To those I went to middle school with

Dear (heh) class of 1997 at a certain Catholic 4-8 school in central Illinois,

This letter has been a long time coming. See, I have so many words to say to you and most of them are profanities. You're not worth the eloquence I use for most things, though, so here we go.

We are old enough to have children in school. We are old enough to have children at that school. And that is horrifying. Not a single one of you should be allowed near children, ever. I know that statistically, many of you have your own kids or may work with kids. This is horrifying. There's no way who you are at 14 grew up into a decent enough person for that job--I knew most of you at 18, you were just as insufferable. You were bad people. Every one of you.

"We weren't bad. We were just kids". Guess what? I was too! And because, unlike you, I've never been a perverse waste of carbon who takes joy in torturing other people, I work with kids. I know kids. I know kids the ages we were. They'd have thrown down. I'm not just talking about one of my kids I know, either. I have known multiple young people who'd have taken on bigger and badder folks than yourselves, in a larger number, because they can find "wrong" with two hands and a map. Youth isn't an excuse. Youth isn't a reason. You were cowards and you are bad people.

Let me tell you something you should have known, given that supposedly we were all super smart and learning good solid morals or whatever: you were torturing, intentionally, a child who was being abused at home. So great job. A+. But you had to make sure, since you weren't the richest kid at school anymore, that you maintained your status. Oh, and while I have grown into a person who doesn't give a shit about test scores because they don't determine who you are as a human being, let it be known: 2 people in our whole grade got in on the merits of our tests rather than on the merits of our parents' wallets. I am one of them. That doesn't matter though; I'm a better person than you because I don't torture people who are being abused at home for funsies.


I'm sure at least one of you would wring your hands and cry "but we didn't know" when you find out I'm autistic. Thing is, you shouldn't have to know. The way you treated me for five years, five hellish years, is unacceptable no matter what. If you had known it wouldn't have changed anything. Don't lie. You were bad people. The core of your being is cruel, cowardly pieces of shit. That's just facts.

You were sure pleased with yourselves, huh? I bet. Are you pleased to have contributed to a rip-roaring case of Complex PTSD? Are you? Did you say "gosh I hope I star in someone's nightmares for the rest of their lives?" Oh wait. I know the answer to that question, since you told me to kill myself, daily. You wanted me to not have any more nightmares. Because you are cruel wastes of skin, every one of you.

I sure hope none of you lies to your children and tells them that you care about bullying. You don't. You may care when it's your kid, because they are an extension of you (people as self centered and awful as you don't change that much--patterns exist, sorry I see them), but you don't actually care. You probably relate to the bully more than to your own child. Unless of course your child is neurodivergent, in which case do them a favor and call social services on yourself. You shouldn't be trusted with a dog, much less a neurodivergent child.

The sad thing is? You all had every opportunity to not be literal human garbage. You had money. You wanted for nothing. Most of you had at least one significant talent. Your families may not have been perfect but they weren't horror shows. You could have chosen to not be like you were.

But you didn't. All these choices were available to you, and you chose instead to be the worst of humanity. And you'll never experience any consequences for it, because all those options were available to you. Funny that.

May who you were haunt your dreams. That's still who you are. May you live every day knowing that you deserve nothing good or warm in your life, and that's because you chose to be vile. It's your choices who tell who you are, more than your abilities, and of all the routes open to you, you made a conscious effort to be scum.

I may have nightmares about you still, but at least I'm not a coward. At least I can look at myself in the mirror and say "I never tortured a person for fun". Sure, you literally fucked up my ability to meet goals, but that's on you. I'm worth 1000 of you.

You fucking scum.