I Can Trust in _________

When we are young, we are taught to turn to parents, teachers, and any other figures of authority. But what if they're the ones we must fight, or if they're part of the problem? We can't turn to them, because our lives will only get worse. Or if it won't get worse, it definitely won't get any better.

Something similar to that happened to me. My main teachers of fifth, seventh and eighth grades were  bullies, in every sense of the word. They singled me out with their power, had me feel stupid at every chance they got, and any time there was blatant bullying going on from the students, they would fluff it off and say that it was normal kid stuff.

Two of them singled me out for a reason I couldn't control: my heritage. I can not change the blood flowing in my veins any more than anyone else can. They constantly said that Germans were bad people when we were learning about the Second World War, and I was the only German in the school. They said it enough times that I began to believe that I was a wretched individual for ever being born, despite the fact that I'm a pacifist, that I don't like to hurt anyone, and it takes a fair bit to provoke me.

My fifth grade teacher thought of me as insubordinate and needed to ensure that she was the teacher, that she was the boss over me. She did this by pulling me out of the room and telling me as such for silly little things - not bringing my project out to be tested when it was broken in the duration of its stay in the classroom, forgetting a homework sheet and asking for another copy so I could get the answers, and refusing to hand in an essay explaining why it was a good thing laws were broken in wartime Germany.

These things were ridiculous and she needed to assert her power so that she felt important, not because it was necessary.

Because of her, I am still scarred, and I doubt it will ever go away. My mom pulled me out of school for a year and a half because of that woman. By the time she got me out, I refused to sleep some nights because of the nightmares I would constantly get when I closed my eyes. I refused to make any more friends, because she'd target them too, for being kind to me. And I refused to try to learn because I thought there was no hope in this world that I could be a scientist or a writer or anything else.

For a full month after I began homeschooling, I refused to leave my room until 4pm due to worry that I would be sent back to school. My mom wouldn't do that to me, but that's just how fear works.

I returned in seventh grade.

In the time I was home, my mom spent more time trying to fix the mess in my head than she did teaching me what disciplines I was to know about or how people would treat me in the future. The only reason I went back was because my dad didn't like having me around the house so much, he said I needed to grow up and deal with my own problems.

The teacher in seventh grade wasn't a horrible lady, she just inadvertently did things to make my situation worse when she was trying to help. Because there was no record of my work, she stuck me in a remedial English help program, making me feel like I belonged there, with the people that couldn't pick up a novel and understand it. When she noticed I was having trouble making friends with the barbarians of my classroom, she let me eat lunch in the other class, which no other students were allowed to do, singling me out. And she was oblivious to the bullying, and I didn't feel trust enough to tell her. I really didn't trust anyone enough to say a word.

Eight grade was almost as bad as fifth, but this time I didn't even have people my own age I could talk to. And I kept as much of it as possible from my mom so that she and my dad wouldn't fight. The teacher reminded me so much of the woman in fifth grade. One day, she was showing a video based on Anne Frank. Towards the end of the period, about fifteen minutes from lunch break, I tried excusing myself to the washroom, not because I needed to use the facilities. I needed to calm down and didn't want people to see me cry. She didn't understand the urgency and refused to let me out, saying that I could wait like the other students.

Fifteen minutes later, I bolted to the washroom and curled into a corner, crying. One of my classmates found me, and she said that I was rocking back and forth. That I was whispering "It's happening again." No one could get me out of there for two hours, when I sobered up so that my mom wouldn't notice by the time I got home.

That was the start. Other things, like when I broke my ankle again and couldn't carry my own stuff around and her having the gall to say that I didn't understand disability, having me read a book for English study that I couldn't get past the first page because of the gruesomeness, forcing me to write apology homework when I was out sick the day my class misbehaved for a supply teacher. And siding with the students that were bullying me.

Any time I told my mom, my parents fought. My father was always one to believe in the Principle of Parsimony: The simplest explanation, the one with the fewest assumptions, must be the right explanation. Which meant that to him, the problem wasn't with the teachers or the other students, it was with me - I must have been doing something.

My mom wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt. And if she hadn't, if she didn't start picking me up for lunch every day, driving me to and from school, letting me take days off of school for mental health and getting to stay in bed with popcorn and movies, helping me finish my overdue homework because I spent the entire night in the hospital for another ankle break, telling me it was going to be alright someday... I would have done something irreversible.

So... I really don't believe in trusting people for the sake that someone above says I can. People need to earn their trust - be they bigger or smaller. What do you do when you can't trust anyone around you? That's what Bus People are for. That's what perseverance is for. Never give up, never let them show that you've been hurt, never let them win by having the last laugh. It really is the best way out, getting through as quickly as possible.

 I hope by reading these posts that you're finding consolation. There are more people in this world that understand what you're going through than you think there might be.

The Bus People

It was a strange happenstance today that the bus was late. There were plenty of people waiting, and my headphones were well placed over my ears. I'd been moving around to breathe, as I'm asthmatic and can't have any smoke coming my way.

A light tap on my shoulder caused me to slip the music to my neck and turn. There was a girl there, and she had a bag with Tim Horton's cookies. She offered me one, and although I wasn't afraid of the physical safety of the cookie, I declined because I try to lead a vegan lifestyle.

We got to talking because of my choice in diet and I learned through this course of speaking that she was a person who suffered from a lack of self esteem and depression.

I shared with her my stories, how bad everything got for me, and how I got out of it, at least in part. I told her that sometimes it's hard to change yourself, but sometimes it's what is needed in order to be happier.

Sometimes, the parts of your life that cause sadness are the biggest parts - your friends, your family, your role models. And then when you can't talk to any of them, you need a bus person. Or the bar person. Sometimes you need to talk to someone who doesn't know you in the same capacity as the ones you hide in plain view from. When I talked to her, she smiled and said that to me, that she felt she could talk to me because there was little harm I could do in her life, little gossip I could spread. And that I was a good person.

The bus people - if you feel safe to talk to them, and you've got the time and something to get out of your head, DO IT.

The hardest part is saying hello, but it may be one of the best moments of your day, and you may make someone else's day by talking to them too. There is a great terror that the strangers on the street won't accept you because your closest people don't, but they don't know you, and sometimes that's the beautiful part.

If you want to talk, or anything else, comment below.

Window

Don't let the stormy darkness pull you down - Pete's Dragon

When I started grade 7, I felt as though I was a stranger crashing a party in mid run.

The school I'd left in grade 5 was the one I was returning to, so I wasn't completely the new kid. I still knew a couple of people from my first sentence at the school, and so I thought it wouldn't be too awkward. I tried to keep my reasons for the departure and return quiet; it wasn't something anyone wanted advertised.

I didn't want to be the girl that was too weak to last through a bad teacher's class. I didn't want to be the psychotic classmate or the one that no one could tolerate. I was embarrassed that I wasn't strong enough, smart enough. Wicked enough.

I kept on a mask, pretended that the witch walking those ten year old children down the hall wasn't there. But that pretense also kept me from being a normal kid, from being an interesting one that people were drawn to positively. It was my fear; the bane of my existence was a manifestation of my past catching up with me. And I couldn't help it. Not because I didn't want to, but rather because I was afraid of what would happen if I let my mask fall away.

We, my schoolmates and the teachers and I, became coinciding entities that never knew each another, never got to experience another, though knew of the other's existence.

My fear was a glass ceiling, and one I formed. People always said that victims of bullying and abuse are faultless, that there is nothing they're doing to deserve it. I don't believe that. Not that the victims are bad people, but it might be the way they talk, the sound of their voice, the things they find interesting; it could be anything. We are not faultless as victims, but that doesn't mean we should change what our fault is or be anything but who we are. It takes two for a fight, for a conflict. The victim, possibly unbeknownst why, is one of those two.