Just wanted to share something I wrote because I'm feeling kind of down
April 23, 2017 at 8:23 am
So I just got back from a play, it was put on by high school students. A family friend was in the play. I couldn’t help but feel sick to my stomach the whole time. The school that it was being held in was a high school for kids who learn differently. It wasn’t a school for unintelligent kids though, I could tell from the play that the people in it were perfectly intelligent. They recited their lines sharply and wittily, the singing was very good, and it was a complicated enough performance that an intelligent person would have to act out the parts and sing and choreograph their dance moves together. You could tell that the kids who go to the school were intelligent, the actors in the play.
This is a school that I could have gone to, except we decided against it when I was in 9th grade. At the time I don’t think I wanted to go to a different school, because I still knew some people from middle school who were friends to me. Those friendships ended up being meaningless in high school. High school was one of the loneliest, most stressful times of my entire life. I found myself during the play, sometimes unable to compose myself. I was trapped between a desire to just walk away and be alone, and also a desire to simply compose myself as though I were just going through another normal night. I did not succeed very well at that. My parents kept asking me what was wrong, because my demeanor was cold, and I didn’t communicate with them very much. I didn’t respond to any of their attempts to ask me what was wrong, I just told them not to ask. Truth be told it wasn’t the proper time for me to bring up something like that, during a performance of a friend.
It was difficult, sitting in the audience constantly feeling a nauseous feeling. I felt as though my eyes were becoming dry, and I was feeling emotional enough that I didn’t want my parents to really talk to me. I sat alone away from other people in the intermission.
The school simply looked like it would have been a nice place for me to go. It was on a grassy hill in a sparsely housed neighborhood, in a far less suburban area away from the big city I live in. My mom told me on the car ride up to the play that this is that place that we were thinking about sending you to when you were in 9th grade. I said to her in the car after she asked me that “so you mean it’s a place for retards? yeah, thanks for not scaring me for life”. It was a rather stupid and callous thing to say, but sometimes being stupid and callous is comforting when you can think of ways to express your feelings. I felt a melancholic feeling when I drove up to it, and realized how beautiful it was.
The director of the play was a young man who seemed to have a sense of humor, and a rather whimsical personality, the kind of person you would expect would be a really good teacher. I felt sad as soon as I saw him, and I felt sad when I saw all the kids performing on stage. There was one kid who stood out to me, because he seemed rather effeminate, who had the left side of his head shaved shorter than his right. I thought that his parents probably sent him to that school because he was gay and would be bullied by other kids if they sent him to another school. I also overheard my parents talking to the mother of the kid who is the reason we came to see the play, she said that her daughter really loves it at that school. This was when I was sitting outside during the intermission. I tried to divert my feelings by thinking of things which were worse, like donald trump. I couldn’t divert my feelings very well though, it seemed like the entire time I was there it was just an overwhelming sadness that just engulfed the entirety of my emotions.
I couldn’t help but think about how I could have avoided so much stress, how I could have avoided the horrible schooling system that I was put through, in spite of the fact that I did have a few good teachers. Being put in small group classes, with delinquents and kids with genuine disabilities, separated from my peers who were probably just pieces of shit anyways, really tore me up. Whenever I think back on my high school experience, it just feels devoid of happiness. I can’t think of really any high school memories besides the cross country team, who gave me for one of the only times I can remember in high school, a feeling of friendship and genuine compassion.
I told my parents this when we were driving home in the car and they didn’t know what to say. They were exasperated when I brought this up to them, because they felt like I was getting angry at them because of the tone I was taking with them. But I wasn’t getting angry at them, I was just angry and I was raising my voice because I was trying to express something I felt passionately about. They didn’t really know how to respond, but eventually they told me that I’m internalizing a lot of dark stuff. They don’t seem to really have an idea of how I feel, and so for no better reason than that, I felt like asking them their opinion on political issues. They were too tired to talk about political issues, and I realize that it was a dumb idea to bring it up in the first place because it has nothing to do with what I was talking about with them.
I don’t feel as bad right now, I suppose. I was mostly over the overwhelming feeling, where I felt that I couldn’t even talk to anyone because the emotions were so overwhelming in the second half of the play. By the time the play ended I did feel that I could talk to people, but I was still feeling extremely stressed and anxious. I know my parents try to understand and to be honest I feel bad for even bringing this up, because I know how futile it can feel to them. There’s a lot of other things that I was talking about with them to that don’t seem as relevant, so I won’t bring those things up. I think when you’re feeling anxious your mind tends to exacerbate things which aren’t as important, and it starts to feel like every little thing that passes through your brain makes you upset.
I just wanted to mention some of the thoughts that I had during the play. During the play, I was trying to imagine all of the kids in it suffering, going through a horrible high school experience and not one which helps them be well adjusted adults, by giving them a helpful learning environment with nice people. I was just trying to imagine them suffer. I was trying to just imagine people suffering, because I thought that maybe that would make me feel somewhat better. To be honest I don’t think it made me feel better at all.
I don’t think about how terrible my school experience was all the time. I think that the experience did bring out some internalized feelings that I have, but in the car ride home I was going on existential rants about how I hate how industrious our society is, how pointless life is, how stupid human beings are, it was just a bunch of stuff that gets caught up in a whirl pool because there was that one thing that was making me upset that I don’t even spend a whole lot of time thinking about, even though it comes up in my dreams sometimes (being in school). I still feel like my life hasn’t really gone anywhere though. Life feels impersonal, it feels like I haven’t been going anywhere for years. It’s been 4 years since I graduated high school. My parents tell me that that’s not true, and that I have been doing stuff, but to be honest it doesn’t feel like it has gotten me anywhere. My friend group outside of the internet hasn’t changed, and I’m no closer to having a career, which feels like the only thing that really matters sometimes.
I guess I want to end by saying, that the stuff I said in the immediate last paragraph sounds horribly pessimistic, and it sounds like the sort of crap that jordan peterson would say. He gives these talks on “bite size philosophy” that I found pretty disturbing. He’s a philosophy professor. He’s the sort of guy who says that life sucks and stuff like that, tries to red pill you on the truth. I don’t really think about him that often but I think I internalize a lot of the sort of stuff that he says in general every day life. He to me symbolizes all of the sorts of negative internalized feelings that can really make you feel like shit. Whether he’s right or not, it’s hard to say. I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks so.
This is a school that I could have gone to, except we decided against it when I was in 9th grade. At the time I don’t think I wanted to go to a different school, because I still knew some people from middle school who were friends to me. Those friendships ended up being meaningless in high school. High school was one of the loneliest, most stressful times of my entire life. I found myself during the play, sometimes unable to compose myself. I was trapped between a desire to just walk away and be alone, and also a desire to simply compose myself as though I were just going through another normal night. I did not succeed very well at that. My parents kept asking me what was wrong, because my demeanor was cold, and I didn’t communicate with them very much. I didn’t respond to any of their attempts to ask me what was wrong, I just told them not to ask. Truth be told it wasn’t the proper time for me to bring up something like that, during a performance of a friend.
It was difficult, sitting in the audience constantly feeling a nauseous feeling. I felt as though my eyes were becoming dry, and I was feeling emotional enough that I didn’t want my parents to really talk to me. I sat alone away from other people in the intermission.
The school simply looked like it would have been a nice place for me to go. It was on a grassy hill in a sparsely housed neighborhood, in a far less suburban area away from the big city I live in. My mom told me on the car ride up to the play that this is that place that we were thinking about sending you to when you were in 9th grade. I said to her in the car after she asked me that “so you mean it’s a place for retards? yeah, thanks for not scaring me for life”. It was a rather stupid and callous thing to say, but sometimes being stupid and callous is comforting when you can think of ways to express your feelings. I felt a melancholic feeling when I drove up to it, and realized how beautiful it was.
The director of the play was a young man who seemed to have a sense of humor, and a rather whimsical personality, the kind of person you would expect would be a really good teacher. I felt sad as soon as I saw him, and I felt sad when I saw all the kids performing on stage. There was one kid who stood out to me, because he seemed rather effeminate, who had the left side of his head shaved shorter than his right. I thought that his parents probably sent him to that school because he was gay and would be bullied by other kids if they sent him to another school. I also overheard my parents talking to the mother of the kid who is the reason we came to see the play, she said that her daughter really loves it at that school. This was when I was sitting outside during the intermission. I tried to divert my feelings by thinking of things which were worse, like donald trump. I couldn’t divert my feelings very well though, it seemed like the entire time I was there it was just an overwhelming sadness that just engulfed the entirety of my emotions.
I couldn’t help but think about how I could have avoided so much stress, how I could have avoided the horrible schooling system that I was put through, in spite of the fact that I did have a few good teachers. Being put in small group classes, with delinquents and kids with genuine disabilities, separated from my peers who were probably just pieces of shit anyways, really tore me up. Whenever I think back on my high school experience, it just feels devoid of happiness. I can’t think of really any high school memories besides the cross country team, who gave me for one of the only times I can remember in high school, a feeling of friendship and genuine compassion.
I told my parents this when we were driving home in the car and they didn’t know what to say. They were exasperated when I brought this up to them, because they felt like I was getting angry at them because of the tone I was taking with them. But I wasn’t getting angry at them, I was just angry and I was raising my voice because I was trying to express something I felt passionately about. They didn’t really know how to respond, but eventually they told me that I’m internalizing a lot of dark stuff. They don’t seem to really have an idea of how I feel, and so for no better reason than that, I felt like asking them their opinion on political issues. They were too tired to talk about political issues, and I realize that it was a dumb idea to bring it up in the first place because it has nothing to do with what I was talking about with them.
I don’t feel as bad right now, I suppose. I was mostly over the overwhelming feeling, where I felt that I couldn’t even talk to anyone because the emotions were so overwhelming in the second half of the play. By the time the play ended I did feel that I could talk to people, but I was still feeling extremely stressed and anxious. I know my parents try to understand and to be honest I feel bad for even bringing this up, because I know how futile it can feel to them. There’s a lot of other things that I was talking about with them to that don’t seem as relevant, so I won’t bring those things up. I think when you’re feeling anxious your mind tends to exacerbate things which aren’t as important, and it starts to feel like every little thing that passes through your brain makes you upset.
I just wanted to mention some of the thoughts that I had during the play. During the play, I was trying to imagine all of the kids in it suffering, going through a horrible high school experience and not one which helps them be well adjusted adults, by giving them a helpful learning environment with nice people. I was just trying to imagine them suffer. I was trying to just imagine people suffering, because I thought that maybe that would make me feel somewhat better. To be honest I don’t think it made me feel better at all.
I don’t think about how terrible my school experience was all the time. I think that the experience did bring out some internalized feelings that I have, but in the car ride home I was going on existential rants about how I hate how industrious our society is, how pointless life is, how stupid human beings are, it was just a bunch of stuff that gets caught up in a whirl pool because there was that one thing that was making me upset that I don’t even spend a whole lot of time thinking about, even though it comes up in my dreams sometimes (being in school). I still feel like my life hasn’t really gone anywhere though. Life feels impersonal, it feels like I haven’t been going anywhere for years. It’s been 4 years since I graduated high school. My parents tell me that that’s not true, and that I have been doing stuff, but to be honest it doesn’t feel like it has gotten me anywhere. My friend group outside of the internet hasn’t changed, and I’m no closer to having a career, which feels like the only thing that really matters sometimes.
I guess I want to end by saying, that the stuff I said in the immediate last paragraph sounds horribly pessimistic, and it sounds like the sort of crap that jordan peterson would say. He gives these talks on “bite size philosophy” that I found pretty disturbing. He’s a philosophy professor. He’s the sort of guy who says that life sucks and stuff like that, tries to red pill you on the truth. I don’t really think about him that often but I think I internalize a lot of the sort of stuff that he says in general every day life. He to me symbolizes all of the sorts of negative internalized feelings that can really make you feel like shit. Whether he’s right or not, it’s hard to say. I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks so.
