A Backwards Look into the Hellhole That Is High School

Junior Year.

I am sitting in the school room of my eating disorder clinic, and I am not responding. A 21-year-old woman who I met three days ago is trying to shove an ice pack into my hands, but all I can do is look ahead. See, 20 minutes earlier I got an email from a teacher who made a hand towel out of my growing body, and looking at his picture in the corner of my computer screen is making me crawl backwards into my organs. For a moment there I completely blacked out. Felt like an astronaut lost in space, no ship in sight. I had made my peace with death. Then my body returns to me, and I notice my hands are shaking. I leave my voice with that teacher until hours later. And even when he decides to return it, my first words do not sound like my own.

Junior Year.

While I am choking down food in an eating disorder clinic my best friend is getting expelled. The school has decided that he hasn’t fulfilled his PE requirements. What everyone hears instead is: he’s a lost cause we finally gave up on.

Junior Year.

I am sitting in the office of the only adult male on campus that I trust with my best friend and a freshman girl beside me. She had been sexually assaulted by a freshman boy who says “I’d fuck you” like it’s a compliment. We are sitting in the office because the boy who sexually assaulted her is still in her health class despite laughing whenever sexual assault is brought up and throwing popcorn at her. What the school should say is written out like a script inside my head “We are so sorry that such a terrible thing happened to you, especially on this campus” “We will do everything in our power to make you feel safe” Instead “If she wants to be taken seriously she should start presenting herself better” Sounds a little like “what was she wearing” doesn’t it? Instead “This boy has learned from his mistakes and deserves a good freshman year as well” Sounds a little like Brock Turner has a swimming career doesn’t it? This girl had an unwanted hand on her thigh for months, and then a hand up her shirt. How dare the school not validate that?

Junior Year.

My best friend pushes against the slightly rocking bookshelf and asks me if I think he could sue the school if it landed on him. I shrug noncommittally and go back to my math homework only looking up again when the rocking gets more violent. He is pushing with most of his body weight against the already breaking bookshelf, and given its height and absurd quantity of books shoved into each shelf, I am not sure if he would survive it falling. I call out his name shriller than I wanted to, fear getting the best of me, it seems to do that a lot these day. He smiles sheepishly and pretends to be confused when another friend shows him where he’s broken it further.

Junior Year.

At the party after my sexual harasser got punched, he took a picture of my nipples sticking through my t-shirt, and I wonder how I could have gotten to this place. Where the only thing scarier than the boy who thinks my body is owed to him, is what the school would say if I told them.

Junior Year.

My best friend looks a little more hurricane than human in this moment, and I can name and place each individual current of wind. See, he didn’t ask for this, doesn’t wake up in the morning and pick out which form of self destruction looks best with his shoes. Even in his worst, when rage envelops him like a badly worded promise, he doesn’t hurt anybody. In fact, he helps me eat and stands up against men who think girl is synonym for property. He has so much love in his heart. So what justification do self important adults have for deeming a traumatized 15-year-old boy bad for the community. If his 16-year-old friend can recognize chair throwing as a cry for help, why can’t the trained professionals that run the school?

Junior Year.

When I tell the boy that will become the reason why I have dreams about non-threatening male teachers raping me that he has touched my boob “by accident” for the 15th time in a little over a week, he responds by leaning over, grapping my boob again, and saying in a voice just loud enough for all the boys around us to hear “well that’s 16.” Nobody says anything, and I’ve heard about deafening silence, but they didn’t even grace me with silence, instead they either metaphorically fist bump the boy for touching a lesbian without her hitting him, or continue with conversation. See, the thing is, is that all those bystanders in that room were boys with genuinely good hearts. The boy who 3 minutes later laughed when my sexual harasser said to him “you hold her down and I’ll rape her” checked on me when I was sick, and made sure that I was okay with touch before hugging me, and doesn’t move his hand when high-fiving girls because he saw that it made them flinch. I’ve seen good boys say nothing about bad things, so what I have blame is the atmosphere that administration has refused to address. Boys who let bad things go should be held accountable, but beyond that when a school who preaches equality hasn’t even tried to reasonably address the blatant rape culture in their community, there is something bigger to blame.

Sophomore Year.

My best friend is laying on the floor of his bathroom, passed out, with a lethal amount of Xanax and vodka in his stomach. His parents rush him to the hospital and he is able to text me in the in between me saying he won’t be able to FaceTime tonight, because he’s going to a psychiatric hospital for a bit. 5150 is what they call it. I call it not knowing if he’s alive or dead for three whole days.

Sophomore Year.

It’s summer. I’m not at school. I’m eating.

Sophomore Year.

My best friend writes his letter on why he cheated on his Spanish homework by looking at the DSM and picking all the symptoms of depression he exhibits. He more than meets the requirements, and under no means hides his symptoms. When he talks to me about it, he talks about how not if, the school will help him. How he’s ready to get help, but not to ask for it, and he’s positive that his letter will get that for him. I read over the letter, and my best friend is prone to dramatics, but that letter was pretty much a textbook cry for help. I know the school isn’t a mind reader, but they could have at least pretended to believe him. Because all the school responds with is saying he needs to meet with the school counselor, and then never following back to make sure he’s okay or even if he actually did it, which he didn’t, because he’s fucking depressed. And they make nasty comments about him lying about being sick, all because his mental health symptoms aren’t convenient to the administration. Watching a scared teenage boy having his cry for help ignored is a heartbreaking thing, and the school had the luxury of pretending it didn’t happen.

Sophomore Year.

I am on a plane home from South Africa three weeks early. What happened was I didn’t eat for five days, and my blood sugar dropped so low that they kept me in the nurses’ office almost 24:7. What happened was my crop top became consent, and my no a suggestion. What happened was I stayed in 12 different places throughout the course of my 6-week school trip. What happened was the chaperone I was staying with threated to blow up my entire family and described in detail how nobody would find my body after he murdered me.. What happened was the chaperone drove us around at 9 in the morning drunk off of his third cup of coke and vodka. What happened was the chaperone didn’t let me sleep for longer than 10 minutes for three days. What happened was the chaperone drunkenly climbed into bed with me, and I only told my mother on accident, because I was so worried the school would think I was overreacting.

Sophomore Year.

My best friend is spiraling. He doesn’t do his homework, and loses so much weight in a couple of months that you can’t recognize him in his student ID, and he sleeps in two hour increments. He’s a border and he tells adults that he hasn’t slept well in ages, but rebellious asshole paints a better picture than struggling student whose been let down by the adults who were supposed to care for him the most. Doesn’t it?

Sophomore Year.

My mom makes the mistake of telling of one of the leaders on my trip to Ashland, and an important administrator at school, that I’ve been struggling with food. The next day at breakfast she turns to me and says, voice ringing through the swamp that is high schoolers in the morning “Olivia you need to eat your breakfast. I know you haven’t been eating, but you really need to” Everyone turns to look at me, pity painting their faces, and I can see the label maker in the judgment in their eyes. I don’t eat for the rest of the trip.

Sophomore Year.

My best friend is spending his first few weeks at this new school, and he’s doing okay. His first week is rough as he adjusts to the school, and the school adjusts to him, but he’s managing.

Freshman Year.

I am sitting in the back of a class meeting with my computer out. The same teacher comes behind me, and I panic at the sight of him. See, I am 14 years old, and I don’t want to get in trouble, because I still like this school. Still care what it thinks. Plus, this man scares me, in the same way he scares most girls. Funny how the fear of what the school will say wins out against any fear, any day. I start to quickly explain my self, voice not belonging to me, too fast, too high. And he responds by laughing, funny how depending on the person a laugh can be scarier than him screaming, and he places a claiming hand onto my lower back. It burns through my entire body, makes me paper doll thin. Well I got what I wanted, didn’t I?

Freshman Year.

I am sitting in the doctor’s office, and I’ve lost 20 pounds in a month, and then I’m in the car and the 20 pounds still aren’t there and my mom says that she knows it’s not an eating disorder and the 20 pounds still aren’t there and I’m smiling because the 20 pounds still aren’t fucking there and I just want someone to notice and someone to tell me it’s going to be okay and I want that to be the school but I’m just so worried they’ll make me stop or kick me out. After 2 to 3 years of having an eating disorder the chances of recovery drop to almost non existent. If the school had listened to the warning cries of a new teacher, that help could have been already on its way.

Freshman Year.

I am standing in the lunch line and there is a hand on my butt. It feels claiming, different than other stray hands as we all push together, and I turn around and see that the hand belongs to a teacher. I try to move around as much as possible in the limited space between flailing students, but the hand follows. Eventually I turn around and pretend to go check something from my box, finally free from hand 5 full seconds later, and I never figured out if that hand was purposeful.

Freshman Year.

My teacher asks me to stay after class, and her eyes know something about me that even I don’t know yet. She tries to start subtly “Olivia have you been sleeping enough” I shrug. Spoiler alert, I sleep three to four hours a night. “It’s been okay” I respond. She’s not done yet. “Olivia have you been eating enough?” Funny how words can slide down throats the way food doesn’t. I nod. “Olivia are you sure you’re eating enough?” Spoiler alert, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been eating one meal every three to four days. I nod again, words come out my mouth. I’m not practiced yet, so she doesn’t seem convinced. I heard later she told someone in the school, but I never got a follow up. Guess that’s not the school’s responsibility huh?

Freshman Year.

I am sitting in class wearing a shirt that makes me feel confident. Reminder: we don’t have a dress code. My teacher leans in and tells me I should wear a jacket then places her hand so it covers the side of her mouth in a mock of privacy, the entire class can hear anyways. “Don’t you want to leave something to the imagination” In my entire life preceding my body had never felt more shameful, a showing bra had never felt so dirty. I don’t know if you’ve ever been a self conscious 14-year-old girl and suddenly have half a class of students staring at your boobs in judgment, but it’s a terrifying thing.

Eighth Grade.

I’m applying to several schools, but only one I actually want to go to. Tolerant and accepting and empowering. We’ve all heard people say that high school was the worst time of their life, but I told myself that I would love the next four years if I went to this school. My school. Our school.