The High Times

I am really proud of the way I turned out. It was a little touch-and-go there for a while. But I came out alright. 

I was bullied as a teen, and by the standards of the time I certainly “deserved it”. Or at least that’s what I thought. 

There was a massive coordinated bullying campaign at my high school around my junior year centered around designating certain people as “grummets”. Grummet was a term for your typical weird anime kid, the ones who did the Naruto run to lunch and perpetually wore the same black sweater to school ever day. You know exactly who I’m talking about. They were probably bullied at your school as well. You might even be one. They were borderline crucified at my school. Of course none of them deserved it. They were just young boys and girls expressing themselves in ways that brought them joy.

I was grummet-adjacent I would say, and that was enough to condemn me. I was on the dance team at the time, which was generally where the most popular girls congregated. I begged my parents to let me quit, but I wasn’t allowed to until senior year. Anyways, I was the absolute bottom of the barrel and arguably a terrible dancer. Being a grummet amidst the dance team felt like being a canary in a coal mine. The girls on the dance team were trailblazers for the grummet campaign, and I could never escape. Not after school, and not on the weekends. 

The teachers did their best to combat the movement. I’ll never forget the day that my dance team coach teamed up with the teacher supporting the jr. ROTC (ROTC was almost entirely comprised of grummets) to try and put some respect on his students name. He was an intimidating man, former army who took his job seriously. He made all the girls on the dance team run the ROTC training course multiple times outside is 105 degree weather. I remember feeling like I was going to throw up. The irony that I was being punished for the grummet campaign did not escape me.

When he finished the course for the last like, the teacher dropped one of the hardest bars I’ve ever heard: “The only grummet I know of are the ones holding the American flag together”. He was actually referring to grommets, but we got the idea. 

Nowadays me and my friends use it as an endearing term. We call ourselves grummets when we’re engaging in grummet activities like attending oddities festivals and watching adult cartoons. Funny how language can evolve like that. 

I’ve done so much healing from my experiences in 5th to 12th grade. I now have a successful career in engineering, an amazing husband, and amazing friends. Sometimes the sadness will creep in, but I generally beat it back by remembering to love my younger self and give her grace. 

I often think of anti-bullying campaigns and what anyone could’ve done about it, if anything.  I honestly anti-bully campaigns have it all wrong. It has been shown time and time again that they have no real impact on the way pre-teens and teens interact with each other. I think we should be focused on the bullied rather than the bully. Provide support and resources for those kids currently experiencing some of the toughest days of their lives. Focus on healing while it happens. Bringing on mentors that had similar experiences in schools. 

I don’t know where this all came from. Just something I’ve been thinking about lately.

Thank you for listening.

Mickey