This growing lust to get out of here isn't unbearable yet, but it feels like it's getting there!
Mom and I had a conversation a while back on one of those mornings where we are curled up on the couch with coffee and news playing in the background--just like old times. I told her about how I felt in the weeks leading up to graduation and how I felt after it was over, and we talked about the future and planning... it was quite nice. Before this talk, I felt chained down by the plans I made in high school: go to community college for a couple years, get GPA up, go to university, become an art therapist. That was the choice I figured I'd make and it felt like that is what I'd do for the rest of my life. It felt bleak, even though I love art and psychology and it feels like a wonderful way to mix the two. However, I also want to see the world and travel. I want to make music. There are these intense feelings buried that are starting to surface and I just want to... change my perspective.
Above all, I'm trying to find where I'm from.
My family on my dad's side is primarily German and originates near France (since we also have some French heritage mixed in there). There is also some Cheerokee blood thrown in.
On my mom's side, we come from the Huntleys in Scotland (part of Clan Gordon) as well as Irish, Italian and Yurok tribe here in the States...
Those are the main pieces to my heritage but apparently there are more bits and pieces that come from everywhere. I'll have to check with my grandparents to get the full picture.
Either way, I want to go to all those places, especially Ireland. Every time I see a photo of Ireland, I get the most intense feeling of longing and I just wish I could dive into the photo and stay there. Don't get me wrong--I love America, but something in my soul is desperately seeking to be somewhere different.
Anyway, back to the conversation with mom.
I wasn't sure how to make these traveling dreams come true and so she told me about a friend of hers that made it happen. He wanted to surf around the world so he took up jobs on ships and was able to travel that way while still getting money. He made his dreams happen just like that!
In this conversation, she also talked to me about doing whatever I love and what makes me happy. She said "Look at me, I am an assistant manager at Blockbuster but I don't mind it. I love my job, even with all the stupid people that come into the store.". That is when I realized that I really CAN try out all sorts of different things and do something else if I stop being happy with it. Nothing is really holding me back here.
She said 'You want to travel? Get a job on a cruise ship. I mean, there are lots of things you can do to make it happen."
So where am I now with all this? Inspired, for one. Secondly, I don't know where I'm going to start but I know taking up oppertunities is part of it. I'm still going ahead with my college plans but if I find that it isn't my thing, then I'll finish up the semester and just stop. I can still do things without it--it doesn't mean I'm an idiot if I don't go to college. I've finally realized that.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Tomorrow
EDIT: the text colors got a bit screwed up, sorry about that.
Tomorrow is the day that I go down to the school office to get my diploma. Tomorrow I am also going to look at a local community college site to make some sense of it. Tomorrow night I am going down to a friend's house to spend the night and maybe we'll study for the driver's test.
Tomorrow is the 8th of June.
Around this time four years ago, I was with my first boyfriend in a short-lived relationship. 9th grade was ending soon and live-action roleplay plans were being made in my circle of friends for the summer. It was still a pretty damn innocent time despite the drama.
The 8th of June came along and my life changed forever. Sheesh, forever is a big word but I cannot deny that it had pushed me to a limit I didn't think possible, and that out of this, I could gain some sort of compassion.
The short way to say what it was is that a hand was on my leg and heading up somewhere where it shouldn't, and I suppose that if it had gone farther, the legal terminology for what happened would be sexual battery rather than harassment but it never did make it that far. I've seen fellow students do this sort of thing in that game called "Nervous". They'd move their hands up very slowly and then stop, each time asking the reciever "Are you nervous?". If the touchee answered with "no", then the other player's hand moves up even farther. They stop if the touchee finally answers with "yes". The thing is, this was no game of nervous on account of the fact that he just sat down next to me one day (rather than on the other side of the table), and his hand was moving up.
In memory, this moment feels like it lasted ages when it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. I jumped--completely caught off guard--and shrieked "Oh my god!". The hand disappeared, and I slugged his shoulder.
One of my friends later remarked about this guy being my boyfriend, but in a sort of joking tone. It makes me wonder if she saw what happened.
Now, this is a small moment in time that wouldn't bother a lot of people. However, it bothered me a lot. This was something that no one had ever done to me before and I didn't know how to describe what happened or how I felt about it afterwards. I couldn't put it into words. Therefore, the experience kinda stayed drifting in my mind.
I remember about two days after it happened, he sat next to me again to watch the band on stage in the cafeteria and all the nerves in my body stood on end. I completely froze and fixated on a spot in front of me so that way I wouldn't be able to see him, but he was still a blur in the corner of my vision. Anytime he even moved a little bit, I'd tense up even more in thinking that he'd touch me again. This lasted for a few minutes before he got up and left.
I ignored him when he asked me to sign his yearbook the following week.
The school year ended and the experience would drift into my mind now and then, much to my confusion. It got to the point where it was like I could feel the touch on my leg still and it'd keep me from sleeping. Everyday I'd ask myself "Why the fuck can I not get over this? It was nothing."
The next school year was filled with lots of anxiety, red-hot rage, fear, and a whole mixture of other things and I was battling with these feelings every time I stepped into the school. I saw him every day (which suprised me on the first day of school because we were at a small school rather than the very large main one, and I had assumed he'd go there). A different harassment experience came in November, but thankfully it was just verbal.
Nonetheless, I was jumpy the whole school year and started experiencing panic symptoms. I had some nightmares where he'd be finding me to hurt me, or he had already done so and would do it again. He became sort of demonized in my mind, which is a mindset that I'm still letting go.
The verbal experience was reported to the counselor in February of 2006, but I had never reported the first one. Why? First, it happened at a different school. Secondly, it took me months to figure out that it was sexual harassment, and by then reporting it would have done nothing. Even with the report made in '06 (with a friend who had also been sexually harassed), nothing happened except someone talking to him. No detention or suspension. I guess because most of the experiences combined were verbal, but if I can recall correctly, my friend described how he seemed touchy-feely to her as well.
I began trying to work on healing, but would also dig my fingernails into my hands when my panic rose. Concentration in class was very difficult. I was extremely hateful of myself for not "getting over it" because the experience was so small.
Yes. I still see it as a small experience but I cannot deny the effect it had on me.
There is a quote by Tori Amos that describes a lesson I learned from all of this perfectly:
""I have never had as much respect for life as I do now. I listen more closely to my friends than I used to. If someone is in pain, I hear it in a different way. I'm more susceptible to it now. Sometimes people tell me, when they hear I had a miscarry: 'O, that's nothing. Someone losing a two year old child, that's terrible'. Then I think: OK. But I can think of seventy other things you could have said. You don't have to belittle other people, just because you can't put yourself in someone else's shoes. Everyone experiences things differently. And pain shouldn't be a competition, like: you were raped seven times, but I was raped seventy times! Maybe someone was only harassed by a man in the park, but that affected that person in a certain way. That should still be enough?"
-Tori Amos"
Even my mom understood the effect that the 8th of June had on me even though she is a survivor of multiple horrors--all of which are more terrible than I could imagine.
The summer after 10th grade was spent on fixing the parts of me that were damaged and I entered 11th grade with more knowledge of myself and terms that I could use to describe the harassment. One friend gave me the word "traumatic". After looking at traumatic stress symptoms (NOT full blown PTSD), it was clear that I experienced a lot of them. I had the intrusive thoughts, a few nightmares, hypervigilance every day at school, symptoms similar to panic attack episodes (but I have now realized that these were not full blown panic attacks)... most of these faded considerably by the time 11th grade started. I was still dealing with some triggers and the hypervigilance (he was in one of my classes), but I was able to focus more and a passion for abnormal psychology formed. Even then, someone who was a friend was bothering me a lot this year with some verbal harassment that seemed to have filtered off as the year ended.
12th grade was damn stressful too, but only because I was trying to catch up and raise awareness on sexual assault for my senior project--the idea being inspired by all the research I did as well as experiences of friends and family members.
Even with my desire to raise awareness at school, I couldn't ignore the term "rape culture". When a friend tries to joke with you by saying in a completely serious tone "If I didn't take no for an answer, I would have raped you a long time ago" even though you're trying to end harassment of that nature, then you have come to realize what a difficult task is ahead of you.
I still wonder what he was thinking in saying that and why he though that would make a good joke.
Where am I now, though?
The small event on the 8th of June four years ago brought me here, wherever "here" is. I still want to be involved in abnormal psychology, and maybe specialize in trauma survivors. Art has always been a big part of my life and it became a sort of lifeline when I was trying to get the ugly feelings out. I want to help others experience the joy of art while working through their own pain.
So, in a weird way, I am glad that all that shit happened because I would not have this desire to help others through art. All of the bad feelings that came about after everything are almost gone completely (though summertime temperatures are still a small trigger, but it's easily managed), and the guy grew out of how he acted it seemed. I see those experiences now as more of a sign of immaturity rather than out of a desire to cause harm or create a hostile environment. He's clearly moved on with his life and I have too.
It's weird to think about it all now though because the effects are gone. I don't need to speak out about it. I do anyway though, but more to share rather than to get pain out.
Now, for some handy links.
http://www.sexualharassmentsupport.org/ - This site helped me a great deal when I began struggling to understand what happened, and I even contributed a little to the site a few years ago. You can see old artwork of mine in the gallery under the name "Lacunerainchild" and my story was posted way back when under the name "Mac".
http://www.rainn.org - The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network helped me a lot in understanding how these experiences can affect the victim. I have never been raped or molested (unless you count the first experience as molestation, but I do not), but I do know several people who have and so this also helped me understand how to help them a little more. I hope to volunteer for the Online Hotline this summer.
http://www.pandys.org - Pandora's Project is an absolutely wonderful resource and community for survivors as well as friends+family of survivors. I joined the forums ages ago under the name "JustAMelody". I don't post there as often anymore. Nonetheless, everyone on this site is amazing and most helpful, and I DEFINITELY recommend this site for healing.
http://www.welcometobarbados.org - Welcome to Barbados is one of the first survivor sites on the internet and is linked with Pandora's Project. Shannon, the creator of this site, used her pain to create one of the most helpful sites for anyone on the web and has come so far in her own healing. I used this site a lot in researching and understanding, and it is how I found the Pandy's forums.
http://www.feministing.com - Feministing isn't a purely sexual-assault related website, but they do make posts about the current issues surrounding sexual violence and justice to victims and has plenty of thought-provoking articles. This is good for finding out news in the feminist community.
Tomorrow is the day that I go down to the school office to get my diploma. Tomorrow I am also going to look at a local community college site to make some sense of it. Tomorrow night I am going down to a friend's house to spend the night and maybe we'll study for the driver's test.
Tomorrow is the 8th of June.
Around this time four years ago, I was with my first boyfriend in a short-lived relationship. 9th grade was ending soon and live-action roleplay plans were being made in my circle of friends for the summer. It was still a pretty damn innocent time despite the drama.
The 8th of June came along and my life changed forever. Sheesh, forever is a big word but I cannot deny that it had pushed me to a limit I didn't think possible, and that out of this, I could gain some sort of compassion.
The short way to say what it was is that a hand was on my leg and heading up somewhere where it shouldn't, and I suppose that if it had gone farther, the legal terminology for what happened would be sexual battery rather than harassment but it never did make it that far. I've seen fellow students do this sort of thing in that game called "Nervous". They'd move their hands up very slowly and then stop, each time asking the reciever "Are you nervous?". If the touchee answered with "no", then the other player's hand moves up even farther. They stop if the touchee finally answers with "yes". The thing is, this was no game of nervous on account of the fact that he just sat down next to me one day (rather than on the other side of the table), and his hand was moving up.
In memory, this moment feels like it lasted ages when it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. I jumped--completely caught off guard--and shrieked "Oh my god!". The hand disappeared, and I slugged his shoulder.
One of my friends later remarked about this guy being my boyfriend, but in a sort of joking tone. It makes me wonder if she saw what happened.
Now, this is a small moment in time that wouldn't bother a lot of people. However, it bothered me a lot. This was something that no one had ever done to me before and I didn't know how to describe what happened or how I felt about it afterwards. I couldn't put it into words. Therefore, the experience kinda stayed drifting in my mind.
I remember about two days after it happened, he sat next to me again to watch the band on stage in the cafeteria and all the nerves in my body stood on end. I completely froze and fixated on a spot in front of me so that way I wouldn't be able to see him, but he was still a blur in the corner of my vision. Anytime he even moved a little bit, I'd tense up even more in thinking that he'd touch me again. This lasted for a few minutes before he got up and left.
I ignored him when he asked me to sign his yearbook the following week.
The school year ended and the experience would drift into my mind now and then, much to my confusion. It got to the point where it was like I could feel the touch on my leg still and it'd keep me from sleeping. Everyday I'd ask myself "Why the fuck can I not get over this? It was nothing."
The next school year was filled with lots of anxiety, red-hot rage, fear, and a whole mixture of other things and I was battling with these feelings every time I stepped into the school. I saw him every day (which suprised me on the first day of school because we were at a small school rather than the very large main one, and I had assumed he'd go there). A different harassment experience came in November, but thankfully it was just verbal.
Nonetheless, I was jumpy the whole school year and started experiencing panic symptoms. I had some nightmares where he'd be finding me to hurt me, or he had already done so and would do it again. He became sort of demonized in my mind, which is a mindset that I'm still letting go.
The verbal experience was reported to the counselor in February of 2006, but I had never reported the first one. Why? First, it happened at a different school. Secondly, it took me months to figure out that it was sexual harassment, and by then reporting it would have done nothing. Even with the report made in '06 (with a friend who had also been sexually harassed), nothing happened except someone talking to him. No detention or suspension. I guess because most of the experiences combined were verbal, but if I can recall correctly, my friend described how he seemed touchy-feely to her as well.
I began trying to work on healing, but would also dig my fingernails into my hands when my panic rose. Concentration in class was very difficult. I was extremely hateful of myself for not "getting over it" because the experience was so small.
Yes. I still see it as a small experience but I cannot deny the effect it had on me.
There is a quote by Tori Amos that describes a lesson I learned from all of this perfectly:
""I have never had as much respect for life as I do now. I listen more closely to my friends than I used to. If someone is in pain, I hear it in a different way. I'm more susceptible to it now. Sometimes people tell me, when they hear I had a miscarry: 'O, that's nothing. Someone losing a two year old child, that's terrible'. Then I think: OK. But I can think of seventy other things you could have said. You don't have to belittle other people, just because you can't put yourself in someone else's shoes. Everyone experiences things differently. And pain shouldn't be a competition, like: you were raped seven times, but I was raped seventy times! Maybe someone was only harassed by a man in the park, but that affected that person in a certain way. That should still be enough?"
-Tori Amos"
Even my mom understood the effect that the 8th of June had on me even though she is a survivor of multiple horrors--all of which are more terrible than I could imagine.
The summer after 10th grade was spent on fixing the parts of me that were damaged and I entered 11th grade with more knowledge of myself and terms that I could use to describe the harassment. One friend gave me the word "traumatic". After looking at traumatic stress symptoms (NOT full blown PTSD), it was clear that I experienced a lot of them. I had the intrusive thoughts, a few nightmares, hypervigilance every day at school, symptoms similar to panic attack episodes (but I have now realized that these were not full blown panic attacks)... most of these faded considerably by the time 11th grade started. I was still dealing with some triggers and the hypervigilance (he was in one of my classes), but I was able to focus more and a passion for abnormal psychology formed. Even then, someone who was a friend was bothering me a lot this year with some verbal harassment that seemed to have filtered off as the year ended.
12th grade was damn stressful too, but only because I was trying to catch up and raise awareness on sexual assault for my senior project--the idea being inspired by all the research I did as well as experiences of friends and family members.
Even with my desire to raise awareness at school, I couldn't ignore the term "rape culture". When a friend tries to joke with you by saying in a completely serious tone "If I didn't take no for an answer, I would have raped you a long time ago" even though you're trying to end harassment of that nature, then you have come to realize what a difficult task is ahead of you.
I still wonder what he was thinking in saying that and why he though that would make a good joke.
Where am I now, though?
The small event on the 8th of June four years ago brought me here, wherever "here" is. I still want to be involved in abnormal psychology, and maybe specialize in trauma survivors. Art has always been a big part of my life and it became a sort of lifeline when I was trying to get the ugly feelings out. I want to help others experience the joy of art while working through their own pain.
So, in a weird way, I am glad that all that shit happened because I would not have this desire to help others through art. All of the bad feelings that came about after everything are almost gone completely (though summertime temperatures are still a small trigger, but it's easily managed), and the guy grew out of how he acted it seemed. I see those experiences now as more of a sign of immaturity rather than out of a desire to cause harm or create a hostile environment. He's clearly moved on with his life and I have too.
It's weird to think about it all now though because the effects are gone. I don't need to speak out about it. I do anyway though, but more to share rather than to get pain out.
Now, for some handy links.
http://www.sexualharassmentsupport.org/ - This site helped me a great deal when I began struggling to understand what happened, and I even contributed a little to the site a few years ago. You can see old artwork of mine in the gallery under the name "Lacunerainchild" and my story was posted way back when under the name "Mac".
http://www.rainn.org - The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network helped me a lot in understanding how these experiences can affect the victim. I have never been raped or molested (unless you count the first experience as molestation, but I do not), but I do know several people who have and so this also helped me understand how to help them a little more. I hope to volunteer for the Online Hotline this summer.
http://www.pandys.org - Pandora's Project is an absolutely wonderful resource and community for survivors as well as friends+family of survivors. I joined the forums ages ago under the name "JustAMelody". I don't post there as often anymore. Nonetheless, everyone on this site is amazing and most helpful, and I DEFINITELY recommend this site for healing.
http://www.welcometobarbados.org - Welcome to Barbados is one of the first survivor sites on the internet and is linked with Pandora's Project. Shannon, the creator of this site, used her pain to create one of the most helpful sites for anyone on the web and has come so far in her own healing. I used this site a lot in researching and understanding, and it is how I found the Pandy's forums.
http://www.feministing.com - Feministing isn't a purely sexual-assault related website, but they do make posts about the current issues surrounding sexual violence and justice to victims and has plenty of thought-provoking articles. This is good for finding out news in the feminist community.
Introduction
Disclaimer: Everything here is from my point of view, obviously. I'm biased. Everyone has a bias. All I am doing here is speaking honestly about how I felt from these experiences though the people involved would obviously have different views and feelings towards them.
June 5th, 2009 was my high school graduation day. The moment I turned the tassel, a bizarre feeling flooded me and it combined with the intense screaming of the crowd and the adrenaline from the entire damn evening. It didn't hit me that high school was over until sometime past 4 in the morning and I cried for... something. At first, I was crying out of relief because the past five years have pushed and pulled me in every goddamn direction that I could have gone in, but then I started crying because I began to notice everything that brought me to that point and how I got out of it all.
If I had to chose one single event that changed my life forever, it is Nicole's death. Hands down.
Nicole is my sister, and she was older than me by 7 years. She was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma as a teenager and was in a battle for about 2 years. Dad shaved her head before chemo could claim her hair, and it had to be him to do it. Nicole went on to describe this experience by saying that mom "has some sort of emotional attachment to my hair, and Skruffie can't do it because she's Skruffie..." Skruffie was the nickname given to me due to coming home from school every day with holes in the knees of my jeans and my hair in complete disarray. I'd have sand in my shoes and grassstains everywhere, and rocks in my pockets from a compulsive rock-collecting habit that carried on for several years.
Anyway.
Nicole passed away on April 30th, 2001 (AKA "the worst day of my life"), which is also two days before she was going to turn 18. I was 11.
This event... though it has been over 8 years, it is very much part of who I am and how others have interacted with me in the past. I started middle school in September of the same year she died, and continued on through the rest of middle school afterwards: 7th and 8th.
My lack of memories is a sorce of frustration for me.
There are some snippets, like the puberty video and pep rallies. I remember running the mile every week in California heat (though if the days were too hot, they allowed us to run in the gym).
I remember my 7th grade social studies teacher saying "You can't use [Nicole's death] as an excuse forever." I was failing.
I remember my 8th grade history teacher asking me why I do not have any paper out for the assignment we were about to start. The class was already quiet to begin with and, if I can remember correctly, I might have tried asking for paper from a student or I didn't so I wouldn't disturb people.
I told him "I don't have any paper left."
A sneer crossed his face as he remarked in a very quiet voice "Tch, figures", before starting the lesson.
This next memory, for some reason, isn't as painful as the first two here but it was certainly humiliating. Now, I always remembered this as being in 6th grade but the assignment we had to turn in places this in 8th grade. This was near the beginning of the school year and we had to do a sketch of a mug that we were going to make out of clay. It was a huge project complete with learning about glazes and the kiln, and if we passed, we were able to move on to the pottery wheels.
A quick interjection though: I had shitty grades in 6th grade because I was still swarmed with grief.
I had shitty grades in 7th grade because I was swarmed with grief.
I had shitty grades in 8th grade because the teachers gave up on me and I gave up on them. It felt like they branded me forever as a failure so I gave up. I would either not turn in assignments at all or procrastinate until the last moment, and there came a certain point where I was only going to school to see my friends and buy a teeny Little Ceasar's pizza thing.
The sketch for this project suffered from procrastination and I ended up doing it in pen (mistake #1) and on lined paper (mistake #2). If I at least had a pencil, then maybe it would have been a bit better.
Well, the time came for us to turn in our sketches and my teacher grabbed mine and held it up to the class as a prime example of what not to do. I can't remember if he used the term "garbage" or not. Maybe he said "This is UNACCEPTABLE!". The paper was crinkled from him gripping it so hard and I tried to smooth it out when he gave it back to me. At least he apologized, but the absolute fucking humiliation of that might have set more of the tone of how I felt when I didn't turn in assignments in the future.
The last traumatic memory from this period is on the last day of middle school. To give more of a backstory to this, remember me saying that the teachers seemed to have given up on me so I gave up on them. The way I saw teachers for many years after middle school were as horrible people who didn't really care about the students, and people you cannot trust for anything. They will not give emotional support. They will yell and humiliate you. They will stigimize you.
Stigmitized.
That is how I felt after they decalred that I was to repeat the 8th grade. "Good students succeed in life. Bad students are like bad people. This school prides itself on good grades and we cannot put our energies into fixing the bad people, so we praise the good and get awared the Distinguished School Award for our efforts." (not a real quote, but that describes the attitude of the school faculty from my perspective perfectly)
The assistant principal pulled me into her office just as the first period bell rang (why couldn't she talk to me in the 15 minutes I was already in the library?) and said that I have 6 Fs (already knew that, but constantly hearing it made it worse and worse. It didn't motivate me.) and that I would be retained in 8th grade. My response to that was to inform her that my family and I were moving out of California to Washington and she didn't have a response to that. Even if I was to repeat 8th grade, it would certainly not be another traumatic year in that place. I think that if I had to stay in that school for one more year, I would have come out a lot worse than I had.
As it turns out, mom proved to the washington schools that I was smart enough to be in 9th grade by showing them my sylvan learning center scores. I didn't repeat 8th grade.
The damage showed and I had a repeat performance of 8th grade, bascially, but with teachers that weren't borderline abusive. It amazes me that I didn't get held back in 9th grade now that I look back on it because the "teachers don't care" attitude held on and I was absolutely unmotivated to do anything.
Hilariously though, I repeated 12th grade because the damage from not doing a lot of work in 9th grade reared it's ugly head and I lacked a few credits even though I really began to pick up the pace in the last couple of years in high school. 10th grade was a very harsh year too but for entirely different reasons I'll go into later.
So, that is the story of how school was a thorn in my side.
Thankfully I met teachers in high school that completely changed my view and I began to fully trust them in my first round of 12th grade--4 years after middle school ended. That is 4 years too many.
I completed 12th grade in a work-at-home sort of program where I'd check in once a week to turn in work but hit a rough patch around October. I felt unmotivated once again and thinking "Why bother? I'm a failure anyway." and I felt like such a fucking fool for repeating 12th grade. I felt like the middle school faculty "won".
As it turns out, the year of graduation doesn't fucking matter anyway. I graduated on June 5th and it finally hit me that I was free and that I got out of everything. I sobbed for about 10 minutes before a wonderful feeling of peace came over me as I looked over past assignments and said "I can burn it all."
No, I won't burn it though. I think I'll shred it or stuff it in a recycle bag, then send it off so all that paper could be renewed--like me.
Wow, that is a hefty intro post but all of this really shaped who I am right now and maybe who I will be in the future. More little things like interests and hobbies should come clear in future posts.
June 5th, 2009 was my high school graduation day. The moment I turned the tassel, a bizarre feeling flooded me and it combined with the intense screaming of the crowd and the adrenaline from the entire damn evening. It didn't hit me that high school was over until sometime past 4 in the morning and I cried for... something. At first, I was crying out of relief because the past five years have pushed and pulled me in every goddamn direction that I could have gone in, but then I started crying because I began to notice everything that brought me to that point and how I got out of it all.
If I had to chose one single event that changed my life forever, it is Nicole's death. Hands down.
Nicole is my sister, and she was older than me by 7 years. She was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma as a teenager and was in a battle for about 2 years. Dad shaved her head before chemo could claim her hair, and it had to be him to do it. Nicole went on to describe this experience by saying that mom "has some sort of emotional attachment to my hair, and Skruffie can't do it because she's Skruffie..." Skruffie was the nickname given to me due to coming home from school every day with holes in the knees of my jeans and my hair in complete disarray. I'd have sand in my shoes and grassstains everywhere, and rocks in my pockets from a compulsive rock-collecting habit that carried on for several years.
Anyway.
Nicole passed away on April 30th, 2001 (AKA "the worst day of my life"), which is also two days before she was going to turn 18. I was 11.
This event... though it has been over 8 years, it is very much part of who I am and how others have interacted with me in the past. I started middle school in September of the same year she died, and continued on through the rest of middle school afterwards: 7th and 8th.
My lack of memories is a sorce of frustration for me.
There are some snippets, like the puberty video and pep rallies. I remember running the mile every week in California heat (though if the days were too hot, they allowed us to run in the gym).
I remember my 7th grade social studies teacher saying "You can't use [Nicole's death] as an excuse forever." I was failing.
I remember my 8th grade history teacher asking me why I do not have any paper out for the assignment we were about to start. The class was already quiet to begin with and, if I can remember correctly, I might have tried asking for paper from a student or I didn't so I wouldn't disturb people.
I told him "I don't have any paper left."
A sneer crossed his face as he remarked in a very quiet voice "Tch, figures", before starting the lesson.
This next memory, for some reason, isn't as painful as the first two here but it was certainly humiliating. Now, I always remembered this as being in 6th grade but the assignment we had to turn in places this in 8th grade. This was near the beginning of the school year and we had to do a sketch of a mug that we were going to make out of clay. It was a huge project complete with learning about glazes and the kiln, and if we passed, we were able to move on to the pottery wheels.
A quick interjection though: I had shitty grades in 6th grade because I was still swarmed with grief.
I had shitty grades in 7th grade because I was swarmed with grief.
I had shitty grades in 8th grade because the teachers gave up on me and I gave up on them. It felt like they branded me forever as a failure so I gave up. I would either not turn in assignments at all or procrastinate until the last moment, and there came a certain point where I was only going to school to see my friends and buy a teeny Little Ceasar's pizza thing.
The sketch for this project suffered from procrastination and I ended up doing it in pen (mistake #1) and on lined paper (mistake #2). If I at least had a pencil, then maybe it would have been a bit better.
Well, the time came for us to turn in our sketches and my teacher grabbed mine and held it up to the class as a prime example of what not to do. I can't remember if he used the term "garbage" or not. Maybe he said "This is UNACCEPTABLE!". The paper was crinkled from him gripping it so hard and I tried to smooth it out when he gave it back to me. At least he apologized, but the absolute fucking humiliation of that might have set more of the tone of how I felt when I didn't turn in assignments in the future.
The last traumatic memory from this period is on the last day of middle school. To give more of a backstory to this, remember me saying that the teachers seemed to have given up on me so I gave up on them. The way I saw teachers for many years after middle school were as horrible people who didn't really care about the students, and people you cannot trust for anything. They will not give emotional support. They will yell and humiliate you. They will stigimize you.
Stigmitized.
That is how I felt after they decalred that I was to repeat the 8th grade. "Good students succeed in life. Bad students are like bad people. This school prides itself on good grades and we cannot put our energies into fixing the bad people, so we praise the good and get awared the Distinguished School Award for our efforts." (not a real quote, but that describes the attitude of the school faculty from my perspective perfectly)
The assistant principal pulled me into her office just as the first period bell rang (why couldn't she talk to me in the 15 minutes I was already in the library?) and said that I have 6 Fs (already knew that, but constantly hearing it made it worse and worse. It didn't motivate me.) and that I would be retained in 8th grade. My response to that was to inform her that my family and I were moving out of California to Washington and she didn't have a response to that. Even if I was to repeat 8th grade, it would certainly not be another traumatic year in that place. I think that if I had to stay in that school for one more year, I would have come out a lot worse than I had.
As it turns out, mom proved to the washington schools that I was smart enough to be in 9th grade by showing them my sylvan learning center scores. I didn't repeat 8th grade.
The damage showed and I had a repeat performance of 8th grade, bascially, but with teachers that weren't borderline abusive. It amazes me that I didn't get held back in 9th grade now that I look back on it because the "teachers don't care" attitude held on and I was absolutely unmotivated to do anything.
Hilariously though, I repeated 12th grade because the damage from not doing a lot of work in 9th grade reared it's ugly head and I lacked a few credits even though I really began to pick up the pace in the last couple of years in high school. 10th grade was a very harsh year too but for entirely different reasons I'll go into later.
So, that is the story of how school was a thorn in my side.
Thankfully I met teachers in high school that completely changed my view and I began to fully trust them in my first round of 12th grade--4 years after middle school ended. That is 4 years too many.
I completed 12th grade in a work-at-home sort of program where I'd check in once a week to turn in work but hit a rough patch around October. I felt unmotivated once again and thinking "Why bother? I'm a failure anyway." and I felt like such a fucking fool for repeating 12th grade. I felt like the middle school faculty "won".
As it turns out, the year of graduation doesn't fucking matter anyway. I graduated on June 5th and it finally hit me that I was free and that I got out of everything. I sobbed for about 10 minutes before a wonderful feeling of peace came over me as I looked over past assignments and said "I can burn it all."
No, I won't burn it though. I think I'll shred it or stuff it in a recycle bag, then send it off so all that paper could be renewed--like me.
Wow, that is a hefty intro post but all of this really shaped who I am right now and maybe who I will be in the future. More little things like interests and hobbies should come clear in future posts.
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