See, I'm a very closed off person so a lot of the times I can pull myself together on the outside even though I'm crumbling apart on the inside. I always reference in my videos that freshman year was a really bad time in my life when in reality, every.single.year. of high school has been a really hard time. I have battled with some depression and self esteem issues but I've only told a few people about them. This all leads up to today. Today in my marketing class we went to the Cardinal's (Missouri's MLB team) Career Fair, where we learned about how to get into the sports industry marketing wise and some other various tips. So I'm going to complicate things a little bit. Three different school clubs went to this career fair today, but my story only involves two of them, DECA, which I'm a part of, and FBLA. If you know the people in DECA, they are pretty popular, at least in my class. I had a few friends who went to this game with FBLA but they did some different stuff compared to what DECA was going to do. This is where my first problem arose.
We all walked up to Union Station, where we weren't going to eat but everyone wanted to grab some food, even though we got some free food at the game. I didn't buy anything so I sat down with the marketing teacher while everyone else was in line. Two other kids came and sat down with us but they both left around 1/2 way through eating. Then my advisor had to leave and walk around to make sure everyone was where they were supposed to be. So there I was sitting alone at lunch, all of my peers and classmates around me, and no one sat with me or invited me to sit with them. Now, I know what some of you may be thinking, "well she could've asked to sit with people!" Well you obviously don't know how introverted people work, I'm not the best in social situations+I HATE crowds and I get overwhelmed in them, so after spending all morning in the Cardinal's Stadium I was already a little drained. Sitting alone was my first inkling that I should've probably sat at school.
And then we get to the game. All of my FBLA friends were sitting in the row behind us because they had been in the stadium for the past hour while we ate, and I tried to mask my social anxiety. Everyone in DECA wanted to sit with their friends so I moved out of my seat so they could all be together. Then when some people went to go get their free food, I went up to go with them and we had to travel in groups of three so I just tailed on to the backend. I have to give credit to one girl who did try to talk to me and be friendly because the rest of the time I was in the stands no one, again, tried to talk to me or even acknowledged my presence. A group of the DECA girls wanted to get a picture and I was still kind of hanging on to the back end so I got in a photo too, but that's more because they physically couldn't exclude me and be like "we want a photo without you".
I honestly wanted to burst into tears at the game but I held it together. I actually somewhat left the game with my friends, Rachel and Walter from FBLA, and just walked around looking at the overpriced food because none of us were into the game and I was done with being enveloped in all of this fake-ness.
 |
| Here are my tweets from when I got home to show how I felt in the moment |
On the flip side, I do have some awesome friends who saw my tweets and who I reached out to individually who reassured me that these people shouldn't make me feel so awful about myself. So thank you to them, you all know who you are. You all mean more than the world to me.
My last words are this: make everyone feel included because someone, like me, may seem fine on the outside but is completely unraveling on the inside. You never know how your body language and attitude can affect people. And again, this was just a bunch of my rambling but I'm sure I left out some more details.
Until next time,
Taylor xx
So I just typed this huge long thing... And it disappeared.. But the gist of it was that it happens a lot. It's like me with like crew, I know everyone and talk to no one. They have their groups and I have me. I find it humorous and saddening that the people in the clubs and classes that are supposed to be accepting of everyone and improving the school aren't all that inviting. They don't reach out to people who really want it or need it. They tend to stick to their groups. Some people with SO MUCH potential to do amazing things, won't. Simply because they're afraid of the "popular kids" on the bus yeasterday I would make funny comments to my friend. And some of the looks of get from people sitting I front of us. It makes me feel infirior. Their opinions don't matter but there's so many of them it's dominating. Taylor I know I don't really know you but I'm here, if you ever want someone to talk to, or need a little group we can make our own and be so cool everyone else will be jealous. If the people in our school who are elected or selected because of their "accepting and outgoing" attitudes won't accept those who truely need it, then we will. If you ever need someone, I'm here!(: and that goes for anyone.
ReplyDelete