TLDR incoming: A teacher when I was in 4th grade hated me and in turn filled my young heart up with hate.

For me personally it was Mrs. P, who was a real bitch. My family were nomads due to my dad's long descent into alcoholism. I never stayed at a school for longer than a year before he'd drink away our rent check two months and we'd get evicted. I didn't get stability in my school life until he died.

No big deal, shit happens, that's just backstory for what came in the 4th grade. We moved to this school a month before the end of third grade; my third school in three years. This one, however, I was almost immediately accepted into the group of boys in my class. By the middle of 4th grade the next year, I counted most of those guys as good friends. We all got along great, school-life was pretty damned good.

So of course, we have to move again. This was the first time I was really upset about it too. I was part of a good group of friends, I was getting positive recognition from 5th and 6th graders who were just the coolest, and I even had girls liking me. Two girls had argued over who would be their Valentines date that next month. Jennifer won. Jennifer was tall like me, smart like me, and very, very cute (also like me). But then we had to move.

I did my due diligence, I wasn't going to disappoint Jennifer. I called the principal the Monday before the dance to ask permission to attend, since I was no longer a member of that school. He said sure, no problem.

I get hyped, show up that day ready to meet and slow dance with Jennifer but then who should be on door duty but Mrs.... fucking... P. This woman had had it out for me for months and I still don't know why. She had gone out of my way to dick me over before; there was the time some friends and I were racing via speedwalk to lunch. I wasn't even going the fastest but she singled me out and sent me to the principal's office for swats (back in those days at that school at least, if you got sent to the office for any negative reason at all you were getting paddled). She once made up a lie on the playground to get me sent to the office (claimed I pushed a kid on the merry-go-round and I hadn't even gone near that stupid thing that day). That bitch just hated me for no reason I could decipher.

And there she was at the door of this dance, my last chance probably to ever see any of my friends or this girl who I liked. And she refused me entrance because I was no longer a student. I begged, I pleaded, I told her to call the principal and he'd explain, she refused. And she was just so mean about it, treating me like I was vermin or a criminal trying to trespass. She was so mean that my 10-year-old self broke down into tears right there in the entry way, because not only did she refuse to let me in but she also told me I couldn't wait in the entranceway. My mom wasn't supposed to pick me up for two hours, until the dance was over, but she insisted I wait outside in the snow.

And it happened. For the first time in my life, I felt hate begin to grow inside of me. As I stood out in the snow, shivering, confused and ashamed, as I watched my former classmates get dropped off by their parents and then they also tried arguing with Mrs. P to let me in and she still stood firm. As I watched their apologetic looks as they walked into the dance and I had to remain out in the snow. As one of them stuck his head out long enough to tell me Jennifer was mad at me for not being able to get into the dance and didn't want to ever see me again, as if it was my fault. Confusion turned to anger and anger turned to loathing.

By the time my mom showed up I was full of hatred and loathing, most of it for that fucking bitch but not all. I had also grown a thin coathing of loathing for my father, who was too drunk to hang onto a job for more than half a year. For my mom, who let that drunken abusive shitstain of a man stay in our house and make our lives hell. For the world, because what the hell did I do to deserve that?

Two hours can be a long time to a child; two hours spent shivering in the snow, watching the sleeve of my new (Goodwill) coat get steadily darker with snot I was wiping off, losing the feeling in my toes and legs because I was wearing dress shoes and pants with nothing underneath. It felt like I was out there for days.

I wasn't a naive little innocent before that day, but I was generally a good-natured kid who didn't let bullshit slide off of me. That day was like an injection of hatred shot directly into my heart. It still is there to this day, but it is just a tiny insignificant part of me now. Back then as my body and mind were preparing to leap into adolescence, it helped shape me into the little asshole that I was from 11-14.

All because one angry old bitch had a hate-boner for me that I still do not understand to this day.