How to survive highschool hell
Repost if you think it may help :)
As an adult, I know highschool is hell. It was hell for me, but I survived. I was bullied, I had awful parents and it wasn´t a rich town. If I can save you time and distress recommending the following agenda, great!
1) Never trust adults who say their school years were the best years of their life. No matter if they are your parents. There´s no rolemodel there. And in general, keep in mind that you are a minor. If someone older acts romantically with you, RUN. All my friends in HS who envolved with so-called-adults ended in disaster.
2) Don´t make highschool your main and only one activity. Find a job, go to yoga, hike, learn Chinese, whatever you can afford.
3) Hang out with outside people. Cousins, co-workers, the kids you babysit, the senior citizens you mow the lawn for, internet friends, fandom friends. Don´t be pissed if they change their way of dressing or the amount of time they dedicate to you. Embrace changes, yours and other´s. Try to keep contact with people despite they don´t listen the same music and such.
4) Get a job. Mind your rights as an employee (learn about it), be a loyal co-worker, don´t buy the enterprise BS and make friends if possibly. The perks of a having a job are: you will earn some money; your parents will respect you more; you will meet older people and have to figure out if they are role models or not, you´ll have some experience to put in your resume when graduated.
5) Learn things. Get your brain drunk with knowledge. Quantum physics, history, archeology, astronomy, zoology, gender studies. Read fiction. Read best sellers, and Verne, and Salgari, and Jane Austen. You are too young to say “that shit is too complicated for me”. I went with a friend to a conference about criminalistic science once (?), both 15 yrs old, because, why not!? Just stay away from conspiracy nonsense. Learn first the general concepts, the consolidated mags (Science, The Lancet) with their scientific sources, and the worldwide accepted version of things.
6) Read adult magazines. Not porn ones, those are for teenagers. Read The New Yorker, Marie Claire Australia, National Geographic, and such. Read the things the adults at your home read. No matter if it is about finances, home decor, cupcakes making, etcetera. That will give you conversation subjects that aren´t YOU and damn school and grades.
7) Make your adults useful and turn into good the time spent with them. Maybe your grandparents are racist, bad news, they will be the same until dead. Do yourself a favor and ask them to teach you things, how to fix a faucet, how to paint, how to sew, how to repair a car. That´s a quick way to earn appreciation, gain something for your future and pass the rough family time in the same package. Just keep in mind some old people don´t have the slightest idea about fixing things and they do shit. So don´t take their instructions as holy words.
8) Keep a healthy distance from religion. Churches, priests, crazy cults, tarot readings, scientology, soul´s intercourse or whatever irrational people may be inventing in the future.
9) STUDY ABROAD. There´s a lot of programs that allow students to travel for one semester to another country. Get your ass in that list. No matter if it´s Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile. A semester off hell worths the jet lag. If your parents don´t allow you despite having more than enough money, your current hell and your interest going abroad, ask subtly if they can´t afford the ticket. Some parents rather send their kids to China instead of seem poor.
10) Give bullies the silence treatment. A certain tribe I´ve studied did not punish criminals. They just ignored them, even at the point some of those turned crazy. Silence is overrated, but it works. Don´t laugh with their jokes, don´t answer the bs they say, leave if they approach too much, make yourself a boring prey.
11) Get rid of abstract concepts like nations, boundaries, lifestyle, feminity, masculinity, God...it´s the best time of your life to learn about other cultures, sociology, anarchism, punk movement, May ´68, Herbert Marcuse, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Cornelius Castoriadis.
12) If you dislike the world and also realize you can´t change it by your own, start making it less bad. Recycle, help people, call out injustices, join a local group to build a public garden, march with the feminist girls in your family, teach math to your first year neighbour.
13) Don´t be a Nazi.
Do you know what happen with bullies once they leave the school?
They become presidents.
And CEOs.
So, suicide is not an option because we all need you to endurance this, survive, and become another type of president, or be all the new ones who vote different.
Thank you and good luck! Kick some bullies´prides out there.
