*** note: If any of you know us personally, please keep comments about this post on the blog/online, not in person. Thank you.
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I needed you to be there. You never were.
I needed you to show me you cared. You never did.
I needed you to see my fear for what it was and help me handle it. You didn’t.
Even after the behavioral interventions stopped.
Even after we came into middle school.
I was born then. Because the younger me couldn’t take anymore.
She couldn’t handle any further silence when she didn’t know the answer. She couldn’t handle the increased amount of chances to screw something up and risk the anger of any of you. She couldn’t handle anymore of anything related to schooling. That’s why I’m here.
I’m not here because of our failure to manage our emotions. I’m here because you failed to provide a place that felt safe to do such management in.
Teaching school content isn’t your only responsibility if you want well-rounded, mentally and emotionally healthy students walking out those doors, but clearly you’ve forgotten that.
I didn’t choose to be upset, as it was put to us in tenth grade. We were simply sick of pretending that your treatment of us didn’t hurt.
It’s not our fault Vivien was born. It’s yours, for telling us that we were choosing to be upset, without bothering to realize that, at that point, we didn’t have enough of a sense of self outside of our moment-to-moment experience to recognize that we weren’t going to drown in our own tears. She was born to fight for what you all told us, by the use of those words, that you rejected. Unacceptance for the lose!
It’s not immaturity to be honest about what we feel and not limit ourselves to just verbal expression of said feelings.
It’s not immaturity to be afraid that people are angry when they don’t bother giving verbal indications during the time of the fear and then only halfheartedly try to correct the situation later with a lousy statement like, “I’m not angry, you’ve been saying that for years.”
Maybe we’ve been doing that because we’re finally not scared long enough to get the words out? Maybe we’ve been doing that because that’s how people sound? Maybe we’ve been doing that because we’re trying to show you that hey, our experiences are a thing too? Sure, none of you may have been angry…but it didn’t sound that way!
Wasn’t that one of the goals you set out for us way back when? That we’d express our feelings verbally? And yet, when we do just that, and even do it in a way that also seeks clarification about something, all we get is a cheezy, if truthful, “No,” and a comment about the fact that we’ve been asking that question for years. A little validation would have been nice!
When we get upset in high school, we’re told that we’re choosing to be that way. When we even so much as try to be ourselves, when the truth about our multiplicity comes to light, we’re told that we’re not real, and that we’re playing a game, and that school teachers aren’t qualified to teach insiders, even though said insiders share a life, body and everything else that can possibly be shared.
In lunch, on the next to last day of eleventh grade, I come out for the first time since middle school, and have to hide my presence, because I know that if I don’t, some adults in the building will ignore all of us until we pretend to be Maria again. That lasts for a couple years…
Until, in twelfth grade, the professionals get involved. Until a label of DDNOS is slapped on our record and we call an IEP meeting to force changes to happen. Until we come in kicking and screaming in ways that aren’t recognizable as such, but that still are nonetheless.
And now, we’re waiting.
Waiting for this age-old rejection to meet its death, as it should have a long, long time ago.
I am Jenifer. I was born to handle school work anxiety from middle school onward, but I’ve ended up seeing a lot more than that, and I can honestly tell you that none of what I’ve seen should have happened.