We all have our reasons for being despondent and hurt by this. For me, it's the bullying and cruelty that stings.
As a kid I was very badly bullied growing up. Other kids bullied everything about me, from my short stature for a guy (I'm 5'4) to my perceived sexual orientation to the sound of my voice to the fact that I was a marching band fag. I got called faggot, homo, gay (not meant in a nice way), gay boy, band fag, queer, asked if I had ever sucked **** before.
Kids would plug their nose and try to mock the sound of my voice. I'd get called dwarf, midget, an ompalompa, asked when I was going to ever start growing. Being short I was by no means a tough guy and would get bumped into, elbowed, pushed, slapped in the back of the head, etc.
In 11th grade, during my math class with Mrs. Candela, I had a kid one day threaten to bring a gun to school and talk about how fun it'd be to sit on the roof top of one of our school buildings and pick kids off. He said it'd be fun to pick kids like me off. I sat there paralyzed and frozen with fear. That same kid tried to "invite me" to his "birthday party" out in the woods to play paintball with him and some of his friends. He made up a fake birthday flyer and gave it to me, trying to lure me out there. Luckily my intuition told me better and I didn't go. Same kid used to tell me how fun it would be to smash "someone's" head in with a baseball bat or break "someone's" arm because he could. That "someone" he was referencing was me of course.
I got drug down the hallway and nearly thrown into the girls bathroom while the colorguard girls were changing for marching band practice. The same kids that drug me down the hallway held me down at band camp sophomore year while I was sleeping and hit me with one of those electric fly swatters that looks like a tennis racket and zaps flies.
I remember of those same kids that bullied me in band asking me if I ****ed my mom and if my dad came over to pile on and make sandwiches with my mom (my parents were divorced and the kid knew that). He also made me go over to his house and record the sound of my voice on his CPU so he could use me for his amusement doing prank calls to others and whatnot.
I'm sorry for airing out my soul here, it's not the place to do it. My therapists office is. But what hurts me deep down to my insides, deep in my soul, is that the bullies have won. That pains me in a certain kind of way. We just re-elected the ultimate bully, with no consequences for his bad, bullying, disgusting behavior.