Wow, some pretty depressing posts in this thread. it all sounds familiar though. I too was bullied in school and later in highschool.
When i was 16 i took karatelessons, that built up my self esteam profoundly. The bullying stopped when i beat up the biggest bully in
school during recess with the whole school watching, thanks to my karatelessons. It was a genuine ''Karatekid moment''
I actually became somewhat of a hero during my last year there since he was picking on almost everyone, he was held back twice so he was older and much bigger then everyone else. He had even hit a teacher once.
After that my whole life in school changed. Unfortanatly 18 years too late but still, that was a defining moment in my life, since then i became a whole different person who was a lot more confident of himself.
Funny thing, that biggest bully became one of my best friends for the next few years. Turned out he was bullied on his previous school and when he came to my school he decided he would become the bad guy at his new school.
It's weird that during the course of my adult life i find that my time in school works it's way through my whole life. It shows in the choices i've made, the girlfriends i had, the type of friends i've chosen, and the fact that i'm still, at 43, really bad at maintaining friendships or let people get to close to me. Karatekidmoment aside, at 18 the damage was already done.
I fear for my kids when they start highschool. I do try to raise them to be confident people and not to take s'*&^t from anyone.
I guess that's why Carrie always struck a cord with me. I could identify with her.
When it comes to collecting Stephen King books, Carrie is the only book i'm not only collecting in hardcover. I'm collecting all the different paperbacks with different covers, all the different hardcovers, dvd's, and i want all the different limited editions. For all the rest of the King books i'm satisfied with just the hardcover editions.