When I first heard about the Littleton massacre, I was horrified...and I still feel for the victims and their families; from what I have read, these kids were innocents, gunned down for nothing. Yet the more I read about the gunmen, and the torment the Trenchcoat Mafia faced at Columbine, the more my own memories of high school came back to haunt me...I'm now a college senior, very happy, very content, with great friends and a wonderful boyfriend. But to me it's a miracle I got through high school at all...for a while, not a day went by that I didn't think of suicide, and I'm on anti-depressants to this day. I was the editor of the paper, involved in tons of activities, among the top ten in my class..and still I was miserable. Because I wasn't gorgeous, wasn't rich, was too smart, I don't know why...I stood out, and not in a favorable way, and so I suffered. I'm sure no one who knew me would have guessed how physically sick I felt each day before walking into the school building, how often I came home and sobbed, how I would write in my journal that I just wanted to die. They might well have seen me as a success, but to me, none of my accomplishments, not my grades, not the awards, not even the group of good (if "geek") friends I did have could erase the torture I felt every time I walked down the hallway and heard the same assholes making the same cruel, snide comments. I never responded to them, never even indicated I heard what they said. But it happened, over and over, and for a while I didn't think I would make it. I would tell myself that they were losers, that they would be nothing after high school, that what they said didn't matter, but it still hurt like hell. Even today, four years later, I have a very hard time trusting people; it's still my instinct to tense up and look down at the floor when passing by a crowd of laughing students. And I was one of the lucky ones. I had friends, I had wonderful parents, and I had enough faith to know I would get out and move on. I can think of so many who were not so fortunate...those who were tortured so mercilessly. I can think of one boy in my senior science class who sat, staring straight ahead, every morning as the same obnoxious voices ripped apart his appearance, his size, his family, calling him "fag", "dirtbag", and much more that I can't even repeat...all while the teacher pretended to notice nothing. His solution, when one person did complain, was to change the classroom seating plan, still without rebuking the jerks who made this kid's life hell..and it did nothing to stop them. When I heard about the experiences Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold encountered in their high school, all I could picture was that one boy... What they did was awful, but what drove them to it--the endless cruelty, every day--may well have been worse. In talking to my roommates yesterday, I discovered that virtually all of us expressed the same sentiments: "I can see why they did it." It's easy to say once you're out of high school that the best course of action is to "hang tight and wait till you're out", but we seem to forget just how interminable high school can seem to those who are trapped, every day, inside it. Maybe it takes something as horrible as this murder spree to call attention to the real horror of high school life. It's not just "teasing", "boys will be boys", or "a rite of passage". It's torture of a psychological nature, and it has to stop. Spread the word. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are to blame for the deaths of those 13 innocent victims...but the "jocks" who tormented them and their friends are very likely to blame for pushing them so far.
Slashdot Mirror
When I first heard about the Littleton massacre,
I was horrified...and I still feel for the victims
and their families; from what I have read, these
kids were innocents, gunned down for nothing.
Yet the more I read about the gunmen, and the
torment the Trenchcoat Mafia faced at Columbine,
the more my own memories of high school came
back to haunt me...I'm now a college senior,
very happy, very content, with great friends
and a wonderful boyfriend. But to me it's a miracle I got through high school at all...for a while,
not a day went by that I didn't think of suicide,
and I'm on anti-depressants to this day. I was
the editor of the paper, involved in tons of
activities, among the top ten in my class..and
still I was miserable. Because I wasn't gorgeous,
wasn't rich, was too smart, I don't know why...I stood out, and not in a favorable way, and so I suffered. I'm sure
no one who knew me would have guessed how physically sick
I felt each day before walking into the school
building, how often I came home and sobbed, how
I would write in my journal that I just wanted
to die. They might well have seen me as a success,
but to me, none of my accomplishments, not my
grades, not the awards, not even the group of
good (if "geek") friends I did have could
erase the torture I felt every time I walked down
the hallway and heard the same assholes making
the same cruel, snide comments. I never responded to them, never even indicated I heard what they said. But it happened, over and over, and for a while I didn't think I would make it. I would tell myself that they were losers, that they would be nothing after high school, that what they said didn't matter, but it still hurt like hell. Even today, four years later, I have a very hard time trusting people; it's still my instinct to tense up and look down at the floor when passing by a crowd of laughing students.
And I was one of the lucky ones. I had friends, I had wonderful parents, and I had enough faith to know I would get out and move on. I can think of so many who were not so fortunate...those who were tortured so mercilessly. I can think of one boy in my senior science class who sat, staring straight ahead, every morning as the same obnoxious voices ripped apart his appearance, his size, his family, calling him "fag", "dirtbag", and much more that I can't even repeat...all while the teacher pretended to notice nothing. His solution, when one person did complain, was to change the classroom seating plan, still without rebuking the jerks who made this kid's life hell..and it did nothing to stop them.
When I heard about the experiences Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold encountered in their high school, all I could picture was that one boy...
What they did was awful, but what drove them to it--the endless cruelty, every day--may well have been worse. In talking to my roommates yesterday, I discovered that virtually all of us expressed the same sentiments: "I can see why they did it." It's easy to say once you're out of high school that the best course of action is to "hang tight and wait till you're out", but we seem to forget just how interminable high school can seem to those who are trapped, every day, inside it.
Maybe it takes something as horrible as this murder spree to call attention to the real horror of high school life. It's not just "teasing", "boys will be boys", or "a rite of passage". It's torture of a psychological nature, and it has to stop. Spread the word. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are to blame for the deaths of those 13 innocent victims...but the "jocks" who tormented them and their friends are very likely to blame for pushing them so far.