Humiliated.

Have you ever had someone do something to you, something so despicable and injurious to every fiber of your dignity that you find it near impossible to forgive them, even years after? And does this act occasionally pop out from your memory long enough to cause you renewed infuriation at your mistreatment?

Years ago, around 1994, my senior year of high school, I had a friend. I considered him a friend because we had some pretty good times. Despite his numerous and cruel pranks and constant belittlement, I liked the guy. I was pretty naive.

One thing he had was an ego. It was monstrous. "Ken" fancied himself to be better than many people and definitely better than me. He was more physically capable; he was better looking; his family was richer; he was a better artist, etc. Several times he implied that he kept me around mostly because he pitied how insignificant I was compared to him. I tried to ignore those comments but it seems that perhaps he kept me as a friend because he felt I made him look better by comparison.

One day in April 1994, a vicious rumor was being circulated throughout the school, a rumor about Ken's girlfriend at that time. It was humiliating for him and he grew very angry, seeking to discover the source of the rumor. Naturally, he didn't think about it for long, arriving at the assumption that the culprit had to be me. OBVIOUSLY, I was SO JEALOUS of how great Ken was that I MUST'VE spread filthy rumors to feel better about myself. He honestly believed I'd do such a thing.

He accused me in Art class and I told Ken the truth, I was innocent. He didn't seem to believe me but said nothing else. As we left class, he seized me, grabbed my hair and proceeded to drag me down two flights of stairs and through the halls until we arrived at his locker. He lifted me off the ground (I didn't weigh much), pressed me against the lockers and began ramming his knee into my groin. During this whole time, he called me a liar, an ingrateful asshole and a filthy rumormonger. When his girlfriend arrived on the scene, Ken forced me to apologize to him and his woman for all the horrible, horrible things I said.

A crowd of students had gathered, of course, but nobody tried to stop the one-sided beating. Since I was pretty much in agony, I offered the apology Ken desired. Ken threw me to the floor and warned me not to fuck with him again. He spat in my direction and left me on the ground, holding my head and my crotch as he turned and walked away.

In all my life, I've never been so outright humiliated as that. It wasn't even the physical abuses; I can take a pounding and walk away eventually. But there was a piece of my dignity that was torn away that morning. Everyone saw the beating I took and how I was powerless to stop it. They heard me apologize for something most believed I didn't - couldn't - do.

Unbeknownst to me, a small group of people who heard about Ken's brutality ambushed Ken outside after school that day. They told him that if he was ever seen, or even rumored to have laid a single finger on me again, they would smash his pretty face into the concrete and leave him hanging from a tree in the courtyard. I can't approve of that sort of vigilanteism, but it's kind of cool.

I didn't find out that they were defending me from him until six years later, when one told me on our way to Niagara Falls. I'd never asked a single person for protection. Honestly, I didn't want charity. I never would've accepted had they asked and they seemed to know this, so they took it upon themselves to act without my consent.

But every so often, my mind spins back to that day and I become mildly upset that I was so viciously betrayed. Now that I'm older, I see that Ken was never really that much of a friend at all. But still, I didn't deserve that sort of humiliation. Nobody does. There are few things that cause me to lose my nerve, but thanks to that incident, being forced to apologize for something I didn't do is 100% guaranteed to cause me to become violent.

Share your similar experiences and how you deal with them now.

Jam it back in, in the dark.