High School and…Death?

By But first, xanax. on June 9, 2020 • ( 0 )

So I was looking at a Facebook page for the graduating year of my High School class, and I noticed quite a few people who passed away from that year. What surprised me wasn’t their deaths but more my emotions to their deaths. I felt mostly nothing. Numb. I mean, I knew these people saw them almost every day for years, but their deaths did not affect me at all. I started thinking, am I a sociopath?

I had to dig around in the box that I have deep in my brain. You know the one if you have it too-dusty, falling apart, labeled “High School” with little doodles next to it and overfilled with emotions, feelings, life-changing events, and things you may have wanted to forget forever.

I had to open that box and sit with it for a while. Looking at every memory and trying to make some peace with it. I’ve heard some people say that they would love to go back to High School for a day, or a week, or whatever, if they could. That is not me.

I was not too fond of High School. My Sophomore year was life-changing, and I felt like I finally fit in somewhere on this earth. Then life fell apart. So many things happened from there that changed the course of my life. The kids in that school were not kind to me.

I had a boyfriend. A serious one that I loved. That first love. The infamous high school sweetheart. The purest form of love. Raw, naive, enchanting. I honestly would’ve married him. Then he had to move. He left, and I was lost. Then I was raped. Some of them were his “friends.” They told everyone stories of it to cover up what they did. Turned it all around, so I was no longer the victim but instead the school whore. Everyone hated me at that point except a few very select friends. I’m still not sure if they were my friends. They were there when the rape happened, and they didn’t do anything. They could’ve done more. I would’ve.

So after sitting with these thoughts and these memories, tears running down my face in the shower, bracing myself against the tiles walls-just feeling. I realized that I feel numb because of all of those remaining years of high school, I spent trying to protect myself. Trying to figure out what worth was to a man and not to myself, and trying to be what everyone else wanted. The more I tried, the harder I failed because none of those people cared about me. So naturally, I learned not to care about them. I don’t know what that means now, but that is the conclusion I came to, so there it is.

Photo by Kenny Orr on Unsplash