Abuse in a Highly Competitive High School

When I was a junior in high school, I attended a highly-competitive magnet school which fostered intense, sometimes vicious competition between its students. We were systematically told that we were the “best and brightest” of our state, and that we were competing with each other for the top few, coveted spots in the Ivy League Schools. Being at that school felt like a nightmare, and the stress was compounded over and over again until I found myself sitting opposite my toughest professor, crying. I didn’t mean to start crying – as a matter of fact, I was terrified of doing so because he was known to berate people who cried. Even in public. But he happened to be my advisor as well, and when I began to tell him that I could barely eat, let alone focus on my schoolwork, he interrupted me to say “Well, if you would stop crying, maybe you could get your work done.”

A few weeks later, as I considered returning to my public school, this same man would tell me that if I left, no one would remember me.

Those few months left me with a lot of negative feelings about myself, my environment, and my accomplishments. I returned to my public school with what felt like a scarlet letter on my chest that bore the crimes of being emotional, incapable, or maybe even “lazy”, despite the fact that I had often stayed up for days on end, going into my closet for light while my roommate slept to study. I walked down my public school hallway, knowing that the administration viewed me as a failure after returning home, even though the failure was on the part of my magnet school’s administration, which thought it was okay to make me face the same instructor who had berated me publicly and privately, AGAIN.

I am not quick to use the word “trauma”, but I lived in fear of becoming that same person for a long time. I was terrified of going to a college that would have the same effect on me. Confrontations that I could have easily handled beforehand left me shaky and in tears, even before the authority figure walked through the door. To this day, I have to fight my natural instinct to avoid my professors if I need their help. My experience with the magnet school left me in a very strange emotional place: I wanted desperately to prove myself to seemingly everyone around me. I wanted to feel “good enough”, like I had before becoming a failure. But at the same time, I was left feeling like anything more would break me. If that magnet school was anything like the “real world”, then how would I even survive? Was I supposed to live my entire college career sleeping too much and still being exhausted every day, eating only junk because meals made me feel nauseous, and releasing these emotions dangerously into my relationships with others? Was I supposed to let the stress of schoolwork keep me awake all night, only to still fail from test anxiety (even though I had never had test anxiety before)?

I remember a particularly jarring moment in which I stared at the ibuprofen and Midol I had stocked in my desk drawer, and wondered how much I would have to take before it killed me. The thought, as ridiculous as it felt even as I was thinking it, still scared me. If I was having even fleeting, harmless thoughts about something so unspeakable, surely I needed out.

It would take a lot of time and reflection, but I would eventually come to terms with a few things. The first of which being that the man who berated me was a misogynist. My way of expressing emotions – while valid and healthy – was viewed by him as a sign of weakness, and he exploited that weakness in ways which made him feel more powerful: by yelling at me, humiliating me, and dehumanizing me. In those precious, vulnerable moments, it was hard to find my voice when it was being choked by trying to hold in violent sobs. Another thing I eventually came to terms with was that one failure did not define the rest of my life. After the magnet school, I went slightly out of my mind trying to prove myself to my friends, my school, my family, and even myself. In a very twisted way, once I was out of the harmful environment, it was the trauma it had left me with that become the prime motivation for all of my successes to follow. There was a glorious moment in my senior year of high school, after I had been named salutatorian and had been accepted into one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the nation, where I crafted a letter to that man who had once been the source of so much internalized hatred. The letter did not say much; at least not in terms of word count. I only put all of the news articles and awards I had won since on it. I copied word-for-word the letter from a state representative inviting me to be a page for him, and congratulating me on another national success. I put every picture of me shaking hands with some figure somewhere, smiling and looking important, in a paperclip and added that to the letter. And I only wrote a few words at the bottom: “Do you remember me, now?”

Of course, I never sent the letter. I thought about it. I also thought about writing a lot more than I did. I thought about telling this man exactly what I thought about him. I wanted to tell him that he wrecked me, but that I rose above it. I rose above him. I wanted to metaphorically punch him in the face. But in the end, I threw the letter away, because I knew that being a bully – even to someone who was a bully to me – wouldn’t make me feel better, and it wouldn’t make the pain go away.

And to this day, even after I have learned so much about the world and myself, so much fear remains. In the end, he won because I feel more broken than before. His words did not kill me, but they did not make me stronger. They made me more afraid of people. They made me afraid of being in a stressful academic setting.

In some ways, that magnet school was the best thing that could have happened to me. Without that unhealthy motivation to do my best, I may not have had the opportunities that I had afterwards. Many of which I only pursued in a desperate attempt to “be remembered”. Or more accurately, to give a big middle finger to that man who had made me hate myself. But at the same time, I wonder if it was worth it when I look back on the lasting impact it has had on me, even after I thought I had moved on. If I still don’t feel comfortable going to my professors for help when I need it, even if I desperately need it, then obviously there has been more harm done than good.

The man who I have referenced in this article has since passed away, and I found this out because it was all over my newsfeed one day. The news rocked me in strange ways; I felt sad not because he had passed but because I lacked the mourning that others had. I wanted to be sympathetic. I wanted to care. But as I read the wonderful things being said about this man and how much good he had done, all I could think about was him yelling in my face that I would never amount to anything. All I remembered was the emotional abuse that I suffered at his hand. And I just couldn’t make myself mourn an abuser.

I have not talked about this until today, partially because of the fear of backlash. Partially out of respect for the dead, even if the person deserved no respect from me in life. But mostly because it took so much time for me to even feel like I had a right to accuse this man of the things I accuse him of. I spent so much time hating myself that I forgot to check my sources: I never once thought that the person deserving of that hatred was the one causing it.

Today, I am stronger because I had to reflect on this and learn from it. But I am weaker because these reflections mean nothing if I haven’t healed from them. Thankfully, I have learned to love myself again, but I haven’t overcome my fear of the emotions I can’t control. The humiliation I feel when I cry in front of an authority is still just as painful today as it was in his office, even when there is no reason for it. And while my life is currently filled to the brim with sunshine, thanks to the unconditional love of a family who never gave up on me, friends who never thought bad of me, and a new significant other who believes with certainty that I can change the world, there will always be those blind spots in my vision; the exposed portions of my skin where the armor has corroded. There will always be moments of fear or insecurity that would not have existed had I never gone to that magnet school. And never again will I utter the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

But on the bright side, I am not forgotten.