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Post by billd1 on Aug 24, 2016 8:56:40 GMT -5
I would say that in my own life, and in the development of my SA/SP, The Seventh Grade was probably the focal point, and the most crucial, most important time in my life, and my winding up in the situation that I am in toady, of being virtually cut off from any relationships with anybody.
In the reading I've done, I have found that writers on social problems often state that The Seventh Grade is probably the most important time in a youngster's life, and that it determines the course that their lives will follow in their future years.
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Post by marle on Aug 24, 2016 20:33:17 GMT -5
If I had to choose one school year that was the most significant in terms of my shyness, it would be seventh grade. That was when I began to become really introspective and my shyness really started to be my focal point. I wouldn't say seventh grade "determined" the course of my life, because I believe I would have ended up this way no matter what. But I am fatalistic like that. So much mental development is happening around that time, and in a changing social landscape. You lose your childhood.
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Post by billd1 on Aug 25, 2016 11:35:21 GMT -5
Thanks for the post, marie. I'm not sure if my seventh grade experiences determined the course of my life or not, but I have a feeling that if things had been different for me at that time, and if I had been able to get some help back then there would have been a chance that things would have turned out differently for me.
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Post by billd1 on Aug 25, 2016 11:38:01 GMT -5
This thread is a supplement to my other current thread, "Grasping At Straws," where I intend to briefly discuss the importance of the Seventh Grade in the development of my SA over the following years and into my adult life.
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Post by billd1 on Aug 25, 2016 11:41:37 GMT -5
Early in September of my 7th Grade year, I watched Dr. Billy Graham on TV and was scared into Getting Saved, because I did not want to go to hell, as Dr. Graham warned me would happen if I didn't Get Saved.
I firmly believe in the old cliche "I don't discuss politics or Spritual matters(changed from "Religion" to avoid provoking some Christians), but I think that that event in the Seventh Grade was important, and might have some bearing on what lay ahead in the future for me.
Six months after Getting Saved, I began to wonder, "is this real? Am I really saved?'
So, I continued to watch Dr. Billy Graham's crusades for many years after that.
The reason I am mentioning this, is that it relates to my attempts to get help with my problem, as I discuss in depth on my other thread, "Grasping At Straws."
I think that many other people probably could tell similar stories.
Of course, the budding sexuality of seventh graders is also important, with their bodies maturing.
I think that having a smell to the perspiration odor is part of the body changing into adulthood, and early in the seventh grade, I also noticed my perspiration did have an odor, and I started using Right Guard deoderant, for the first time in my life.
I also noticed that my muscles were developing, with my being able to see veins below my skin, on my biceps and my biceps becoming very hard.
Sexual things , along with politics and spiritual things are also extremely touchy and I generally try to avoid discussing.
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Post by Scotty on Aug 26, 2016 2:46:10 GMT -5
if I've worked it out right. 7th grade is the equivalent to my first year at Secondary school. This was a big deal for me because I moved from a tiny 30 student school to a school of 700 (which I know is still small but it was big to me ). This is when my shyness became more evident and really started to effect the kind of teenager I would become...the silent guy who sits in the corner. I was able to make one good friend, but he was very social and popular so I looked even quieter when in his presence.
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Post by billd1 on Aug 27, 2016 11:40:35 GMT -5
Girl Friends Before & After Seventh Grade
"Before Eve, there was Evil, and her name was Lilith"
On my Grasping At Straws thread, I will be mentioning a young girl who was friends with me, in grammar school, and through the seventh and eighth grades, but in high school she became very mean and sadistic towards me in the 9th grade.
She first caught my eye way back in the first grade, singing a Halloween song.
I immediately thought of a nickname for her which I called her throughout the rest of grammar school, and through the eighth grade.
However, when I called her by that nickname in the ninth grade, she hit me with her fist!
After that, I never called her by the nickname I had given her so many years ago.
I won't call her by that nickname in my SA threads where I mention her, on the million to one chance that she could read it and recognize herself.
So, I'll just call her, Lillith.
"Before Eve there was Evil. And, her name was Lillith." - Tagline for an old 1960s movie that very few people remember today.
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Post by billd1 on Aug 30, 2016 11:36:59 GMT -5
In the seventh grade, I went thru what adolescent development books claim most adolescent boys go thru, and call the "Hero Worship" stage.
There was one teacher, who I tried to pattern myself after, trying to talk like he did.
Well, that phase I went thru didn't last long.
I soon decided that I didn't want to pattern myself after other people, and I didn't believe in hero worship.
I heard the saying, "A Nation that needs heroes is to be pittied," and thought, that's my Creed!
Anyone have any opinions on that statement about heroes?
Anyone have any stories about their Seventh Grade heroes?
Sometime after, or even during the seventh grade my brief hero worship phase ended.
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Post by billd1 on Sept 6, 2016 10:58:31 GMT -5
One other hero I had and worshipped in Seventh Grade was Batman, although again, it was short lived.
I suppose that Batman & Robin were ersatz friends, for me, as my blossoming SA got undersay.
I also had my Angels in the Centerfold of Playboy magazine-Connie Kresky, Lisa Baker, and who was the one that was in Hammer Films?
No, not Raquel Welch.
This playmate had a Scandavanian sounding name.
I also had my Beefcake Buddies in the bodybuilding ads of the comics with Batman-Middle aged Ben Rebhein as my "Daddy," and 17 year old John Sill as my "Big Brother."
I wanted to have bigger, shapely muscles, but on the whole I thought that body builders did overdo the muscle building a bit.
That was many years ago, and today's body builders have gone to such extremes if I were now 12 years old, I know that they would not be heroes for me to want to be like.
With these bittersweet memories of Days Gone By, I am really showing myself as a Senior Citizen of Shy Unnited forums, but some things never change, & I'm sure some of you younger members can tell similar stories with more current media influences.
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Post by billd1 on Sept 17, 2016 11:29:18 GMT -5
I think that some bullying, or if you want to say, "picking on" kids by one another, if it is not really vicious and injurious, can be done out of affection, that the kids don't really know how to express.
Here's a story from my own seventh grade experience.
Mickey, a senior was generally a nice guy, and in the Senior Superlatives in the yearbook, he was photogrpahed as the Most- (forget what) with a really good looking young lady, who also shared that superlative.
Well, one day on the school bus, Mickey did something very, very disgusting to me, and after getting home I told Mom about it, and she sterilized one of my body parts with rubbing alcohol.
I felt like Mickey was picking on me with what he did, but later found out it was an act of affection.
It involved his saliva.
There is a name for what Mickey did to me on the school bus, but I didn't know that short, 2 word, one 3 letters, the second one, six letters, was.
So, I had to describe, to Mom, exactly the disgusting thing that Mickey did to me.
Mickey put his index finger into his mouth, wetting it with a lot of his saliva, and then put his finger into my ear!
I later found out that act of affection is called a "wet willie."
I don't know if Mom knew that, but if I had known the term wet willie way back in seventh grade, I could have told Mom much easier what Mickey had done to me on the school bus.
I didn't find out what a "wet willie" was until after Mom died, so I will never know if she knew what a wet willie was.
I saw an old 1950 film of Dino Martin giving his partner Jerry Lewis a wet willie with his tongue, rather than his finger.
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