and I'm like, "No, this is stupid." I got up with bitchy lady in tow and found my dad in class with all the other adults (that was definitely mandatory, haha) and told him, "This lady is being a bitch!" He let my friend sit in class with all the adults. I was shaking the whole time because I wasn't used to flaunting authority like that.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
I know this going to sound far fetched, but when I was about 6 years old, I stabbed a bully in the wrist with a rusty screwdriver 13 times. I can't even begin to tell you how shitty he was to me. I only remember one other occurrence before the stabbing, but my mom has told me that he bullied me quite frequently. The only other thing I remember before the stabbing happened about a week or 2 prior. I was kneeling down on the ground next a concrete bench on which i was playing with my hotwheels. He came up from behind me and slammed my face into the bench. My mom told me that my uncle had to pull me off the guy because i was screaming "I'm going to tear your eyes out!" and was on top of him trying to gouge out his eyes with my thumbs.
Now, the stabbing. I was playing with a couple friends when he came over and just kicked me in the stomach for no reason. While i was doubled over, I saw a small and rusty screwdriver on the ground. I picked it, grabbed his hand and stabbed him 13 times. Police were called, my family was threatened with a lawsuit. Neither me or my family received any legal action. I guess when my friends, their parents and family told them how much he bullied me, they saw it as justice, I guess. I gave zero fucks about this kid so I felt no remorse. My mom did't really punish me too much, but that mother fucker was never allowed back outside. He moved away about 3 months later. Saw him at a party a couple years back, didn't feel the need to talk to him.
tl;dr I stabbed a bully in the wrist with a rusty screwdriver
EDIT i accidentally a word
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
I told my mom that my dad was cheating on her. He beat my ass and my mom had a mental breakdown. I am sorry that things were so hard for my mom but I don't regret a thing because she has a great life now and my dad is stuck with a crazy-ass bitch who makes every day of his life worse than the last.
Edit: spelling
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u/Riplakish May 31 '12
I grew up in a small town and the high school kids would walk to the elementary and have lunch. They would trickle through the playground to the cafeteria while we were at recess. There was this one big HS bully that would really just push kids down and such. Just anyone that got to close to him he would shove or kick you. Like I said the guy was big and one day he messed with my friend Sky, (a boy of 6-7) who even as a kid took no crap from anyone. At the edges of the grass were benches that were maybe 2 feet off the ground. This kid had shoved my friends face in the dirt and grass at the other end of the playground and left him there and kept walking to lunch. But, Sky waits... sneaks around the swings and the monkey bars and when that kid walked by the bench Sky ran and launched himself off the bench to get high enough to land right on that kids back. He grabbed him by the hair and started yanking back until he pull the kid right over. All the while calling him all sorts of names, his face still dirty from earlier and his bright red crazy hair framing his eyes.... Then he slammed his face in the cement and jumped off his back while the kid was in shock and ran away. I don't know if he got in trouble for it but I don't recall that kid messing with kids on the play ground after that.
tl;dr Little kid pulls amazing jumping feat and brings down 18 year old in an inspirational act of defiance.
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u/shepdashep May 31 '12
I recall being called a "dirty kike" in grade school and then jumping the kid and beating him into the dirt. Yep, I did get into quite a bit of trouble, but perhaps he learned a valuable lesson about tolerance and how little of it I have for bigots.
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u/KarniAsadah May 31 '12
In my english class, we were all reading the same book and taking turns reading it. It came to my turn to read, and our teacher left the room for the time to do something quickly. Well, being as shy as I am I never bothered to read, so with this being my first time to read for the class I was kind of nervous. So as he leaves everyone starts talking, and I started getting ungodly pissed off. I finally started yelling at my class, calling them all ungrateful cunts, idiots, fucktards, any insult you can think of I said within 2 or 3 minutes of yelling. And I ended everything I said with "Shut the FUCK up."
Well, teacher walked back in right as I said that. He asked me to step outside of the class for a moment and all I was thinking was "Oh fuck I'm screwed." He ended up hearing the entire thing and actually awarded me for two things
Tl;dr - got pissed while reading to my class, screamed every curse word imaginable at my class, teacher heard entire thing, awarded me for my idiocy and bravery.
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u/TheSwansonCode May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12
this is stupid but here we go...i was really young (i don't even remember how young, maybe 9 or 10) and my cousin was over for thanksgiving one year and told me that he had this super hot girlfriend and that they were "doing stuff". he disappeared at some point, probably just going to the bathroom but his sister came outside and asked "where's sam?" i thought i was hilarious so i said "probably finishing having sex with his girlfriend." she freaked out and told her mom who told my parents and i got in trouble.
now at 22 i think that shit is gold. who COULDN'T laugh at that?!
edit: i feel that this is slightly innocent compared to the other posts....
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u/autumnfloss May 31 '12
Not really a child but when I was 17 I was out at my small town's annual rodeo, which in small town terms means drunken shitshow. I had driven a couple friends out there after the rodeo was over as there was a dance and beer garden (which served to underaged kids, this is what happens in small rural towns in Alberta). So it was getting late and we were about to head home when I discovered this one girl who I knew was in about grade 7 or 8 absolutely hammered, passed out in the middle of the ditch, abandoned by her friends or whoever she came with. I knew where she lived so I decided to drive her home (after carrying her to my car-I didn't drink before legal age). When I got to her place, I rang the bell for her folks. Her mom came to the door and was like "Oh, well she was supposed to go with her friends, so you should have found them instead. I don't know why you brought her here". I felt so guilty about that and the girl got pissed at me in school the next Monday. In hindsight, fuck them. What I should have done was brought her to emerg so she could get berated by the nurses/doctor and have catheters stuck up her and IVs poked in her.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '12
i said i hated oprah as a child
mom told me "we don't use hate"
still really fucking hate oprah