I am just now remembering an experience in high school that has stuck as a psychological trauma during all these years.
I was in 11th grade, so it was the year 2000, and I was like so many other teenagers - angry, insecure, confused, scared. This was accentuated by my being somewhat of an outcast. I had no friends in school or in my family I felt I could trust or I felt comfortable hanging out with. Because everyone in this new high school seemed far richer, more frivolous, more vulgar, and more surrounded by vicious activities than I had ever known in other schools, or than my family had ever been, so even when someone genuinely extended their hand out to reach me, I recoiled in mistrust and shyness inside, and this projected on my face as either restrained fear or flat indifference, so people eventually learned to avoid me altogether.
Since my social situation in high school sucked, my life sucked, and I was so very often depressed to the point of tears - whether those of anger, frustration, loneliness, or just plain sadness, and I had no one to trust and tell. Often to the point of musing over a bridge railing, or to thinking about maximizing blood loss with the single cut of a kitchen knife, eager to stop suffering by any means.
Anyway, at one point in time, I struck a positive outlook and decided that I wanted to change my sucky situation. My plan was to improve myself through following a strict routine of exercise, diligence, and building confidence. I wrote down on a single sheet of paper, on both sides, a list of things to do every day, every week, and objectives I set myself to reach. I wrote it as a letter to myself, a statement of things I desired to achieve, and I signed it at the end, fully set out to achieve my goals. Among my exercises, I remember I wanted to go out walking or running on the streets every morning, do so many push-ups, sit-ups, and weight lifts daily to enhance my build and my general attractiveness. Among my goals, I remember I wanted to do 100 consecutive push-ups, I wanted to be capable of ensuing a conversation with anyone I wanted, even with pretty girls, and I wanted to abstain myself of masturbation for at least 40 consecutive days. I had noticed even then that masturbation, especially taken to excess, caused one's mood to diminish, and made one's mind and senses dull. At the end of my statement, I dated and signed it very ceremoniously, convinced that this procedure would change my life for good.
About a week or two passed during which I followed my routine very closely, and I felt generally better about myself. Working towards some kind of personal goal really had me on a good path. Then one day, my stupid self put my sheet of paper inside my school backpack. I don't know when, and I don't know why. But I did. And it just so happened that once after a class, my clumsy self misplaced my little sheet of paper, and left it on my desk as I got up and walked towards my following class. Only an hour or two later I realized I didn't have my precious statement with me, and when I went back to the class, it was gone. Of course.
I was quite distressed, but I wouldn't have minded writing another one that much. Most of my anxiety feared that another student would pick up my statement, read it through, and pass it around through my classmates for them to see and have a good laugh at me. It was supposed to be MY statement, no one else's, and I feared for that sanctity to be broken, but what terrified me most was my leaked written acknowledgement that I masturbated often, and more, that I wanted to quit it. At the time I didn't know whether it was bad to masturbate, or bad to not masturbate, or bad to want to quit masturbating. I had so little knowledge about the frequency or usage of the technique in general among my gender, that all possibilities frightened me terribly. I was already on the verge of being the class freak, and I didn't want to give up my last misbegotten shreds of hope of having a decent social life, or of EVER finding a girlfriend (that's the way I saw it then).
And sure enough, the next morning, my classmate Grajeda comes over to me along with Juanis, and they begin asking me strange questions about what I had done this morning or something similar, or whether I liked to "peel it" often. I feigned disknowledge as much as I could, but I eventually cracked and begged them to give me my statement back. They wouldn't, and I begged and begged, trying not to make a scene in the corridor, as divulging my statement to others would have been much more disastrous.
I think I eventually got my statement back, two days later or so, but during those two days I was absolutely terrified of my statement getting copied or shown around. And even when I had my statement back in my hands, my paranoia remained just as strong, so fully assured that, for all I knew, everyone in the school had a copy of my statement and were laughing behind my back, even the people I occasionally talked to, because even them I didn't trust. I didn't trust that anyone in school would truthfully tell me if they had ever read or seen my statement. So I never asked anyone else, and Grajeda and Juanis never told me. I asked them once or twice, but they responded vaguely and teasingly. Or maybe they answered me seriously, but I didn't trust them. So my paranoid embarrassment was kept fresh and torturous within me until the day I left high school. And I mean torturous. I self-flagellated with shame every single day when I saw my classmates' faces, and I wondered in silence whether they knew my dirty little secret.
And even after high school, its marks in me remained. They still do. I'm scared to face my problems and work towards them objectively or in a goal-oriented manner, because that's what caused my little mishap in the first place. And I'm always cautious about what I say to people, and I always take an active defensive role in the conversation, whether I notice it or not, feeling that they know something embarrassing about me, and that I must be wary of not producing that embarrassing fact. Not to anyone, because ANYONE could know it. Even if they don't say anything, they COULD know something. I know my fear doesn't logically extend beyond the realm of high school I escaped from 10 years ago, but feelings don't work logically. So I have kept sequels of illogical universal paranoid embarrassment inside me for over 10 years. It's fucking hell. I just now realized how deeply it affected me, and many other observations I've since then had about myself now make sense altogether.
But true this: you can't solve a problem you can't see. Nor can I. Now to do something about it.
