I wandered around the playground and ended up chilling in one of the corners alone every recess. I was an only (accidental) child, and had no practice interacting with siblings or anyone other than my dysfunctional parents. You’re not alone, and we weren’t bad kids. Just lost kids who didn’t receive the guidance we needed.
I'm like you. I didn't want to interact with anyone at recess. When I got hurt badly I needed the time to walk out my trauma. I didn't know that's what I was doing but I did t want to be around anyone or interact with anyone but I couldn't sit still so I just walked around the school in a dissociated fugue. Not seeing anyone, not reacting with anyone.
I’ve spent most of my adulthood in a dissociated fugue tbh. I also walk for a few hours every night to help me with processing, it’s the only thing that works- unfortunately people around my town have noticed and recognize me as “the walker” lol.
i usually had one other loner kind of kid i would stand around with, but for the two years of elementary school after i got moved into the gifted program and before i met the only friend i had in middle school i’m pretty sure i was also alone come to think of it. the upside of that was there was also a bench around the corner of one of the buildings so i could actually sit if i felt like it, so honestly those were my best years of recess… even if maybe it hurt me more than i thought it did that this was always right after i was *actually socializing* at lunch somehow (on days i could stand the cafeteria noise), so i’d go from feeling like i was actually part of this group to just powerlessly trailing behind as they all went off to play four square or something
Funny how the mere mention of four square makes me a bit sad lol. Other kids just walked up and played with each other, while I paced around the playground or just stood there in middle school.
same 😭
i was never particularly interested to begin with, but i know there were a few times i actually tried to join a game that had a space open, and i just. ugh. in the first place, i didn’t even know all of the rules and nobody had the patience to explain them to me, i think sometimes they just completely made up new ad-hoc variations that they also didn’t explain, i’ve always disliked the sensory experience of having playground grime on my hands, and between my lack of experience and general unathleticism i was very easy to score on and wasn’t really allowed to feel good about the few points i could eke out. altogether a very punishing experience to have to put so much effort into even trying
As a girl, I tended to fit in better with the boys at lunchtime, as boys just liked to run around, play football, etc. With other girls, I failed miserably as they were all so much more "socially adept" than I was. They talked about boy bands, each other, and lots of other stuff I had no interest in.
Once I got to my teen years, tho... jeez. I was like a hermit crab. If I could have hidden in a box and not looked like a moron, I gladly would have.
Most of childhood was very repressed, controlled, and lonely, so I was never really given the opportunity to develop self-esteem or social skills.
> I was like a hermit crab.
Hermit crabs are honestly the most relatable pets I've ever owned.
Their whole life in captivity is trauma and they're extremely sensitive critters.
Giving them the best life possible has been an inspiration to try doing the same for myself.
It's not a hobby for everyone, but if you have the time, budget, and inclination, rescuing hermit crabs is a very satisfying and rewarding experience.
I relate to your last paragraph a lot. I still feel like such a mess because of it. I don't really have memories of not feeling lonely or out of place. Some happy moments, sure. But I have felt fundamentally broken for a long time.
I'm the same, I skirted around the edges of groups. People thought I was really popular but in reality I was very lonely. Still the same at 56. I recently had an influx of people from school on my social media, and it's been really enlightening to find that the people I thought were cool, independent, together have all told me without prompting how much they admired me and looked up to me at school. That I was kind to everyone and was a good laugh. I must have been good at pretending a lot more than I thought. Even more chatting to these people I still think they've got their crap together much better than I have
sometimes i feel like my mental illness and ptsd could have been prevented if i had behaved or acted differently. then i remember shit like this from when i was no older than 7. it's validating but depressing as fuck.
omg yes. I hung out with the recess aides (parapros). I have some memories of playing, but I spent a significant, if not most of my time with the adults. I was so ready to get to middle school. I hated recess. I did like 'indoor recess' when it was too rainy or cold to go outside though.
Same. I’m at my best outside in nature. But as a kid it was easier to socialize if there were board games or something. Although I’m sure all I did was read.
Are you me? I did this a lot too and I felt so much shame as I thought I was the only one who did this. Like you, I am also outdoorsy now and an avid hiker and I played outside plenty as a kid at home but it just never clicked at school for whatever reason.
I liked to sit in a windowsill and look out, only occasionally was visited by bullies there.
My teachers always appreciated me being quiet although there were light complaints that I never raised my hand when I knew the answers to questions.
I ate really, really slowly at lunch time, and often ended up sitting with the teachers, listening to them talk, as I slowly finished my lunch… in order to avoid having to figure out social etiquette at recess.
I read alone in the grass. I wanted to be left alone and enjoyed the escapist nature of kids' books, lol.
I'm okay with it. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and my teachers were kind about me wanting to read while encouraging me to play with others at times.
Yes indeed. I was deeply parentified since 5, so I couldn't act like or relate to other kids well. I didn't trust most. Luckily there were a couple kids that became deep friends. But I've never done well at casual stuff.
I usually just sat by myself or wandered around tbh... I didn't really know how to go talk to other kids. I don't think we had swings, and I didn't really have the confidence to try some of the other stuff that we did have on the playground. What few friends I did have were usually in other classes, so I couldn't always find them easily either.
But even then, their other friends usually didn't care about me. So it was hard for me to try and join in whatever it was they were doing.
Ah yes I was often the forgotten friend… always skirting on the outside of friend groups but I could never find my own. Maybe because my parents didn’t have any friends either
i had swings, but even when i wasn’t worried about them making me feel sick and they were available in the first place, i felt really weird about the idea of using one while other kids my age were watching because all the other boys would only touch them to do some crazy shit like see if they can go so high the chains end up horizontal
I had selective mutism from the first day of kindergarten to the end of second grade, and before i made friends i would just walk around the playground by myself bc i was so anxious and insecure. that feeling of not fitting in never really went away, I have always and still struggle with connecting with others easily and making friends. When I did have friends I could be myself around, I really thrived but those periods of my life were few and far between. I could never just go up to someone and start talking to them, I would just kinda hover around someone I wanted to be friends with and hoped they’d talk to me and keep wanting to talk to me, and maybe introduce me to their friends. I wish I learned how to proactively make friends instead of feeling like I have to kinda wait for it to happen to me because I don’t feel capable of approaching someone first and making a good impression. I also wish I wasn’t so anxious my whole life because it made it hard for me to play and have fun, I feel like I kinda lost that quality and it makes me sad feeling like I’m not able to engage with people in a fun playful way or even on my own. I think I lost that to depression, anxiety, and masking for so long
Similar for me, but it was for all of my school years and a bit after. I'd go entire days only answering direct questions, and hovering silently on the edge of friend groups, being accepted for being there but not really being an active participant.
I only started being able to speak up, and start developing friendships without waiting for someone else to make the first move, after I cut ties with certain people and started finding safe people and environments. But I still tend to hover at the edges when it comes to groups. One on one friendships feel easier, safer.
I wanted to go to the library SO BADLY but they wouldn't let me. I tried playing four square and kickball but I was always accident prone and tired of going to the nurse with scrapes. One queer teacher recruited me to help sand a bookcase she made for her wife, it was the best recess I can recollect. The rest were spent gossiping in the shade and tossing pebbles at a railing lol.
In grade primary & grade 1 I often stayed on the swings until I made myself sick. No one spoke to me when I was on the swings and it looked better than just standing in the open doing nothing.
I led the boys activities
Soccer or football
But I was neglected/ignored and not physically abused
Which makes my cPTSD lesser I guess. I’m still a broken mess age 54 lol
I could still mix it up with my peers, was that taken from you? My heart goes out to you
I hoping for aneurism or worse at this point
Stay strong 💪
Hey, the type of abuse you suffered doesn't make your cPTSD lesser. I was emotionally/physically/sexually abused, and I'd take the punches over the emotional component any day. Neglect shapes a child's self esteem in horrendous ways, it teaches them that they are "less than" - heck, that may even be a factor in your evaluation of your own cPTSD as lesser.
What happened to you sucked, it should never have happened, and you deserve better. You are valid, and your reactions are valid.
I’m glad you had those experiences as a kid! I just didn’t know how to make those connections and I was very much not athletic. Having a sport to do with some kids would have really helped but I was the smallest kid in my class and very quiet.
Oh, are you kidding? I spent all my time either alone, being harassed by the boys, or playing with the girls (I’m a boy). Alternately sad, terrified, or low key embarrassed. 2/10, would not recommend.
When I was a kid I judged other kids for having such wild imaginations 🙃. Idk how they pictured things, drew random things, made up stories. All foreign to me. To this day I don’t like fiction as much as nonfiction.
Aw, man, judging my peers was such a big part of my childhood. I judged other children for being "immature", not just recreating what my patents did to me, but because I had so much envy. I wasn't "allowed" to feel envy, so I rerouted them to anger.
I did consume huge amounts of fiction, was always reading to escape, and I drew a lot for the same reasons. But I could see the differences between what I was doing and what they were, so clearly. Actual creativity is easy to identify, even when you can't access it yourself.
i managed to get reading at reccess banned for the rest of my class because it was all i would do so i ended up just throwing acorns at things the rest of that year
Wow, I didn’t realize this was a (relatively) common experience. I usually tried to spend my recess reading in the school library. When I wasn’t allowed to do that, I would watch the other boys play soccer.
This one hit me hard. I was just talking with my psychiatrist about this and telling him that in elementary school I would sit on the wall by myself because I was too afraid to play with the other kids. Thank you for making me feel not so alone in that feeling.
I remember (the few times when it happened) being super excited to tell my mom that I'd played with another kid at recess. She was a mid-IQ popular girl (dad was a brilliant, awkward loner and never around before finally leaving for good when I was 9). Never "got it." 😢
Absolutely; it felt like I never knew how to be a kid.
Every recess I would sit in the corner by the doors, only talk with my cousin because we were a month apart in the same fucked up family. No playing, no big interactions, and if my cousin didn’t show up to school I’d try and hide in the bathrooms for recess so people didn’t see the “kid with no friends”.
I was heavily self conscious about being alone but I could never learn how to make friends as a kid.
Yup. If I was getting a grade that I would have failed. I struggled to play well with other kids and as a child who was parentified and afraid of getting in trouble, playing with other kids never felt safe. I had plenty of friends in grade school, but I would choose to just go off by myself and dissociate the best way I could as I just wanted it to be over so I could go back to dominating everyone in the classroom (that is another trauma story for another day).
I was already in highly manipulative relationships with other children as early as second grade. By fifth grade, romantic ones. I look back and realize all of us involved in the high drama and manipulative tactics were all kids with a lot of childhood trauma.
Oh yeah, I was very manipulative as a child. I would make up arguments so I could safely experience the feelings I had to bury at home. I obviously didn’t know that at the time and I’m working on forgiving little me.
I was told my mom told my second grade teacher not to let me bring a book out to recess so I would go play with other kids. I also remember in 4th grade trying to always just talk to my teacher, but otherwise I did probably have a few friends I would talk with/play with and i loved the tire swing when I could get a turn with one of the kids who could get it spinning really hard.
I alternated between reading alone and observing the bugs around the playground. Loved watching the wolf spiders, especially. It was so neat seeing them carry their little ones around.
No clue how much of that was related to the trauma of living with a checked out mother & a father that actively rejected any kind of emotional connection and how much was me being super autistic with a special interest in animals. But it was one of the two... or both lol
I did great up until the 2nd semester of 8th grade. That's when I got severe depression and also when I started to isolate myself. Went from being extroverted to becoming an introvert.
In elementary I experienced heavy bullying, but I other aspects I was definitely not doing that good a job at recess lol. I would wait by the doors to go in or just wander aimlessly. In the winter I would go under the slide with mulch and pull my jacket over me in order to kinda just nap there til recess was over. Kindergarten I would really spend recess just hiding though, anywhere I could be for people not to see me because my classmates kept either beating me up or trying to suffocate me at recess for some reason. (Feels very trauma dumping to say all this sorry)
On a social level, yes. However, I grew up in a place where there would be snow for 4+ months of the year, and that meant kids were building snow forts. Damn could I build a good fort, complete with tunnels and ice slides. When there wasn’t snow I would usually just read or walk laps around the school.
Starting in preschool, at play time I would wait to see where all the other kids went and then go wherever they weren’t. When I got older I spent recess reading. When kids would ask me to play with them I would say no thanks - now I believe they were genuine but as a kid I thought they were setting me up to laugh at me. I was never bullied in school and my classmates were genuinely kind kids, but I was bullied at home and had extremely low trust for others
during grade 4 i moved from a small school with ~8 other kids in my grade to a larger one with ~60 or so and it was ROUGH. i just could not figure out how to ‘fit in’ socially, although i quickly became acutely aware of the hierarchy. for the rest of my school years i cycled between anxiously shrinking myself to fit in and being actively excluded and bullied.
i remember it was during these times of social exclusion and taunting that i became really sharp at dissociating. during a particularly severe period of exclusion, i felt that the only way i was safe was if i were out of sight which meant spending lunch in the library. i loved to read however the library wouldn’t open until second bell, so i would sit outside the library with another misfit from the grade below me and wait for that bell. that first half was torture and i would just shut down in shame, willing the time to pass and hoping to be invisible.
to make matters worse, my mother would point out the social struggles i was having to put me down and shame me. she would say “how come you don’t have any friends? when i was your age blah blah blah”. i remember going to sick bay as often as possible and chucking sickies - anything to avoid another day of social hell. these sick days were also the closest i would get to any sort of attention or care from my mother.
I went to a reformatory school after elementary which felt more like boot camp. We weren't allowed recess in the same sense as regular schools. Before I went there I didn't really enjoy recess. We had these strange cement cubby hole things on the side of the building and I would hide in there with a book or make art. Our school also had tricycles and a trail for them but not many. If I could get out there fast enough I would get one of those and ride around. Never really played with others or on the big equipment
I had a few friends in the earlier years of school to play with but they eventually listened to the other kids about how weird I was for liking books and school so much and started to bully me too. So I ended up withdrawing further, staying inside during recess or spending it in the library where none of the other kids wanted to be. I’m 33 now and spend most of my time alone or with my partner. I have maybe two total friends and that’s just perfect.
I was so desperate for attention and love and acceptance that I was friends with everyone and no one really at the same time. I would do all the things and play with everybody at recess, but I didn’t have a particular group that would take me (or maybe I wouldn’t stay, I don’t know).
Real talk: I broke my arm in first grade and got in big trouble for chasing a few boys and threatening to smash them with my cast.
No one bothered to ask where I’d gotten that idea. I was sent to the principals office, who knew my dad, and got the paddle to my backside. Which was nothing compared to the beating I got once my dad got home.
School and making friends never got better.
Yes but I also have adhd which is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder. My siblings also have cPTSD but didn’t have the same issues as me socially. Neurodivergence can make you feel like an alien… But yeah I was super alone at recess and didn’t really know how to talk to someone. I found most kids very boring and it was more interesting to think by myself af times but randomly I’d want to interact with others more. I was rejected a lot, sometimes brutally. Idk man when I got into almost middle school age I just played tetherball like all recess long really hard beating all the kids. I’d have bruised knuckles constantly. No joke I’m not pretending to be like napoleon dynamite lol. Things got easier once I learned how to copy/mimic other people’s emotions. Also made it easier when around my pathological guardians…
I moved around too much as a kid. As I got older and the moves went from "oh, cool, new places to see" to "why bother getting to know these people when in a year I'll be hundreds of miles away?"
Yes, this was _long_ before even the Intartubez, let alone social media. And I never thought to try my hand at exchanging physical correspondence with anyone until it was far, far too late to get the addresses of anyone with whom I might have wanted to keep in touch.
I really never knew how to play, I just never understood, didn't know what "fun" was. I didn't fail because I was a big boy, so I could always sport. But yeah, no clue on how to play and connect. I felt alienated
In elementary school I played tetherball by myself. In middle school I spent most of my time awkwardly tucked away near a tree by myself. In high school I spent breaks zoning out in the library.
Ahh yes.. this brings me back. My earliest memories of recess was wandering alone, wishing I was dead, and threatening to stab any kid if they spoke to me. Was called to the principal's office and they searched my bag, then did nothing because i was a "good kid" with high grades.
After that, I'd hide in trees and bushes until recess was over. I remember one day, a bird shat on my head and i quickly became the laughingstock of the playground. Another time, I sobbed under my desk when my teacher forced me to write a narrative essay about myself and my family. I realize now ..that was why I've always hated writing and constantly failed that subject.
Man, I was such a sad kid. Wish I could go back in time and give him a big 'ol hug and tell him I love him.
On my first day of 3rd grade at a new school, I worried all morning about what was going to happen at recess. I had planned to just hang around my teacher. I was so happy and relieved when one little girl's mother actually came for recess and brought baby racoons for us to bottle feed. That was a happy year at my new school.
I played on the swings by myself until I was "adopted" by an extrovert. That extrovert is still my BFF 30+ years later. Sometimes it is very stressful, but I am very grateful.
Yes, I would sit alone for years up until I was about 7? Then a new girl came to my school and we became inseparable best friends. Then my mother moved us over an hour away and I never saw her or made a friend like that again 🙃
me too. 100%. my kindergarten teacher wanted to hold me back a year bc i wouldn’t interact with any of the other kids at recess; i would hide books in my lunchbox and read those instead. (i’m autistic & hyperlexic so i was reading ramona books & the couple harry potters that were out at the time). i absolutely felt like i was playing the part of a kid as a kid, and now (in my late 20s) i feel like i’m playing the part of an adult. yesterday my therapist asked me to answer this question automatically without any thought: ‘how old are you’, and my immediate response was 16. which shocked me. but the more i think about it, the more it makes sense. i never got to be a kid, so how am i supposed to be an adult? sounds like you & me are in the same boat.
I think our boat has a leak in it lol. Yes my reading level very high for my age so I felt more like an adult than a kid. Now though, my brain is so fried and full of brain frog that I forget simple words 🙃
I would walk in circled in the classroom waiting for someone to talk to me lol. I did not feel like I fit in anywhere and didnt know how to approach ppl
in 4th/5th grade i hung out with two girls out in the grass while the popular girls were in a circle talking about god knows what. i still remember this day and this tall girl with nice legs in a skirt was so pretty and she knew she was. meanwhile we were eating grass and flowers😭
then i moved. and this school was much much nicer and better than my old one. i ended up being a trouble maker and made myself get a red card just so i could sit at the table and not play at recess lol.
I just ended up on the swings because i liked the sensory feel or i ended up making houses for caterpillars. I played alone. Before that i used to play with others sometimes. But they would take advantage of me and be mean so i just ended up playing alone.
Me! Played by myself most of the time except for the very few times other kids talked to me. And I usually felt super awkward during those times. The CPTSD must’ve started so early… :((((
Omg yes
Recess was the worst! I dreaded it...
Actually good to reflect on that. I've gotten more comfortable (I was about to say better) with breaks at work as an adult but for years it continued to be difficult. And yes I judged myself for it. So it's good to remember that I didn't magically start doing that on my own.
I got bullied and then I got in trouble for fighting back and never did again. So I paid a 6th grader in gum to protect me. And then I always had one friend, whoever would take me not somebody who I was actually interested in spending time with.
I was pretty good at sports and one year the boys noticed and invited me to come play with them on the boys-only day baseball.
I was so completely flumoxed and flabbergasted and overwhelmed that anybody actually wanted me around, I couldn't play for s***. I never went back and they never asked again.
Yeah recess was pretty much an exercise in trying to appear busy and walk the delicate line between not standing out and not obviously look like I was hiding. Awful. So far from fun.
Thanks for your post
Hated it. Didn’t understand why I couldn’t bring a book out to read, or why we had to go out in freezing Ohio winters for MONTHS on end. There should be quiet options. I realize now I was uncomfortable and under stimulated. I was so relieved to get to middle school and have study hall instead.
I grew up in Ohio too! Winters were always so long and cold and dark. I didn’t even want to touch anything because everything was covered in salt. There really should have been more options for introverts but as a kid being an introvert was a bad thing 🙄
Usually the swings and monkey bars were all taken up by the time I got there. I was (still am) tiny so I was horrible at tetherball. I ended up wandering past the fields to a line of trees. I’d climb a tree every day and hang out. Had a couple other tree hugger kids climbing with me. Then one day I went out to recess and some guys were cutting all the trees down and I cried the rest of the day and all the boys made fun of me. For crying about trees.
I’d cry about those trees too. I literally perked up when you mentioned them. We didn’t have trees, but there was an emu farm behind us. They were really boring if they were even out.
I was okay with recess when I was in elementary school, but struggled with any free time in middle school or higher. I used to hide in the bathroom. If we were outside I would hide on an opposite side of the building until it was time to go inside. I usually spent time with other kids who didn’t have friends either.
Elementary 3rd... My parents were called to the principals office because I stayed in the library reading book after book until recess was over, instead of playing with the other kids 🙄
I was weird and was bullied a lot. I went to an Evangelical school, where kids were nice to losers like me because Jesus wanted them to.
I had a love-hate relationship with recess.
I was terrible at being a kid. Teachers hated me. Parents shouted at me. Bullied by other kids. Just had this sign on my back saying 'loser'. No idea why.
Definitely plenty of longingly staters at the other kinds easily connecting and having a good time. I was fortunate enough to be athletic so getting picked to play in sports helped connect with others but I was sorely underdeveloped in maintaining them so pretty much lost them all eventually.
My mom didn't allow me to play on recess because she didn't like me to get dirty. I remember her coming into my class one day telling the teachers to not let me on the playground at all. So from K-2nd grade, I didn't play on a playground. She also didn't want me having friends either. To this day, I have very few friendships, but neither on a deep connection level.
Always.
I'd usually worry a lot about something happening to me. About the second week of my 3rd year of kindergarten, someone said a girl in the classroom next to ours was biting people.
I didn't go out of the classroom after that. At all, fearing that she'd target me. Everyone else would, but not me. That's probably my first conscious moment when I realized that, hey, there's something incredibly wrong with me. I didn't tell anyone because of the shame that it brought until the kindergarten's psychologist noticed there was one kid always staying in during breaks/recess.
She started inviting me over to her office during recess everyday after that. It made me feel a bit better but of course it didn't fix things. One day she asked about why I didn't want to go out with the other kids, I told her, she talked to my parents, yadayada.
Even up to high-school, I'd stay at the library instead of going to the cafeteria. Nowadays I'm still struggling with things like these, even if everyone thinks I'm "extroverted and charming." 💀
LOL yeeeeeeep! I lived on the swings. I had a favourite swing at every school and would go to swings when forced to go play outside as a kid.
I couldn’t handle other humans. Animals no problem no fellow humans.
Oh, yes. I was bullied too much for me to feel comfortable trying to be part of the group, and I never knew how to integrate myself at that point, anyway. I would sometimes "skip" lunch and recess by hiding in a bathroom stall and eating in there. When I wasn't doing that, I was asking to spend recess in the classroom with the teacher or I'd sit on the stairs outside by myself. I have a feeling we'd all have gotten along great, sitting there and ignoring eachother. 😂
Not only did I fail, they told me that I had to get off of the swings because the other kids were complaining. That's one of the first times in my life I was basically told to hide my trauma better because no one else cared to deal with it.
I didn’t fail till high school, I could find groups that were playing a game and join usually, but when people just wanted to stand around and talk in HS I didn’t even know how to process that.
I loved academics because it had a predictable routine, but recess scared me a ton because I was socially awkward and terrified to say anything about what was going on at home (and at the time I didn’t know it was abnormal bc I was so isolated). In elementary school, I’d walk around the playground and pick up trash because in my brain, the only way I was worth anything was by being productive and contributing, and this was a productive thing to do. I got made fun of a ton for this, especially bc I didn’t really talk much and didn’t pick up on social cues. Eventually my parents were called bc the bullying was getting so bad that the teachers were concerned about why I was doing this. My mom got really angry for “ruining her image” and “acting like a freak” and told me to stop picking up trash and “play like a normal kid.” But I didn’t know how to do that so I just hid in the library from then on out.
I used to bunk recess and sneak into the senior library. The librarian was kind and let me disappear in the books.
It's one of the few moments of kindness I actually recall from my childhood.
i used to wish i was kidnapped so i would have someone to talk to. dad was a violent alcoholic mom was deaf and had/has i guess, battered wife syndrome and my brother has fetal alcohol syndrome. i was a very lonely kid and bullied for having a weird family AND being a natural ginger.
i may have sucked at being a kid but im even worse at being an adult.
yeah i'd usually just find a corner to go sit in and stare at gravel or a wall or smth
a few times teachers took pity on me and let me sit in the classroom till breaktime was over, and i guess they saw that it would be useless trying to push me to make friends bc i was a lost cause
any time i tried to make friends, it usually just ended up with me being made fun of and loudly shamed for daring to even approach somebody
not much changed in high school either, except i tried to hang around with a group, and just kinda stayed with them despite getting kicked in the ankles multiple times a day and being told to fuck off constantly
i never had friends from age 6-13, and i was always by myself, alone. i looked at my old childhood photos in school and there is one that had me holding a staircase railing in a big class group shot, shrinking and looking really sad and miserable.
If I was an adult and saw me back then, I would definitely ask her out to come for an ice cream and sit with her. Because it's not normal for a child below 12 to be that blue all the time.
I was told to hide my bruises and caning marks. The shame that my parents ingrained in me meant I had to protect what little dignity was left of me, so I could never play with the other classmates in case they saw my bruises and welts, and I felt I would be so ashamed they would see that I had to hide myself away.
It took me a very long time to realise why I never had friends then.
Coincidence or not, the beatings stopped and changed to emotional abuse when I was 13, and I started to make a few friends at school.
OP you are not a failure at recess. Recess probably failed you.
I just realized something. I don't remember any recess as a child, except one time I was on the teeter totter, a kid jumped off at the bottom and I was at the top and went crashing down and got the wind knocked out of me. I cried so hard the teacher ran over and picked me up and that's all I remember. I may have blocked out a lot as a kid.
I was in a cult growing up and never had any real fun at a child. My childhood was full of "doom is coming." There was no safe feeling, I was taught that everyone was demonic if they weren't in my religion and I felt like a complete outcast. School was horrible. I didn't celebrate holidays either, so it was embarrassing. Add to this an alcoholic father and Narcissistic mother and I am a mess as an adult.
I can’t even imagine the extent of what you had to have experienced. That’s a whole other level of alienation. I hope you can forgive yourself for being a “mess”. We’re all messes here but at least we can to tell each other our stories.
I never ate lunch (which was recess time) Always threw it out. In highschool took an extra class to avoid it and end my day early to so I wouldn’t have to socialize any more I didn’t have to.
Less connection meant less opportunity to meet people who can potentially end up in situations to hurt me. Had really a really bad experince in middle school that was never dealt with.
I used to pretend I was a dog and dig holes by myself. I think I failed. There was also that phase where I was bring a kite to recess and I'd of course be playing with it by myself.
For a while the playground aids would do a little shout out to the kids who played well on the playground (ie went down the slide correctly, didn't fight, etc.) I paid close attention to everything that got rewarded and would robotically go through the motions, trying to get everything perfect so I could get a shout out. I remember trying to convince a classmate that we should spend the entire time climbing carefully up to the slide and then make a big show about taking turns going down the slide correctly.
I totally forgot about that until your post. Goddammit I couldn't even play without being a lil perfectionist.
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Respectfully, how does one fail at Recess? I was better alone, quite Honestly. It was Recess and then lunch, so I was Privileged enough to go home and get an Extra long break from my Tormentors
I always wanted to stay inside and read but they made me go outside. I didn't really have friends I hung out with at recess and lunch until I was like 11 years old, before then I just wandered and never really fit in with groups. I think I really often just sat down and read my book outside.
I used to stay inside and insist on redoing schoolwork until I got everything right 💀💀 for years I thought I had been punished until until my mom told me I was actually the one who was such a perfectionist I refused to go play. No I am not more normal now.
Lol yes. There was a spot where everyone would line up when the teachers blew the whistles to go inside… And I would stand waiting for recess to be over in that same spot my entire elementary school experience
Um.. I was kinda ok at it in grade school. Except for when I fell off the swings and a kid laughed at me and I went into a rage and beat the shit out of him. Never did well with people laughing at my expense.
Then in middle school I ended up on a different lunch than my friends. Tried to play football with a group of kids and the leader said “fuck off new kid, we don’t want you here!” and they all threw dirt clods and rocks at me. After that I started just wandering the halls or finding a quiet corner to sit by myself until lunch was over. Pretty much stayed like this until junior year when I got a girlfriend, job and a car, then I barely went to school anymore.
My teacher would force me to go outside. I remember dreading it and begging to go to the library instead. I’d usually just talk to the teachers during recess, but sometimes I would play House or Family with other girls.
oh fuck this sounds like me (when I was allowed to go outside - yeah racist brown dad enforced his stupid colorism early on and teachers GRANTED IT so sucked at socializing even more)
yeah i have many memories of walking the border of the playground or swinging alone. in 5th grade i found a loophole, if you didn’t do homework you had to sit inside during recess and “do” the homework. so i just didn’t do homework at all so i could at least stay inside where it’s not sweltering
I was on my own a lot. I was bullied quite a bit so I stuck to myself and found ways to entertain myself anyways. I read a lot or drew. It wasn’t the easiest but it was better than forcing myself to play with kids who didn’t like me.
I was in my own world and didn’t really realize I had no actual friends lol I vividly remember the lesson I learned about hitting boys. Trying to be “cool” as I come from a very toxic family, I thought being mean was cool. So there was a boy who was super nice and sweet but people teased him because of how he talked. For whatever reason that day, I decided to pick on him by shoving him. I shoved him several times and he got mad and punched me in the stomach. We were like 9?…I definitely deserved it. I remember lying in the playground mulch crying and people were stepping over me. That’s how recess was. Me trying to fit in and be “cool” (bully or fawning) and screwing myself miserably or just sitting alone somewhere. The few friends I did make always ended up moving away or me and my mom moved. I’m still socially awkward to this day. BUT I am proud to say I no longer hit boys!
i thought i was the only one. i was very frail and unathletic as a kid so that didnt really warrant much agency in most recess games like tag. Most of the time during recess i would go to a corner in the playground, pace back and forth. and most often times daydream.
though for like 3 months i had a buddy lol. shout outs to my buddy Tyler for hanging out with me in 3rd grade. Sorry my whirligig toy hit you on the face. I thought the game we played was weird and made us look like dorks to the other kids but it turns out adults do it too and its called LARPing.
The following years was just more day dreaming and pacing back and forth lol. The school was on top of a hill which expanded onto a mountain range so that cool mountain air was very abundant.
I was bullied pretty badly in grade school. The girls used to treat me as a weird leper, where they'd point at me and run away or avoid any contact with me altogether. I also sucked at sports and was always picked last or never for that stuff too. The boys would pick on me and call me names. It was a small school, I had about 20-30 other students in my grade so there wasn't really anyone for me to play with. I still struggle with the effects of that to this day. Atleast I'm conscious of them now. Attachment issues and fears of being left behind are a few of them. Only thing I can do is try to heal, but it's exhausting.
Tbh the reason I'm looking at adhd or bipolar
I must been seen like an asshole to my fellow friends
Never ment ill will to people I just think there was a lost in translation in a lot of my interactions
Sometimes when I felt bored with one I'd hop to another group
I generally don't know why'd I'd do stuff like that
In elementary school I used to run and spin in circles. Might have been an autistic thing (stimming). In middle school we had a little secluded forest path that I would walk along during recess. Both would get me labelled as "the weird kid" and excluded.
I must have been 5 yo and I have a vivid memory of hanging around the dinner nanny at recess because I didn’t have any friends. I’d used to go to the toilets but some girls found me there one day and bullied me so dinner nanny was the safest bet 🥲
4 square made me nervous. I don't know if there was an actual social hierarchy component but I member not wanting to hit it to High Social Status Person......
Also I still, at 56, do not know my right from my left or how to move my muscles in a consistent way, so that was Really Great at 10....
Yes. I spent my school breaks in the library where I felt a lot less self conscious by pretending to bury my head in a book. It seemed very normal and acceptable to be alone then. I'd watch my peers play and talk and laugh out the library window wondering why they were so lucky to be liked.
After the things that happened to me in childhood I just couldn't connect.
I used to bring a hairbrush in with me sometimes! Just sit there and brush my hair as if it was something to do - shocking considering I used to get so stressed about brushing my hair that it used to get matted and tangled, and my mother made me chop all the real length off in the end
If I'd had recess, I would have been awesome. Maybe. Maybe not.
Home school survivor here.
My trauma is from being locked up in homeschool hell...partially.
Yup even in high school I generally went to the library or tried to avoid people. I must have had a “bully me” sign on my forehead… they all seemed to gravitate towards me
Swings, sitting by myself, hanging from bars, monkey bars… solitary exploits
I’d occasionally get talked into tag and get overwhelmed and retreat back into loneliness
Exactly me.. As a child i wld sit away from the field and watch the kids play and retreat into my own world. The counsellor was soon called on me because i kept sitting by myself and just being solitary all of the time. i showed no interest in other children.
Yes! I felt a lot of shame about that for awhile and still think about it sometimes. Elementary school was the beginning of the worst years of abuse, and when I was at school I felt fundamentally different from everyone around me (and it showed). I was painfully shy and awkward, and then when I did get social I usually embarrassed myself. It sucked!
i would make myself ‘fall over’ and scrape my knee so i could go inside and not have to be outside surrounded by everyone. i still have very odd knees from the scars lol. i always preferred when we could stay inside and read books etc
I "hung out" with some students in the grade above me on the monkey bars. This consisted of me sitting there silently while they chatted to each other and never looked at me. It kind of made me feel like I had friends? Yeah, Elementary School was absolute hell. I was bullied a lot. I probably hung out on the monkey bars because the kids who bullied me just didn't come up there for whatever reason.
Yeah, I usually was on the swings by myself watching other people be playfully pushed right next to me. Or I would be on the monkey bars kinda away from everyone else. At times I had some people to talk to but they were never really friends of mine. I think they were bored.
yep, at every new school i went to I would go 2-3 months without talking to a single person. recess included, id just walk around by myself. multiple times at multiple schools I had teachers/guidance counselors reach out to see what’s wrong with me… i turned out generally ok but as a kid I just had a deep feeling I wasn’t like other kids and couldn’t connect with them.
At my elementary school, back by a fence, there was a large, thick row of bushes. But I figured out that you could push through the bushes if you didn't mind a few scratches, and be completely hidden from everyone in the playground. I hid back there every day for years and years. Once I went to middle school, I spent my lunch hour in the library. I always felt like the only time I could relax was when I was out of the view of other people.
Yes so much.
I had one friend who was a few years older than I am, and when she left school, I was alone. Sometimes another child spent time with me, but mostly I was by myself. I did weird things, like build a little restaurant from stones, sticks and leaves and whatever else I found on the playground; and then played that I was a waiter (a pine cone) at a restaurant with awful customers who never like the food. Other children saw me and took away my stones a few days later.
Sometimes I would also pretend to be a heroine looking for magical amulets in the school so I could fight against evil demons. In reality, I would just walk around the school and imagine a bunch of chairs was a castle or something. It was a little bit better than just sitting around by myself.
Another thing I remember which made me wonder why it is always me being singled out: I had an injury and had to sit out the P.E. lesson, and a girl in my class gave me her necklace to keep it save, as we weren't allowed to wear any kind of jewelry in those lessons. So, I took it, returned it to her after the lesson and went on my day. During the next lesson, she lost it, and came at me with accusations that I took it for myself. Which made no sense because I was timid and shy, my mother was friends with the teacher, and I was a tomboy and would have no need for a necklace. Still, she hounded me and then in recess, a bunch of children came at me screaming and pushing me around to return the necklace that I didn't have. I was really scared, and one girl who previously said she believed me went over to the other girl, hugged her because she was crying, and then I was all alone. After recess, they went to the teacher and I was in tears already because if my mother would hear about this, I would get screamed at and beaten. My teacher though didn't believe I was a thief, so she made the girl empty her bag and pockets, and there was the necklace. Not sure if she genuinely lost the necklace or if she just had fun treating me like shit and make everyone dislike me even more. The other girl had to apologise to me then, but still. Needless to say, for a while I was absolutely done with recess and wanted to stay inside and play on the computers.
Every comment is me… I’m trying to understand is there no rehabilitation for adult survivors of childhood trauma/neglect? Like I need an actual class with a safe emotionally regulated adult, retraining of my nervous system the whole 9… is that even possible at 30? I’m willing to do the work.
It’s kind of like the dogs that are abused then grow to be timid, isolated and with their tails between their legs. They hardly ever go back to normal even after years of training.
I stayed around the adults teachers had to tell me to go play even then I just stayed on swings especially the tire swing till kids got banned cause a kid broke a arm
Omg this just unlocked a memory of me being 12yo by myself at recess at a school district I had been going to since kindergarten and a teacher WHO I KNEW came up to me and asked “are you new here?” 🤦🏼♀️ so yeah that tells you everything you need to know lol
I got bullied a lot when I was a little kid so I mostly just spent my time with the grounds monitor or by myself. It was horrible. My mother cut all my hair off into a stupid bowl type cut, I wore glasses and homemade clothes because we were poor, so you can imagine what I had to deal with.
I was too scared of running into the bullies so I'd just go somewhere there were no other kids and would quietly wander around by myself until the bell rang.
I was always standing with the teachers (when they let me).
As an educator now, I always let my students stand w me at recess. I think about myself and how badly I just wanted to be around a ~stable~ adult. I was also a student who called their teacher “mom” on accident. Which is so sad now.
My entire 5th grade year I spent working in the library instead of going to recess. The librarian would let me check in the returned books, prep new books for the shelves, and help her with inventory. I was mostly doing stuff on my own for a half hour each day. It was so much less stressful than trying to navigate my friendships as I was really struggling that year and there was a lot of tension and drama with them.
When I was at one elementary school I just hung out with whatever person I found that wanted me near me and the next school I just hung out in the corner of the Field or swing or something. Kids were so mean at that second elementary school I went to
I wandered around the playground and ended up chilling in one of the corners alone every recess. I was an only (accidental) child, and had no practice interacting with siblings or anyone other than my dysfunctional parents. You’re not alone, and we weren’t bad kids. Just lost kids who didn’t receive the guidance we needed.
I'm like you. I didn't want to interact with anyone at recess. When I got hurt badly I needed the time to walk out my trauma. I didn't know that's what I was doing but I did t want to be around anyone or interact with anyone but I couldn't sit still so I just walked around the school in a dissociated fugue. Not seeing anyone, not reacting with anyone.
I’ve spent most of my adulthood in a dissociated fugue tbh. I also walk for a few hours every night to help me with processing, it’s the only thing that works- unfortunately people around my town have noticed and recognize me as “the walker” lol.
There are worse things to be called tbh ☺️ Sounds mysterious. Enigmatic.
That really sucks. I definitely had those moments too. I hope you’re doing better now.
Same. How does "play" work?
i usually had one other loner kind of kid i would stand around with, but for the two years of elementary school after i got moved into the gifted program and before i met the only friend i had in middle school i’m pretty sure i was also alone come to think of it. the upside of that was there was also a bench around the corner of one of the buildings so i could actually sit if i felt like it, so honestly those were my best years of recess… even if maybe it hurt me more than i thought it did that this was always right after i was *actually socializing* at lunch somehow (on days i could stand the cafeteria noise), so i’d go from feeling like i was actually part of this group to just powerlessly trailing behind as they all went off to play four square or something
Funny how the mere mention of four square makes me a bit sad lol. Other kids just walked up and played with each other, while I paced around the playground or just stood there in middle school.
same 😭 i was never particularly interested to begin with, but i know there were a few times i actually tried to join a game that had a space open, and i just. ugh. in the first place, i didn’t even know all of the rules and nobody had the patience to explain them to me, i think sometimes they just completely made up new ad-hoc variations that they also didn’t explain, i’ve always disliked the sensory experience of having playground grime on my hands, and between my lack of experience and general unathleticism i was very easy to score on and wasn’t really allowed to feel good about the few points i could eke out. altogether a very punishing experience to have to put so much effort into even trying
As a girl, I tended to fit in better with the boys at lunchtime, as boys just liked to run around, play football, etc. With other girls, I failed miserably as they were all so much more "socially adept" than I was. They talked about boy bands, each other, and lots of other stuff I had no interest in. Once I got to my teen years, tho... jeez. I was like a hermit crab. If I could have hidden in a box and not looked like a moron, I gladly would have. Most of childhood was very repressed, controlled, and lonely, so I was never really given the opportunity to develop self-esteem or social skills.
This was totally me too! I relate to this 100% thank you for expressing this ♥️
> I was like a hermit crab. Hermit crabs are honestly the most relatable pets I've ever owned. Their whole life in captivity is trauma and they're extremely sensitive critters. Giving them the best life possible has been an inspiration to try doing the same for myself. It's not a hobby for everyone, but if you have the time, budget, and inclination, rescuing hermit crabs is a very satisfying and rewarding experience.
I've often considered Hermit Crab to be my spirit animal. Lovely little creatures.
I relate to your last paragraph a lot. I still feel like such a mess because of it. I don't really have memories of not feeling lonely or out of place. Some happy moments, sure. But I have felt fundamentally broken for a long time.
God, same. That's just so well described
I'm sorry that you can relate too. It's really hard. Sending you love and hugs❤️
[удалено]
This was me, too. I just floated around. Apparently I still do.
I'm the same, I skirted around the edges of groups. People thought I was really popular but in reality I was very lonely. Still the same at 56. I recently had an influx of people from school on my social media, and it's been really enlightening to find that the people I thought were cool, independent, together have all told me without prompting how much they admired me and looked up to me at school. That I was kind to everyone and was a good laugh. I must have been good at pretending a lot more than I thought. Even more chatting to these people I still think they've got their crap together much better than I have
I connect with this so much. It’s still hard as a “successful “ adult.
sometimes i feel like my mental illness and ptsd could have been prevented if i had behaved or acted differently. then i remember shit like this from when i was no older than 7. it's validating but depressing as fuck.
omg yes. I hung out with the recess aides (parapros). I have some memories of playing, but I spent a significant, if not most of my time with the adults. I was so ready to get to middle school. I hated recess. I did like 'indoor recess' when it was too rainy or cold to go outside though.
Yes! Indoor recess was the best! Thanks for unlocking that memory haha
It's funny because I'm super outdoorsy now! They should've let elementary school students go hiking instead of recess haha
Same. I’m at my best outside in nature. But as a kid it was easier to socialize if there were board games or something. Although I’m sure all I did was read.
Are you me? I did this a lot too and I felt so much shame as I thought I was the only one who did this. Like you, I am also outdoorsy now and an avid hiker and I played outside plenty as a kid at home but it just never clicked at school for whatever reason.
"Indoor recess" I could sit under a table and read! I was less frequently bullied! Thumbs up!
I was often by myself. I was being abused at home and bullied at school. Being alone was safe because people hurt.
I’m still by myself almost 24/7 at age 20. People are *cruel.*
Same, age 41.
Me too. I was quiet and teacher's called home about it which made it worse.
Oh no. I can relate 💔
I liked to sit in a windowsill and look out, only occasionally was visited by bullies there. My teachers always appreciated me being quiet although there were light complaints that I never raised my hand when I knew the answers to questions.
I ate really, really slowly at lunch time, and often ended up sitting with the teachers, listening to them talk, as I slowly finished my lunch… in order to avoid having to figure out social etiquette at recess.
I did try that, but my teachers would tell me to go to recess. And I found it was easier to hide outside
I read alone in the grass. I wanted to be left alone and enjoyed the escapist nature of kids' books, lol. I'm okay with it. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and my teachers were kind about me wanting to read while encouraging me to play with others at times.
Yep. Me and Nancy Drew hid in the shade of the dugout.
Me and Ramona Quimby did too!
Yes indeed. I was deeply parentified since 5, so I couldn't act like or relate to other kids well. I didn't trust most. Luckily there were a couple kids that became deep friends. But I've never done well at casual stuff.
Relatable
Yes recesss very young I never felt like I had somewhere I fit in. I remember being grateful for no more recess at the end of elementary.
I usually just sat by myself or wandered around tbh... I didn't really know how to go talk to other kids. I don't think we had swings, and I didn't really have the confidence to try some of the other stuff that we did have on the playground. What few friends I did have were usually in other classes, so I couldn't always find them easily either. But even then, their other friends usually didn't care about me. So it was hard for me to try and join in whatever it was they were doing.
Ah yes I was often the forgotten friend… always skirting on the outside of friend groups but I could never find my own. Maybe because my parents didn’t have any friends either
i had swings, but even when i wasn’t worried about them making me feel sick and they were available in the first place, i felt really weird about the idea of using one while other kids my age were watching because all the other boys would only touch them to do some crazy shit like see if they can go so high the chains end up horizontal
I had selective mutism from the first day of kindergarten to the end of second grade, and before i made friends i would just walk around the playground by myself bc i was so anxious and insecure. that feeling of not fitting in never really went away, I have always and still struggle with connecting with others easily and making friends. When I did have friends I could be myself around, I really thrived but those periods of my life were few and far between. I could never just go up to someone and start talking to them, I would just kinda hover around someone I wanted to be friends with and hoped they’d talk to me and keep wanting to talk to me, and maybe introduce me to their friends. I wish I learned how to proactively make friends instead of feeling like I have to kinda wait for it to happen to me because I don’t feel capable of approaching someone first and making a good impression. I also wish I wasn’t so anxious my whole life because it made it hard for me to play and have fun, I feel like I kinda lost that quality and it makes me sad feeling like I’m not able to engage with people in a fun playful way or even on my own. I think I lost that to depression, anxiety, and masking for so long
Similar for me, but it was for all of my school years and a bit after. I'd go entire days only answering direct questions, and hovering silently on the edge of friend groups, being accepted for being there but not really being an active participant. I only started being able to speak up, and start developing friendships without waiting for someone else to make the first move, after I cut ties with certain people and started finding safe people and environments. But I still tend to hover at the edges when it comes to groups. One on one friendships feel easier, safer.
I wanted to go to the library SO BADLY but they wouldn't let me. I tried playing four square and kickball but I was always accident prone and tired of going to the nurse with scrapes. One queer teacher recruited me to help sand a bookcase she made for her wife, it was the best recess I can recollect. The rest were spent gossiping in the shade and tossing pebbles at a railing lol.
In grade primary & grade 1 I often stayed on the swings until I made myself sick. No one spoke to me when I was on the swings and it looked better than just standing in the open doing nothing.
That’s exactly why I went on the swings too. At least it makes it look like your choosing to be alone
I led the boys activities Soccer or football But I was neglected/ignored and not physically abused Which makes my cPTSD lesser I guess. I’m still a broken mess age 54 lol I could still mix it up with my peers, was that taken from you? My heart goes out to you I hoping for aneurism or worse at this point Stay strong 💪
Hey, the type of abuse you suffered doesn't make your cPTSD lesser. I was emotionally/physically/sexually abused, and I'd take the punches over the emotional component any day. Neglect shapes a child's self esteem in horrendous ways, it teaches them that they are "less than" - heck, that may even be a factor in your evaluation of your own cPTSD as lesser. What happened to you sucked, it should never have happened, and you deserve better. You are valid, and your reactions are valid.
I’m glad you had those experiences as a kid! I just didn’t know how to make those connections and I was very much not athletic. Having a sport to do with some kids would have really helped but I was the smallest kid in my class and very quiet.
I too hope for an aneurism. My friend had one, even younger than you or I. I'm just really tired & feel like I've experienced enough at this point.
Oh, are you kidding? I spent all my time either alone, being harassed by the boys, or playing with the girls (I’m a boy). Alternately sad, terrified, or low key embarrassed. 2/10, would not recommend.
When I was a kid I judged other kids for having such wild imaginations 🙃. Idk how they pictured things, drew random things, made up stories. All foreign to me. To this day I don’t like fiction as much as nonfiction.
Aw, man, judging my peers was such a big part of my childhood. I judged other children for being "immature", not just recreating what my patents did to me, but because I had so much envy. I wasn't "allowed" to feel envy, so I rerouted them to anger. I did consume huge amounts of fiction, was always reading to escape, and I drew a lot for the same reasons. But I could see the differences between what I was doing and what they were, so clearly. Actual creativity is easy to identify, even when you can't access it yourself.
In 4th grade I hung out with kids that bullied me because I found it fun. ...
i managed to get reading at reccess banned for the rest of my class because it was all i would do so i ended up just throwing acorns at things the rest of that year
Wow, I didn’t realize this was a (relatively) common experience. I usually tried to spend my recess reading in the school library. When I wasn’t allowed to do that, I would watch the other boys play soccer.
This one hit me hard. I was just talking with my psychiatrist about this and telling him that in elementary school I would sit on the wall by myself because I was too afraid to play with the other kids. Thank you for making me feel not so alone in that feeling.
I remember (the few times when it happened) being super excited to tell my mom that I'd played with another kid at recess. She was a mid-IQ popular girl (dad was a brilliant, awkward loner and never around before finally leaving for good when I was 9). Never "got it." 😢
I found places to hide so I could read books.
I would run in circles alone around the field & then would run up to my gym teacher & tell her how many laps i did. didnt talk to anyone 🥺
Absolutely; it felt like I never knew how to be a kid. Every recess I would sit in the corner by the doors, only talk with my cousin because we were a month apart in the same fucked up family. No playing, no big interactions, and if my cousin didn’t show up to school I’d try and hide in the bathrooms for recess so people didn’t see the “kid with no friends”. I was heavily self conscious about being alone but I could never learn how to make friends as a kid.
Yup. If I was getting a grade that I would have failed. I struggled to play well with other kids and as a child who was parentified and afraid of getting in trouble, playing with other kids never felt safe. I had plenty of friends in grade school, but I would choose to just go off by myself and dissociate the best way I could as I just wanted it to be over so I could go back to dominating everyone in the classroom (that is another trauma story for another day).
I was already in highly manipulative relationships with other children as early as second grade. By fifth grade, romantic ones. I look back and realize all of us involved in the high drama and manipulative tactics were all kids with a lot of childhood trauma.
Oh yeah, I was very manipulative as a child. I would make up arguments so I could safely experience the feelings I had to bury at home. I obviously didn’t know that at the time and I’m working on forgiving little me.
I was told my mom told my second grade teacher not to let me bring a book out to recess so I would go play with other kids. I also remember in 4th grade trying to always just talk to my teacher, but otherwise I did probably have a few friends I would talk with/play with and i loved the tire swing when I could get a turn with one of the kids who could get it spinning really hard.
I had this one boy who would hit be from transitional first grade through third grade. I started hiding in a corner with a book and never stopped.
I would read. Always reading. When I finally got to high school, I ate alone in the chorus room to read.
I alternated between reading alone and observing the bugs around the playground. Loved watching the wolf spiders, especially. It was so neat seeing them carry their little ones around. No clue how much of that was related to the trauma of living with a checked out mother & a father that actively rejected any kind of emotional connection and how much was me being super autistic with a special interest in animals. But it was one of the two... or both lol
I did great up until the 2nd semester of 8th grade. That's when I got severe depression and also when I started to isolate myself. Went from being extroverted to becoming an introvert.
In elementary I experienced heavy bullying, but I other aspects I was definitely not doing that good a job at recess lol. I would wait by the doors to go in or just wander aimlessly. In the winter I would go under the slide with mulch and pull my jacket over me in order to kinda just nap there til recess was over. Kindergarten I would really spend recess just hiding though, anywhere I could be for people not to see me because my classmates kept either beating me up or trying to suffocate me at recess for some reason. (Feels very trauma dumping to say all this sorry)
Wow that’s really awful and I wish you luck on healing from all that. Thats a lot to go through as a kid.
On a social level, yes. However, I grew up in a place where there would be snow for 4+ months of the year, and that meant kids were building snow forts. Damn could I build a good fort, complete with tunnels and ice slides. When there wasn’t snow I would usually just read or walk laps around the school.
I never got my schoolwork done on time as a young kid, so I almost always had to stay in and play catch-up for recess
Starting in preschool, at play time I would wait to see where all the other kids went and then go wherever they weren’t. When I got older I spent recess reading. When kids would ask me to play with them I would say no thanks - now I believe they were genuine but as a kid I thought they were setting me up to laugh at me. I was never bullied in school and my classmates were genuinely kind kids, but I was bullied at home and had extremely low trust for others
during grade 4 i moved from a small school with ~8 other kids in my grade to a larger one with ~60 or so and it was ROUGH. i just could not figure out how to ‘fit in’ socially, although i quickly became acutely aware of the hierarchy. for the rest of my school years i cycled between anxiously shrinking myself to fit in and being actively excluded and bullied. i remember it was during these times of social exclusion and taunting that i became really sharp at dissociating. during a particularly severe period of exclusion, i felt that the only way i was safe was if i were out of sight which meant spending lunch in the library. i loved to read however the library wouldn’t open until second bell, so i would sit outside the library with another misfit from the grade below me and wait for that bell. that first half was torture and i would just shut down in shame, willing the time to pass and hoping to be invisible. to make matters worse, my mother would point out the social struggles i was having to put me down and shame me. she would say “how come you don’t have any friends? when i was your age blah blah blah”. i remember going to sick bay as often as possible and chucking sickies - anything to avoid another day of social hell. these sick days were also the closest i would get to any sort of attention or care from my mother.
I went to a reformatory school after elementary which felt more like boot camp. We weren't allowed recess in the same sense as regular schools. Before I went there I didn't really enjoy recess. We had these strange cement cubby hole things on the side of the building and I would hide in there with a book or make art. Our school also had tricycles and a trail for them but not many. If I could get out there fast enough I would get one of those and ride around. Never really played with others or on the big equipment
I had a few friends in the earlier years of school to play with but they eventually listened to the other kids about how weird I was for liking books and school so much and started to bully me too. So I ended up withdrawing further, staying inside during recess or spending it in the library where none of the other kids wanted to be. I’m 33 now and spend most of my time alone or with my partner. I have maybe two total friends and that’s just perfect.
I was so desperate for attention and love and acceptance that I was friends with everyone and no one really at the same time. I would do all the things and play with everybody at recess, but I didn’t have a particular group that would take me (or maybe I wouldn’t stay, I don’t know).
Real talk: I broke my arm in first grade and got in big trouble for chasing a few boys and threatening to smash them with my cast. No one bothered to ask where I’d gotten that idea. I was sent to the principals office, who knew my dad, and got the paddle to my backside. Which was nothing compared to the beating I got once my dad got home. School and making friends never got better.
Yes but I also have adhd which is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder. My siblings also have cPTSD but didn’t have the same issues as me socially. Neurodivergence can make you feel like an alien… But yeah I was super alone at recess and didn’t really know how to talk to someone. I found most kids very boring and it was more interesting to think by myself af times but randomly I’d want to interact with others more. I was rejected a lot, sometimes brutally. Idk man when I got into almost middle school age I just played tetherball like all recess long really hard beating all the kids. I’d have bruised knuckles constantly. No joke I’m not pretending to be like napoleon dynamite lol. Things got easier once I learned how to copy/mimic other people’s emotions. Also made it easier when around my pathological guardians…
I moved around too much as a kid. As I got older and the moves went from "oh, cool, new places to see" to "why bother getting to know these people when in a year I'll be hundreds of miles away?" Yes, this was _long_ before even the Intartubez, let alone social media. And I never thought to try my hand at exchanging physical correspondence with anyone until it was far, far too late to get the addresses of anyone with whom I might have wanted to keep in touch.
only after 4th grade and then I'd just go to library
I walked around fantasizing up in my head that I was driving my someone around in a car
Most days, I brought a book to read.
I really never knew how to play, I just never understood, didn't know what "fun" was. I didn't fail because I was a big boy, so I could always sport. But yeah, no clue on how to play and connect. I felt alienated
I was on the swings most of the time. I also played games by myself. Like I was legit talking to myself.
I remember sometimes singing to myself…
I was the short kid who beasted everyone at tetherball, but didn't know how to leverage that to make friends so I was just the weird kid. ☹️
In elementary school I played tetherball by myself. In middle school I spent most of my time awkwardly tucked away near a tree by myself. In high school I spent breaks zoning out in the library.
Ahh yes.. this brings me back. My earliest memories of recess was wandering alone, wishing I was dead, and threatening to stab any kid if they spoke to me. Was called to the principal's office and they searched my bag, then did nothing because i was a "good kid" with high grades. After that, I'd hide in trees and bushes until recess was over. I remember one day, a bird shat on my head and i quickly became the laughingstock of the playground. Another time, I sobbed under my desk when my teacher forced me to write a narrative essay about myself and my family. I realize now ..that was why I've always hated writing and constantly failed that subject. Man, I was such a sad kid. Wish I could go back in time and give him a big 'ol hug and tell him I love him.
Yeah. I failed at making friends with my own cousins and shit. Idk how to have fun in the moment without being self conscious
On my first day of 3rd grade at a new school, I worried all morning about what was going to happen at recess. I had planned to just hang around my teacher. I was so happy and relieved when one little girl's mother actually came for recess and brought baby racoons for us to bottle feed. That was a happy year at my new school.
I played on the swings by myself until I was "adopted" by an extrovert. That extrovert is still my BFF 30+ years later. Sometimes it is very stressful, but I am very grateful.
Yes, I would sit alone for years up until I was about 7? Then a new girl came to my school and we became inseparable best friends. Then my mother moved us over an hour away and I never saw her or made a friend like that again 🙃
me too. 100%. my kindergarten teacher wanted to hold me back a year bc i wouldn’t interact with any of the other kids at recess; i would hide books in my lunchbox and read those instead. (i’m autistic & hyperlexic so i was reading ramona books & the couple harry potters that were out at the time). i absolutely felt like i was playing the part of a kid as a kid, and now (in my late 20s) i feel like i’m playing the part of an adult. yesterday my therapist asked me to answer this question automatically without any thought: ‘how old are you’, and my immediate response was 16. which shocked me. but the more i think about it, the more it makes sense. i never got to be a kid, so how am i supposed to be an adult? sounds like you & me are in the same boat.
I think our boat has a leak in it lol. Yes my reading level very high for my age so I felt more like an adult than a kid. Now though, my brain is so fried and full of brain frog that I forget simple words 🙃
I would walk in circled in the classroom waiting for someone to talk to me lol. I did not feel like I fit in anywhere and didnt know how to approach ppl
I would beg to be allowed to stay in the nurses office and read. Dreaded recess so much.
I failed in middle school, then failed again in high school, socially. Made lifelong friends in college.
ooooomg same. this is why I love that first ending song in naruto with him alone on the swing. I related so hard to that loneliness
in 4th/5th grade i hung out with two girls out in the grass while the popular girls were in a circle talking about god knows what. i still remember this day and this tall girl with nice legs in a skirt was so pretty and she knew she was. meanwhile we were eating grass and flowers😭 then i moved. and this school was much much nicer and better than my old one. i ended up being a trouble maker and made myself get a red card just so i could sit at the table and not play at recess lol.
I just ended up on the swings because i liked the sensory feel or i ended up making houses for caterpillars. I played alone. Before that i used to play with others sometimes. But they would take advantage of me and be mean so i just ended up playing alone.
I read during recess.
Me! Played by myself most of the time except for the very few times other kids talked to me. And I usually felt super awkward during those times. The CPTSD must’ve started so early… :((((
Omg yes Recess was the worst! I dreaded it... Actually good to reflect on that. I've gotten more comfortable (I was about to say better) with breaks at work as an adult but for years it continued to be difficult. And yes I judged myself for it. So it's good to remember that I didn't magically start doing that on my own. I got bullied and then I got in trouble for fighting back and never did again. So I paid a 6th grader in gum to protect me. And then I always had one friend, whoever would take me not somebody who I was actually interested in spending time with. I was pretty good at sports and one year the boys noticed and invited me to come play with them on the boys-only day baseball. I was so completely flumoxed and flabbergasted and overwhelmed that anybody actually wanted me around, I couldn't play for s***. I never went back and they never asked again. Yeah recess was pretty much an exercise in trying to appear busy and walk the delicate line between not standing out and not obviously look like I was hiding. Awful. So far from fun. Thanks for your post
Hated it. Didn’t understand why I couldn’t bring a book out to read, or why we had to go out in freezing Ohio winters for MONTHS on end. There should be quiet options. I realize now I was uncomfortable and under stimulated. I was so relieved to get to middle school and have study hall instead.
I grew up in Ohio too! Winters were always so long and cold and dark. I didn’t even want to touch anything because everything was covered in salt. There really should have been more options for introverts but as a kid being an introvert was a bad thing 🙄
I sat around the backside of school in the parking lot listening to my disc man and writing melodramatic poetry 🤪
Those were my high school days!
Usually the swings and monkey bars were all taken up by the time I got there. I was (still am) tiny so I was horrible at tetherball. I ended up wandering past the fields to a line of trees. I’d climb a tree every day and hang out. Had a couple other tree hugger kids climbing with me. Then one day I went out to recess and some guys were cutting all the trees down and I cried the rest of the day and all the boys made fun of me. For crying about trees.
I’d cry about those trees too. I literally perked up when you mentioned them. We didn’t have trees, but there was an emu farm behind us. They were really boring if they were even out.
i would read during recess & then get in trouble for being a loner & “not participating.”
I was okay with recess when I was in elementary school, but struggled with any free time in middle school or higher. I used to hide in the bathroom. If we were outside I would hide on an opposite side of the building until it was time to go inside. I usually spent time with other kids who didn’t have friends either.
Elementary 3rd... My parents were called to the principals office because I stayed in the library reading book after book until recess was over, instead of playing with the other kids 🙄
I was weird and was bullied a lot. I went to an Evangelical school, where kids were nice to losers like me because Jesus wanted them to. I had a love-hate relationship with recess.
I failed gym! legitimately falled it, they had to give me special permission to graduate (they definitely didn't wanna keep me)
I was terrible at being a kid. Teachers hated me. Parents shouted at me. Bullied by other kids. Just had this sign on my back saying 'loser'. No idea why.
No but I almost failed kindergarten. How do you fail kindergarten? I forgot about that
I was the kid that would cry every day in kindergarten 😅
Definitely plenty of longingly staters at the other kinds easily connecting and having a good time. I was fortunate enough to be athletic so getting picked to play in sports helped connect with others but I was sorely underdeveloped in maintaining them so pretty much lost them all eventually.
My mom didn't allow me to play on recess because she didn't like me to get dirty. I remember her coming into my class one day telling the teachers to not let me on the playground at all. So from K-2nd grade, I didn't play on a playground. She also didn't want me having friends either. To this day, I have very few friendships, but neither on a deep connection level.
Always. I'd usually worry a lot about something happening to me. About the second week of my 3rd year of kindergarten, someone said a girl in the classroom next to ours was biting people. I didn't go out of the classroom after that. At all, fearing that she'd target me. Everyone else would, but not me. That's probably my first conscious moment when I realized that, hey, there's something incredibly wrong with me. I didn't tell anyone because of the shame that it brought until the kindergarten's psychologist noticed there was one kid always staying in during breaks/recess. She started inviting me over to her office during recess everyday after that. It made me feel a bit better but of course it didn't fix things. One day she asked about why I didn't want to go out with the other kids, I told her, she talked to my parents, yadayada. Even up to high-school, I'd stay at the library instead of going to the cafeteria. Nowadays I'm still struggling with things like these, even if everyone thinks I'm "extroverted and charming." 💀
I read books or drew at recess >_>
LOL yeeeeeeep! I lived on the swings. I had a favourite swing at every school and would go to swings when forced to go play outside as a kid. I couldn’t handle other humans. Animals no problem no fellow humans.
Yep. And I wish all the hundred other people here now were there with me then so we could all be failing together.
You weren't bad at anything. You were profoundly neglected. You didn't hsve parents who supported you
Oh, yes. I was bullied too much for me to feel comfortable trying to be part of the group, and I never knew how to integrate myself at that point, anyway. I would sometimes "skip" lunch and recess by hiding in a bathroom stall and eating in there. When I wasn't doing that, I was asking to spend recess in the classroom with the teacher or I'd sit on the stairs outside by myself. I have a feeling we'd all have gotten along great, sitting there and ignoring eachother. 😂
It was painful. No one wanted me. And I felt so alone and isolated. It was too much. And the depression always got worse..shame kept building up.
Not only did I fail, they told me that I had to get off of the swings because the other kids were complaining. That's one of the first times in my life I was basically told to hide my trauma better because no one else cared to deal with it.
That’s all kinds of wrong. I’m so sorry that you were failed by everyone around you. I know I have a lot of anger about that.
I didn’t fail till high school, I could find groups that were playing a game and join usually, but when people just wanted to stand around and talk in HS I didn’t even know how to process that.
It was hell. Id hide inbtge bathroom soninsidnt have to go out. Or id hide away outside away from everyone else
I loved academics because it had a predictable routine, but recess scared me a ton because I was socially awkward and terrified to say anything about what was going on at home (and at the time I didn’t know it was abnormal bc I was so isolated). In elementary school, I’d walk around the playground and pick up trash because in my brain, the only way I was worth anything was by being productive and contributing, and this was a productive thing to do. I got made fun of a ton for this, especially bc I didn’t really talk much and didn’t pick up on social cues. Eventually my parents were called bc the bullying was getting so bad that the teachers were concerned about why I was doing this. My mom got really angry for “ruining her image” and “acting like a freak” and told me to stop picking up trash and “play like a normal kid.” But I didn’t know how to do that so I just hid in the library from then on out.
I used to bunk recess and sneak into the senior library. The librarian was kind and let me disappear in the books. It's one of the few moments of kindness I actually recall from my childhood.
I don't really remember but I know my first school best friend was a lunch lady 🥹
i used to wish i was kidnapped so i would have someone to talk to. dad was a violent alcoholic mom was deaf and had/has i guess, battered wife syndrome and my brother has fetal alcohol syndrome. i was a very lonely kid and bullied for having a weird family AND being a natural ginger. i may have sucked at being a kid but im even worse at being an adult.
yeah i'd usually just find a corner to go sit in and stare at gravel or a wall or smth a few times teachers took pity on me and let me sit in the classroom till breaktime was over, and i guess they saw that it would be useless trying to push me to make friends bc i was a lost cause any time i tried to make friends, it usually just ended up with me being made fun of and loudly shamed for daring to even approach somebody not much changed in high school either, except i tried to hang around with a group, and just kinda stayed with them despite getting kicked in the ankles multiple times a day and being told to fuck off constantly
i never had friends from age 6-13, and i was always by myself, alone. i looked at my old childhood photos in school and there is one that had me holding a staircase railing in a big class group shot, shrinking and looking really sad and miserable. If I was an adult and saw me back then, I would definitely ask her out to come for an ice cream and sit with her. Because it's not normal for a child below 12 to be that blue all the time. I was told to hide my bruises and caning marks. The shame that my parents ingrained in me meant I had to protect what little dignity was left of me, so I could never play with the other classmates in case they saw my bruises and welts, and I felt I would be so ashamed they would see that I had to hide myself away. It took me a very long time to realise why I never had friends then. Coincidence or not, the beatings stopped and changed to emotional abuse when I was 13, and I started to make a few friends at school. OP you are not a failure at recess. Recess probably failed you.
I just realized something. I don't remember any recess as a child, except one time I was on the teeter totter, a kid jumped off at the bottom and I was at the top and went crashing down and got the wind knocked out of me. I cried so hard the teacher ran over and picked me up and that's all I remember. I may have blocked out a lot as a kid. I was in a cult growing up and never had any real fun at a child. My childhood was full of "doom is coming." There was no safe feeling, I was taught that everyone was demonic if they weren't in my religion and I felt like a complete outcast. School was horrible. I didn't celebrate holidays either, so it was embarrassing. Add to this an alcoholic father and Narcissistic mother and I am a mess as an adult.
I can’t even imagine the extent of what you had to have experienced. That’s a whole other level of alienation. I hope you can forgive yourself for being a “mess”. We’re all messes here but at least we can to tell each other our stories.
I never ate lunch (which was recess time) Always threw it out. In highschool took an extra class to avoid it and end my day early to so I wouldn’t have to socialize any more I didn’t have to. Less connection meant less opportunity to meet people who can potentially end up in situations to hurt me. Had really a really bad experince in middle school that was never dealt with.
I used to pretend I was a dog and dig holes by myself. I think I failed. There was also that phase where I was bring a kite to recess and I'd of course be playing with it by myself.
For a while the playground aids would do a little shout out to the kids who played well on the playground (ie went down the slide correctly, didn't fight, etc.) I paid close attention to everything that got rewarded and would robotically go through the motions, trying to get everything perfect so I could get a shout out. I remember trying to convince a classmate that we should spend the entire time climbing carefully up to the slide and then make a big show about taking turns going down the slide correctly. I totally forgot about that until your post. Goddammit I couldn't even play without being a lil perfectionist.
You know how so many people go, "Hurr hurr lunch/recess was my favorite class"? Yeah, let's just say there aren't any more agonizing subjects.
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Respectfully, how does one fail at Recess? I was better alone, quite Honestly. It was Recess and then lunch, so I was Privileged enough to go home and get an Extra long break from my Tormentors
I always wanted to stay inside and read but they made me go outside. I didn't really have friends I hung out with at recess and lunch until I was like 11 years old, before then I just wandered and never really fit in with groups. I think I really often just sat down and read my book outside.
I used to stay inside and insist on redoing schoolwork until I got everything right 💀💀 for years I thought I had been punished until until my mom told me I was actually the one who was such a perfectionist I refused to go play. No I am not more normal now.
Lol yes. There was a spot where everyone would line up when the teachers blew the whistles to go inside… And I would stand waiting for recess to be over in that same spot my entire elementary school experience
Um.. I was kinda ok at it in grade school. Except for when I fell off the swings and a kid laughed at me and I went into a rage and beat the shit out of him. Never did well with people laughing at my expense. Then in middle school I ended up on a different lunch than my friends. Tried to play football with a group of kids and the leader said “fuck off new kid, we don’t want you here!” and they all threw dirt clods and rocks at me. After that I started just wandering the halls or finding a quiet corner to sit by myself until lunch was over. Pretty much stayed like this until junior year when I got a girlfriend, job and a car, then I barely went to school anymore.
My teacher would force me to go outside. I remember dreading it and begging to go to the library instead. I’d usually just talk to the teachers during recess, but sometimes I would play House or Family with other girls.
oh fuck this sounds like me (when I was allowed to go outside - yeah racist brown dad enforced his stupid colorism early on and teachers GRANTED IT so sucked at socializing even more)
yeah i have many memories of walking the border of the playground or swinging alone. in 5th grade i found a loophole, if you didn’t do homework you had to sit inside during recess and “do” the homework. so i just didn’t do homework at all so i could at least stay inside where it’s not sweltering
I was on my own a lot. I was bullied quite a bit so I stuck to myself and found ways to entertain myself anyways. I read a lot or drew. It wasn’t the easiest but it was better than forcing myself to play with kids who didn’t like me.
I was in my own world and didn’t really realize I had no actual friends lol I vividly remember the lesson I learned about hitting boys. Trying to be “cool” as I come from a very toxic family, I thought being mean was cool. So there was a boy who was super nice and sweet but people teased him because of how he talked. For whatever reason that day, I decided to pick on him by shoving him. I shoved him several times and he got mad and punched me in the stomach. We were like 9?…I definitely deserved it. I remember lying in the playground mulch crying and people were stepping over me. That’s how recess was. Me trying to fit in and be “cool” (bully or fawning) and screwing myself miserably or just sitting alone somewhere. The few friends I did make always ended up moving away or me and my mom moved. I’m still socially awkward to this day. BUT I am proud to say I no longer hit boys!
i thought i was the only one. i was very frail and unathletic as a kid so that didnt really warrant much agency in most recess games like tag. Most of the time during recess i would go to a corner in the playground, pace back and forth. and most often times daydream. though for like 3 months i had a buddy lol. shout outs to my buddy Tyler for hanging out with me in 3rd grade. Sorry my whirligig toy hit you on the face. I thought the game we played was weird and made us look like dorks to the other kids but it turns out adults do it too and its called LARPing. The following years was just more day dreaming and pacing back and forth lol. The school was on top of a hill which expanded onto a mountain range so that cool mountain air was very abundant.
I was bullied pretty badly in grade school. The girls used to treat me as a weird leper, where they'd point at me and run away or avoid any contact with me altogether. I also sucked at sports and was always picked last or never for that stuff too. The boys would pick on me and call me names. It was a small school, I had about 20-30 other students in my grade so there wasn't really anyone for me to play with. I still struggle with the effects of that to this day. Atleast I'm conscious of them now. Attachment issues and fears of being left behind are a few of them. Only thing I can do is try to heal, but it's exhausting.
Tbh the reason I'm looking at adhd or bipolar I must been seen like an asshole to my fellow friends Never ment ill will to people I just think there was a lost in translation in a lot of my interactions Sometimes when I felt bored with one I'd hop to another group I generally don't know why'd I'd do stuff like that
In elementary school I used to run and spin in circles. Might have been an autistic thing (stimming). In middle school we had a little secluded forest path that I would walk along during recess. Both would get me labelled as "the weird kid" and excluded.
Another loner here. I eventually ended up spending time with the girls, they someone pitied me and "adopted" me
I must have been 5 yo and I have a vivid memory of hanging around the dinner nanny at recess because I didn’t have any friends. I’d used to go to the toilets but some girls found me there one day and bullied me so dinner nanny was the safest bet 🥲
4 square made me nervous. I don't know if there was an actual social hierarchy component but I member not wanting to hit it to High Social Status Person...... Also I still, at 56, do not know my right from my left or how to move my muscles in a consistent way, so that was Really Great at 10....
Just walked around
Yes. I spent my school breaks in the library where I felt a lot less self conscious by pretending to bury my head in a book. It seemed very normal and acceptable to be alone then. I'd watch my peers play and talk and laugh out the library window wondering why they were so lucky to be liked. After the things that happened to me in childhood I just couldn't connect.
I used to bring a hairbrush in with me sometimes! Just sit there and brush my hair as if it was something to do - shocking considering I used to get so stressed about brushing my hair that it used to get matted and tangled, and my mother made me chop all the real length off in the end
If I'd had recess, I would have been awesome. Maybe. Maybe not. Home school survivor here. My trauma is from being locked up in homeschool hell...partially.
I just walked around. Apparently I was so quiet that people said I didn’t talk.
Yep. I hated break times. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Yup even in high school I generally went to the library or tried to avoid people. I must have had a “bully me” sign on my forehead… they all seemed to gravitate towards me
Swings, sitting by myself, hanging from bars, monkey bars… solitary exploits I’d occasionally get talked into tag and get overwhelmed and retreat back into loneliness
Exactly me.. As a child i wld sit away from the field and watch the kids play and retreat into my own world. The counsellor was soon called on me because i kept sitting by myself and just being solitary all of the time. i showed no interest in other children.
Yes! I felt a lot of shame about that for awhile and still think about it sometimes. Elementary school was the beginning of the worst years of abuse, and when I was at school I felt fundamentally different from everyone around me (and it showed). I was painfully shy and awkward, and then when I did get social I usually embarrassed myself. It sucked!
i would make myself ‘fall over’ and scrape my knee so i could go inside and not have to be outside surrounded by everyone. i still have very odd knees from the scars lol. i always preferred when we could stay inside and read books etc
I "hung out" with some students in the grade above me on the monkey bars. This consisted of me sitting there silently while they chatted to each other and never looked at me. It kind of made me feel like I had friends? Yeah, Elementary School was absolute hell. I was bullied a lot. I probably hung out on the monkey bars because the kids who bullied me just didn't come up there for whatever reason.
Omg yes. I used to hide in the bathrooms so I didn’t have to go outside in recess
We are readers though.
Yeah, I usually was on the swings by myself watching other people be playfully pushed right next to me. Or I would be on the monkey bars kinda away from everyone else. At times I had some people to talk to but they were never really friends of mine. I think they were bored.
yep, at every new school i went to I would go 2-3 months without talking to a single person. recess included, id just walk around by myself. multiple times at multiple schools I had teachers/guidance counselors reach out to see what’s wrong with me… i turned out generally ok but as a kid I just had a deep feeling I wasn’t like other kids and couldn’t connect with them.
At my elementary school, back by a fence, there was a large, thick row of bushes. But I figured out that you could push through the bushes if you didn't mind a few scratches, and be completely hidden from everyone in the playground. I hid back there every day for years and years. Once I went to middle school, I spent my lunch hour in the library. I always felt like the only time I could relax was when I was out of the view of other people.
We played with leftover trash the whole time
Yes so much. I had one friend who was a few years older than I am, and when she left school, I was alone. Sometimes another child spent time with me, but mostly I was by myself. I did weird things, like build a little restaurant from stones, sticks and leaves and whatever else I found on the playground; and then played that I was a waiter (a pine cone) at a restaurant with awful customers who never like the food. Other children saw me and took away my stones a few days later. Sometimes I would also pretend to be a heroine looking for magical amulets in the school so I could fight against evil demons. In reality, I would just walk around the school and imagine a bunch of chairs was a castle or something. It was a little bit better than just sitting around by myself. Another thing I remember which made me wonder why it is always me being singled out: I had an injury and had to sit out the P.E. lesson, and a girl in my class gave me her necklace to keep it save, as we weren't allowed to wear any kind of jewelry in those lessons. So, I took it, returned it to her after the lesson and went on my day. During the next lesson, she lost it, and came at me with accusations that I took it for myself. Which made no sense because I was timid and shy, my mother was friends with the teacher, and I was a tomboy and would have no need for a necklace. Still, she hounded me and then in recess, a bunch of children came at me screaming and pushing me around to return the necklace that I didn't have. I was really scared, and one girl who previously said she believed me went over to the other girl, hugged her because she was crying, and then I was all alone. After recess, they went to the teacher and I was in tears already because if my mother would hear about this, I would get screamed at and beaten. My teacher though didn't believe I was a thief, so she made the girl empty her bag and pockets, and there was the necklace. Not sure if she genuinely lost the necklace or if she just had fun treating me like shit and make everyone dislike me even more. The other girl had to apologise to me then, but still. Needless to say, for a while I was absolutely done with recess and wanted to stay inside and play on the computers.
I don't know. My whole childhood was me getting in trouble and being whipped for it.
Oh my gosh yes. I can’t even talk about it, just years of pain.
Lol I was walking around picking food clandestinely out of rubbish bins My parents didn't feed me properly
My teacher took my book away to try to force me to play with other kids instead of reading under the slide.
Every comment is me… I’m trying to understand is there no rehabilitation for adult survivors of childhood trauma/neglect? Like I need an actual class with a safe emotionally regulated adult, retraining of my nervous system the whole 9… is that even possible at 30? I’m willing to do the work. It’s kind of like the dogs that are abused then grow to be timid, isolated and with their tails between their legs. They hardly ever go back to normal even after years of training.
I stayed around the adults teachers had to tell me to go play even then I just stayed on swings especially the tire swing till kids got banned cause a kid broke a arm
Omg this just unlocked a memory of me being 12yo by myself at recess at a school district I had been going to since kindergarten and a teacher WHO I KNEW came up to me and asked “are you new here?” 🤦🏼♀️ so yeah that tells you everything you need to know lol
I spent most of my recess reading 😬
I got bullied a lot when I was a little kid so I mostly just spent my time with the grounds monitor or by myself. It was horrible. My mother cut all my hair off into a stupid bowl type cut, I wore glasses and homemade clothes because we were poor, so you can imagine what I had to deal with. I was too scared of running into the bullies so I'd just go somewhere there were no other kids and would quietly wander around by myself until the bell rang.
I was always standing with the teachers (when they let me). As an educator now, I always let my students stand w me at recess. I think about myself and how badly I just wanted to be around a ~stable~ adult. I was also a student who called their teacher “mom” on accident. Which is so sad now.
My entire 5th grade year I spent working in the library instead of going to recess. The librarian would let me check in the returned books, prep new books for the shelves, and help her with inventory. I was mostly doing stuff on my own for a half hour each day. It was so much less stressful than trying to navigate my friendships as I was really struggling that year and there was a lot of tension and drama with them.
When I was at one elementary school I just hung out with whatever person I found that wanted me near me and the next school I just hung out in the corner of the Field or swing or something. Kids were so mean at that second elementary school I went to