Last Thursday was slated to be a day that had me all over the place: work at the courthouse at 7:30, leave for class at 8:30, whenever class ends (supposed to be 11:30 but it can vary) take the hit on my time getting back to the courthouse so I can let the dog I’m watching out of his crate and cross my fingers he isn’t stubborn, back to the office whenever that’s done, find an empty office for therapy at 1, as soon as that ends get dressed for the event, then head to the hotel where I’ll be there until “9” (I left at 10pm) then rush back to Hank (the dog) and hope he’s not too mad at me for gone the entire day.
Sometimes my brain works in my favor and this time was, thankfully, one of those times. I asked my boss if I could take Thursday off to eliminate the biggest factor in all of that since I’d hardly be in the office anyway, all things considered. She approved, so my day then became leaving for class at 8:30, coming back when it ended (early, I was back by 10:30) and hanging out with Hank until therapy at 1, then getting dressed and leaving. Hank was a big fan of this decision, as well. (Hank Tax will be at the end of this post)
When I got to class the day before, my teacher asked if I had gotten the email from the Deaf Center. I had not, but she told me it had more of the details for the next day which she then told me. She asked if I could be there at 2:30 if possible but if not 3 was okay, that I would be helping set up, I would get to eat there, and when I showed up they’d plug me in wherever needed. This is what I was expecting, but it was a relief to hear it confirmed. Still, when Thursday rolled around, I could myself incredibly anxious. Now I’m an anxious person on my best day, but this felt next level—as though my skin was crawling and I had to stifle the urge to somehow rid myself of said skin. I could tell that I felt like crying, but tears wouldn’t come, so I assumed this was from that 6-year-old self making herself known.
I worked on embroidering pillowcase cuffs for Nutcracker while watching Scandal to try and distract myself (let me tell you, this is a wild time to choose to watch Scandal) and for the most part, it seemed to help. Then we started narrowing in on it being the time for therapy, and I like to know what I’m going to bring up ahead of time so we can make the most of our 50 minutes. While doing this, all the anxiety found me again, having been sitting there waiting for me to stop being distracted for long enough to grab me by the hand. In thinking about what I’d discuss, I didn’t even think there was “all that much” to bring up. I was so convinced I even considered cancelling the session, but my therapist is my favorite person in the world and honestly, I wanted the excuse to spend 50 grounding minutes with her like a little kid hanging out with the “big kid” they look up to. There’s 6-year-old Emilee again.
I updated her on various things that aren’t really a big deal but seem to be a continuing thing. These are what I tend to discuss when I jovially refer to therapy as my “shit talking session”; honestly, a nice reprieve from the typical horrors that persist. (It has been suggested by some that know me that I have enough life experience to fill many volumes of best selling novels, but I digress.) Then, to avoid what was at hand, I brought up a different issue I had been avoiding not because I don’t trust her with it but rather because it’s so difficult to talk about. I think that fact was made evident to her by my reactions while getting the words out, but of course she met it with such gentleness and professionalism. Once that was done, I introduced her to 6-year-old Emilee who had been in the room with us the entire time. I told her about what brought her there with us that day and my fears with it all. I told her how I was so anxious, even though when I’m in class or talking to my teacher about going to the event I feel excited and extremely peaceful, which tells me that this isn’t some sort of premonition of impending doom but instead “just” anxiety. I told her, “I know that I want this more than I’m scared of it, which must mean I want it pretty badly because I’m absolutely terrified.”
Realistically, I knew I’d be fine. Realistically, I knew there was absolutely nothing to be scared of. I knew I was safe and that this event wouldn’t cause me any harm. I knew when I got home I wouldn’t have any regrets about going. I knew how much this would benefit me and how happy I would be that I went. And yet, my skin still crawled. And yet, my brain wouldn’t stop spiraling even if it didn’t actually give words to the spiral. And yet, I felt like crying which if you know me you know that doesn’t happen often. And yet, everything in my being wanted to text my teacher and send my apologies.
But somewhere, deep down, I knew I didn’t actually want that. I knew I wanted to go, to learn, to experience. I wanted whatever was on the other side of this proverbial line in the sand. Maybe part of me was afraid to take this step because then if I fail or if the other shoe actually dropped and I wasn’t able to continue it would be way more disappointing than where I’d been up until this point. I think I knew that this was a huge step forward towards a life I’ve been dreaming of for the last two decades that didn’t feel possible even a year ago and that I’m still afraid I’ll somehow lose since that happens so often in my life.
Because my therapist is fucking good at her job, she didn’t tell me any of those things that I knew. Instead, she let that child version of myself make herself known and she acknowledged her and sat with her and gave all the space she needed until I got to the point where I could say, “I want this more than I’m scared of it”, then she gently encouraged me in that.
When we logged off, I immediately cried. Unprompted, unable to ignore, the sobs finally escaped and my tiny self was fully realized. Hank immediately became concerned, rushing over to me with a face that said, “Human??? What is wrong Human??? Here, pet my butt, it’ll help I swear” and in that moment I missed Honey so much, yet was also so grateful that this happened when I was there with Hank and was able to have his comfort—a privilege I haven’t had since Honey died over a year ago. I gave myself a moment, then took a deep breath and got changed and headed towards the event.
I left early enough to park on the side street, which was a relief since I didn’t know what the parking garage or valet situation would be and ya girl doesn’t have money for these sorts of uncertainties. I sat there a moment, then gathered all of my resolve and walked in. Everything still felt squirmy, yet at the same time I knew I could do it and I knew it was the right thing. I walked into the lobby and took in the space. The front desk had a huge line, so I couldn’t ask where the event was. (Not gonna lie, this was a bit of a relief as I hate asking questions. Little me rejoiced.) I saw signs saying there was event space on the third floor, and I saw the ballroom on the first floor had a sign for a different event, so I walked up the stairs to the third floor. There, I found my teacher, who took me in and introduced me to the person I’d be helping first.
And here we have my first challenge that I didn’t expect. I’m terrible with names on a good day, usually relying on other people repeating the name in order to actually remember it. I take it in when I’m first told, and then it’s as though it enters some black hole in my brain, never to be seen again. Now I knew working with dDeaf people that I wouldn’t have what I was used to in being able to overhear names repeated, but there was an added step I didn’t think of before. When you meet someone, they finger spell their name to you and then if they have a sign name, they show you. So now I’ve met many dDeaf people, and if I do remember their sign name, I have completely forgotten what they finger spelled to me. So while I may be able to identify them to others with their sign name, if it were written down, I’d be hard pressed to identify it. I need to get better at this.
Another volunteer arrived, Alex, whose name and sign name I remember somehow. gotta count the wins where I can, I guess. She and I helped finish decorating the tables and putting out the name plates for each according to the seating chart. When we finished that, we joined others in helping set up the silent auction table. This was a great undertaking as there were many silent auction items—so many that we had to request two additional tables! It was a wonderful problem to have, and all of us worked to get everything set up efficiently. During this I met lots of people from the dDeaf community, as well as other volunteers. Everyone was so nice and welcoming which made me feel at ease.
Once we had everything ready to go for the night, the main five of us volunteers that I had gotten to know all hung out a bit. The keynote speaker, actor Daniel Durant, arrived and we all stood around giggling from nerves and excitement at getting to meet someone we all admire. I got to know each of the girls a little better, one of them being one of the interns in my Intro to Interpreting class, Makayla. She actually sits right next to me in class, but we’ve never met largely because I was too nervous to do anything other than what I knew I was there to do. It was nice to talk with her and the others. Our teacher came by and introduced us to her sister who was there and we went around and told her about our progress with ASL and interpreting. It was then I learned that I was the only volunteer who wasn’t either dDeaf, an interpreter, or an intern. My flabbers were ghasted. Somehow, my brain—who I’ve named Brian when he’s being a dick—didn’t betray me and list out all the ways I don’t measure up to the others, instead it let me just be in the moment and learn as much as I could from every experience.
Throughout the night I was asked 3 different times if I was an interpreter. I’d say, “no but I know ASL”, and each of the times they asked me to assist them. The first was a man who asked me to tell the Omni worker he wanted black tea with milk and sugar, hot, when his meal came out. I communicated the back and forth (what kind of black tea do they have? I’ll bring you the tea now but the hot water when your meal comes. That’s great, thank you) and everyone went on their way. One of the other volunteers, Taylor, was standing next to me when this happened. After it was over I looked at her with eyes wide like I’d just had a celebrity sighting. She said, “you handled that really well!” and I gave her the sign I’d just learned last week to show that my confidence has expended with that interaction. Then I said, “I think I’m on a high.” Seriously. It felt like all the dopamine and serotonin I don’t have on a good day found their way from whatever caves they hide and rushed my system all at once.
One of my classmates whom I really like, Marisela, attended the even with her aunt who is Deaf. I was so excited to see her. She told me she was attending with her aunt and I told her Linda (our teacher) asked me to volunteer. She said, “Linda really likes you” and told me how she’d asked her to volunteer a few years ago and it was a lot of fun. Marisela has been so kind and encouraging to me in class, I was extra glad she was there. I also saw a set of dance parents I like from the studio. Their daughter was one of the four girls cast as Clara this year in The Nutcracker and I’d wondered if they’d be there once I saw their business had donated to the silent auction. There was also a man I’d seen earlier who definitely looked like he was related. I was glad I was right, and it was great to get to talk to them for a bit.
The five of us volunteers handled the silent auction table and during such I got to meet a few dDeaf people who were asking various questions. One such person was the kindest person I think I’ve ever met. She was so excited and we joked about her staking out that particular item to make sure she had the final bid. There was one of the workers from the Deaf Center who was in a bidding war with her and once they realized it was quite a hilarious and joyous moment. In the end, the worker relented and my new friend won as she’d hoped. She was so happy she hugged me really tightly. At the end of the night I brought her her winnings and we celebrated again. As we parted at the end of the night she hugged me again, said it was so great meeting me and said, “thank you so much for learning sign! And for being here!” and that made me want to cry tears of joy. I told her I absolutely love it and loved getting to meet her as well. (This is where Brian really betrayed me by not letting me retain her name, even though she finger spelled it AND I had seen it on the silent auction form. I can’t even remember her sign name. I’m so mad about it as she was so kind to me the entire night and I really enjoyed her company! I do know it started with an L and I’m hoping that over time I’ll be able to ask someone or even herself.)
I also got to reconnect with Deb, a women I’d met 3 years ago when she reached out to the Ballet to see if a couple dancers would come to their Nutcracker themed Signing with Santa event. We had such a great time and I’d been thinking about her so I was glad to see her again there. I told her I’d wanted to invite them to our School Show with discounted tickets and also see if she needed dancers again for this years Signing with Santa if it fit the theme. She was so glad I’d ask and we’re going to discuss it this week.
At the end of the night, Taylor and Makayla asked me if I got a picture with Daniel Durant. I didn’t know we were allowed to and they said they had all just done so and he was super nice, so I asked the two volunteers from our local high school if they had and brought them with me. We were all so excited and he was so nice.
I left the event at the end of the night feeling all the things I knew I would feel, yet I had none of the guilt or belittling I usually have towards myself for having been so anxious beforehand knowing everything would work out. It was a great lesson, helped by my therapist, in giving ourselves grace for all the survival mechanisms we learned in childhood and giving space to work through them at our own pace.
Yesterday was the first class I’ve had since the event and when I got there, Linda told me that she saw me throughout the night and I did great and worked so hard. I thanked her and told her I’d had so much fun and loved being there.
I’m so grateful to have been given this opportunity and for all the people and factors that went in to me being able to find the courage to take the opportunity and make the best of it, leading to such a wonderful and fulfilling experience. It’s such a privilege to be able to be among this community. I’ll never not be grateful.
At this point, we’re fully a month and change into the autumn semester of college. I’m only taking two classes this semester, which is by design as I’m currently still working two different jobs. The other classes I could have added in don’t have to be done in any particular order, so it’s easy enough to delay them to next year when I’ll have less on my metaphorical plate.
Everything started off well enough, and then as I tend to do I started to really begin to doubt myself. It wasn’t absolutely glaring and weighty; more of a sort of still, small voice creeping in, asking me things I didn’t dare voice out loud. “Who do you think you are?” “What makes you think you’ve going to be good enough to be an interpreter?” “Honestly, this isn’t going to be everything you expect it to be. Might as well just get used to disappointment now.”
So much is riding on my success, but in different ways than people might assume reading this sentence. It’s not like a typical-college-aged-person’s set of pressures, my parents don’t have any set opinion of me on this, honestly I don’t think they ever expected me to go to college but that’s a whole other post. My pressures are wholly personal. If this doesn’t work out, I can’t afford to move into town in a house that is mine and not in my parents back yard. If this doesn’t work out, I won’t make enough to do more than just survive with the way the economy is going. All the hopes and grand visions I have of living entirely on my own that would have seemed impossible even just 5 years ago are just waiting on my finances to catch up, but without this degree and the possibilities it allows, they will remain out of reach. And while I’m grateful for the tiny house on my parents land, mentally this isn’t the best situation for me. I’m trying to make the most of it, but there’s only so much optimism can do for a person, especially one who seems to be living an existence that could inspire many different plot lines of quite intriguing books such as mine.
In all this, I told myself to just keep going. You’re already here, you’re doing the thing, you might as well keep going unless or until it gives you a reason to stop. You’ve barely begun and there’s so much left to experience that could surprise you. Do your best and see what happens and take it all in stride.
No sooner I did, I had a week where two of my three classes left me feeling like I’ve made the right decision. The first happened on Monday’s ASL 3 class when I walked in and my teacher asked me if I could help her. She had a call she had to take at 9am, which is the same time our class starts, and she asked if I could lead the class in reviewing the unit we were on. She said it shouldn’t take long, but if we get through all of that, she gave me the papers for the project we were to work on afterwards. Now I’m not sure why she asked me. I’m typically the first or second person in class, so it’s possible it was simply because I was available. Whatever the reason, she knew she could trust me to do what she asked and also that I was capable enough to handle doing such. I was nervous not so much for the task—the program we use has videos of Deaf people showing the proper ways to do each of the signs—but mores of my fellow classmates opinions. I don’t know many of them enough to recall their names (I’m trying!) and I think I’m the only (or one of the only) one(s) without a connection to the Deaf community already. I tried to keep my brain quiet, and everyone was kind and attentive, asking good questions and pointing out if I had my hand wrong (thanks, Roland!) When our teacher finished her call, she let me keep going, until she had stories she was telling which had her going to the front of the class to be seen by everyone and then she went ahead and took over as it was most logical. When I sat down, one of my new friends, Taylor, gave me the sign for cheering, which was really nice. When we left class, my other friend Drea told me that I did a really great job and my signs were very clear and understandable. It was really nice to hear, especially as that’s something I’m typically concerned about internally—that my signs aren’t clear or don’t make sense. Leading the class in the review made me feel similar to how I felt when I first started teaching ballet classes. I noticed then that it made me a better dancer as I was having to think more critically about each step I was doing in order to properly teach it to my students. With this, I was having to think more critically, paying attention to the NMM’s (Non-Manual Markers) and hand orientation than I may have typically. Really, I was grateful to have been given the opportunity to challenge my thinking in a way I hadn’t attempted yet.
In Thursday’s Intro to the Interpreting Profession class, I was the second one there and again my teach came up to me shortly upon arrival. She asked me where I worked and I told her I worked at the Courthouse and the Ballet Studio. She asked me if I’d be interested in volunteering the following Thursday (this week) at the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Center’s annual fundraiser event. I’d need to be there from 3-9pm and wear all black. I told her yes, that would be great! I get off work at the Courthouse at 3 but I could leave a little early and my ballet job is only on the weekends right now. She was so relieved. Again, I’m not sure why she asked me and my brain can come up with numerous conclusions, but the fact remains that in asking me she is giving me a vote of confidence in my abilities to be successful in volunteering at such an important event to our local Center. This will also be my first real time among our local Deaf community, having missed out on the previous Friday’s “Deaf Chat” event I was hoping to go to.
Now that the event is two days away, I’m nervous as hell. I don’t have too many details about what to expect, only where to be, at what time, and what to wear—which, arguably, are the most important details. I’m sure I can figure out where to go and who to report to once I get there, but the childhood version of me that was too afraid to ask an adult I was familiar with for a glass of water when I was thirsty has made herself known again. There’s also the added uncertainty of if the person I will figure out I need to report to will be Deaf or hearing; I’m going to err on the side of signing as that makes the most sense in regards to respect.
I know one day I’ll look back on all of this with a completely different view that can only come with experience. Just knowing that that version of myself is possible for me to imagine gives me the bit of courage I need to face all of the anxieties that scream at me and would normally result in me cowering under the covers safely in my bed instead of facing whatever it is. I want this more than I’m scared of it.
This was a thought I had to myself as I copied the introduction to my POI (Program of Oral Interpretation) from my working document into the final document before sending it over to my Speech director, both the POI and the introduction feeling like such impossibilities that if I was still for long enough, the anxiety I felt toward it was all-consuming.
*Record Scratch*
You may be wondering how I got here:
The last post, if I recall correctly as I don’t typically go back and read over things I’ve written, I wrote of how absolutely terrible I felt after my second speech for class and how the words of one of my classmates made me cry real, actual tears. That was only half way through the semester. Since then, I have given my Informative Speech about Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, on which I made a 99, points only taken off because I said my points in reverse order, and my Persuasive Speech on the Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas, on which I made a 101. (This was a class-voted competition to see whose non-profit would get the class donation. I was pretty competitive with it, but after the first day’s speeches it was very evident that I had a very good chance of losing to one of my classmates, Carlos. It came down to a coin toss, which he called and I won. If we hadn’t been allowed to vote or if he voted for himself, he would have won—a win he totally would have deserved. Hell, I almost voted for him, talking myself down last minute. [“Don’t be noble, Emilee!”] A wild, fun time.)
Since that last post, my speech teacher, Sarah, emailed me to ask if I was interested in joining the Speech Team. I met with her to see about what kind of a commitment this is, considering I’m currently working two jobs and not entirely sure what to expect as far as how much school work I’m going to have. College Forensics (not, like, CSI style, y’all) is different than the High School circuit I’m used to. Here, you don’t have to place at certain levels a certain amount of times to qualify for State or Nationals. As long as you are enrolled in enough classes and have the required amount of different events, you’re good to go. You also don’t have to go to every tournament. If I have to miss one, I don’t get eaten alive like I used to in High School. Back then, Theater basically owned your soul, but now it was much more forgiving. I told Sarah about my schedule and how things stood, and it all seemed doable with enough tweaking.
Also in that time, my High School speech teacher and coach, Charlotte Brown, died. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it definitely was shocking. The timing of it for me is absolutely mind blowing and makes the grieving process a bit more complex as I’m already finding myself in an emotional tailspin, joining a speech team again and sorting through the emotions that have come with that. It’s almost felt as though I’ve been given an additional do-over—first in school, and now in competitions—that I didn’t expect to be given. I wanted to tell Ms. Brown about it, but waited to message her as they she was moving to San Antonio. No sooner she got there, she was gone. I know she would have been thrilled for me. Especially learning under Sarah, who did her student teaching with Ms. Brown and is a force in her own right. I also learned she’s the mom of one of my former teammates from high school. I don’t know who is writing this season of my life, but they sure are having a great time of it.
I had intended on sticking to what was familiar—Poetry and Prose—but after my first meeting with the team I realized that POI sounded pretty cool and the next day in class, Sarah told me some ideas she had about what could be a good one for me. I went home and thought about it, looking through some of my old Instagram story posts for inspiration and landing on an idea. I brought it up to Sarah the following day, and she loved it.
Yay! Great! An idea!
The only problem is, I’ve never done a POI before. Further, I’m an anxious mess and I knew if I wasn’t careful, this would consume me and I would end up a copy/paste of 14-year-old Emilee, too terrified of failing to even try simply because I didn’t fully understand what I was doing. Sarah gave me examples of POI’s, as well as showed me where to find recordings of past Nationals winners. I had all the information I could ever need, and still I felt ill-equipped and unprepared.
I wasn’t, though, I just had to try.
Slowly, I started putting together things that made sense. I tried to not think about the end goal, but rather just the next step I could see and taking it. I didn’t force it if I wasn’t having a good brain day, but I still kept the reality of the fact I couldn’t wait too long to get this done at the forefront of my mind. Grace, and action. Last night I couldn’t sleep from the anxiety of not having fully figured it out yet, and somehow I found the presence of mind to tell myself, “You know what to do. You can’t do any of that right now. You will do it in the morning, and it’ll be fine. You’ll finish it and send it off to Sarah, and if it sucks she’ll tell you and then you’ll know and learn how to do better.” And that helped me fall asleep.
This morning, I did just that; I finished it, sent it off to Sarah, and waited for her thoughts. Wouldn’t you know? She loved it, the only changes she made being structurally to give it a more impactful flow and cutting out one sentence. Next up was coming up with my Introduction. I asked her if there was anything specific I needed to have in it, and she sent me over some examples. I felt just as nervous for this as I apparently don’t think I know what I’m doing unless someone is standing over me telling me I’m doing it right (is this my problem with math?) but I told myself if I could do the POI, I could do the intro, and who knows? Maybe I’d surprise myself. I started on the steps I knew I could do, started compiling parts of it, and then just wrote. I read it over, added an extra sentence, then put it with the piece. I sent it over to Sarah—and am currently still awaiting her opinion—and as soon as I sent it, the overwhelming sense of being capable washed over me.
Who have I been to assume I can’t do things?
Where the hell did that even come from?
I’m sure if I tried hard enough, I could pinpoint it, and I’m sure it’s from my super-fun childhood that’s job security for my therapist, but I don’t feel I need to. What’s important is that I realize I am capable, and being gentle with myself to guide her through these opportunities where I’m stepping into it all.
Hopefully she likes the intro, and if not, I’ll learn from it and try again. I still have a persuasive speech to write (and memorize…el oh el.) but I feel a little more secure in that since I’ve done one before and have some semblance of understanding with it.
Now that I’ve got it assembled, I hope I do this piece justice.
I’m in a Public Speaking class for the Summer II session at a community college and today I gave my second speech.
My first speech last week had me nervous. I was on the Speech and Debate team in high school, but I wasn’t one of the “good ones” even though our coach is a completely unironic legend. She tried with me, but I was busy trying to merely survive and wasn’t able to commit to the effort as much as is required to be good. Going into this, I found myself reverting back into old ways like a perfectly fitting vintage coat and even though my hands were shaking uncontrollably when I finished that first speech, our teacher told the whole class, “if you want to know what a 100 looks like, that’s it.”
I prepared for this second speech, a “how-to”, almost as much as I did for the first, only foregoing the practice in the speech lab for extra credit as I found it clunky navigating a powerpoint and demonstrating, and remembering what to say. I was not confident going into this one regardless, and I secretly felt that no amount of practice or preparation was going to help me feel any differently in the time we had to prepare this.
Last night as I left the ballet studio after teaching a private lesson, I noticed how much more pronounced my OCD tendencies have gotten, and that evening as well as this morning it was all the more glaring, along with my social anxiety. I tried to keep my self calm, give myself pep talks, listen to those offering me words of encouragement going into it (though they didn’t know the internal scope of what I was up against), and go into this with enough fake confidence that no one would be the wiser as to what was actually going on internally. Maybe in doing so I could squeak out a passable speech (for my standards and the standard i’m assuming my first speech set for me) The day as a whole was a bit disjointed for a bunch of us and as i’m speaking I can feel myself falling apart, missing my points, and at the end completely forgot my power point was a thing. I sat down and pretended I was fine and it was whatever, helped my classmates when it was needed, made small talk, and walked back to my car after class was done with one more speech under my belt.
As I turned the key in the ignition and my mind started going over everything that just happened, all the feigned confidence began to wane. I drove back to work and opened up my laptop so I could get my self critique portion of the grade over. there’s a part of this that has questions you answer before watching your speech and a portion you answer after. and I was honest. scale of 1-10? No higher than a 6, and even that is pushing it. How did you feel after? Not great, this wasn’t my best work. after viewing it, what did you feel you can improve on? Everything. My speed was too fast, my power point was lacking, I didn’t feel I demonstrated it quite well enough, etc. What are you most proud of? That I actually did it and didn’t avoid it like everything inside me was telling me to do. I knew inside—and not just out of pessimism—that this wasn’t going to go well and that fact made me want to avoid. I pretended like it wouldn’t be right, but I knew it would be, and it was. I started looking ahead to the next speech in hopes I can get a head start so I don’t feel like this again, but any topic I thought of made me feel dejected and like I was setting myself up for a repeat of this experience. I hate how this feels and I don’t want to keep going in, but I need the grade, and i’m sure it’s not as bad as my brain is telling me it is. I felt panic coming on as I had to find words to talk about how I felt with this damn speech, and opted to do the extra credit on “10 rookie mistakes” where I was to identify at least 10 of them I felt I could improve upon and write a 1-2 page paper on it. The creativity options that held for someone who was basically turning in a blog post for extra credit helped me keep the panic at bay, but I still couldn’t shake that feeling of wanting to cry and, worse, I couldn’t actually cry. It’s as though my body wouldn’t allow me; it wouldn’t do me that solid.
Each of our classmates is supposed to also do a Peer Critique. it’s anonymous and they collect them all by person and we take them home to see what our audience thinks we did well and can improve on. I almost didn’t look at mine. I was so dejected that I couldn’t even remember where I put them, though I did remember picking them up like we’re supposed to. When I got to my second job, I pulled out my laptop to print out a few things for class and found them in my folder that sits in my backpack next to my laptop. I figured, if i’m ever going to read these, now is the time so I can get everything over with now and can move on and never think about this again. Most of the notes said nice things, only one actually did the part of providing two things upon which I can improve. (better power point and not moving my head side to side so much. both I found to be helpful, and I was moving my head side to side to try and look at everyone more since I was told last time I didn’t do it enough.) The rest were helpful with their things they thought I did great, saying they enjoyed the topic—which I was concerned about—and my speaking speed was good (are we sure?), and that my directions were easy to follow. I was grateful.
One of the last ones I read became my undoing. It read,
“You’re a great speaker. I admire you!”
That did it. Those seven words pulled the thread that unraveled the entire sweater of my emotions. I sat there, papers in hand, crying without even trying, that one line speaking straight to my heart. I stopped crying a few moments later, looked at it again, and started up all over again.
These peer critiques are anonymous, so I don’t even know who feels this way about me. I have a couple guesses of who it might be, but I don’t know everyone’s handwriting to be sure. Regardless, whoever it was held the pen that ended up being the key that opened the lock leading to the release and relief I had been desperate for. They likely have absolutely no idea how much their words would mean, and they didn’t have to write them, but they did anyway. A simple gesture of encouragement that was the hand reaching out to pull me out of the spiraling pit in which I had found myself.
And as I sat there, I realized I knew what my next speech topic would be. Our next speech is an Informative, where we have to have a powerpoint (ugh), an introduction, three clear points, and a conclusion to tie it all together. We also have to have a clear outline, at least 3 but preferable 5 citations properly mentioned in our speech, a works cited page in proper format, and probably other things I can’t remember off the top of my head. i’ve been mulling over ideas; The history of quilting, this history of barn quilts specifically, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, my favorite members of my family tree, SPAM the canned food product, etc. Still, none of these felt right. None of these felt like something I would be confident picking and able to do what was asked of me well. I feared if I didn’t feel confident at the start, if I didn’t feel that sensation of peace i’ve come to shape my life around, that I would be doomed to repeat today’s situation and subsequent sensations.
Reading that anonymous peer critique I realized I wanted to do my next speech on how our words have power. They can influence, they can hurt, or they can heal.
now I don’t know if i’m allowed to use this class as an example in this speech, but if I am you bet your buttons i’m going to somehow weave in this situation to prove how words can heal. If not, i’ll find other ways to do so. Maybe even sneak in a photographic example of healing words, perhaps even one of the critique itself.
I’m so glad I decided to read those forms, and beyond grateful that whoever that was wrote those words to me. I plan to hold on to this little piece of paper and keep it in a place to serve as a reminder when my world starts closing in on me again, as is bound to happen.
(photo of the peer speech critique form giving me the mentioned compliments that meant so much to me. an expert flower—my symbol—is drawn in the top right hand corner)
The community college I’m going to has two different summer sessions, each running 6 weeks. Summer 1 began May 27th and ended July 3rd, Summer 2 began July 7th and runs through August 14th. If you do two classes during a summer session, you’re considered a full time student. Summer 1 I did Psychology and ASL 1, and now in Summer 2 I’m doing Public Speaking and ASL 2.
I chose to do Psychology and Public Speaking in the summer because they’re two classes I felt would take a little bit more effort on my part and trying to do them during a show season at the Ballet, especially a Nutcracker season, felt like cruel and unusual punishment. I didn’t want to add to my stress that is already through the roof with working two jobs by adding in complex classes. (I’ve lucked out that I only have two ASL classes offered in the fall, when I’m busiest. Spring isn’t so lucky with something like 14 hours worth of ASL classes while working full time at two jobs. Yeehaw?)
My Psychology class that I took in Summer 1 ended up being my absolute favorite. Everything about it made me feel so good and I looked forward to attending class. Sure, it was quite a bit of work, but the material we were learning was so interesting and the “kids” in my class were engaging and hilarious that I found myself having so much fun, even when it was difficult. I found myself feeling what I’d consider to be a sense of grief once the class ended and I had to take some time to let myself process the fact that I’d never have that class with that teacher and those fellow students ever again and to shift into the “smile because it happened” phase of change.
Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to Public Speaking, sort of by default. It’s hard to be the second act after such a solid first act, anything would pale by comparison. I found out my last week of Summer 1 that the teacher in whose class I originally enrolled didn’t make the required number of students and I was switched to a different teacher. At first this just added to my anxiety, but then I realized it was someone my friend had taken in Spring and since she really liked her class I calmed down a little bit.
First day of class our teacher told us a little bit about herself and also explained her expectations from us for the class. This is when I learned that she did her student teaching under my high school speech teacher, who is an absolute legend. This was something I found both helpful as well as adding to the nerves. It was helpful in the sense that I felt I was already familiar with what she would be expecting in the most basic sense. I did speech and debate in high school and though it’s all quite a blur, I figured I would sort of slide right back into that frame of mind and may be able to squeak out an okay grade. The downside is that because of this connection to Ms. Brown, I now had extremely high standards for myself and feel she will expect a lot out of me as well. How do I explain to my new speech teacher that I’m actually not that great at this and that I never did this kind of speech in speech and debate? Will my speeches speak for themselves (terrible pun there, forgive me, I didn’t mean it) or – worse – will she hear me speak and have no clue that I ever sat under the Great Ms. Brown? And if she could tell, does that mean she’s going to hold me to an outrageously high standard befitting a “Brownie”?
Damned if I do, damned if I don’t I guess.
The second day of class we had a quiz for extra credit that I completely forgot about. I felt so scattered trying to get situated with everything that comes with the new class and new semester, as well as work and also teaching ballet private lessons (and then add in sorting through all the emotions with the recent floods in Central Texas) that I got to class and remembered nothing of what she told us. I quickly looked over the hand out and all the different things she told us to star in hopes it would be enough. There were ten questions and if you missed 2 or less then you would get the extra credit. Wouldn’t you know I was the only person who didn’t get the required amount of questions right? Clearly this did nothing for my confidence going into this. After class that day, I met with Dr. A to go over the last exam. I had had a dream in my anxiety a few days before that I got to her office and remember looking at the Scantron, but couldn’t remember what any of the actual questions or answers were and was super confused about the entire thing. Thankfully, it wasn’t like that and I actually forgot that it wouldn’t be the second exam that I was seeing. When she handed me the Scantron and test I expected to see way more incorrect answers but was pleasantly surprised to be reminded that this was the exam on which I had done the best. The questions I got wrong were ones I had either debated between the two answers or else talked myself out of the correct one, so I was pleased overall with the outcome. I told Dr. A how I missed her class and that she definitely has ruined any other class for me because now they’re all held to the standard of her class. She laughed and told me I would do well in my other classes and I decided to believe her, even though at this point I was certain that if I squeaked out a B in Speech I’d be callin’ it good.
We have 4 speeches we’ll have to give in class, the first of which was today. Our teacher gave us a handout with a guideline for how to format our speech and also provided different videos for extra credit that I found helpful. These videos gave me a pretty good sense of what she would be expecting, what was allowed, and which common trip-ups weren’t deal breakers. She also gave us a typed up example of what her speech would look like, as well as what her notecard would look like. The notecard isn’t supposed to have our entire speech but instead serve more like a bullet point list to help us if we got tripped up. Much like how I don’t read music in violin, I had a feeling that if I could get a pretty good sense of my speech memorized that I would feel more confident in it, because then if I completely messed up I could hope that muscle memory would kick in and keep me going. I wrote the speech when I finally got a quiet moment between work, violin, work, and private lessons, and practiced when I got home, though after practicing I realized I’d completely forgotten an entire section of points I was supposed to hit. (no wonder my timing improved!) That made me start second guessing myself right when I was starting to feel a little comfortable.
I was able to go in early and do the extra credit practicing in the speech lab, which is where you film yourself practicing three different times. I’m so glad I did because I completely spaced out on one of the sections in which I was most confident during the first run through. I ended up re-writing my notecard to make it more clear for where I tend to get caught up and kept thinking through the different parts I wasn’t confident in before class. Doing the practice before also helped me with my nerves because two of my other classmates were doing theirs before me and another came in after me. The camaraderie I felt with them helped me calm down my nerves. I’m so grateful.
Walking into class, I realized that I felt much the same way as when I was going into a psychology exam; if I’m getting it wrong, I’m going to get it wrong confidently. In speech terms I guess that translates to, if I bomb this, I’m going to bomb it the best way I know how. I decided that if no one volunteered to go first that I’d just get it out of the way; I felt okay enough to do that. Thankfully, other people volunteered quickly and I ended up fifth, which I thought was late enough to see examples of other people but early enough to not psych myself out in an anxiety spiral.
When I got up there I definitely felt myself flip into Speech-and-Debate-tournament mode and that muscle memory I was hoping for kicked in. I felt I actually managed to articulate myself the best in class than I ever did in practice, which surprised me. Going into it I was a bit concerned that my speech was disjointed and confusing, or that I would be speaking way too fast to try and keep in the time limit, but my teacher kept laughing at my jokes and quips so that made me feel a little better. (I think I still spoke a little fast, but slow by my standards. I speak fast, y’all.) When I finished, my hands were uncontrollably shaking. I had mentally prepared myself for how I would respond to my teachers small talk questions I would assume she would ask like she’d done with the people before me, picking out something from their speech to ask a little more detail about. Surely, she would connect the fact I mentioned growing up in my hometown and going to public high school and connect that I had Ms. Brown since I also mentioned my age.
But she didn’t.
I sat down and she says, “If y’all want to know what a 100 looks like, that was it.” Then she said to me, “If you think you’re going to get away with not joining my speech team you’re mistaken.” I responded, “I was trained by Ms. Brown” to which she replied, “I can tell”.
I can not describe the relief I felt in that moment, both knowing I made a 100 and also that she could tell I studied under Ms. Brown. The fear of the standard I have now set for myself dulled a little bit. I found myself more surprised by it all.
I started public school Sophomore year. I wasn’t trained in how to do all this stuff for years like my peers and I definitely was lacking in the confidence department. I was too afraid to actually practice with Ms. Brown to be worth much of anything, though I squeaked out a few medals and trophies here and there; nothing enough to qualify for Nationals, but once I got 2nd in a Senior event (I can’t remember if it was Prose or DI) that no one was expecting. It was quite different from the stand out kids that consistently did well at tournaments. I was mediocre at best. To have that praise from my speech teacher, knowing she spent her student teaching days with Ms. Brown, is more than I could have ever expected.
As I drove back to work, I was reflecting on all of this and found myself remembering what I learned from Psychology—that maybe I’m actually smart and have been this whole time. Is it possible this could be true for more than just the classes I really like? What the hell is in the water now that I didn’t have before? Where did this come from? I could probably say age and experience helps, as well as all the work I’ve done over the last few years to unlearn old patterns of thinking and relearn new ones that better serve me, as well as boundaries and lots of therapy—but is it that “simple”? Nothing about all of that has been simple, but has this potential been in me this entire time?
Like.
Holy crap.
(The view of part of some campus buildings from the second floor window)
From Kindergarten through Eighth Grade I attended a private Christian school in a small town near where I live. We mostly used a self-taught curriculum and classes were separated by groups of grades since our school was so small. These groups occasionally fluctuated from year to year. The summer after Eighth Grade, before my Freshman year, my parents pulled us out of enrollment there. I was away at Bible Camp and they forgot to tell me until I asked sometime late July or early August when we were going to get our uniforms. I digress. My Freshman year I was homeschooled using this same curriculum. I can only assume it was thought that since this was self-taught, the transition to homeschooling would be smooth and easy and we would be able to accomplish our work without much effort on the part of adults. What actually happened is I didn’t do any subject I wasn’t interested in or couldn’t understand. I remember realizing that if I kept up with this, I would basically never have more than an Eighth Grade education, though I would have a High School diploma—mom was filling out the transcript anyway and submitting it, no problem. My friends had gone to public school and I made a list of reasons (I don’t think it was quite an actual PowerPoint, but definitely same concept) about why they should let me go to public school. This might seem like a simple agreement for some, but having come from a private Christian school where I was intentionally enrolled and a negative stigma against public schools rampant from the opinions of the mouths of many of the adults that surrounded me (never mind that half our church had kids in public school) it definitely took some persuading. I’m not sure how I got the courage to do this, I don’t remember, and I don’t know how I got my parents to agree, but they did, especially considering I couldn’t drive quite yet and we lived out in the country and my mom wasn’t a big fan of taking me places.
Sophomore year is when they bring the students in one at a time to meet with the Counselor to see what you might see yourself studying after graduation in either a college, university, or trade school. I remember sitting in that office riddled with anxiety, having no clue what my life would look like this year or how to navigate it, let alone what it would look like once I was graduated. She asked me, “well, what are you good at?” and the panic only increased; I’m not good at anything. I’ve had an unconventional schooling experience by comparison up until this point, and the limited options we had through Eighth Grade were things I definitely wasn’t good at. I thought about the fact that I volunteered at my church and I seemed to be good at that, so I said, “I don’t know, helping people?” and she said, “what about being a teacher? or a therapist?” to which I wasn’t sure. The latter especially was a hard no to me as I had the thought, “if I can’t even handle my own issues, how could I help anyone else through theirs?”
My Junior year, as I looked over the options of classes I noticed American Sign Language was available as a foreign language to Juniors and Seniors. Having learned a few songs in ASL at my private school and remembering I was good at it and how much I enjoyed it, I asked if I could take that instead of Spanish. Finally, something I was good at. I took ASL 1-4 in the two years, was voted “Who’s Who of American Sign Language” (which, there was four of us Senior year), and really took to this language and culture in a way that’s hard to explain. My teacher encouraged me to look into going to school at our local community college for an ASL Interpreting degree.
When I graduated, I went to the Bible College attached to the Bible Camp I’d gone to almost every summer since I was 4-years-old, a dream of mine since I can remember. I wanted to go to the college, work at the camp, and be full time staff, living out the rest of my days working for this place that was such a big part of my life and one of the only safe and consistent places for me. This was a two year, non accredited school. I was top 10 my first year, Salutatorian my second year, and against all odds was on summer staff both summers. (The first made possible by a friend of mine on staff who requested me for his department after the first pick turned it down. He got struck by lightening before summer began and I ended up running the department myself with only the knowledge of what I had from interning at the summer camps. 18 hour days, and I was the only staff member to not get sick that entire summer. Also, he survived, but with immense mental deficits as the lightening entered the right side of his head and out his left foot. Wild times.) After my second summer, I applied to be full time staff but was rejected. At the time, this was the biggest loss I could imagine. Everything I’d ever hoped or planned for was now impossible and I was faced with going back home to a place I didn’t enjoy with no back up plan, feeling like a complete failure, especially when compared to my contemporaries.
I got a job and looked into what it would take to go to the local community college for that ASL Interpreting degree. As a rather anxious human pre diagnosis, this was quite the feat for me to make the calls and meet with the adults that could answer my questions, let alone actually asking those questions. Still, I did it, and they seemed very happy to have me, but then financial aid fell through due to issues with my parents information (long story) and I couldn’t afford to go. I later learned my sister and I both had college funds, but she got them both since no one thought I’d go to “real college” when I got home and we were in the middle of the Great Recession.
For ten years beginning in 2008, I flitted around from job to job, taking what I could get until something better came along. I wasn’t anywhere longer than about 6 months for the largest chunk of that, my longest stint being 2.5 years before I had to quit because by that point my health had tanked so badly I couldn’t tolerate an 8-5 without passing out. By this time, I had been taking ballet classes for a few years and was teaching the younger dancer classes and as I had to strip down my life to the bones and rebuild it back up in hopes my health wouldn’t get increasingly worse or remain that way, I was able to keep the dance classes—even though teaching looked like my sitting on a stool verbally giving instructions to the class and my assistants I requested basically doing all the actual teaching. I’m eternally grateful.
In this time, I’m pricing wheelchairs but hesitating before ordering one, partially because I couldn’t afford them and also partially because I was told by one doctor if I started using one I’d likely never get out of it. My muscles would atrophy and bones become weaker and it would lend to a complicated life shift. This also coincided to what I call the “Great Revolution” of sorts in my personal life where I realized everything I’d been doing was not working and if I kept going this way I’d end up on the debilitating end of my conditions and basically be a ward of my sister my entire life. This could not happen. So I began by challenging every thought that entered my head with two questions: “Why do I think this?” and “Who told me to?” Over the years I was able to pinpoint what was actually something I believed or believed in, what was serving me, what was harming me, and I began to re-pour my life’s foundation and slowly be able to build my life back. I went from being unable to walk a grocery store without passing out to holding a (albeit extremely simple and low stress) part time job at the courthouse in the same department as my sister with a boss who was the opposite of the bosses I’d had before. Here, I was able to further unlearn some of the conditioning I’d acquired and show myself that people in authority can be safe and what I’d experienced before wasn’t how it is everywhere. This did end up being too much to allow me to continue also teaching the ballet classes I loved so much and in March 2020 I told my ballet bosses that this would be my last year teaching. And then we broke for Spring Break and the world shut down, causing that season to end there.
Flash Forward to today as this back story is long and I haven’t even begun to write about the actual point of this post: I work in local government in that same part time job I got at the end of 2018. I’ve worked here knowing that if you’re full time, they offer a tuition reimbursement program to employees who pursue degrees. I’d assumed the whole time that this was just another thing I’d never be able to take advantage of because I’d screwed myself over with all my health conditions (triggered by stress) and wouldn’t be able to handle a full time job and school.
Lo and behold on January 6 in the year of our Lord 2025, something clicked, and I realized I could actually handle taking on classes. The irony is that I’m actually working two full time jobs as the performance studio arm of the teaching studio I worked for hired me on a few years back to work for them as well. My health has slowly been improving over all this time, with baby steps here and there in the right direction, the most recent breakthrough being realizing I can eat walnuts which helps reduce the inflammation in my brain stem that’s causing most of my issues, but all of those details are for another post.
Again, I did the terrifying thing, I asked the questions, I somehow figured out how to apply for school, register, found the locations of all the classes, etc which may not seem like a big deal for most but for me is substantial. I have four classes this summer, two in each Summer I and Summer II, with my first in person class being General Psychology—the real point of this blog post. (If you’ve made it through all this pre-info, bless you.)
I’m pretty sure I was so nervous I was shaking that first day of classes. The teacher I’d chosen was one recommended by a dance mom friend who used to work at the college and said she was outstanding, so I felt a little bit of hope that if all else failed, I’d at least have a good teacher. I did as much preparing as I could to allow myself to at least feign confidence until I was familiar enough with the campus and the practices and everything that goes along with getting a college education. The first day, I couldn’t find the elevator and forgot to scour the maps for it before. I took the stairs, which is one of the limitations I haven’t been able to shake myself of (along with reading physical books), and the rest of the day my brain was a bit of dead weight, thought being too difficult to hold on to for long enough to be substantial. I took rigorous notes as I knew that the most important information for how to be successful in this class would be given that day and I knew my brain wasn’t to be relied upon to hold onto it that day.
The last time I’d been in a conventional learning environment was almost 20 years ago, when notes were taken with paper and pencil, tests were taken on scantrons (which felt so futuristic), and research was done exclusively in libraries. Most students didn’t have cell phones and those who did likely couldn’t access a web browser from them. I’ve heard certain terms from teacher friends that I knew to be related to how school is done now, but I had no personal experience with it. Using the platform Canvas was entirely new to me and I was concerned I’d be expected to be proficient on the ins and outs of it from the start. I was also in a class with students who attend one of the Collegiate schools, making them mostly Juniors and Seniors in high school, some of them having mothers who graduated while I was in high school.
These “kids” took me right in as a peer, and my teacher, Dr. A, assumed nothing going in to this semester. She was very clear on expectations, walked us through how to access our textbook through Canvas and the further connection of McGraw-Hill, walked us through how to do the Chapter Mastery requirements for the class, and even showed us how to access Tech Support, emphasizing how wonderful they are to work with. I cannot express the relief I felt this first day, fuzzy brained and all.
The class was spread out over 6 weeks. Given that usually a semester is 16 weeks, we were squeezing in quite a bit of information into our time, having a Chapter Mastery due about every other day or so, an exam every other week, and occasional work on the weekends due to holidays throwing off our groove. I found a way to read through the text book without passing out, taking cues from the fact I can quilt (which is more paced) but not crochet (which can be powered through) and taking notes as I read to help break up whatever it is that causes my brain to shut down after a few pages.
Two days before our first exam Dr. A presented us with a survey the department passes out to all of the classes with various questions. She said it wouldn’t count against us, but any of the questions we got right would be extra credit. I felt zero hope on this and told myself I’d be proud if I get just one answer right and just sort of did my best with it. We got our results back the day before our exam and I was confused at first. Did she say this was just a completion grade? But then the girl who sits next to me, Lilly, told me she got seven correct, and I realized that the “5” on each side of my page was telling me how many I got correct on each side and somehow I’d managed to get them all right. I was shocked, and instantly felt that this is where I’ve peaked—this is going to be an omen of sorts because if I did so well on this that means I’m going to bomb my first exam, right?
Apparently my assumptions are misguided. I managed to score an 88 on the exam, but with the curve it was a 93. I was pretty surprised and felt that surely this was the peak, but also was shocked because I didn’t try all that hard. Wasn’t I bad at tests? Wasn’t I not that great of a student?
I got excited during these next few classes because we learned about the importance of sleep, which Dr. A stressed to us, explaining how it’s better to study over a series of days and get good sleep at night so our brain can process through everything we’ve taken in rather than a couple days of all night cramming. She also talked about the effect stress can have on the body and these two topics are huge contenders in what I learned led to the bulk of my health issues I’ve been trying to combat largely on my own. Stress was a huge trigger for the worst of it, and I must prioritize rest or else I’m not nearly as effective as I can be. It’s not often this comes up organically. I was thrilled.
The second exam covered four chapters that were pretty intense, full of information over a wide array of complex topics with little time to grasp them. I felt Dr. A did a great job of explaining them to us in lecture and had practice modules on Canvas available for us as well and I was feeling fairly confident in them in the lead up to the exam. The day before, she gave us a handout to help us apply three of the more complex concepts. We got through the first page and I felt I had a decent grasp on it. We got to the second page, and we get into our small groups to go over what we thought the answers were to a series of worded questions about the next topic. I felt pretty good about it until we went over it all and on the fifth question it was nothing close to what I thought it was.
This sent me straight back to fourth-grade-me, trying to learn fractions and not understanding how they were getting the answer. Back then my teacher was out and I was too afraid to ask the High School math teacher for help and I developed a complex with math I still haven’t found my way through. This time, I held in the panic I was feeling and stayed after class to ask Dr. A how she got that from this question, completely blanking about the third page entirely as I was trying my hardest not to go into full blown panic. Dr. A told me, “this is a poorly worded question and I won’t word them like that on your test” and I asked “so is the answer A or C?” and she replied, “It depends.” At this point, tears are just falling out of my eyes. I felt like an idiot and said, “this feels like a word problem in math class and I’m really bad at math.” She said, “I teach statistics and help people with their math trauma all the time, it’s okay” then she asked if I had a moment and we sat down at one of the desks. She told me there’s 50 questions on the test and it covers four chapters, then asked me how many questions that gives me for each section. I said, “When I say I’m bad at math, I mean it. I missed a bunch of questions in ASL not because I didn’t know the number signs but because they wanted me to give an answer to a simple multiplication problem and I couldn’t manage it.” She said, “It’s a little over 12” to which I replied, “I believe you.” Then she went on to explain how even if I completely bombed this section, which she didn’t think I would, that I would be okay. I was thinking how I didn’t feel confident in any of the sections and my brain wanted to spiral about how I could bomb all of them, but I shut it down. She didn’t need to see that side of me, especially when she was helping me.
I’m going to paraphrase the next bit because I was coming down from the panic, trying to keep the spiral side of me silent, and also taken aback by her next words that I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something to this effect; “Emilee, you’re one of my brightest students. You really should consider a degree in psychology”.
Wut.
I left shortly there after, having calmed down but crying a little bit in my car. Letting myself feel is still something new and I’m learning how to allow myself to do it, especially at this point, so I gave myself the drive to process through it until I had the time to go more in depth later. The last couple days had also been filled with many of those little annoyances that are enough to derail an already tense day, and as I tried to reassure myself that I would have time to go over the information that evening and do the practice modules that would likely help clarify things, more things kept derailing including someone stopping by the studio and taking up 45 minutes of my time I didn’t have to spare with a question that could have been a one sentence text, and then being unable to access the module. The panic came right back up. In the end, I told myself that if I didn’t have those available to me, I could still read the concept in my book and try to work through it with the information I did have. I was going to be okay. I gave myself until 7:30, then I had to go home, make myself eat, and calm down enough to sleep well, the latter two of these three tasks being things I struggle with on a good day.
The next day, I joined in with the study group that formed from the “kids” that sit near me in class. We went over the details of the ear and eye, each ending up being the extra credit on either of the two versions of the test. I was grateful for their help as that’s what got me the extra credit points I managed to scrape up. I took the exam, feeling more confident than I expected. The way I described it was if I was wrong, I was confidently wrong. When I turned in my exam, Dr. A asked me how I was feeling, and I told her I was feeling alright. I thought that was very kind of her to check in. I wasn’t expecting it, being used to largely having to handle things myself, consideration like that being something I don’t come by often. It meant a lot. We got these exam results quicker, and the next day I found that I received a 94, no curve, with all but one of my incorrect answers being in the first section—about the eye. Of course I didn’t go over that section, focusing on the more complex ones and assuming I knew enough to get by. I couldn’t help but laugh.
The chapters we covered before the third exam were absolutely packed with information; different specific psychologists and their different specific methods on different specific things, the different psychological conditions that were covered, different types of therapy, different stages of development—so much information. We were all feeling a bit of the pressure, the study group meeting again and often, though I was only able to join for about half an hour on the day of the exam. This time, it all felt more “clinical” for lack of a better term. Not so much needing to know exact definition, but definitely needing to remember which psychologist had which theory and what happened with each experiment, etc. Again, I felt if I was wrong I was confidently wrong, so I just took it for what it was, took my time, and did my best. She had them graded by that afternoon (Wonder Woman, I swear) and the group chat blew up again. I’d gotten a 95, no curve, no extra credit. A 95 all on my own with an entirely multiple choice test. At this point, I’m thinking back on my history with schooling. I knew I was a smart kid in elementary school, but about 6th grade all of that went out the window. I got my first B, cried in the back of my friends mom’s suburban, failed my first test the next year, more the following, then by the time I’m in public school I’m just doing what I can to stay afloat. What I’m starting to see in this class is that, over all that time, I was doing my best to survive to where school was so far secondary I couldn’t do any better than I was. The changes that greatly affected me began in 6th grade, and got progressively more intense for years way past my school days. My church closed, my family moved out to the country and away from proximity to anyone, they pulled me out of school, my best friend moved to another state before technology had us connected like today, my great grandma died, my grandpa died, my other grandpa died, my friend died, then another friend, and another, and another x30 before I stopped counting after five years, the abuse began, then more change, then more and other abuse, more friends dying, my own near death experiences and health challenges, then my health fully tanked…all these things just stacking one on top of the other with all the other nuances of life mixed in amongst the rest of it. Did I mention the hurricane that wiped out a nearby town, trashing my parent’s house with it? It’s no wonder my grades began to slip, that I struggled to take tests or learn new things, that I wasn’t all that good at writing essays.
My goal going into this at the beginning was maybe a B or better, but once I got an A on that first exam, I thought, “maybe I can manage an A.” Then when I got a 94 on the second exam (which ended up actually becoming a 96) I thought, “maybe I can manage a ‘Highland A'”. At my private Christian school, the grading rubric was different. An ‘A’ was a 94-100, ‘B’ was a 88-93, ‘C’ was an 80-87, and anything below an 80 was failing. To end this class with a 94 or above felt far fetched, but would feel almost full circle; back to that little girl I was in elementary who was confident, smart, safe. But could I manage that? 16 weeks worth of a college class in 6 weeks?
You see, this class isn’t the only thing happening at this time. Of course it’s not. Life be life-in’ and it doesn’t stop for anyone. During this, I’m still working two jobs, dog sitting between three different families, I finished two quilts, and then there’s the general life happenings and my health sometimes likes to remind me that it’s still not the happiest with me. I’ve had the immense privilege to be in therapy for the last year and a half with an absolutely incredible psychologist. There have been some pretty intense sessions we’ve had lately and one of the defining themes was hitting a sort of point of finality. I couldn’t see a way around or past it, but I knew there had to be something I was missing. It was quite overwhelming at times and extremely emotionally taxing, at one point causing me to ask my therapist point blank, “is this even something that’s supposed to happen?” and she replied with, “well, it depends. It depends on what you want.”
You mean, I get a choice?
Of course I know I have a choice in my life, but this really struck me. This concept was about my place in the world, if I’m even anyone’s priority (I’m not), and how the hell is someone supposed to handle being no one’s priority on the days when life feels like way too much and I’m overwhelmed? Who am I supposed to turn to? I have my friends for when it gets to that extreme that if you understand I’m so sorry that’s something you have to understand, and I’m grateful for those friends that answer me in my darkest, but what about these in between times? The moments when I know things will be okay, that it won’t always be like this, that there’s nothing anyone can actually do about it, yet I’m in this heightened state of rage and everything feels like too much? Is this—letting someone be there for me in these moments—even supposed to happen? Am I supposed to put this burden onto my people who are already burdened with so much else from their people (family, kids, etc) when I know that this will pass and I’ll be fine by the morning? My therapist tells me it depends on what I want.
And that’s when it all clicks.
In my general psychology class, I’m learning the overview of psychology, touching on many different topics within the field, getting the science behind what I’m learning. In this, I’m reflecting back on my own experiences as they become relevant, evaluating what I know with what I’m learning, applying that thinking pattern I adopted almost 8 years ago: “Why do I think this? Who told me to?”
In class, I get a kick out of dropping tidbits of my life seemingly out of nowhere to see my table mate’s reactions. You don’t really expect it out of me, which is half the fun, and being this is a psychology class it was often relevant. More than once, the girl next to me would say, “girl, are you okay?” which would make us both laugh and I’d say some sort of quip like, “my therapist earns her keep!” which would then open up the floor for exciting questions from someone their age such as, “do you find therapy to be worth it?” and I can tell them that, with the right therapist, it’s more than worth it. You may not find the perfect fit first try, and that’s okay, but keep trying because finding the right therapist is like magic and it’s such a huge privilege to even have the opportunity to attempt to see one. What I didn’t expect was for their reactions to show me how abnormal my experiences have been. To me, it’s all I’ve known, and I’ve been told, “it’s not that big of a deal” or “quit being dramatic” so much that it’s so ingrained I couldn’t even reach the thought to be able to hold it up to my two questions of clarity. But now it’s excavated from the depths of my being, held into the beam of my headlamp, fully exposed. Why do I think that these extreme experiences I’ve had are normal, casual, not that big of a deal? Who told me to?
They aren’t. They are big deals. They are traumas that I have faced and thankfully survived. The things I have been through in response to them aren’t moral failings but rather symptoms of my body, mind, spirit reacting to them, trying to keep me going in spite of it all. Sure, people “have it worse”, but this has been bad, too. It’s a lot, and I don’t have to downplay it. It’s up to me if I’m going to “play the victim” to it, and I think it’s pretty clear with the work I’ve done over the last almost 8 years, and the progress made in therapy over the last year and a half that I don’t want to play the victim. I want to learn, I want to understand, I want to grieve and begin to heal.
I’ve made great progress with that in recent days, but there’s something about the wonderful trifecta of an established, supportive, safe therapy practice, a psychology class taught by an incredible human where I’m learning the science behind psychology that I can apply to my experiences, and the support of these high schoolers with their wide eyes to the world, under developed prefrontal cortexes, and welcoming presence that has brought me to this place of clarity.
When it clicked, the “it” is the fact that for so much of my life I have been told, be it through word or action, that I can’t trust myself. That I am not a safe place for myself. I’ve been told to question my intuition, to not question authority even when they go against my experiences of what I know to be true, that coping mechanisms I turned to to keep myself from the extremes of mental distress meant I was “possessed by a demon” or not safe to be alone or if I disclosed it then people wouldn’t trust me with themselves or their kids or they’d look at me with those eyes full of pity and fake concern (If it doesn’t concern my therapist, then it shouldn’t concern you either), to just deal with all the ways my body was telling me something isn’t right and when doctors told me it wasn’t anything, welp, that’s all there is. For 36.5 years of my life I have been made to believe that I can’t trust myself, that I am not a safe place for myself. That I had to find my affirmation through other people telling me I was safe, confirming that my choices were okay, and to know that I wasn’t alone.
But I’m not alone. I never am, except that all of us sort of always are. As Glennon Doyle said it, I’m the only person who will be with me my entire life. (Or did Amanda Doyle say that? Regardless, check out their We Can Do Hard Things podcast. So good.) When it comes down to it, I’m all I have, and as long as I make myself my priority, I don’t actually need anything else. This doesn’t make me a lone wolf like I was made to believe it did. This isn’t me being a recluse or antisocial in a society that is very much one in which you need other people to survive. I still need my people. I still need to text my friend the drama of the day, or see another friend when our schedules allow, or face time my niece to hear about her summer intensive. I still need to show up when my friends, who have their people who are their priorities, need me, and I know they’ll show up when I need them in spite of it all. But when it comes down to it, I am my own priority, and that is all that matters. I am all I need.
I truly thought the possibility of me being able to get an ASL Interpreting degree had passed. That it just wasn’t in the cards and life had dealt me too difficult of a hand to make it happen. But what is meant for you will find you, and now I have hope, true hope, for the first time in a long time. I have a five year plan for the first time ever and even in such, I know it leaves room for fluctuation or new opportunities. I’m “pregaming freedom”, as I told my therapist on Monday, and it’s a euphoric way of going through life that I didn’t know was actually possible.
This is why we do the work. This is why we push through. This is why we try. It’s hard as hell and exhausting as fuck, but if you can open your mind to the possibility that life might not be what you’ve been told it’s been your whole life and that better is out there and begin to take steps in the direction of where that little candle of hope inside is telling you to go, it’ll open up to you.
All in good time, it’ll find you.
I used to think, if I had a top 5 of favorite memories of my life, what would they be? And I would struggle to come up with them. Not because I haven’t had good moments in my life, but it felt like somethings was missing or not quite right or laced with difficulty in one way or another. It’s hard to explain. But now, this week, I have a certain, without a doubt favorite memory of my entire life thanks to my psychology class. The combination of getting (almost) the entire class to sign a certain book for Dr. A, not giving into the anxiety trying to tell me not to go through with giving it to her because what if it’s not ethical or it gets her in trouble or she doesn’t find the humor in it that I do? The sound of her exploding in laughter, tears in her eyes from the pure joy of it all, and her reading it to the class the next day before our last exam, everyone around me enjoying it just as much, knowing how much this class has meant to them and how much they all also appreciate Dr. A.
This class has been six weeks of magic in a way I never could have anticipated. I am a better person today, July 3, than I was on May 27th when I first stepped foot into that class (after Dr. A found a group of us down the hall because we had somehow been given the wrong room number). I hold this experience in my heart and know I will be reflecting back on it as a touchstone the rest of my life.
People say this kind of shit, that some experience meant a lot to them and they’ll never forget it, and most of the time they’re just saying the words that they feel are supposed to be said when something signifiant ends, but in my case I mean them.
And in case you’re wondering if I managed that “Highland A” for my final grade?
I got a 101.9%.
Hell. Yes.
(photo of an empty college classroom with four rows of tables each with two rolling chairs at them. Three rows have four tables, the fourth row has three. A blank whiteboard is at the front of the class.)
1988- 