So I’m working on a paper and I decided one of the stories to include is about why I ended up leaving the first high school I went to, and I realized how little of a say I have in my life and how often my thoughts and feelings fall on deaf ears, even now that I am 21, because my parents don’t let me have a voice or opinion on things that affect me.
So in high school I went to a school that had really smart kids and I made friends but I ended up getting really depressed and anxious during sophomore year and I told my parents during the summer that I didn’t want to go back for junior year. I was told by my mom “you’re going and you don’t have a choice.” At that point I contested that decision and cried and stormed out. Later on my parents talk to me again and say that if I really didn’t want to go back I didn’t have to. But here’s the thing, I knew that if I left I would be guilted about it for the rest of my life. So I said that I would go back. Long story short, not long into Junior year I was going to kill myself, my friend called the police, the police were dicks, I threw a chair, got pinned to the ground by the ass of an officer, had to be carried out to the EMS (I did the toddler dead weight thing), was taken to an ER we requested not to go to, social worker was a bitch, slapped a cup of water out of a nurses hand because I was panicking and the cup was really close to my face, was restrained and ended up being sedated (didn’t go down without a fight though), refused to eat for the 3 days I was in ER, was transferred to a psych hospital. After that happened the assistant principal and my guidance counselors said I was a disruption to students and my therapist said that was not in my best interest to continue at that school. ONLY THEN did my parents allow me to leave. But it still gets brought up and my mom will say “I wish you could’ve stayed at that school.” They don’t care how that makes me feel. I had to switch to a “new” high school (I was already a student in that district and I knew people at that high school) and leave all of my other friends. I sat alone at lunch for the rest of my junior year and really didn’t want to be there and missed my friends. But through all of this I didn’t get a say in anything. Basically all of the decisions when it came to school were not made by me and when I wanted to take a different class or take a day off school because I was sick, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to.
My dad is the type of person to jump to conclusions and making his judgements before getting all of the information. In elementary school, I was passing notes with one of my friends and the teacher sees and we get in trouble. My parents are called and my dad is furious and is accusing me of calling someone a fag, because he refuses to listen to me when I tell him that I didn’t call anyone that and I was asking what the word meant. He just keeps yelling at me and eventually he spanks me with his belt. Later on he is corrected about who said what and he doesn’t even bother apologizing to me. Another time is during my senior year of high school. I was at this technical school for half of the day doing a program that literally a joke of a class. Well, that morning I was sitting in my car waiting for it to be closer to the start time. A student hits my car (while I am in it) and I immediately call my dad and he tells me what to do and I follow his instructions and he was calm about it. The police come (there was zero damage to my car but it was more to scare her and make her be more conscious while driving) they write a report and leave, then we go back to class. I am still anxious so I decided to use the coping mechanism that is most effective for me, listening to music. There’s a rule in this program that we are not allowed to listen to music with headphones but I was hoping that I would be able to listen to a song or two and be able to calm down. Nope, it didn’t help. Then the meat head of a teacher (who literally did not teach anything and sat on his ass all day) comes in and tells me and the guy sitting next to me to take out our headphones. We do then he walks away and I put mine back in and go back to doing my work, trying not to have a panic attack. Well he sees me with my headphones in and demands I give them to him and I explain that I am trying to prevent a panic attack and he just demands I give him my headphones. And then he just keeps getting closer and towering over me and I ask him nicely to take a step back because him being that close to me was making me more anxious and would give me a panic attack. HE DOESN’T LISTEN! so I keep repeating the same thing over and over and he finally gets angry and says put them on the end of the table and they better be there when I get back. I put them there and guess who ended up having a panic attack. Oh but it gets worse. He then brings some dude back with him and I tell him to get away from me and leave. Both eventually do and then they go and get who I later learned was the guidance counselor for the school. She told me that I needed to get up and leave with her. I decided since no one wanted to listen to what I was saying I was not going to talk anymore to them. So, I kept signing “why” to everything she said. it was about 10 minutes from dismissal and so I got up and started getting ready to leave and then they surrounded me and told me I wasn’t allowed to leave and that if I did my teacher was going to call the police because I was a threat to myself (I had calmed down at that point, still on edge though). I told her that I had a therapy appointment in half an hour and I would be going there. Still no. I called my mom and told her to tell them to get away from me and to let me go but she was more concerned with trying to figure out what was happening. I ended up throwing my phone in frustration since no one was listening to me and I was trapped at the school. Everyone else got to leave. I ended up back in the classroom area where I tried calling my therapist but it went straight to voicemail and I was not in a state to leave a coherent voicemail and at the time I didn’t have her cell phone number so I texted my previous therapist whose cell number I did have and asked her to call me. She was in a meeting so it took about a half hour for her to call me. When she did she asked what was going on, so I explained, and then she asked if I called my current therapist and I said I did but I got her voicemail and I didn’t have her cell number and I panicked, so she affirmed me and said I did the right thing and asked permission if it was ok if after our conversation if she could tell my current therapist (of course I said yes), and then she asked what I had been doing to try and calm myself (at that point I had been pacing around the classroom listening to music). She then asked if she could speak to one of my teachers and I let her. I have no idea what she said but I was still detained in a room now without my phone because after they finished the conversation they just decided to keep my phone. 10 minutes passed and I aggressively opened the door and hit the meat heat teachers arm and just demanded my phone back. He winced and I wanted to call him a baby but I refrained and they gave me my phone back and I went back to pacing. Then my dad got there. He then was angry with me because apparently it’s all my fault that things ended up the way they did. It was my fault I had a panic attack and that they might kick me out of school. My dad wanted to hear nothing of what I said so I told him “You make me want to kill myself.” He then told me I had to go to therapy to which I said no and we sat in the parking lot for about 15 minutes before my mom texted to be picked up from work. Then when we picked her up the blame me game continued and I stopped talking. Then we went back to my therapists office where my mom told me if I am not going to talk to them I need to talk to someone and I proceeded with no I don’t and I’m not going. My mom didn’t like that and said she was going in to talk to my therapist to which I replied “have fun she can’t tell you anything because I’m 18.” My mom also did not like that (because I was 100% right) but she went in anyway and my therapist told her the same thing I did. *Later my therapist told me that she went and talked to her supervisor and was instructed that she could listen to my mom but was not able to do much of anything else. I don’t think I talked to my parents for a few days, I had my driving privileges taken away, and at the technical school I was basically given an in school suspension for like two weeks which honestly was great and I befriended the guidance counselor and she was totally chill with me listening to music and doing my work. I didn’t talk to her the first couple of times I was there but it was way better than being in the classroom. After I was allowed to go back to class she told me that I could go down any time that I wanted and so I pretty much went everyday because I could listen to music while doing my assignments. I didn’t talk to meat head teacher for about a month and it pissed him off. (I understand that not talking is childish but when the adults in your life constantly ignore you it’s hard to find a reason of why I should bother talking).
Now for the main event of things I don’t get a say in and no one gives a shit of what my feelings are toward the matter. The person who sexually abused me will be coming to live with us after he is released from prison because my dad only cares about what he wants. The best part (said sarcastically) is that we could lose our apartment lease because this person is not allowed on the grounds of our apartment complex. But my dad doesn’t seem to care about that too much since it’s all about what he wants and wants to believe. Now you may be asking the question, “why don’t you stay somewhere else, like with a friend or family member?” To which my answer is, it’s not that simple. It’s hard for me to adjust to new places, I can stay with my aunt I just don’t have anywhere to sleep, and I don’t have a car so how am I supposed to work and go to my medical appointments. Most importantly I constantly feel like a burden to people around me and I don’t want to feel like that. My mom also doesn’t get a say in this either. I also want to voice the question of “Why am I the one who has to uproot my life to accommodate for someone else?”
What I’ve learned is that my thoughts and feelings don’t matter and should not be voiced, especially in the context of my immediate family.
That Girl With Depresssion 
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