This is a monologue I had to write and perform for theatre at the very beginning of the school year. My recent post made me think of it.
I don't cut my hair because it is my only consistent source of compliments, and I need those. Validation from others is the only thing loud enough to drown out that voice in my head telling me that I am worthless by every definition of the word. That voice is so loud because for the years I spent in dance, I fed that voice instead of feeding myself. I gave dance everything I was, everything inside me, and now without it I can't find who I am. I gave them years of my life, and they told me I wasn't good enough. Now I don't know if my mask has ever adequately concealed how much I hate so much about myself, but the truth is it doesn't matter. Because they only person I've ever worn it for is me. Because I've found it's easier to lock myself out of my own emotions than to admit how pathetic it is that I can't straighten out my own life.
But now...I miss dance so much that it physically hurts to think about it. I miss the movement and how free it made me feel, how powerful it made me feel. I miss that incredible feeling of breathing alongside other marionettes on stage, all of us puppeteered by this passion for dancing that I can't explain. This absolute vibrancy in the blinding lights and hairspray. That we knewsomething those people watching didn't know. We had something, we had this force pulling us across the stage that they could never hope to understand. This fire in our souls that could make a furnace of the darkest stage.
And that was taken away from me when they told me I had to lose a lot of weight in order to succeed. They took that away from me with the words you don't look like a dancer. And I took that away from myself when I chose to believe them. When I chose to become the person they saw in all of my flaws. When I stopped pretending that I could ever be pretty or smart or talented because if I couldn't succeed at dance then I can't succeed at anything. It's a ridiculous mentality and I see that. It's pathetic and I'm well aware.
So now I wear shorts that show the legs Idespise and call it courage. I smile and the triumphs of others and call it success. But I'll catch myself feeling good about myself and feel guilty. I'll catch glances of my reflection and wonder what it is that other people see in me and if I will ever see it too.
But maybe it's not up to them to decide who I can and cannot be. Maybe it's high time I cut the hair I grow for other people and see if something better grows in it's place.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
dancer
I've mentioned my divorce from ballet. It's been about a year now since I left it, but if it's been a year and I still can't breathe when I think about not going back, maybe it's never going to leave me.
The thing is that I can't just get rid of it. There's something about growing up in dance. About your reflection being the only version of yourself you know and care about, this vibrancy that fills up the air around you when you're moving. Goodness, I miss movement. In that musical A Chorus Line, there's this line in "The Music and the Mirror" and every time I hear it it gives me chills.
"God, I'm a dancer."
It's just, like...I don't have the words to describe how much a part of me dancing is. It's not this hobby I had growing up, it's this thing, you know? This thing that seeps into your skin and your feet and you can't wash it off. Once you're a dancer, you stay that way. "God, I'm a dancer."
And now I'm just thinking of all these years where it was the only thing I understood, and I loved it. I still love it. I'm remembering the things that stuck with me, and some of the words Mejia said to me in that last year before I left.
When we were warming up on the stage before Nutcracker:
"You look so happy when you dance."
"That's because I love it"
When I came crying to tell him I couldn't keep dancing because of my schedule:
"You've got something special about you when you dance. You're eyes just light up and you have this energy. You can see that you love it, and you're always welcome here."
And all this time I've been trying to get away from it all because if I couldn't dance there what was the point? I've been trying to convince myself that I'll move on because I have to, but what if I never do? What if it's impossible for me to keep going with my life without dance in it?
God, I'm a dancer.
The thing is that I can't just get rid of it. There's something about growing up in dance. About your reflection being the only version of yourself you know and care about, this vibrancy that fills up the air around you when you're moving. Goodness, I miss movement. In that musical A Chorus Line, there's this line in "The Music and the Mirror" and every time I hear it it gives me chills.
"God, I'm a dancer."
It's just, like...I don't have the words to describe how much a part of me dancing is. It's not this hobby I had growing up, it's this thing, you know? This thing that seeps into your skin and your feet and you can't wash it off. Once you're a dancer, you stay that way. "God, I'm a dancer."
And now I'm just thinking of all these years where it was the only thing I understood, and I loved it. I still love it. I'm remembering the things that stuck with me, and some of the words Mejia said to me in that last year before I left.
When we were warming up on the stage before Nutcracker:
"You look so happy when you dance."
"That's because I love it"
When I came crying to tell him I couldn't keep dancing because of my schedule:
"You've got something special about you when you dance. You're eyes just light up and you have this energy. You can see that you love it, and you're always welcome here."
And all this time I've been trying to get away from it all because if I couldn't dance there what was the point? I've been trying to convince myself that I'll move on because I have to, but what if I never do? What if it's impossible for me to keep going with my life without dance in it?
God, I'm a dancer.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
wow, i'm really good at being bad at life
Okay, so I've mentioned before that I suck at time management. Multiple times, actually. I suck at time management, and I suck at making friends, and I, well honestly I suck at a lot of things. And this is coming from a place of okay-ness. Like, I'm not depressed right now, I'm just trying to be realistic, so hear me out.
In any given situation where someone says something to me, or something happens that puts me in bad light, my first reaction is not to deny it and push it away as fiction. My first reaction is to try and figure out how I've been seeing myself wrong and how realistic these new revelations are. I agree with them most of the time, if I'm continuing my honesty. I'm my own worst critic by taking other's criticism and making it my own. You say I'm lazy? Yeah, probably. I'm annoying? Most definitely, and I have evidence from years of being this way. I need to gain self discipline? Obviously. I knew that already.
And here's the best part. If I'm my own worst critic, who am I to argue with these lovely citizens who agree with all my opinions? I can look myself in the mirror and know everything I'm doing wrong with my time and actions and life, and still not change a thing. Because I accept the insults and the flaws, I really have no inclination to prove myself wrong. I'm sort of losing and winning at the same time. Hey, I'm bad at lots of things, but at least I'm right about it.
I need to fix myself and I can't. I can't because I don't know how. Mind over matter, and I have such a weak mind. If anyone has a remedy, I'd be happy to hear it. Please send help, I'm drowning in the self deprecation that I'm addicted to.
In any given situation where someone says something to me, or something happens that puts me in bad light, my first reaction is not to deny it and push it away as fiction. My first reaction is to try and figure out how I've been seeing myself wrong and how realistic these new revelations are. I agree with them most of the time, if I'm continuing my honesty. I'm my own worst critic by taking other's criticism and making it my own. You say I'm lazy? Yeah, probably. I'm annoying? Most definitely, and I have evidence from years of being this way. I need to gain self discipline? Obviously. I knew that already.
And here's the best part. If I'm my own worst critic, who am I to argue with these lovely citizens who agree with all my opinions? I can look myself in the mirror and know everything I'm doing wrong with my time and actions and life, and still not change a thing. Because I accept the insults and the flaws, I really have no inclination to prove myself wrong. I'm sort of losing and winning at the same time. Hey, I'm bad at lots of things, but at least I'm right about it.
I need to fix myself and I can't. I can't because I don't know how. Mind over matter, and I have such a weak mind. If anyone has a remedy, I'd be happy to hear it. Please send help, I'm drowning in the self deprecation that I'm addicted to.
Monday, February 15, 2016
sucker punch
Honestly, I don't even really know how to begin this, and I also don't know if I should be saying it. But considering that the chances of this blog ever being discovered ever are minimal to none, I think I can rest easy by just changing the names of the people involved. I mainly just want to get it recorded because that's the kind of person I am. This blog is quickly turning into a venting outlet, though I'd like to believe it's at least a little more eloquent than a simple Ranting Blog™. I don't know man, I guess apologies to anyone involved who ever reads this and possibly finds it inaccurate. I doubt anyone will remember it. The only reason I'll remember it is because I've never been even sort of involved in drama, and also because I was the subject of a school security guard manhunt, but more on that later.
Preface:
This is my perspective. I'm bringing a level of bias to it, regardless of how much I try to legitimately understand the others' sides of things, which I have tried to fairly do. Yes, I know that I am a hormonal teenager, and that looking at this from a mature adult's perspective, I fit in square and nicely to how emotional and overreacty people my age are supposed to be in situations like this. Also, this is probably going to be one of the longer posts I do. Apologies, I couldn't find a better way to simplify it down. That being said, let's continue.
People To Know (fake names, of course):
Sarah: super sweet and kind. Cute and gets distracted easily. Sensitive, though she doesn't like to show it. I went to elementary school with her and have had lots of interactions with her in the past.
Jackie: very blunt and very driven. Looks at facts and plans out everything. Cool hair. She's new this year, so none of us had met her, though she fit in pretty well from the get-go in the IB junior class.
Betty: very sweet, but sometimes very loud and condescending on accident. Likes her opinions to be heard (like essentially everyone in the class, I might add). It was decided that she tries to be nice, and she is, but she's a bit too loud and opinionated sometimes.
Ryan: not important to the story, but I mention him a couple times. His mom is the nurse. We've had some disagreements in the past but I think we're, for the most part, pretty decent friends.
Mrs. Scotts: awesome teacher. Very very nice and caring and a really good teacher. Generally agreed that she is an angel of some sort.
Mrs. Harfield: IB/AP coordinator. Friends with Scotts, and basically everyone just thinks she's awesome. Really smart and funny and cool to talk to.
Backstory:
Even when I was in that weird state of depression I've mentioned before, I knew that sometimes I can come off in ways I don't intend, so at the beginning of the year I told everyone to be very straight forward with me if I ever bother them. I'm decent at reading other peoples intentions when they're talking to me sometimes, but overall I just suck at social cues and tones of voice. Like, I never know how I am being perceived and what people think of me, and if people even like me or if they're just pretending. There have been maybe 2 incidents throughout the year where someone has called me on being condescending, and one of them I didn't even hear about from the person it was bothering, so other than that I assumed everything was fine because, like I said, I suck at reading other people's offense and subtle social cues. I tried to watch what I was saying, and obviously I slipped sometimes, but I never purposefully tried to, like, hurt someone's feelings or call anyone out. I've genuinely tried to be kind and apologize when it comes to light that I've done something wrong. A few times here and there I have definitely said things that could have been phrased better, but in arguments or discussion I generally have less of a filter because I'm just trying to get my point across, but from what I understand that's an attribute I share with other people in the class. I didn't think it was a problem because I assumed people knew I wasn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings or just squash any and all opposing opinions.
Catalyst:
Twas Friday, about a week and some days before valentines day. It had been a loose plan that there was going to be an early valentines day get together that saturday. It was going to be at Sarah's house, as she's hosted a lot of bonfires this year. People know where she lives and she's a good host. In art, I overheard part of a conversation that some people didn't want Betty to be there because when she's there there are sometimes some weird tensions and I guess people have less fun at social gatherings. I told Sarah she shouldn't try to be actively exclusive of people, even if she wasn't everyone's favorite person. She snapped at me and told me to stay out of it because it wasn't any of my business. To be fair, I hadn't heard all of the conversation and wasn't entirely sure of the entire context of what they were talking about. The table sort of cold shouldered me a bit for the rest of class, and at lunch we went our separate ways. At the end of fourth period, Jackie texted me and told me that we needed to talk at some point. We had a short text conversation, where she said we should talk in person on monday, and I asked if we could have a phone conversation so I didn't have to wait all weekend to find out what was going on but she said it should be in person. I asked if she could at least tell me what was going on and if I had done anything wrong. She said everything wasn't okay and that it was definitely my fault. Aiight, so I buckled down to wait for monday.
Build Up:
Monday, we agreed to talk during plus period, a 30 min period between 2nd and 3rd. During that we went in the hallway and she basically told me that I've been ridiculously condescending and hurting people's feelings and annoying people and I am the problem. I tried to ask for specifics and there were a few but honestly, it felt like a bit of an overreaction. Like, considering that no one's told me to my face all year and that I've never once tried to be offensive or hurt anyone's feelings, this felt like a lot all at once. It felt like it came out of left field. I was trying to keep it light because I couldn't imagine that it was that bad, but I said she sounded really irritated and she agreed, and I said she didn't like me and she agreed. For the rest of the day I was trying to figure out what I'd done beyond my misspeak on friday. I texted Jackie to tell her that I was going to be in Scotts' room at lunch if she wanted to talk. She agreed and said she wasn't near done saying what she had to say.
Sucker Punch:
She didn't want to talk in Scotts' room, so I met her in B Hall. Man, I wish I could summarize it better. It was an ordeal for me. It was essentially an expanded version of our previous conversation, wherein she told me more things about myself that I had no idea were a thing. Conceited, of course, and also determined to hurt other people apparently. Every time I said anything to say to get her off my back and defend myself she would nod a lot and go 'uh-huh. uh-huh. uh-huh' in that way that people do when they have already have decided how to feel and aren't listening to you. It was really really frustrating. I tried to tell her that I never knew I was being rude and that I've been trying to figure out what's going on and have apologized every time I thought I'd done something wrong. But she said it was hard for her to believe that I could have said certain things without 'being fully aware' of what I was doing. She said she wasn't sure if I was doing it because I had a problem with people in IB or if it was because I was insecure. I told I her I didn't have a problem with anyone and she didn't believe me. She said she wasn't sure if how I was acting was a choice I was making or if it was just my personality and that I wasn't inclined to change. It would have been less frustrating if she was listening, or if she wasn't trying to speak on behalf of other people. or if she weren't blaming people getting hurt on how I was as a person. It just felt so unfair. I had no idea any of that was going on and she wasn't giving me a chance to defend myself. I felt attacked and angry, so I sort of stormed off and she did too. I ended up in a bathroom in upstairs B Hall.
The Manhunt:
I'm gonna come out and say that this next part is both one of my more pathetic moments, but also possibly the height of my high school career. I don't know if you've ever cried in a public bathroom, but there's an art to crying silently in a stall while people walk in and out. Once the bell rang for lunch to be over and the bathroom emptied out, I had this moment where I thought about going to class so they wouldn't think I had been seriously affected by whatever Jackie said, but the mirror quickly told me that they would know exactly what I'd been doing. The sight of puffy-eyed, red faced Kate in a high school bathroom (an event I'm never happy to recreate) combined with the idea of going back to class and having to see Jackie in all her smug I-Got-The-Bully-She-Has-Been-Defeated glory...well let's just say those stalls have seen their fair share of me sobbing now. I have this habit of working myself up into panic attacks in situations like that, so luckily I don't have ordeals like that very often. So I'm crying/not being able to breathe in the last stall of this bathroom and getting silent whenever the door opens. Eventually I manage to calm myself down and start wondering what time it is because I'm definitely not going back to class at this point, but I don't know if I have the patience to just sit in the bathroom for the rest of the day. I ask a girl what time it is (the girl's bathroom is a fairly nonjudgemental place, so me asking a stranger what time it is through a stall door wasn't the strangest thing that's happened in there) and she tells me it's about 2:05, which means I have 40 minutes until class is over. A little bit later I emerge from the stall to see how awful I look and see if I can brave leaving the bathroom. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence could see that I'd been crying for a while, but there were other people in the bathroom, and I felt weird going back into a stall, so I left with the intention of going to a different bathroom or a teacher's room where I could sit out until the bell. BUT there was a security guard in the hallway when I came out and she asked me if there was a girl crying in there. ("Um..well it might have been...um maybe I was the one crying?") She asked me if I had skipped class because there was an APB out on finding a girl with long curly blonde hair who had left and just not come back to class. They had my name, description, what class I wasn't in, how long I had been gone, the whole shebang. It was equal parts embarrassing and cool, if I'm being honest. I told her I couldn't go back to class and she told her walky talky that she was taking me to the nurse to sit out the rest of the school day. I heard it echo out of a different security guard's walky talky, and it struck me that there had been multiple people walking around looking for me while I was curled up in a bathroom. A strange feeling.
Aftermath:
The nurse at our school is actually Ryan's mom, so he had apparently texted her to see if she knew where I was. She let me sit in her office with all the girl's rotating through needing hot-pads for cramps or people with fevers and the like. She called Scotts to tell her where I was, and Harfield turned up to see me. She told me she had gone across the street to Starbucks to look for me, and I told her I left my phone in Scotts' room, so that would be why no one could contact me. She just sort of sat with me and I cried a lot more. I thought I'd cried myself out in my hour and a half in the bathroom, but nope. I explained to her the best I could what I thought was going on, and I legit tried to factor in other people's opinions and say that there was a good chance I actually was in the wrong and all the accusations against me were right. At the end of the day, Ryan came in(since his mom works there) and I know he heard me crying. I hate it when my peers hear me cry. Sort of like, well, there goes my reputation of being a sarcastic and thick-skinned person goshdangit. Harfield and I went back to Scotts' room to get my stuff, and I tried to fill Scotts in on my adventures since disappearing at lunch. AND THEN Jackie and her mom showed up at the door to talk to her teacher, and Scotts and Harfield both left to speak with her in Harfield's office. I cried a lot more while they were gone (thank GOODNESS all this information is safe with the internet, right?), and when they came back I found out that her mother had come because when Scotts was on the phone trying to figure out where I was, she used Jackie's name in explaining the situation and Jackie felt like she was being attacked and blamed for my disappearance. I also found that during class, Scotts had pulled different people into the hall to try and figure out what was going on. After I pulled myself together some, I went to rehearsal.
The Morning After:
Strange. That's all I can say again. In bio first period Jackie and the others were acting like nothing had happened and like they had done nothing wrong. Jackie and Sarah sat and laughed together when we split up to do work. I felt like there was this weight in my chest. I was still really confused as to what had happened yesterday and why. Jackie, Sarah, and I all got passes to go to Harfield's office at 10. In second period we didn't have to present these french things I thought we were going to have to do, and I was so happy I almost cried. Granted, I was pretty emotionally unstable, but it was a blessing. I left my things in the room at 10 and made my way to Harfield's office. I hadn't been able to breathe properly everytime I thought about it, and walking there I was counting out my inhales and exhales the whole way to keep from losing it. Like I said, strange. I don't usually react to things like that.
Drama: The Sequel:
I got there first, then they came in together. Harfield prefaced with saying that she wasn't here to defend me, or to defend them, but just to get feelings and thoughts exchanged so we could resolve it. She gave us 'be nice cheat sheets' with phrases on them to help us fight fair like "when you said_______, I felt_______" and "_______ is what it sounded like you meant when you said_______, is that true?" Jackie started off by taking the sheet and reading down it and explaining all the ways in which she had already done the things on the list (even though from my perspective she had done hardly any of them). The atmosphere coming off of them was positively hostile, and it really caught me off guard. Sarah started with saying that she didn't understand why, even though stuff has been going on all year, it wasn't an issue "until Kate skipped class. If I skipped class no one would have cared, but because Kate's involved it's suddenly a big deal." (I'm gonna mention at this point that I start crying around now and don't stop the entire duration of the meeting. I do a lot of hiding behind my hair and not making eye contact because my chest feels super tight and it's awful just being near them knowing what they think of me.) I thought I would be able to go on the offensive at least a bit in this meeting and say how they approached the situation was rude and wrong, but I spent the whole time just explaining and defending myself against their claims. Essentially, they had been misinterpreting my tone and body language all year and thought I'd been attacking Sarah and some other people. That coupled with a few specific things I've said at times without thinking through every word first meant I could do very little but defend myself. Jackie was unfazed by my tears and furthermore refused to apologize because she felt she had done the right things by defending her friends and 'addressing the problem directly', but Sarah conceded a bit of her points as she heard my side of things. I think Jackie had tainted her views of me with her own negative opinions of me, because Sarah tends to feel things very strongly and is like me in the way that she can see if other people are hurting and not trying to hurt you. I felt sort of betrayed during the meeting too because Jackie was being WAY more civil and reasonable sounding than the previous day, and when I tried to bring up the things she had previously said to me she wrote it off as me misinterpreting her tone and only seeing the negatives of what she was telling me. It sucked because, with the way everything was presented, I had nothing solid to hold against her. They said they felt better from the meeting, like a weight had been lifted, but I didn't at all. I stayed behind a bit after they went back to class and just cried some more in her office, not really being able to articulate in words what I was feeling. Ryan came in (because he's a student aid in Harfield's room 3rd period), and man did he hear me cry a lot in those couple of days. I wonder what he thinks of me now. I eventually pulled myself together enough to go back to class. I got my stuff from french, and when I got to art (we all had the same period art) Jackie was in my seat and they had their stuff across her old seat, like a sign flashing we may have talked, but we don't want you sitting here anymore. Go away. It was kinda weird, but I sat at a different table and we moved on with life. Well, as much as I could while still trying to figure out why my chest wouldn't just chill out.
What now?:
The next day was interesting. (I know, A+ use of vocabulary describing my feelings so far.) I don't know if I'm imagining this, but Jackie didn't seem regretful of anything at all, and it felt like she was smugly going about her day (I Have Defeated The Dragon! She Is Vulnerable And I Was Right And I Win! You're Welcome, Peasants, For Vanquishing The Long Lived Foe!). When I was around her (and I apologize for this comparison because I realize they are very different scenarios, but I couldn't think of a better one), but when I was around her it felt like when rape victims describe being around their attackers in public when no one else knows what happened. I couldn't breathe and I felt like just existing in her presence was physically taxing for me. It felt insulting that she wasn't even acknowledging what she had said or done to me.
Resolution Attempt:
The next day I got a plus pass from Scotts to go in during plus period to talk to her. I explained to her what I felt like was going on and how I didn't know how to act around Jackie or anyone else anymore. I also wanted to see how overreacty I was being and what the adults thought. She said that the adults were seeing into all the perspectives, but that it felt more like a bullying situation against me than anything else. Talking to her helped me feel like I actually had some people on my side, even if many of my classmates still weren't. Life goes on, and I know everything will blow over to some extent.
This week was probably one of the longest weeks of my life. Monday feels like a month ago. So much crap happened this week. I never thought I'd be involved in girl drama, but I was dragged into it by the hair this time. If I'm never involved in anything like it again it will be too soon. And looking back on it all my most coherent thought is probably literally what the heck just happened?
Preface:
This is my perspective. I'm bringing a level of bias to it, regardless of how much I try to legitimately understand the others' sides of things, which I have tried to fairly do. Yes, I know that I am a hormonal teenager, and that looking at this from a mature adult's perspective, I fit in square and nicely to how emotional and overreacty people my age are supposed to be in situations like this. Also, this is probably going to be one of the longer posts I do. Apologies, I couldn't find a better way to simplify it down. That being said, let's continue.
People To Know (fake names, of course):
Sarah: super sweet and kind. Cute and gets distracted easily. Sensitive, though she doesn't like to show it. I went to elementary school with her and have had lots of interactions with her in the past.
Jackie: very blunt and very driven. Looks at facts and plans out everything. Cool hair. She's new this year, so none of us had met her, though she fit in pretty well from the get-go in the IB junior class.
Betty: very sweet, but sometimes very loud and condescending on accident. Likes her opinions to be heard (like essentially everyone in the class, I might add). It was decided that she tries to be nice, and she is, but she's a bit too loud and opinionated sometimes.
Ryan: not important to the story, but I mention him a couple times. His mom is the nurse. We've had some disagreements in the past but I think we're, for the most part, pretty decent friends.
Mrs. Scotts: awesome teacher. Very very nice and caring and a really good teacher. Generally agreed that she is an angel of some sort.
Mrs. Harfield: IB/AP coordinator. Friends with Scotts, and basically everyone just thinks she's awesome. Really smart and funny and cool to talk to.
Backstory:
Even when I was in that weird state of depression I've mentioned before, I knew that sometimes I can come off in ways I don't intend, so at the beginning of the year I told everyone to be very straight forward with me if I ever bother them. I'm decent at reading other peoples intentions when they're talking to me sometimes, but overall I just suck at social cues and tones of voice. Like, I never know how I am being perceived and what people think of me, and if people even like me or if they're just pretending. There have been maybe 2 incidents throughout the year where someone has called me on being condescending, and one of them I didn't even hear about from the person it was bothering, so other than that I assumed everything was fine because, like I said, I suck at reading other people's offense and subtle social cues. I tried to watch what I was saying, and obviously I slipped sometimes, but I never purposefully tried to, like, hurt someone's feelings or call anyone out. I've genuinely tried to be kind and apologize when it comes to light that I've done something wrong. A few times here and there I have definitely said things that could have been phrased better, but in arguments or discussion I generally have less of a filter because I'm just trying to get my point across, but from what I understand that's an attribute I share with other people in the class. I didn't think it was a problem because I assumed people knew I wasn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings or just squash any and all opposing opinions.
Catalyst:
Twas Friday, about a week and some days before valentines day. It had been a loose plan that there was going to be an early valentines day get together that saturday. It was going to be at Sarah's house, as she's hosted a lot of bonfires this year. People know where she lives and she's a good host. In art, I overheard part of a conversation that some people didn't want Betty to be there because when she's there there are sometimes some weird tensions and I guess people have less fun at social gatherings. I told Sarah she shouldn't try to be actively exclusive of people, even if she wasn't everyone's favorite person. She snapped at me and told me to stay out of it because it wasn't any of my business. To be fair, I hadn't heard all of the conversation and wasn't entirely sure of the entire context of what they were talking about. The table sort of cold shouldered me a bit for the rest of class, and at lunch we went our separate ways. At the end of fourth period, Jackie texted me and told me that we needed to talk at some point. We had a short text conversation, where she said we should talk in person on monday, and I asked if we could have a phone conversation so I didn't have to wait all weekend to find out what was going on but she said it should be in person. I asked if she could at least tell me what was going on and if I had done anything wrong. She said everything wasn't okay and that it was definitely my fault. Aiight, so I buckled down to wait for monday.
Build Up:
Monday, we agreed to talk during plus period, a 30 min period between 2nd and 3rd. During that we went in the hallway and she basically told me that I've been ridiculously condescending and hurting people's feelings and annoying people and I am the problem. I tried to ask for specifics and there were a few but honestly, it felt like a bit of an overreaction. Like, considering that no one's told me to my face all year and that I've never once tried to be offensive or hurt anyone's feelings, this felt like a lot all at once. It felt like it came out of left field. I was trying to keep it light because I couldn't imagine that it was that bad, but I said she sounded really irritated and she agreed, and I said she didn't like me and she agreed. For the rest of the day I was trying to figure out what I'd done beyond my misspeak on friday. I texted Jackie to tell her that I was going to be in Scotts' room at lunch if she wanted to talk. She agreed and said she wasn't near done saying what she had to say.
Sucker Punch:
She didn't want to talk in Scotts' room, so I met her in B Hall. Man, I wish I could summarize it better. It was an ordeal for me. It was essentially an expanded version of our previous conversation, wherein she told me more things about myself that I had no idea were a thing. Conceited, of course, and also determined to hurt other people apparently. Every time I said anything to say to get her off my back and defend myself she would nod a lot and go 'uh-huh. uh-huh. uh-huh' in that way that people do when they have already have decided how to feel and aren't listening to you. It was really really frustrating. I tried to tell her that I never knew I was being rude and that I've been trying to figure out what's going on and have apologized every time I thought I'd done something wrong. But she said it was hard for her to believe that I could have said certain things without 'being fully aware' of what I was doing. She said she wasn't sure if I was doing it because I had a problem with people in IB or if it was because I was insecure. I told I her I didn't have a problem with anyone and she didn't believe me. She said she wasn't sure if how I was acting was a choice I was making or if it was just my personality and that I wasn't inclined to change. It would have been less frustrating if she was listening, or if she wasn't trying to speak on behalf of other people. or if she weren't blaming people getting hurt on how I was as a person. It just felt so unfair. I had no idea any of that was going on and she wasn't giving me a chance to defend myself. I felt attacked and angry, so I sort of stormed off and she did too. I ended up in a bathroom in upstairs B Hall.
The Manhunt:
I'm gonna come out and say that this next part is both one of my more pathetic moments, but also possibly the height of my high school career. I don't know if you've ever cried in a public bathroom, but there's an art to crying silently in a stall while people walk in and out. Once the bell rang for lunch to be over and the bathroom emptied out, I had this moment where I thought about going to class so they wouldn't think I had been seriously affected by whatever Jackie said, but the mirror quickly told me that they would know exactly what I'd been doing. The sight of puffy-eyed, red faced Kate in a high school bathroom (an event I'm never happy to recreate) combined with the idea of going back to class and having to see Jackie in all her smug I-Got-The-Bully-She-Has-Been-Defeated glory...well let's just say those stalls have seen their fair share of me sobbing now. I have this habit of working myself up into panic attacks in situations like that, so luckily I don't have ordeals like that very often. So I'm crying/not being able to breathe in the last stall of this bathroom and getting silent whenever the door opens. Eventually I manage to calm myself down and start wondering what time it is because I'm definitely not going back to class at this point, but I don't know if I have the patience to just sit in the bathroom for the rest of the day. I ask a girl what time it is (the girl's bathroom is a fairly nonjudgemental place, so me asking a stranger what time it is through a stall door wasn't the strangest thing that's happened in there) and she tells me it's about 2:05, which means I have 40 minutes until class is over. A little bit later I emerge from the stall to see how awful I look and see if I can brave leaving the bathroom. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence could see that I'd been crying for a while, but there were other people in the bathroom, and I felt weird going back into a stall, so I left with the intention of going to a different bathroom or a teacher's room where I could sit out until the bell. BUT there was a security guard in the hallway when I came out and she asked me if there was a girl crying in there. ("Um..well it might have been...um maybe I was the one crying?") She asked me if I had skipped class because there was an APB out on finding a girl with long curly blonde hair who had left and just not come back to class. They had my name, description, what class I wasn't in, how long I had been gone, the whole shebang. It was equal parts embarrassing and cool, if I'm being honest. I told her I couldn't go back to class and she told her walky talky that she was taking me to the nurse to sit out the rest of the school day. I heard it echo out of a different security guard's walky talky, and it struck me that there had been multiple people walking around looking for me while I was curled up in a bathroom. A strange feeling.
Aftermath:
The nurse at our school is actually Ryan's mom, so he had apparently texted her to see if she knew where I was. She let me sit in her office with all the girl's rotating through needing hot-pads for cramps or people with fevers and the like. She called Scotts to tell her where I was, and Harfield turned up to see me. She told me she had gone across the street to Starbucks to look for me, and I told her I left my phone in Scotts' room, so that would be why no one could contact me. She just sort of sat with me and I cried a lot more. I thought I'd cried myself out in my hour and a half in the bathroom, but nope. I explained to her the best I could what I thought was going on, and I legit tried to factor in other people's opinions and say that there was a good chance I actually was in the wrong and all the accusations against me were right. At the end of the day, Ryan came in(since his mom works there) and I know he heard me crying. I hate it when my peers hear me cry. Sort of like, well, there goes my reputation of being a sarcastic and thick-skinned person goshdangit. Harfield and I went back to Scotts' room to get my stuff, and I tried to fill Scotts in on my adventures since disappearing at lunch. AND THEN Jackie and her mom showed up at the door to talk to her teacher, and Scotts and Harfield both left to speak with her in Harfield's office. I cried a lot more while they were gone (thank GOODNESS all this information is safe with the internet, right?), and when they came back I found out that her mother had come because when Scotts was on the phone trying to figure out where I was, she used Jackie's name in explaining the situation and Jackie felt like she was being attacked and blamed for my disappearance. I also found that during class, Scotts had pulled different people into the hall to try and figure out what was going on. After I pulled myself together some, I went to rehearsal.
The Morning After:
Strange. That's all I can say again. In bio first period Jackie and the others were acting like nothing had happened and like they had done nothing wrong. Jackie and Sarah sat and laughed together when we split up to do work. I felt like there was this weight in my chest. I was still really confused as to what had happened yesterday and why. Jackie, Sarah, and I all got passes to go to Harfield's office at 10. In second period we didn't have to present these french things I thought we were going to have to do, and I was so happy I almost cried. Granted, I was pretty emotionally unstable, but it was a blessing. I left my things in the room at 10 and made my way to Harfield's office. I hadn't been able to breathe properly everytime I thought about it, and walking there I was counting out my inhales and exhales the whole way to keep from losing it. Like I said, strange. I don't usually react to things like that.
Drama: The Sequel:
I got there first, then they came in together. Harfield prefaced with saying that she wasn't here to defend me, or to defend them, but just to get feelings and thoughts exchanged so we could resolve it. She gave us 'be nice cheat sheets' with phrases on them to help us fight fair like "when you said_______, I felt_______" and "_______ is what it sounded like you meant when you said_______, is that true?" Jackie started off by taking the sheet and reading down it and explaining all the ways in which she had already done the things on the list (even though from my perspective she had done hardly any of them). The atmosphere coming off of them was positively hostile, and it really caught me off guard. Sarah started with saying that she didn't understand why, even though stuff has been going on all year, it wasn't an issue "until Kate skipped class. If I skipped class no one would have cared, but because Kate's involved it's suddenly a big deal." (I'm gonna mention at this point that I start crying around now and don't stop the entire duration of the meeting. I do a lot of hiding behind my hair and not making eye contact because my chest feels super tight and it's awful just being near them knowing what they think of me.) I thought I would be able to go on the offensive at least a bit in this meeting and say how they approached the situation was rude and wrong, but I spent the whole time just explaining and defending myself against their claims. Essentially, they had been misinterpreting my tone and body language all year and thought I'd been attacking Sarah and some other people. That coupled with a few specific things I've said at times without thinking through every word first meant I could do very little but defend myself. Jackie was unfazed by my tears and furthermore refused to apologize because she felt she had done the right things by defending her friends and 'addressing the problem directly', but Sarah conceded a bit of her points as she heard my side of things. I think Jackie had tainted her views of me with her own negative opinions of me, because Sarah tends to feel things very strongly and is like me in the way that she can see if other people are hurting and not trying to hurt you. I felt sort of betrayed during the meeting too because Jackie was being WAY more civil and reasonable sounding than the previous day, and when I tried to bring up the things she had previously said to me she wrote it off as me misinterpreting her tone and only seeing the negatives of what she was telling me. It sucked because, with the way everything was presented, I had nothing solid to hold against her. They said they felt better from the meeting, like a weight had been lifted, but I didn't at all. I stayed behind a bit after they went back to class and just cried some more in her office, not really being able to articulate in words what I was feeling. Ryan came in (because he's a student aid in Harfield's room 3rd period), and man did he hear me cry a lot in those couple of days. I wonder what he thinks of me now. I eventually pulled myself together enough to go back to class. I got my stuff from french, and when I got to art (we all had the same period art) Jackie was in my seat and they had their stuff across her old seat, like a sign flashing we may have talked, but we don't want you sitting here anymore. Go away. It was kinda weird, but I sat at a different table and we moved on with life. Well, as much as I could while still trying to figure out why my chest wouldn't just chill out.
What now?:
The next day was interesting. (I know, A+ use of vocabulary describing my feelings so far.) I don't know if I'm imagining this, but Jackie didn't seem regretful of anything at all, and it felt like she was smugly going about her day (I Have Defeated The Dragon! She Is Vulnerable And I Was Right And I Win! You're Welcome, Peasants, For Vanquishing The Long Lived Foe!). When I was around her (and I apologize for this comparison because I realize they are very different scenarios, but I couldn't think of a better one), but when I was around her it felt like when rape victims describe being around their attackers in public when no one else knows what happened. I couldn't breathe and I felt like just existing in her presence was physically taxing for me. It felt insulting that she wasn't even acknowledging what she had said or done to me.
Resolution Attempt:
The next day I got a plus pass from Scotts to go in during plus period to talk to her. I explained to her what I felt like was going on and how I didn't know how to act around Jackie or anyone else anymore. I also wanted to see how overreacty I was being and what the adults thought. She said that the adults were seeing into all the perspectives, but that it felt more like a bullying situation against me than anything else. Talking to her helped me feel like I actually had some people on my side, even if many of my classmates still weren't. Life goes on, and I know everything will blow over to some extent.
This week was probably one of the longest weeks of my life. Monday feels like a month ago. So much crap happened this week. I never thought I'd be involved in girl drama, but I was dragged into it by the hair this time. If I'm never involved in anything like it again it will be too soon. And looking back on it all my most coherent thought is probably literally what the heck just happened?
Friday, February 5, 2016
self sabotage
I've come to this conclusion that I'm an alcoholic who's never had a drink. That is to say, addiction runs in both sides of my family and throughout my life I have consistently maintained the self control of an impatient four year old. Like you know in those studies with the kids where they give them one marshmallow and tell them if they don't touch it for an allotted amount of time they can have another one? Yeah, well, in that scenario I might not have just shoved it in my mouth, but I definitely am not the one who sits quietly and just waits for the time to be over. Now that's a bit digressed from alcoholism, but let me explain. I've gotten into the habit of acknowledging negative behaviors in myself and literally just continuing them. Because I suck. Some examples:
Chocolate and sweet things. I am so. bad. at rationing. It's not like I eat sweet things all the time, in fact I'm actually a pretty healthy eater, but when I do, my goodness. My brain can find a way to rationalize eating too much of anything. Or, I'll recognize that there's no excuse and try to keep my portions small, but then I always give in and have more anyway. It's not something I'm proud of, and I've definitely gained weight in the past few months. Like, dang, I thought I was fat before. Year-ago-kate had no idea what she was in for.
Writing and homework. It's gotten to be a real problem. In those spare moments during the day where I could be doing homework, or even time allotted to us in class to do homework, I'm writing instead. (Case in point, I'm writing this in biology right now.) I'll write scenes and stuff, but I'll also work on random stuff like character development and plot complexity and backstory and every other thing you can think of. And I don't even really care? Like, I enjoy learning and I'm okay with school, but if I had to choose between homework and writing without the potential consequence of bad grades, I'd choose writing every time. And I have. A lot. I sort of hate myself for it, but I can't really stop because getting all my thoughts out is much more tempting than doing a project for french or finding support quotes for an english essay.
Netflix. Okay, I know, this is stereotypical. I apologize for not being more interesting. Anyway, one of the only things getting me through each day is knowing that when I get home I can continue whatever netflix series I'm on at the time. Those television writers really know their stuff. So I'll get home, telling myself that I'll exercise, do homework, and then watch something, but it always edges its way up on my list. And I also tell myself that after I take a shower I'll maybe read and then go to bed, but ask me if that ever happens. Actually, on second thought, don't ask me. I don't want to actually say it in so many words, but you get the idea. So midnight ends up being like the earliest I've gone to bed in about 3 weeks now, and I get up around 5:30 everyday, so 5 hours is my average amount of sleep lately (and actually just in general). It's been weird because combine the extreme sleepiness with the energy high I've been on for a while now, and you get one of the weirdest moods for a while that I've ever been in for an extended amount of time. I'm energetic and essentially okay all the time, but I'm also so freaking tired it's ridiculous. I'm shaky and feel vaguely nauseous a lot, and I also get faint headaches that just sort of chill behind my eyes for stretches of time. And I know people get by on less sleep than that, and I have too, but 4 to 5 hrs for a long time kills you. Your body sort of stops expecting anything from you and I feel kinda like a zombie high on caffeine everywhere I go, which is actually one of the strangest feelings. I'm equal parts hyper-8-year-old-child and living-dead at any given time. I know the next day it's going to kill me, and yet I still stay up netflixing anyway. Why am I doing this to myself?
So yeah, I get that a lot of people have procrastination problems in areas similar to my problems, but I feel like the fact that I know exactly what I'm doing wrong and what I could do to fix it, and then don't speaks volumes to my lack of self control. If I were to start drinking, I wouldn't stand a chance. If I were to get into drugs, I wouldn't last a month. I can't even handle perfectly safe things. Gracious, I'm sort of disgusted by myself. I know that I'm slowly killing myself mentally and emotionally and physically with all of this, yet I continue to do it anyway. And I can't complain about my health because it's my fault. I'm sabotaging myself. Go team.
Chocolate and sweet things. I am so. bad. at rationing. It's not like I eat sweet things all the time, in fact I'm actually a pretty healthy eater, but when I do, my goodness. My brain can find a way to rationalize eating too much of anything. Or, I'll recognize that there's no excuse and try to keep my portions small, but then I always give in and have more anyway. It's not something I'm proud of, and I've definitely gained weight in the past few months. Like, dang, I thought I was fat before. Year-ago-kate had no idea what she was in for.
Writing and homework. It's gotten to be a real problem. In those spare moments during the day where I could be doing homework, or even time allotted to us in class to do homework, I'm writing instead. (Case in point, I'm writing this in biology right now.) I'll write scenes and stuff, but I'll also work on random stuff like character development and plot complexity and backstory and every other thing you can think of. And I don't even really care? Like, I enjoy learning and I'm okay with school, but if I had to choose between homework and writing without the potential consequence of bad grades, I'd choose writing every time. And I have. A lot. I sort of hate myself for it, but I can't really stop because getting all my thoughts out is much more tempting than doing a project for french or finding support quotes for an english essay.
Netflix. Okay, I know, this is stereotypical. I apologize for not being more interesting. Anyway, one of the only things getting me through each day is knowing that when I get home I can continue whatever netflix series I'm on at the time. Those television writers really know their stuff. So I'll get home, telling myself that I'll exercise, do homework, and then watch something, but it always edges its way up on my list. And I also tell myself that after I take a shower I'll maybe read and then go to bed, but ask me if that ever happens. Actually, on second thought, don't ask me. I don't want to actually say it in so many words, but you get the idea. So midnight ends up being like the earliest I've gone to bed in about 3 weeks now, and I get up around 5:30 everyday, so 5 hours is my average amount of sleep lately (and actually just in general). It's been weird because combine the extreme sleepiness with the energy high I've been on for a while now, and you get one of the weirdest moods for a while that I've ever been in for an extended amount of time. I'm energetic and essentially okay all the time, but I'm also so freaking tired it's ridiculous. I'm shaky and feel vaguely nauseous a lot, and I also get faint headaches that just sort of chill behind my eyes for stretches of time. And I know people get by on less sleep than that, and I have too, but 4 to 5 hrs for a long time kills you. Your body sort of stops expecting anything from you and I feel kinda like a zombie high on caffeine everywhere I go, which is actually one of the strangest feelings. I'm equal parts hyper-8-year-old-child and living-dead at any given time. I know the next day it's going to kill me, and yet I still stay up netflixing anyway. Why am I doing this to myself?
So yeah, I get that a lot of people have procrastination problems in areas similar to my problems, but I feel like the fact that I know exactly what I'm doing wrong and what I could do to fix it, and then don't speaks volumes to my lack of self control. If I were to start drinking, I wouldn't stand a chance. If I were to get into drugs, I wouldn't last a month. I can't even handle perfectly safe things. Gracious, I'm sort of disgusted by myself. I know that I'm slowly killing myself mentally and emotionally and physically with all of this, yet I continue to do it anyway. And I can't complain about my health because it's my fault. I'm sabotaging myself. Go team.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)