It scares me a bit to share this, but I got bullied daily until my junior year in high school. You do NOT wanna be the only redheaded Mick in a small town of Krauts and Pollacks...
I'll try not go into to too much detail, but I ended up putting one of my bullies in the hospital. I broke every single bone in my right hand and wrist in the process, but he had to have multiple surgeries to repair his nose and eye sockets....
I remember glaring out at the circle of my classmates that had formed (half the high school actually, we only had 300 students and teachers tota;.) and saying "The next mother f*cker that even looks at me wrong gets ten times worse than this. I am sick and f*cking tired of all of your inbred, redneck horse-shit."
I'll never forget those words. Even the teachers backed off. I went on a rant for at least fifteen minutes explaining why each and every one of them was at fault and directly responsible for the situation at hand. The poor bastard that pushed me over the line was out cold, with a third of his face beaten into hamburger. One of the few girls that even acknowledged my existence said with horror in her eyes, "Johnny, your hand is messed up." I looked down to see all of my fingers jammed down into my wrist, everything in between just a bulging sac of shrapnel and meat. I promptly told everyone to f*ck off and passed out.
(sorry for the graphic detail, I know it is in appropriate, but since we are sharing, I am no holds barred.)
One second of pure, absolute rage. Years of physical and verbal abuse. ANGER.
One f*cking punch caved in that poor hick's face and changed my life.
I got arrested...and released....charges dropped. I guess in those days "justifiable" still meant something.
One punch changed my entire life.
Sad, really.
I got lucky.
After that, I was invited to every party. Girls actually talked to me. That bully's dad gave me a ten dollar an hour job because "...it was about time someone put that little shit in his place..." I had respect for the first time ever. No one in that county ever f*cked with me again.
I had high school hero status suddenly, and all I felt was embarrassed- I had stooped to their level. I had lost it, and won, but only by dumb luck.
Still bothers me to this day. That one forty second fight. That one punch. It made me human to those ignorant rednecks and made me a monster to myself.
I had a list of reasons why I joined up, but that was in the top ten.
Sorry, really off topic, but it freaks me out a bit that so many of us came for similar roots. I wonder if that is a contributing factor to our condition. Too bad I'm a Biochem major. If I was a psych major, we'd have a thesis here...
