So here's one of my private journal stories, in case some of you were curious
So I think I've mentioned I'm trying to work out what feels like a truckload of bad memories in a private journal. Tonight, one of these stories is no longer private, because I am choosing to put it out here. As a result this entry is going to be pretty long, apologies in advance for the length.
A lot of my bad memories have piled on to create serious trust issues with people. The following is one of them:
It's December 2001, just three months into my (ill-fated) career as an accountant, when my office was making plans for their annual holiday party. Okay, fine. Not all that unusual.
Except...this party was going to be at a hotel bar, with an open bar. Open bars generally mean that the booze flows kinda...ahem, freely, and I have definite concerns that someone isn't going to be able to control their drinking well.
A few days before the party, I had a private meeting with one of the firm's partners, who attempted to assure me that there would be no incidents. By this point in my life I had my suspicions (high school stuff was still hanging on me very heavily), but I gave him a chance to prove it anyway.
During the actual party, I spent a good chunk of time with one particular colleague who was a decent 8-ball shot and let me talk to her when I needed to have an ingrown toenail fixed two weeks before. She helped me get through the afternoon safely, and for a couple of days I thought everything would be okay (I left a little early because at the time I was doing volunteer work and had to jet for that).
That was pretty much shattered three days later. Over lunch on Monday, the party was being discussed at the other end of the break room table from where I was having my own lunch. And somebody let slip that a member of the senior staff had gotten drunk as a skunk and had extracurricular activity in the bathroom area of the bar.
I was already incredibly suspicious of people after the smoke bombing and scavenger hunt incidents in HS, so it really took only an instant for a lot of, well, anger to go into my head:
"Well, so much for what the senior partner said about people being responsible with their liquor."
"I knew I should have taken a flyer on this party..."
Or, perhaps more directly: "Must have waited until I left thinking she'd get away with it." She almost did. But once it fell on the wrong pair of ears -- mine -- I knew I was in with the wrong group of people.
But I didn't know what else to do, didn't know what to say. I had hiding emotions up to a PhD level by now, and I just had this feeling that no good would come of it if I tried to escalate it any further. So I didn't. But any trust in the staff that I had was shattered instantly.
I thought I could just put my HS years behind me before this happened because nothing too terrible had happened during college. Instead, the distrust I already had of people got worse. And soon, the hiding that first showed itself the afternoon after the smoke bombing would show itself again as well, and again worse than before.
A lot of my bad memories have piled on to create serious trust issues with people. The following is one of them:
It's December 2001, just three months into my (ill-fated) career as an accountant, when my office was making plans for their annual holiday party. Okay, fine. Not all that unusual.
Except...this party was going to be at a hotel bar, with an open bar. Open bars generally mean that the booze flows kinda...ahem, freely, and I have definite concerns that someone isn't going to be able to control their drinking well.
A few days before the party, I had a private meeting with one of the firm's partners, who attempted to assure me that there would be no incidents. By this point in my life I had my suspicions (high school stuff was still hanging on me very heavily), but I gave him a chance to prove it anyway.
During the actual party, I spent a good chunk of time with one particular colleague who was a decent 8-ball shot and let me talk to her when I needed to have an ingrown toenail fixed two weeks before. She helped me get through the afternoon safely, and for a couple of days I thought everything would be okay (I left a little early because at the time I was doing volunteer work and had to jet for that).
That was pretty much shattered three days later. Over lunch on Monday, the party was being discussed at the other end of the break room table from where I was having my own lunch. And somebody let slip that a member of the senior staff had gotten drunk as a skunk and had extracurricular activity in the bathroom area of the bar.
I was already incredibly suspicious of people after the smoke bombing and scavenger hunt incidents in HS, so it really took only an instant for a lot of, well, anger to go into my head:
"Well, so much for what the senior partner said about people being responsible with their liquor."
"I knew I should have taken a flyer on this party..."
Or, perhaps more directly: "Must have waited until I left thinking she'd get away with it." She almost did. But once it fell on the wrong pair of ears -- mine -- I knew I was in with the wrong group of people.
But I didn't know what else to do, didn't know what to say. I had hiding emotions up to a PhD level by now, and I just had this feeling that no good would come of it if I tried to escalate it any further. So I didn't. But any trust in the staff that I had was shattered instantly.
I thought I could just put my HS years behind me before this happened because nothing too terrible had happened during college. Instead, the distrust I already had of people got worse. And soon, the hiding that first showed itself the afternoon after the smoke bombing would show itself again as well, and again worse than before.
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