Wednesday, April 4, 2012

APOLOGIZE?

So the other day in Calculus (a class I am not in, thank God) apparently people had been talking about Sasha (who isn't in that class either) for some reason, and Ben (who is in that class) had burst out with, "I don't care about her, I wish she were dead!" in one of his usual over neurotic fits.  Now, when I heard this my instinctual reaction was, "I second that motion," because, you know, the world would be a better place, but Tessa's (is in that class) first reaction was to go and tell Sasha that he had said this, and Sasha's first reaction was to tell her mother about it. Whatever her mother's first reaction was, it ended with a heated call to Guidance and a demand for some sort of punishment for Ben.  I heard Tessa and Sasha talking about it to each other in Law and their faces were gleeful with the anticipation of punishment for Ben.  Sasha has been heard on many different occasions talking derisively about Ben, how he should be on meds, or in seclusion or something, and her latest kick was that he shouldn't be allowed to take the AP exam with everyone else, that he should be taken into a separate room.  Sasha is too insecure to be of much encouragement to anyone because her main goal in life seems to be to make everyone around her feel dumb, or at least less than she is.  She wants people put in "their place," that way she has less competition, she doesn't really care for what is morally right as long as she is seen as closer to it than everyone else.  Sasha is a cutthroat, self-centered, petty little girl who can't see much beyond the end of her nose and isn't really interested in the lives of people around her as long as they don't pose a threat to her vision of what hers should be (one of entitlement).  Ben is actually highly intelligent and much nicer than Sasha. He has a moral compass and could possibly be a bully to Sasha if he wasn't so preoccupied and concerned with himself.  As it is, he's too neurotic to care about what kind of threat other people would be to him.
After talking to some people, apparently Sasha took what Ben said as a death threat.  Trust me, I know what a death threat is and that wasn't one. None of the death threats I have ever received have sounded like that.  But anyway it seems that now Ben must apologize to Sasha for having voiced his opinion of her while not even in her presence. 
I want to ask Sasha if this means that she has to apologize to Ben and everyone else about all the cruel things she says about them behind their backs on a daily basis.  I am really tempted. 
I feel like I should have a larger sense of entitlement.
I want to find someone, anyone in a position of authority or just tell everyone that no one apologized to me.  
No one apologized to me for all the crap I had to go through last spring. 
No one apologized for the death threats in my voice mail saying the halls would run with my blood, Julienne Therese Fraser didn't apologize for the text messages, the harassment, and the social ostracism, Melisa Butler and her pot-head boyfriend didn't apologize for egging my old house or screaming "everyone hates you" at me when I went running, Brett McManus didn't apologize for starting the whole episode or for coming to my house stoned to interrogate me, neither Tina Halvagian for promising to "mess that girl up in bio tomorrow" on Facebook, and neither did anyone else.  No one apologized for handling the situation so clumsily, no one apologized to me for anything.
And I think I deserve one. I think I deserve an apology from every single one of the people who wronged me, as well as an apology from Brett McManus's mother, Laurie J. McManus, Secretary of the School Committee of Watertown, because out of everyone, I think she should feel the most obligated.

3 comments:

  1. :/ This makes me sad, and it makes me remember. You're right, you do deserve apologies. You do deserve better. As someone who's been through it and made it through to the other side, as someone who worked in education, as someone who is a parent, I'll apologize for the fact that we adults still haven't made a world where our kids can go to school and feel safe, feel valued, feel "normal," feel free to be themselves and have voices. I'm sorry that you and your peers (because you're not alone in these feelings and experiences) aren't always heard by those who SHOULD do something...at least TRY to fix what can be fixed.

    Just don't give up on trying to have your voice heard. Speak up for what's wrong, even if it's only you, in the beginning, who hears or pays attention. There's always someone, even though you may not know it, who's listening.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you. Your apology and sentiments mean a lot to me, especially when I've begun to suspect that if anyone ever did express these kinds of feelings to me I would find them worthless.
      Thank you, and thank you also for the encouragement.

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  2. Have you ever checked out the Dear Teen Me blog (dearteenme.com)? if not, you should head on over there some time. I think you'd appreciate it.

    -K

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