Bullied, Growing up a Victim: Seventh Grade through High School Graduation

Beginning with the seventh grade (we called it Junior High, rather than Middle School), those who bullied me were getting smarter.  They would catch me in the hall and trip me as I walked between classes so that I could be laughed at and made to feel clumsy.


During Physical Education classes, while the instructor was busy giving instruction or helping smaller groups of students during practice times, the bullies were taking advantage of the situation and the way we were dressed to make fun of my appearance.  I was the kid who grew up long and skinny, rather than showing any signs of having muscles.  And in the shower room after class, there was no end to the way the bullies tried to make fun of my appearance, my privates, and at times even tried to attack me physically and cause pain in my privates.

I was so very glad when I ended up having a health problem that caused me to get a note from my doctor excusing me from having to dress down for Physical Education.  The kids made fun of me about this too, but at least I wasn’t naked and being ganged up on.  It was one of those “lesser of two painful choices” situations.

Another effect the bullies had on me was that, rather than take classes that I wanted to take, as part of preparing to be ready to enter college and prepare for “the rest of my life” my motivation was to take classes that had the least number of bullies in them.  And this became my conscious and sub-conscious focus and goal for the rest of my public schooling and for much of the remainder of my life.

This one obsession, namely, to avoid those who teased or made fun of me or whom I felt were somehow attacking me.  This obsession even contributed to the failure of my first three marriages.  I also found myself avoiding people and situations that in any way reminded me of these painful experiences from my past.  The only focus and goal I had, by the time I graduated, was to find some way to avoid being hurt by others or being reminded of painful stuff in my past.

I would change jobs if needed to get away from anyone who felt like a bully.  At the same time, I grew up without knowing how to just sit down and talk with someone to get acquainted with them.  Where ever I was, whatever I was doing, I carried whatever I felt I needed with me just so I was ready to “defend” myself.

I remember one time, I was at Church.  The leader of the congregation I attended asked to speak with me.  He started out saying that he had to ask me something, but that he didn’t believe I was guilty.  He asked me a question about whether or not I was paying my child support obligations from a prior marriage.  Right there in his office I opened up my brief case and took out several months-worth of paystubs to show that the child support was being taken out automatically, as part of a support order, and that I had no control over when the support payment actually got delivered.

I shared this one incident as an example of the mental and emotional fear-motivated attitude that dominated and controlled virtually every minute, of every hour, of every day of my life.  As you may well be able to appreciate, this created a situation where I spent many years of my life in a state of what would later be diagnosed as chronic long-term depression.  If you are asking how I managed to get through so many years and decades of life living in this state of fear, I can only say that the Lord was merciful and provided me with just enough strength to hold on, and to continue to hope that somehow, some day, I would find a way to crawl out of my depression and escape from a life of eternal fear.

My battle with depression is the focus of another short but true to life story.


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Thank you for taking time to read my story.  If you are personally able to relate to any portion of my story, please contact someone you can trust and make the decision to begin the potentially long and painful process of learning how to believe in yourself in a healthy way, and how to reach a point where challenging and potentially painful situations in the present no longer sends you back to relive a painful past.

I have done this.  I do not consider myself to be better than anyone else, but I do believe in exercising my right to not stay stupid.

By Dave Kemper
© Copyright 2014 by David William Kemper.  All right reserved

No part or portion of this publication may be modified in any manner without the express written permission of the author.  Quoting from this publication is allowed on condition that the name of the author and the name of the publication are included.