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August 2001 - June 2017

The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.

If you want to write about your experiences in school, you can write on our blog.

To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.

I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.

I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.

I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.

Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.

Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.

-SoulRiser

The forums are mostly read-only and are in a maintenance/testing phase, before being permanently archived. Please use this time to get the contact details of people you'd like to keep in touch with. My contact details are here.

Please do not make a mirror copy of the forums in their current state - things will still change, and some people have requested to be able to edit or delete some of their personal info.


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Nearly a year since it all started
Author Message
AnyOptions Offline
Rebel

Posts: 20
Joined: Jan 2016
Thanks: 4
Given 23 thank(s) in 8 post(s)
Post: #1
Nearly a year since it all started

It's hard to think that it has been nearly a year since I stood up for myself. A year since I put my foot down and made my own life choices. I come on these forums and I see so many people saying the same things, about how bad things are for them, how the long to be out of a place called school. I see a common pattern with some of these people. They want, but do not do.

If anything will EVER change in this world, people have to CHANGE it. That is why, this year, starting at the end of winter break, I invite you all to join me. Anybody who has ever felt severely wronged, like they were worthless and stupid, because of the school system, is invited to join me in my task.

I stood up. It was hard, very hard. You have to be stubborn. You have to ignore those around you who claim to know what is best for you, but really know little about you. I spent months in and out of school, seeing counselors to "fix me" so that I would go to school. The court system was involved, probation, community service, time in juvie! It is difficult to do.

These trials made me the person who I am today, a better person than I would be if I would have kept my head down and continued on from middle school to high school. I'm nobody special, I'm just your average American kid. If I could do something, anybody, ANYBODY, could.

On the day where you have to go back to school, I invite all of you to say to your parents, "I am not going to school." It's your choice. You can go through the rest of your education, complying while making small shows of defiance that do nothing. Or, you can just not go to school. Your choice.
12-20-2016 10:11 PM
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 Thanks given by: RoundAndRound , Superkamiguru , Rule_BreakerXVIII , SoulRiser
RoundAndRound Away
Puzzled

Posts: 26
Joined: Feb 2016
Thanks: 23
Given 10 thank(s) in 9 post(s)
Post: #2
RE: Nearly a year since it all started

We should try to get children and teens taken more seriously by the adults. Just like you said, adults will just be like "we're just trying to help you!" or anything similar. If these school employees are really "trying to help" then why aren't they doing it?

Comparing students by their personality is like comparing a blanket to the sun, in terms of which one produces more light. Comparing students is just an excuse to exploit their weaknesses.
12-21-2016 09:42 AM
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Superkamiguru Offline
Resistance Leader

Posts: 202
Joined: Dec 2016
Thanks: 770
Given 84 thank(s) in 52 post(s)
Post: #3
RE: Nearly a year since it all started

(12-21-2016 09:42 AM)RoundAndRound Wrote:  We should try to get children and teens taken more seriously by the adults. Just like you said, adults will just be like "we're just trying to help you!" or anything similar. If these school employees are really "trying to help" then why aren't they doing it?

They almost definitely think they're helping you...

Hidden stuff:
"CONSENSUAL incest is not wrong. (Abuse victims: being abused by a relative does not make it wrong for others to have consensual incest, any more than rape by a stranger makes all sex wrong. Sex and assault/molestation are two different things.) An aversion became common in humans that aided in population growth as one disease couldn't wipe out the human race. That's not a problem anymore.

Consensual incest is very common. You know people who have been involved, whether you know it or not.

There is no rational reason for keeping laws or taboos against consensual
incest that is consistently applied to other relationships. Personal disgust or religion is only a reason why one person would not want to personally engage in what I call consanguinamory, not why someone else shouldn't do it. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY consenting adults. Youthful experimentation between close relatives close in age is not uncommon, and there are more people than you'd think out there who are in lifelong healthy, happy relationships with a close relative. It isn't for everyone, but we're not all going to want to have each others' love lives, now are we? If someone thinks YOUR love life is disgusting, should you be thrown in prison?

Some people try to justify their prejudice against consanguineous sex and
marriage by being part-time eugenicists and saying that such relationships inevitably lead to “mutant” or “deformed” babies. This argument can be refuted on several fronts. 1. Some consanguineous relationships involve only people of the same gender. 2. Not all mixed-gender relationships birth biological children. 3. Most births to consanguineous parents do not produce children with significant birth defects or other genetic problems; while births to other parents do sometimes have birth defects. 4. We don’t prevent other people from marrying or deny them their reproductive rights based on increased odds of passing along a genetic problem or inherited disease. It is true that in general, children born to consanguineous parents have an increased chance of these problems than those born to nonconsanguineous parents, but the odds are still minimal. Unless someone is willing to deny reproductive rights and medical privacy to others and force everyone to take genetic tests and bar carriers and the congenitally disabled and women over 35 from having children, then equal protection principles prevent this from being a justification to bar this freedom of association and freedom to marry.

Some say "Your sibling should not be your lover." That is not a reason. It begs the question. Many people have many relationships that have more than one aspect. Some women say their sister is their best friend. Why can’t their sister be a wife, too?

Some say “There is a power differential.” This applies least of all to siblings or cousins who are close in age, but even where the power differential exists, it is not a justification for denying this freedom to sex or to marry. There is a power differential in just about any relationship, sometimes an enormous power differential. To question if consent is truly possible in these cases is insulting and demeaning.

Some say “There are so many people outside of your family." There are plenty of people within one’s own race, too, but that is no reason to ban interracial marriage. So, this isn't a good reason either. Let consenting adults love each other the way they want!"-Keith Pullman

12-21-2016 11:32 AM
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UnicornLionWolf Offline
Revolutionary

Posts: 138
Joined: Jun 2016
Thanks: 72
Given 49 thank(s) in 35 post(s)
Post: #4
RE: Nearly a year since it all started

(12-21-2016 11:32 AM)Superkamiguru Wrote:  
(12-21-2016 09:42 AM)RoundAndRound Wrote:  We should try to get children and teens taken more seriously by the adults. Just like you said, adults will just be like "we're just trying to help you!" or anything similar. If these school employees are really "trying to help" then why aren't they doing it?

They almost definitely think they're helping you...

But in reality they don't really understand the problem. They don't realize what bad things are happening at school.

UnicornLionWolf
GoogleNospamdogeBanana
12-21-2016 03:15 PM
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Superkamiguru Offline
Resistance Leader

Posts: 202
Joined: Dec 2016
Thanks: 770
Given 84 thank(s) in 52 post(s)
Post: #5
RE: Nearly a year since it all started

(12-21-2016 03:15 PM)UnicornLionWolf Wrote:  
(12-21-2016 11:32 AM)Superkamiguru Wrote:  
(12-21-2016 09:42 AM)RoundAndRound Wrote:  We should try to get children and teens taken more seriously by the adults. Just like you said, adults will just be like "we're just trying to help you!" or anything similar. If these school employees are really "trying to help" then why aren't they doing it?

They almost definitely think they're helping you...

But in reality they don't really understand the problem. They don't realize what bad things are happening at school.
That's my point.

Hidden stuff:
"CONSENSUAL incest is not wrong. (Abuse victims: being abused by a relative does not make it wrong for others to have consensual incest, any more than rape by a stranger makes all sex wrong. Sex and assault/molestation are two different things.) An aversion became common in humans that aided in population growth as one disease couldn't wipe out the human race. That's not a problem anymore.

Consensual incest is very common. You know people who have been involved, whether you know it or not.

There is no rational reason for keeping laws or taboos against consensual
incest that is consistently applied to other relationships. Personal disgust or religion is only a reason why one person would not want to personally engage in what I call consanguinamory, not why someone else shouldn't do it. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY consenting adults. Youthful experimentation between close relatives close in age is not uncommon, and there are more people than you'd think out there who are in lifelong healthy, happy relationships with a close relative. It isn't for everyone, but we're not all going to want to have each others' love lives, now are we? If someone thinks YOUR love life is disgusting, should you be thrown in prison?

Some people try to justify their prejudice against consanguineous sex and
marriage by being part-time eugenicists and saying that such relationships inevitably lead to “mutant” or “deformed” babies. This argument can be refuted on several fronts. 1. Some consanguineous relationships involve only people of the same gender. 2. Not all mixed-gender relationships birth biological children. 3. Most births to consanguineous parents do not produce children with significant birth defects or other genetic problems; while births to other parents do sometimes have birth defects. 4. We don’t prevent other people from marrying or deny them their reproductive rights based on increased odds of passing along a genetic problem or inherited disease. It is true that in general, children born to consanguineous parents have an increased chance of these problems than those born to nonconsanguineous parents, but the odds are still minimal. Unless someone is willing to deny reproductive rights and medical privacy to others and force everyone to take genetic tests and bar carriers and the congenitally disabled and women over 35 from having children, then equal protection principles prevent this from being a justification to bar this freedom of association and freedom to marry.

Some say "Your sibling should not be your lover." That is not a reason. It begs the question. Many people have many relationships that have more than one aspect. Some women say their sister is their best friend. Why can’t their sister be a wife, too?

Some say “There is a power differential.” This applies least of all to siblings or cousins who are close in age, but even where the power differential exists, it is not a justification for denying this freedom to sex or to marry. There is a power differential in just about any relationship, sometimes an enormous power differential. To question if consent is truly possible in these cases is insulting and demeaning.

Some say “There are so many people outside of your family." There are plenty of people within one’s own race, too, but that is no reason to ban interracial marriage. So, this isn't a good reason either. Let consenting adults love each other the way they want!"-Keith Pullman

12-23-2016 08:49 AM
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SoulRiser Offline
Site Founder

Posts: 18,240
Joined: Aug 2001
Thanks: 2669
Given 1978 thank(s) in 1208 post(s)
Post: #6
Nearly a year since it all started

Quote:On the day where you have to go back to school, I invite all of you to say to your parents, "I am not going to school." It's your choice.
The consequences for actually doing that could be pretty bad in some cases. Maybe not in most... so I guess it'd be best for people to think about whether or not they're really willing to deal with those consequences or not. But it's really good to be aware of the choice, at least. Because there is always a choice.

"If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them." - Dalai Lama
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12-26-2016 11:50 PM
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the Analogist Offline
Connector of Dots

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Thanks: 231
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Post: #7
RE: Nearly a year since it all started

a frustrating reality for me is history. I became Muslim in this century in the US and even though THE BEST method for organizing your house and your kids education exists in our tradition, 200+ years of colonialism has turned many if not most of us as parents into conformist authoritarians. on top of that, the most famous and widely watched scholars on YouTube are frequently conformists themselves because its really hard to make a living giving speeches when you dont say what the people with money want to hear.

a spiritual revolution needs to occur, but our love of ourselves is keeping all of us from embracing distasteful ideas like "teach your own kids" or "give a shit".

I need to write more about "mashwara" on my "Musings" thread.

Purity is to Believe only that which deserves it.
Wisdom is to follow only the Opinion which makes the best use of evidence.
Excellence is to be mindful of all these things in Living.
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01-01-2017 03:04 PM
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