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That is so cruel of them, and it is called BULLYING and it is not in any way acceptable.
Even if it is an irrational fear, it is a real fear for you, maybe you were badly startled by a popping balloon when you were very young? I'm sure there are lots of people with this fear, I don't have this fear myself but I can understand a sudden noise like that being frightening and upsetting for some people.
Can't your parents speak to the teachers about this? I can't believe they can get away with throwing you in detention and also letting other kids bully you and that your parents don't kick up a fuss. I would kick up so much of a fuss if any teacher treated one of my children that way. Have you asked your parents to intervene? Or if they won't help, is there one teacher you can trust to talk to about it, because they should not be allowing bullying to continue like this, and I am sure not all of the teachers would allow it! Some of them must be decent people.
The school could ban kids from bringing in balloons and confiscate any that they see if they know that other kids are only bringing them in to upset you. My kids' school banned certain things like Pokemon cards and Gameboys, quite rightly so because they caused too many arguments and trouble, so no reason why your school can't do the same with balloons.
I have a great fear of cigarette smoke, mostly because it makes me so ill. I seem to have some kind of chemical sensitivity/allergy to it. I know about bullies because I get people blowing cigarette smoke in my face in the street and this is adults who live near me and think it is funny to hurt me! Some people are sad cases who never grow up. I've ended up in hospital with serious breathing difficulties and coughing for hours from cigarette smoke in the street, I even passed out once from it and hurt my knee somehow. I know it is not all in the mind but I am definitely terrified as well as having a serious physical reaction to the stuff. Let's hope some of these vicious bullies get what they deserve and someone finds out what would hurt them and takes advantage of their weaknesses in the future, then they will know how it feels for us.
Good for you not getting violent, I have got violent and had a warning from the police, so it doesn't help to get violent. It's not fair because the police will not give any warning to the bullies (apparently blowing smoke in someone's face is not assault but slapping someone for it is!). Even though I am the one whose life is quite possibly being endangered by second-hand smoke, and I do not endanger anyone.
Lesley
-----Original Message-----
From: masterofwebs11 [mailto:masterofwebs11@...]
Sent: 30 November 2004 00:47
To: unusualphobias@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [unusualphobias] Re: BALLOONS!
I am so afraid of balloons. I still am in school and when I see a
balloon I just freak out. I have been in a lot of situations where
every body else is having a blast at school and there is a balloon and
they just throw me in the detention room. Once I had to do a balloon
popping experiment and I couldn't do it and she just said "I'm sorry
but unless you want to get a zero on a 20 point assignment then you
have to do it' I paid a different student $5.00 to let me copy off
of assignment. And try to tell a kid that you're afraid of balloons
when other kids confront me with balloons and blow them up and pop them.
They just come up to me all the time and go POP!! POP!! And they get a
kick of them and I try not to go violent because that is totally not
me.
I have one friend that helped me get through camp when they had a balloon
Popping contest and I had to leave and go and find the teacher and all
he said are it's ok. And since he was the first kid to ever understand
and not make fun of me i stayed at camp I had to leave the event but I
stayed at camp thanks to one friend who said two words. He has no clue
how much that meant to me.
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