How much does your high school experience affect you in adulthood?

I moved around a lot as a kid and it definitely affected my ability to make lasting friendships.

And the high school I went to had an exceptionally shitty crop of fucked up teachers when I was there which really undermined my ability to respect auhority figures later in life.
 
jeff7b9 said:
Agreed.

Does my kid say dumb stuff? Occasionally, but I don't know how anyone is supposed to take it personally when they are still an unfinished product that you are trying to mold into a healthy adult.

Am I correct in deducing from this statement that you are now a parent?

If so then you have an opportunity to break the cycle.

There is a lot we can learn from our parents and our childhood that can help us to be better parents, even if that lesson comes in the form of "What not to do."
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Yeah. I have one kid. Parenting isn't hard in that each day is nearly impossible. It is just a long and steady slog that requires you to perpetually evaluate things and determine if they lead my kid towards or away from things that likely will make them happy as an adult. That sounds kind of dumb but it really is that simple. Every day you get up and try to do the right thing and not the wrong thing and over time everything starts adding up and compounding. I know that sounds preachy but most people should be good parents. I would gather only around 10% are great at it. 70% are generally sufficient. 20% are terrible and damaging. I think one of the biggest faults of public education is that they never teach high schoolers in what kinds of things make someone a good parent because for most of them it is the most impacting thing they will do in their entire lives.
 
It had a good effect and helped set a solid foundation for the rest of my life.
 
Prefect said:
All around bad.

I was shutting down over my mom melting down and my dad blaming me for it. He dragged me by my hair once so hard it started spitting the skin on my scalp. When I told my mom about this she said "well, if you tell the cops you'll just be sent to foster care". It was only later I realized that CPS would have just sent my dad off someplace but living with my mom would have been just as much of a joke. She had this thing of telling you that you "in the real world no one will like you" for not doing trivial things. If you didn't clean your room it was "you will never have a girlfriend if you are messy" and no one will love you if" or "you think this is bad, wait until you have kids". So much projection of my mom's own insecurities and mental illness. My dad then tried hard to convince me to go to boarding school like it would be good for me and when I would go to his business, he would in front of me tell the workers that I was dumb and "the emptiest drum makes the loudest noise". This was unprovoked by anything just me showing up to get my check for cleaning the office. He would shake me and say stupid shit like "you are temporary and me and your mother are forever" I didn't have any friends really after 10th grade and was basically shutting down. My dad just worked away on wearing me down to avoid me being vocal about how boundaries were being overstepped. I didn't realize what he was doing at the time. I understood some of what was going on and was vocal about that at the time, which made me the brunt of things, but never understood the full extent of how intentional it all was, to be treated like or lesser than an animal. For the longest time, I thought my mom was completely crazy and my dad was ok but after having my own kid I saw him as just straight-up cruel and manipulative. Does my kid say dumb stuff? Occasionally, but I don't know how anyone is supposed to take it personally when they are still an unfinished product that you are trying to mold into a healthy adult. I was one of the cooler kids (or I thought I was with how much fun things were) in 8th grade but after that, I just couldn't handle the nonsense. My parents are still in denial over what they did and how they did it. I only recently came to the conclusion in therapy that there will never be any resolution of any kind. At best, I just get "I don't remember that" whenever I bring anything up. The very core of having any relationship with them depends on me just forgetting what they did and who they are. I really never had a chance at anything and it was only a miracle that I made it through college and finished my degree. Everyone around town thinks my dad is an amazing person but my parents were extremely good at putting on fronts when in public or people were over. I have a hard time thinking of someone more despicable and lacking any sort of empathy as my dad. I am sure they are out there but I just don't know them. The only sort of empathetic response that you'll get from him is something that is tied to making him feel good, which in of itself is nothing more than liking your own ego being pumped. Anything else, forget about it whether it comes to reconciling failures in parenting, relations, or something less significant like tipping or paying for their half of something unprompted.

High school to me was just buying time until I could leave. I wish I could pepper it up with nice memories or whatever but it was just all bad, stressful, and full of neglect and manipulation. Someone could say at least there weren't tremendous amounts of physical or drug abuse but it doesn't change anything on my side. I suppose what I could say is that if you have kids, remember that it is your job to try to mold them into healthy and productive adults and nothing is personal. I get the feeling that a lot of adults fall back onto "well, it was their decision" or "I couldn't do anything else" or "they were difficult" or "well, they just fell into a bad group of friends or alcohol or whatever" as a reason for abdicating their role as an adult that is trying to mold another adult. When someone fails as a parent, and it is not a one-time thing, it is a hard and steady push all the way through, they are setting up someone to have difficulties with having healthy relationships with other people, making it very likely they underperform careerwise. and setting a poor example of how to raise kids. Just setting up a situation that makes it hard for that person to be as happy as they could have and raise their kids to be happy. Poor parenting is often a sin passed down for generations due to people just falling into bad habits they grew up with and not taking ownership of the results. How many people really sit down and think about what they are molding their kid into rather than just punishing bad behavior or this or that and calling it parenting?

Those years were in a sense stolen from me like someone convicted of a crime that they didn't do. I might as well have been in jail or foster care or boarding school or wherever because nothing was happening besides people watching a clock for when they could kick me out of the house without it being frowned upon. Even recognizing this, that it was all undeserved and unprompted, doesn't change the fact that like someone convicted of a crime, they didn't commit there still lingers the feeling that maybe they did something to deserve it because why would your parents or the world act so cruel? How is someone young and naive not supposed to internalize the tumult around them?

So, no. There is nothing about those years I look back with fondness. Just anger, regret, and confusion. If someone where to ask me about my parents a decade from now, I might be to the point to just simply say that "yes, they were the people that put a roof over my head and food in my belly" without a hint of anger or feeling, as if I was reporting to someone what the color of the sky was.
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Dang that sucks.. were you an only child or the oldest child ?
 
Fuzzybabyducks said:
Dang that sucks.. were you an only child or the oldest child ?
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Oldest. Shit got a little tamer for my brothers when I left for college and just didn't call home or anything first semester even though I only lived 30 minutes away. I don't know. I know there are a lot of other people here with shit stories that just don't want to talk about it. Bad parents just suck.
 
Well I never really went to school because I didn't exactly have parents. I'd say it's impacted me.... negatively.
 
Prefect said:
Oldest. Shit got a little tamer for my brothers when I left for college and just didn't call home or anything first semester even though I only lived 30 minutes away. I don't know. I know there are a lot of other people here with shit stories that just don't want to talk about it. Bad parents just suck.
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Yeah what u went through seemed horrible , I was the oldest as well my brother and sister had it much easier than I did, that’s why I was asking.
 
It only affects you if you let it. It's like saying your childhood dietary habits made you fat. You can change your dietary habits and you can change whatever high school did to you mentally.
 
KowboyMMA said:
I'm thinking about going back and restarting from Freshman year on up..

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I didn't fit in my 1st highschool I attended. It was a horrible experience. Transferred to public school, got into a band, made tons of friends who I still talk to and hang out regularly. Took me decades later to realized that I got bullied in my former hs. It never really occurred to me as the latter part of my HS life was freaking awesome so I never really had issues to get over.
 
HS was OK for me. I basically have 3 groups of good friends.

1) My HS friends (some are from as far back as Kindergarten)
2) My college friends
3) My racing friends

Since my closest friends are from HS, I would say it affected me quite a lot.
 
Seahawks Fan said:
How much do you think a person's experience in high school affect them in adulthood?
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I think a lot. For example my first GF was a toxic slut and that turned me into a cheating asshole until I got married.
 
Well, it's a downer whenever it's brought up (thanks) but otherwise not. All fuel for the fire.
 
My life and fam were in a bad way in high school but I don't really think about the past too much tbh...just bury it deep down.
 
I went to a larger HS, had already been to several other schools while growing up, became ill in HS and that illness made me strange, dishonest, unpleasant in general. I become different. Hard to explain the illness side of my experience but it wasn't pleasant being sick, and then being offkiler wasn't something anyone talked about to me with my illness. At that age you don't have much idea of what is going on. Overall I'd say HS didn't effect me all that much, though it wasn't an absolutely horrible experience, it wasn't a picnic either.

I've known people from smaller towns, who seemed to have found themselves in HS, with HS having a large impact on their lives as adults. They look back on HS days fondly.
 
It was pretty much unmemorable outside meeting one friend who I still hang out with almost 20 years later. In grade 9 all of my elementary school friends ditched me, which forced me to make all new friends, which I did. I was super aloof and never cared really and nothing really gave me a reason to care. I was like a B+/A- student because I don't want to have problems, but I never tried hard. I found the majority of people I met in high school to be uninteresting and conceited.

First year of college had a way bigger impression on me than my 4 years in high school. And left me a lasting impression. It taught me more about life and workethic than anything in high school, which taught me basically dog shit.
 
Had a pretty fun HS experience.

I basically went to school to hang out with friends and practice breakdancing, then off to class to sit and draw graffiti in my black book all day. Well convincing teachers to hang my art up in their classrooms since I wrote their names in graffiti, it was the only way to get a piece up in school without getting suspended, and worked like a charm.

I got along with pretty much everyone social group of kids from the Cowboys to the Gangster to the Jocks. Had no real enemies and knew all of the right pot heads to keep me supplied.

Had a part time job, my own vehicle, and was in good standing with all of the females.

I had an awesome HS experience that followed me through adulthood.

I can’t complain…
 
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