"worst" level of school?

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I know a lot of people who say they were so happy and confident in elementary school and it was somewhere in junior high or high school where they started to feel ugly/unpopular/whatever and things went to s**t.

I had the exact opposite experience. Elementary school was sheer hell for me. The other kids stared at me and teased me all of the time. I was constantly having these huge crying or temper meltdowns, and that just encouraged the bullies. My "friends" & teachers didn't treat me any better than everyone else did. I just remember feeling worthless and miserable and like I was a complete freak. And also like I had a big neon sign on my head that said I was an easy target. Going to school every day was absoultely terrifying.

In junior high, things started to look up a little bit. I moved to a new state, so I got a fresh start. And basically, I learned to never be noticed at all. I never spoke and I wore jeans and a big black jacket every day. It was like I didn't even exist, and after years of being the elementary school laughing-stock, it was a huge relief. High school was even better. I found a group friends who shared my interests and actually had a lot of fun with them. Nobody gave me any crap. I mean, sure, I wasn't "popular", but I never wanted to be popular anyway. By no means was high school perfect, but from a social standpoint it was damn good. Socially, things have been wonderful ever since. I'm really shy in public, but I have a great group of friends. We game, we hang out, we throw parties, we have great conversations, and I couldn't be happier with them.

Eh...I don't know where I'm going with this. Just pondering how dramatically things have improved since I was a little kid. I'm thankful for that, although the pain from those early years definitely continues to haunt me.

Elementary school was not not fun, but I was mostly left alone.

Middle school (6th through 8th grade, ages 11-13) were HELL. I was teased/bullied daily.

High school is so much fun. I even have people I think I might be able to call friends.

Middle school and the first years of high school were the worst. I was fine in elementary school, and things have improved dramatically now that I've been taking the more challenging higher level math and science courses.

My elementary years were the best. I had lots of friends, I was more outgoing, and kids' television was great at that time. Seventh grade (my first year of junior high) was terrible. I was teased a lot, plus I did a lot of stupid things for attention. Eighth wasn't as bad as seventh grade. High school was a big improvement from junior high, but it wasn't as good as elementary, because I was still socially awkward and teased a little.

I guess my junior high years were the "dark ages" of my entire education career.

I had a hard time in my middle school years. I had a few teachers that bullied me. One teacher would just watch me do normal things like blow my nose and throw away the tissue, and would say that I did it in a disruptive fashion and write me up. Another teacher would just try to look me in the eye constantly and when I avoided it, she said that I was rolling my eyes at her and that it was disrespectful. One teacher even gave me a detention and made me write a five-page apology letter for saying "put a sock in it" to a classmate who told me that I couldn't drink from the same water fountain as her. (Although I would like to add that the reason I got the detention was for filling the middle portions of my five-page apology with jokes about her sensitivity to topics of footwear)

When it was another kid, I could handle it. You know, I didn't really care about social things and conflicts almost never escalated to anything physical. But when it was a teacher I just didn't know what to do. Every time I told my mom about it, she'd go down and yell at people, and then they'd just treat me worse.

Before and since that time I've always been a happy person. That part of my life was the only time I ever had panic attacks.

I didn't really start feeling different until about 5th grade. This may be since my family had moved several times because of my Dad's work and I had changed schools several times along the way.

It was in 5th grade that I started experiencing my first serious bullying. I wasn't used to dealing with harassment like that. Coupling my thin skin with my then bad-temper meant that I spent quite a few days in the office, and was probably the only 5th grader in my school to be suspended after fighting a 7th grader. With the help of my parents, I began to develop more patience and my fights stopped for a long time. The bullying however, did not, and I didn't know what to do with all the anger and pain I felt. By 8th grade, I was internalizing most of it to the point where I often became physically ill. I began to have migraines and felt depressed often. A month of especially vicious bullying that year came to a head when a student kicked me in the back of the head while I was tying my shoes [I have one hand, so it takes a little longer]. I was in the hospital overnight with a concussion while he received an in-school suspension on a half-day.

The bullying eased off for a while after that, although I remained depressed long after the last incident. It was in my Sophomore year of High School when the teasing and abuse began again that I started to act differently. I don't know if the growth spurt that made me 2 inches taller over the Summer had a part in it, but as far as I was concerned, I was done with passively enduring the bullying. I had changed; rather than being the bubbly hyper kid I used to be, I was stoic. It quickly spread that 'pushing my buttons' no longer had the same entertainment. Those who tried physical abuse found out swiftly that I did not tolerate it. I was punished by the school more in the following 12 months than I had been in the previous 10 years combined. But by my Senior year, I was finally left alone, and I was able to put away those kind of responses.

***NOTE:I made quite a few mistakes in doing what I did. I would not counsel anyone to take the course of action I took. But I made those decisions for myself. As wrong as it was to retaliate in kind, I felt like I couldn't rely on my school's course of disciplinary action to protect me. As wrong as it was to let myself act on anger and rage like I did, part of me enjoyed sending a message to these kinds of people that they'd understand. But it's thanks to my family and friends that I didn't let the anger define the person I was becoming.

The peace I received in my Senior year was remarkable; while I was still teased from time to time, it was manageable enough that I could I fall back upon the mental processes I'd been taught by my parents and counselor to strengthen my patience. My introduction to College was also a welcome surprise in that most people were much more mature by this point, and the question of bullying was a moot point. I'm now to the point where my High School past is entirely behind me; my friends at college can't imagine me ever being angry. I've worked so hard at remaining calm and laid-back that its become second nature. While I still stress about school and assignments, it's easy for me to recognize that this is a much better part of my life.

In elementary school, I went to three different schools. First school was decent, it was K-2, I fit in with the kids, etc. When I switched to 3rd grade for one year, I went mute and I got teased by the other girls. Next school, it started out bad but 4th grade I was bullied but it got better when I got to 5th and 6th grade. Things were getting better and I was starting to interact with the other kids. Things changed when I got to middle school, I stopped interacting with the other kids and things went down, I became confused about the social scene. I became very oblivious of socializing. I was mute at the same time. I did not know how the other kids perceived me. Then in 11th grade I broke my mutism and I managed to make a few friends by senior year. But for the most part in HS, I was ignored and disreguarded. Then came college, everything changed. I began to be more accepted. People were saying hi to me and I was surprised that the norm was to acknowledge people. But from there it was still a long way to finding meaningful friendships and fitting in with people.

High school was the worst for me.
Preschool, Grade 1 and university were the best.

Middle school was by far the worst. I loved elementary school, and although it still sucked, high school was definitely better than middle.

It's interesting to me how many people liked elementary school. That was the worst time in my life! It probably didn't help that I went to elementary school in a very dangerous, crime-filled city. I guess the combination of being surrounded by people who were quite mean in general and not having yet learned how to "appear normal" was what did me in.

School was all around bad for me. It was never good. But school was the worst for me in HS. Pure hell. Constant anxiety and the fear of getting humiliated or physically assaulted.

Then June of senior year. Graduated from school without shooting it up a la Columbine. It was like a purple heart for me. I survived!

College is not necessarily that good because people still ostracized me but it was subtle. Plus the social dynamics were drastically different. Most people were indifferent from one another and because the school I went to was big enough that there were different cliques. College was okay. My only regret from it was not choosing the major that would get me a job.

Middle school, definitely.

High school was the worst. though junior high wasn't great. elementary was ok because I wasn't made fun of. I liked university the best though it wasn't perfect. I had some acquaintance through out so it wasn't all that bad. but in high school I was on my own.

I found elementary school boring, junior high hellish, and high school fantastic.

I was bullied relentlessly through K-12 by adults and children. My teachers were incompetent and emotionally stunted. I wish I could've tested out of K-12 and gone straight to college. It wasn't until college that I really started to learn useful skills and knowledge.

Elementary school was easiest for me and high school hardest. Part of it (I think) was that all my elementary school friends were weird, so I blended in. But when we got older and they started talking about boys, clothes, make-up, hair, and all those things I found boring that's when I started noticing differences. We also moved to another state when I was 13 and the people here are not as friendly as where I used to live, so I had a much harder time even talking to people. Everybody has their set group of friends that they talk to, friends that they grew up with, and they didn't care for outsiders like me. So high school was definitely the hardest level of school.