Tonight I feel a need to talk about some of the fallout from the scavenger hunt scar that I talked about last week. If you need to refresh your memory about that one, it's the journal entry from August 17, 2012.
In effect this is for WyndWytch in response to a query that Wyndy gave me earlier this week. The question asked was, Why do I feel like I will be useless once I'm done with my associates degree?
The answer to that comes in the way I view people as a result of said scavenger hunt. Now granted, in the grand scheme of things it was the culmination of many, many shenanigans I had to endure in HS. But this one put me over the edge, if you will.
First, what a large number of people -- not including me -- did with tearing down stop and street signs and uprooting the sign of the Public Library -- this is illegal, okay? And I'm pretty darn sure that whoever it was that got hogtied (I'll never know, don't want to know) had to have seen it as some kind of abuse.
And yet...really, this went unpunished. The perpetrators were forced to print a public apology in the local newspaper, but that was about it. No lesson was made of them, and about the most the school actually did was fire the principal and put someone tougher in his place (the pranks stopped immediately thereafter). But for me it was too late because an image built that I'm still struggling with now: In effect, the world is out to get me, so I want nothing to do with people, don't want to be around people, everyone's out to stab my back if I get too close. The proverbial shield is up all the time and sometimes I'm not afraid to use it offensively (as opposed to defensively). Witness:
The distrust is so high that about the only way I deal with people is through amusing them at others' expense via heavy sarcasm; to one driver a couple of weeks back I uttered an inanity from the Star Wars Episode I: Racer game that translates to, "Is that your Podracer, or are you selling scrap metal?"
It's so high that I let Elda, the classmate who was there for me when I had a nervous breakdown in week two of my Western Civ class that just wrapped up, go quietly, without saying anything. No requests for e-mails, nothing...so she's basically owed a favor from me that will never be repaid.
This is pretty relevant now because I have to take a science class that has a lab component in the fall...which almost certainly will implicate group work. I think I'd rather be hanged than work in a group at this point.
I feel like I have made this very long without saying a heck of a lot, so if you're reading this and want to ask me questions, please do.
In effect this is for WyndWytch in response to a query that Wyndy gave me earlier this week. The question asked was, Why do I feel like I will be useless once I'm done with my associates degree?
The answer to that comes in the way I view people as a result of said scavenger hunt. Now granted, in the grand scheme of things it was the culmination of many, many shenanigans I had to endure in HS. But this one put me over the edge, if you will.
First, what a large number of people -- not including me -- did with tearing down stop and street signs and uprooting the sign of the Public Library -- this is illegal, okay? And I'm pretty darn sure that whoever it was that got hogtied (I'll never know, don't want to know) had to have seen it as some kind of abuse.
And yet...really, this went unpunished. The perpetrators were forced to print a public apology in the local newspaper, but that was about it. No lesson was made of them, and about the most the school actually did was fire the principal and put someone tougher in his place (the pranks stopped immediately thereafter). But for me it was too late because an image built that I'm still struggling with now: In effect, the world is out to get me, so I want nothing to do with people, don't want to be around people, everyone's out to stab my back if I get too close. The proverbial shield is up all the time and sometimes I'm not afraid to use it offensively (as opposed to defensively). Witness:
The distrust is so high that about the only way I deal with people is through amusing them at others' expense via heavy sarcasm; to one driver a couple of weeks back I uttered an inanity from the Star Wars Episode I: Racer game that translates to, "Is that your Podracer, or are you selling scrap metal?"
It's so high that I let Elda, the classmate who was there for me when I had a nervous breakdown in week two of my Western Civ class that just wrapped up, go quietly, without saying anything. No requests for e-mails, nothing...so she's basically owed a favor from me that will never be repaid.
This is pretty relevant now because I have to take a science class that has a lab component in the fall...which almost certainly will implicate group work. I think I'd rather be hanged than work in a group at this point.
I feel like I have made this very long without saying a heck of a lot, so if you're reading this and want to ask me questions, please do.
Replies
first there are those people who help others and seek no compensation because you feeling better is the pay back. so you dont owe anything. the other side is group work. i hate it too, but you dont have to let anyone close, just do the work and go. its not like you have to have beers with them every night or something ;) like you i am not a fan of humanity as a whole, but its a mind set, you have to try to believe the best then let them prove you wrong. this is all in how you think about itt and will be an active test of cognative restructuring. dont take it as a curse, take it as a chancge to get better :)