Don't be a Twat. Part 1.

Oh, crap. You know when a blogger writes “part 1” as part of his post title, he's seriously going off on one. He's been thinking too much and writing too much, and now he's finished some hideously convoluted attempt at self-expression with little or no consideration for his readers' enjoyment. And he wants to share it with you. Yes, this document DOES weigh in at over 3300 words IN FULL, and yes, I tried to write shorter, separate posts. But, like life, which this blog post is all about, it didn't work out the way I wanted it to.

Rest assured, though, I'm not going to feed you the whole cake at once. Let's nibble on it one slice at a time. Either way, as Eminem would put it, I need to be “gettin' this stress that's been eatin' me recently off of this chest and I rest again peacefully (peacefully)...”

It may sound like “bitter self-berating” and “being a big-headed cock” are poles apart from each other, but believe me: one can draw a fine line between the two. Between putting yourself down and showing off what you've got, there's a balance- one that most people find quite easily and naturally, allowing them to be happy with who they are, without annoying those around them.

One of the things I struggle with is finding that balance. That's why I'm going to come across as a complete twat in this blog post. Don't say I didn't warn you.

1993.

Secondary school. I've moved from a 100-pupil primary to a 1200-strong comprehensive secondary. I've had short-term memory difficulties all my life, and now that I have to learn 200 people's names and the location of 20 rooms in an un-signposted building, I've got a lot on my plate- and that's before I start the actual school work. The pressure piles on. I become a confused, overwhelmed, erratic- and largely depressed- twat. Adding to this, I have a form tutor who thinks that the right way to assist pupils with their difficulties is to humiliate them in front of the group. Unfortunately for me and everyone else with leaning difficulties in the school, she was in charge of special needs. For legal reasons I will call her Mrs G. I won't name her, but I will name the Blue Coat School in Oldham. Instead of helping me, she destroys me. From this point, I grow up genuinely believing that I am a moron.

Here are a few examples of her behaviour:

1. Numerous times, she tells me I am stupid infront of the class.
2. The school has a habit of pestering parents for extra money to pay for refurbishment for the school. They ask us to sell tat like keyrings or bookmarks. If we don't come back with either the merchandise or the money (ideally the money- you are grilled on how hard you'd tried if you bring the shit back), we are in deep shit. I, of course, forget (I had something called “homework” that took priority). Mrs G asks me if I had also forgotten to put my underwear on. She asks me this in front of the whole fucking class. She tells me that if I don't bring this money in, I am going to have to prove it. I am 11 years old. I believe her totally.
3. She fequently takes my dinner hour away from me to make me find out pointless pieces of information. When I have to bring a deposit in for my Duke of Edinburgh award, she wants to know “what it is”. As I don't know, I spend my lunch hour trying to find out, reading in dictionaries and asking other people on the D of E scheme. They don't know either. I eventually find out how financial deposits work. And I NEVER forget.
4. In the first week of school, when I forget to turn up to afternoon registration, she tells the rest of the group to tell me that I am in trouble. When I go to see her, she goes fucking ballistic at me. I nearly shit myself, seriously.
5. I am allocated extra time during exams, which was a minor bonus, not that I can remember many of the answers anyway. The downside is, I have to sit them in Mrs G's room. In an English exam, we are told that the first ten minutes we were to read the questions but not pick up our pens til we were told to. I, of course, forget this and start writing after two minutes or something. She marches over to my table, snatches the pen out of my hand, slams it on the table and screeches at me.

My behaviour becomes more erratic as the homework piles up. I start to resemble the deranged love child of Hannibal Lecter and Roger Rabbit. These bizarre behavioural outbursts- unsurprisingly- annoy the majority of the pupils in the school, and I am outcast. Outcast because, summarily, I was a twat.

The abuse worsens. Girls criticise me, not because of my behaviour but because of my looks. On a daily basis for five years, I'm generally told that no-one will ever find me attractive. In a situation like this, it doesn't take long before you totally believe it. If a girl does show an interest, it's a joke at my expense. Because I'm a twat, I fall for it every time.

1998.

Whilst drowning in a sea of coursework, my twin cousins turn 18. I go to their party at a restaurant. It's my first night off coursework in months. I keep myself to myself, as I don't have any news for my relatives at this point. All I do with my life is coursework. I'm sat with my parents. My cousins and their friends are all chatting away like pretty regular 17-18-year-olds. At some point their banter lulls and all that can be heard from them is the odd hushed giggle. When I look up to their end of the table, they're looking at me. They all quickly look away, smiling.

For fuck's sake, I think. I can't go anywhere without girls giving me shit. I've done nothing to deserve this.

Later that year, I visit my headteacher with my mother. We explain that my memory difficulties are preventing me from succeeding with the work. My mother and I suggest dropping one subject to ease the workload. The head's stance is that GCSEs are difficult for everyone. He asks what makes me different, but it's a rhetorical question. The psychological assessment proving memory difficulties don't count for shit in his book.

We try again with the deputy head, who takes the same stance, making my mother cry. He begrudgingly allows me to continue as normal without doing geography homework. As I wasn't doing homework for this subject anyway, this doesn't change a great deal. I'm forced to sit all ten GCSEs. My only C-grade is English- the one you can't revise for. (Grade C or above are the only ones employers care about.)

Okay. So. In short, secondary school was dogshit. I develop a plethora of problems and they stay with me for a long time. But let's see how things change.