How was your high school experience/youth?

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In first and second grade, I went to a larger school outside of my district. If I had went to school in my school district, there would have only been two of us in my class at most. Or I might have been the only one in my class and the other kid about my age might have been in the grade ahead of me.

My childhood education was extremely brutal. I was in the same small school system K-12.
Halfway through kindergarten I was transferred to special ed (which at that time consisted of kids aged 5-9 watching The Letter People all day every day). My "problem": I could not recite the alphabet in the correct order. By the beginning of kindergarten, I had already read the entire Chronicles of Narnia, as well as The Hobbit. I could write down every letter in the alphabet, but only in order of how often I saw the letters and not the "correct" order.

I got the nickname "ret*d boy" in the first grade, after a teacher asked where I lived, and I replied "in a house." The teacher then asked what street I lived on, and I replied "I live in a house." The teacher then said (in front of the kids on the playground) "at least ret*d kids have special education."

It got worse from there. In 2nd grade I had some pretty serious digestion issues. I had frequent nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea (I have since learned that these bouts of digestive problems are directly related to my anxiety over unfamiliar social situations). During one class period, I had to use the toilet. A few minutes after returning to the classroom, I had to go again. The teacher refused to let me leave the classroom, telling me to stop fooling around. I had an accident. After that, I was frequently referred to as "that kid who poops his pants all the time" (despite the fact that it only happened once). By middle school it had evolved to "the kid who poops and pees his pants all the time," and by high school nosepicking and booger eating were added.

In 3rd grade, we were administered a standardized IQ test. I scored 164. They took me out of special ed and put me into all the advanced classes. This did not improve my popularity with my classmates. I was still called ret*d boy, but they also began referring to me as "spaz," "freak," weirdo," etc.

I hit puberty at age 8, long before anyone else. This made things worse. Only now I was bigger, stronger, and faster than my classmates. I must admit that I rapidly went from retreating or freezing up at any sign of conflict to becoming an extremely violent bully. I decided I was done taking crap from people. If a kid insulted me, he got a punch in the face. If a kid pushed me, I knocked him on the ground and gave him a few stomps. When someone used a sharpie to write "Beware of Freek" on my locker (that's right, they misspelled it), I beat three kids senseless until one of them finally ratted out his buddy, who ended up with two less teeth as a result.

The only people throughout my entire pre-college education that ever got along with me were the skater/stoners in high school. They seemed to like hanging out with me, but I suspect it mostly due to the fact that I had a car and a license, and would drive them to get snacks at the Qwik Stop corner store. (Plus, it seems like stoners tend to be a lot less judgemental).

I joined the military straight out of high school (I know, not the greatest move), where things did not go well, but that is another story for another day.

had a rotten time overall. tested gifted and was pulled for G&T in elementary but all the switching around made me kind of disorientated. Started having panic attacks in 5th grade. Didn't figure that out until years later. I was totally high anxiety. Then I was put into advanced classes in middle school but was not interested in the subject matter at all. Stopped participating in school, went to classes as infrequently as possible. they thought i was a lazy slacker i guess. I just wanted to stay home. Found weird people interesting but had only 1 person i'd call a friend. At least my mom was a great advocate. She knew I was smart but not interested. I felt like I was an alien studying the native creatures in their habitat. Absorbed and mimicked what i could. Was mainly into my own obsessions which tended to be based in pop culture so didn't seem too weird myself. I don't think. I turned my classmates into bit characters in my fan fiction (didn't have a name for it in 1984 though) starring mainly star wars characters and my favorite musicians of the time and just wrote the stories all day and did a lot of drawing. By high school I was on a lousy track but lucky i had good art programs and got through HS. went to 2 colleges, got a few degrees and that's that. I survived.