Bullied Read Free Page B

have this feeling but I hear from other boys that it is about something called "puberty”. I am not sure what that means. As much as I am curious about all these feelings, I do not have anyone I can ask about it. If I had a Daddy, I would ask him. My Mom has never been a boy, so she would not know anything about it. My grandfather has never been somebody whom I can ask these types of questions. I have had similar feelings before, but it was never this persistent and powerful. Not understanding why this is happening and what it means is very confusing.
    When speaking to friends, they do not have answers for me either. I guess all of the boys are experiencing the same thing and it is a big mystery. I seem to get this feeling all the time for no particular reason even when alone. I feel it a little more whenever I look at my friend Patty, because I like her light brown hair and sweet face. I also get this feeling when I see my sister's friend, Dona. She has black hair, dark eyes, a slim body and beautiful smile. She is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. Every time she walks past my house and smiles, I get an erection. I do not know what I would do with all these feelings and I can never get the courage to tell her how much I like her. Well, this is just another sometimes-overwhelming mystery. There are so many, including some other feelings that I do not understand.
    The second worst feeling to that pain from thighs to chest that I wake up with is that very sad feeling. I heard my Grandparents recently talking about a sad feeling that runs in our family they called “melancholy”. That word does not seem to describe the depth of feeling that I have but it may be the same. It makes the world seem like an awful place and all of the problems that I am having are my own fault. That feeling just makes everything seem so hopeless. What complicates this even more is when the weather is awful and the sky is overcast, I even feel worse. Knowing I am that way, I dread the winters because we never see the sun for months at a time. I learned recently that where I live in upstate New York, there are only 28 days of sunshine each year and none of them occurs in the winter months. Because of this, the months from November to March are my worst time of the year. That is also the same time that bullying is worst. I wonder if there is any connection.
    Seventh grade is a long way toward the top grades in elementary school. I would normally be leaving Saint Ambrose and starting Union Endicott high school at the end of next year after the eighth grade. As much as I sometimes like certain Sisters, who work very hard to teach me, I would like to try public school for a change. The feeling of going to a Catholic school where I learn about religion an hour every day, and then face the violence from other students, as well as from some of the adults in my family, just confuses me. I always wonder what bearing this religion, discipline and holy authority has in making it OK for people to bully me all the time. It makes me feel different from everyone else, but I also do not understand why they call me strange names like Fag, Queer, Shorty, Red, Red Ass, Freckles, Spots, Creep and Weirdo all the time. There are many other names, too many to remember, and there are always new ones. I am sure if I were taller and tougher, I would not have this problem.
    I do have some friends that are good company. One of my friends, another bigger kid named Bernie, my age, is a very strong person, and he is funny a lot of the time. He has two brothers and they all walk to school along the same route that I do. Since they live about a block away from my house and know what I have to deal with, Bernie’s younger brother asked me if I want to walk to school with them every day but I know if I do that, I will have to obey Bernie because he is the leader. I think I would rather be alone because I would just be swapping several bullies for another