Now that I have your attention, let’s start weeding you out first. Now pay attention, class, cuz this is important.
Are you a bully that continues to bully people even later on into your lives? Taking advantage of people because you’re a big shot partner at a firm and you feel you’re above reproach, so you get to say and do whatever you want and shit all over them, much like you probably did to the nerds in High School? Go home, you’re not for this post. I said bullies, not narcisists. Go somewhere else today. LoL
Now, are you a bully that may stopped bullying but feel no remorse for what you did because you felt like everything was just kids being kids, and it should be able to be let go of? Mkay, I THINK we can talk, but let’s see how far YOU are willing to carry on this conversation. Do you agree that while you may feel it should be let go of, to others it might not be as trivial and therefore would warrant speaking about, even decades later? NO?! Shit, then GTFO right now, please. Thank you and goodbye. You’re just inhuman if you’re not willing to hear the other side of the story.
Let’s see, so who’s all here now? *looks around the room* Alright then, this is at least an audience willing to listen. Noice.
I wanted to discuss some shit that’s kind of been stirring in my head for some time that I felt a need to get out.
I’d at one point recalled an article that was once written in a school paper that was, what we felt at that time, a targeted rhetoric to try to tarnish a name that we never even wanted for ourselves, in the first place. The Angries. It was a term that was placed upon a group of friends that found safety in numbers of like-minded individuals. In our group, we were not only willing to express ourselves, we urged each other to do so in our own special ways. Sure, we mostly did that with dark clothing, spiked jewelry, crazy hair styles, and big ass pants that could fit 3 grown women in one pant leg that’s wider than most waits. LMFAO. Thank you Kik-wear, I wish you’d bring some of those older styles back now!
Most of our musical expression was heavier shit, too, like Slipknot, Sepultura, Soulfly, Hatebreed, Metallica, and so on. Usually you’d call us ‘Goth’. And that name we accepted, because much of what we enjoyed often times was based around the occult and ‘gothic’. *cough* Magic the Gathering *cough cough* Dungeons and Dragons *sniffle* Oh, excuse me there. Tickle in my throat.
Where was I. Oh yeah, so why the fuck did we suddenly become called ‘The Angries’?! To be brutally honest, despite the music that we listened to, that to outside ears was perceived to be an often hateful message, we ACTUALLY weren’t that pissed off, on the inside! The only reason why you THOUGHT we were pissed off, was because you never sat the fuck down to have a conversation with us to ask us how we were fucking feeling, guys. It’s often times as simple as that.
Did you? (Think back, too. Did you actually talk to someone and hear what they were trying to tell you, and then have a conversation with them to ask why, and try to talk things out with us?)
I’ll bet merely a fraction of you will say yes to my answer.
So here’s the thing. I think that we got called ‘The Angries’ because you didn’t talk to us, or you just didn’t know how. Which I wish you would have asked for help on how you could talk to us, so we could tell you what we felt you were doing wrong. Because that’s a great first step, right there. We wanted to have a dialog but kind of felt like any of our attempts to have a dialog would be met with beat downs, or some shit. So I’ll tell you right now, that’s why I had very little to fucking say to your asses!
Sometimes it was stupid shit, like making fun of my attire. So because of your snide remarks aimed to be derisive, you could’ve asked simply “Why do you have that patch on your hoody?” But if you ask stupid shit like “You’re on a mission from god, huh? *guffaw* How’s that going?” I’m gonna come back at you with a smart ass response. You’ve heard the phrase ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer, right? So why the fuck do you get to say shit like that and when I play your stupid little game, instead of acknowledging it for what it is and taking the verbal hit, you move to physically hit me! Yep, seems fucking fair. Despite the fact that you’re hitting someone that really has no understanding as to why you’re doing this, right? Congratulations, YOU instilled further ANGER into me, to find a way to make it even harder for you to get through to try to communicate with me. FUCKER. (Thankfully the kid in that situation didn’t hit me, because while I do have a sharp tongue and have always been quick of wit, I’m not fucking stupid. My father taught me time and place. Just bet he didn’t think that I was going to use his lesson of ‘time and place’ as a defense mechanism. LMFAO)
Noooooooo no no, he didn’t lay a fucking hand on me, cuz I wasn’t ignorant enough to take your bait while out in the wild. HAH! No sir. When you see me in the wild, I’m a fucking GHOST to you, bitch. The only chances that you get to try to best me in a game of the tongue is in MY fucking domain. That arena, would be where you got schooled by both the teacher, and me, sir. Cuz what really happened was I saw the look in his eyes that he was ready to beat the shit out of me come time for the homeroom bell to release. So as soon as that class was nearing its end, I popped my wheels into my Heelys (THANK YOU FOR THAT INVENTION! SO MUCH!) packed up my pack, zipped up my hoody over my backpack, too. (You see, a large hoody that’s able to cover a mostly empty backpack, because you minimized your book cargo by optimizing time between classes, you could streamline your travel from class to class. Especially when you get to glide with the greatest of ease in Heelys.) Fuck, sorry. . . Squirrel.
Back to what I was saying now, with my hoody zipped over my backupack, this minimized any handles that could be grabbed onto. I would then find any excuse to go up to the desk to talk to my teacher, in order to be nearest the door when the bell was about to ring. Soon as that bell rang I’d slip right out with hood over my head and heel right along to my next class. By the time shithead even recognized what was going on, I was a black blur across the hallway floors clearing an entire building’s length in a matter of seconds. So that is where my agility from all my rollerblading came in handy.
So yeah, as I was originally saying though, I was pissed when I talked to you. Because I never felt you had ANYTHING constructive to say to me. No matter what you’d do, it was always deconstructive to us. So sure, I could see why you thought we were angry. It’s because everything we got from you, felt like anger, or hatred.
Otherwise we’d actually be having a great time amongst ourselves. Jamming out to our favorite music. But because it was loud and abrasive, you’d feel the need to approach us about it. Despite the fact that you’d be bumping your beat boxes on your side of the school, or other shit like that. However it wasn’t simply, “Why do you listen to that music?” was it?
NO! It wasn’t!
It was always “Turn that shit off!” or “I can’t stand that shit!” or even simply stealing our discman and smashing it on the fucking ground after a game of keepaway from a smaller weaker kid that could easily be physically overwhelmed by you! So because of that, I had to do two more things, in addition to consistently keep my agility up, so I could zip through your ranks without being seen. FUCKING NINJA SHIT. LMFAO.
I had to learn how to party up.
Yessir. I had to figure it out, because when I realized that some people could catch me in the hallways and smash me into the glass in the cafeteria. (By the way, this was in Junior High before having increased agility and learning how to party-up, so if you want to hear more about THIS particular moment, that’s for a different story. LoL.)
If I were to survive this next encounter, my wits told me that I had to have more than speed. And since I had to learn how to defend myself, and didn’t have means because I couldn’t get into any self defense classes for reasons, I was lucky enough to have grown even closer to my good buddy Josh, whom I first met in Junior High. I didn’t really hang out with Josh much in Junior High though, so that’s why he didn’t fit into the Junior High cafeteria incident, so I just ad-libbed that in. LoL! However, when quick of wit and rapier speed isn’t enough, and you do need the fast long range people to feel safe enough to do what it is they do best, you always have to have a tank, right? Yeeeeeaaaah, now you see where this shit’s going. You see why we were always in a bigger group, now? Good, I’m glad you’re paying attention and following along here.
You know, I really think this could also explain why my friends and I really often times enjoy the bigger orchestrated games that allow us to party up and cooperatively take down a goal. LoL!
Sorry, squirrel.
So yeah, not gonna go into more of my dungeon party. I haven’t been in contact with the rest of them in so long that I just hope they are happy and healthy. However, I’m most happy to have stuck by the side of my faithful tank, Josh. He always was able to defend himself, and therefore I knew could help back me up in a pinch. And the truth of it is, I was always willing to learn. And he’d even fucking help me, sometimes, when we’d just fuck around and try sparring in his yard. LoL. So I mean, I tried to get bigger to be able to defend myself, at least there’s that, too. But again, that takes time, and in High School I didn’t have time. So that’s how we all learned to be cross-functional team members, and having each others backs with our own unique skills.
So back to the dungeon that was called school.
At that point it got to a point that we were pretty safe for a time. However, as the years went by we started to notice some things about our own group, too! (Dun dun duuuuuun) Some of us moved to other groups, or split apart, or started seeing things a little bit differently and didn’t hang out as much with the same groups. At that point, some of us ventured into other groups as the years went by, thinking we had found acceptance with some of you. Only to find out that most of those times, secretly you were only beginning to discover that we had hidden talents that you could take advantage of us for, and use us until your heart’s content and then throw us away like a wet rag on a dirty kitchen floor. (Hope you can envision yourself feeling like that for a second, after reading this. I really do. It means you have empathy. Congratulation’s you’re human.)
That’s when I had to learn to try to be a better judge of character. Then that’s around the time when the circle of friends that once was huge QUICKLY became VERY VERY FUCKING SMALL. Let me tell you that, because secretly, you managed to make it within our ranks, too! Low and behold, some of my close friends also became some of my bullies, so I’ll tell you that this was just another thing that I had to learn, and that one I learned fast, too. Let me tell you. Because fool me once, shame on you. But full me twice. . . .
So now, I wanted to go through all of this, and all that I had to learn in order to stay alive in the jungle like hell that I called my high school. Because I want you to know this one thing. Every fucking thing I did, was all in effort to hide further amongst you and fly so under the fucking radar, that it’s due to this shit that I have only recently begun to realize that I’ve, my entire life, been dealing with a mental handicap that, with the right help, may have prevented my college career from being stunted when I was merely 1.5 years away from graduating with a B.S. in Biology for UTSA. Instead, when life became to overwhelming and I knew that I had to work to stay alive, because I wanted to do it on my own, I had to make a sacrifice.
Fortunately, that’s also how I found myself to be way more successful in the Tech industry, so I’m still thankful that I was able to apply my High School web knowledge and grow that WORLDS beyond what it was when I first tried making websites with Josh under Concept Web Designs.
Shit, there I go again off tangent.
Anyways, so basically what I’m trying to say is that I wrote all of this to address a really bad rhetoric that I recently heard, that I HAVE to stop before it ever does grow.
BULLYING DOES NOT CAUSE AUTISM!
However, I WILL tell you what bulling fucking damn sure causes, right here and now.
It causes depression, anxiety, feelings of depreciated self worth, and a whole mess of other shit that you could probably never imagine of having to deal with. (Or could you? Maybe you bullied because you were bullied, and now you see just how fucked up it really was to do what you did.)
It also causes adaptation, and change. And that change, my good people, is what is known as MASKING in autistic people! So, please thing long and hard about some of the people you fucked with in your life, and think back at how normal they seemed to you, but just because they were that little bit different, you still felt they were an easy enough target. Because well, they couldn’t possibly be mentally handicapped, right? They’re smarter than me and making better grades, so they must be normal.
So I don’t know if this is going to get through to any of you. I really fucking don’t. But honestly, it’s just something I fucking had to say.