neutrality
New member
My headteacher got wind about a family abuse within my home, and sent teachers around the school one lunchtime to find me. The family abuse was meant to be confidential, but doing that just sort of made the whole school know that something was up.
On that day, in the last lesson I had people were whispering and I noticed people were giving me evils because they knew something was up.
One person just stared at me and I got a weird feeling, as if she was reading my mind and finding about the family problem. I got so scared, I quickly looked away but in my head I thought to myself because I was a bit ashamed of how I was looking at her (like maybe I looked creepy), so that I could trick myself into thinking that I was ashamed of being seen having a creepy look on my face, so that if she did manage to read my mind (I know this isn't outright possible, but at that time I felt so certain that she actually did), she would think it was because I didn't want to seem like I was looking at her. By tricking myself, I was tricking the other person.
A cynical and creepily observant person A next to me just caught that, and started whispering really loudly about how I was gay to person B, in a really horrible jokey way. Person B started laughing. In that moment I was horrified.... oppressed even. I was being judged (and wrongly) and I hated it.
I felt so much like crying. (This judgement stayed in my mind at home the whole day and because I didn't know I had social anxiety had a great deal to do with my behaviours then, I started to doubt whether I did it because I was gay, and later I found out I'm perfectly straight. Besides, I didn't have any kind of sexual/weird thoughts about the person staring at me, and I probably looked away because of the great desire to get rid of the feeling she was reading my mind).
There was that family problem I had to deal with for one thing, and the fact that the teachers left me to explain the situation. I'm normally worrying about small things in life, but I can deal with it. It was big things piling up like this that just made my anxiety in that situation so bad.
I felt so uncomfortable in that situation that I tried to calm myself down. The only way I did it was just stare at the floor so that I wouldn't see other people whispering about why the teachers were looking around the school. Because of my social anxiety disorder, if I feel uncomfortable I tend to compress my face. It must've been a sneaky/creepy face because person A got delighted and used that as evidence to say that I was actually gay
Despite hearing that (she was saying it loudly), I kept my head down, avoiding all eye contact. I tried to tell myself that I was probably being paranoid, and the people weren't actually talking about me.
It went worse, because later on in the lesson the person I was looking at asked me why I was called by the teachers. It just confirmed that what they were talking about was what I thought they were talking about.
My friend advised me to call it a problem with ucas, so that's what I said. Then I realised it sounded as if I had something terribly wrong happen with my university applications, which wasn't. I think the school started spreading a rumour that there was something wrong with my ucas after that.
I nearly went crazy both because of the family problem at home and because of the rumours going around the school about ucas going wrong (although untrue, it's hard to bear that people are against you precisely because they're talking about something that's not true, and there's really no way I can undo me saying there was a problem with ucas or trying to correct what they're saying. It would look like an excuse - they would wonder why would I lie in that situation. I would then have to say something convincing, which would either be another lie heavier than the problem with ucas, or tell them the heavier truth about the family abuse. I couldn't do the former because I know lying just makes things worse, and the latter just can't be said because well... family problems are just your problems. It's a privacy that needs to be protected, and other people don't really have the right to know that.
The worse thing was the cynical person also started to try and convince other people I was gay because she stated that she's an honest person, wants other people to know the truth about everything (basically she wants an excuse to gossip about other people, and to show off what she thinks she knows about other people... but er... she doesn't really know about other people, that's the problem. She's not a friend, though she calls me one).
I've completely stopped talking to that cynical person because everytime, she just says something negative, and hell she's creepy. She's so intent on trying to find out evidences (she says so herself 'I'm finding these patterns which made me realise that it's the truth,' something she said to try to convince other people which was stupid).
She's not only negative about me but with other people as well, and I can't bear that because I'm an optimist myself - I only want to hear good things about other people, and say good things about other people, though I'm pretty aware what reality is. This desire for optimism probably has something to do with my anxiety disorder - it's a mechanism to make myself as comfortable with society as I can (i.e. by tricking myself that society has its positive sides). Even though recently I've realised I need to speak reality and that means being able to say negative things myself.
I've tried to slowly solve the ucas thing, but one painful thing that remains is the judgements that people have made. Whenever I remember that judgment about me being gay, despite myself the disgusting feeling (when I had the doubts) comes back and it's horrible. I wish there was something that just could stop me remembering.
On that day, in the last lesson I had people were whispering and I noticed people were giving me evils because they knew something was up.
One person just stared at me and I got a weird feeling, as if she was reading my mind and finding about the family problem. I got so scared, I quickly looked away but in my head I thought to myself because I was a bit ashamed of how I was looking at her (like maybe I looked creepy), so that I could trick myself into thinking that I was ashamed of being seen having a creepy look on my face, so that if she did manage to read my mind (I know this isn't outright possible, but at that time I felt so certain that she actually did), she would think it was because I didn't want to seem like I was looking at her. By tricking myself, I was tricking the other person.
A cynical and creepily observant person A next to me just caught that, and started whispering really loudly about how I was gay to person B, in a really horrible jokey way. Person B started laughing. In that moment I was horrified.... oppressed even. I was being judged (and wrongly) and I hated it.
I felt so much like crying. (This judgement stayed in my mind at home the whole day and because I didn't know I had social anxiety had a great deal to do with my behaviours then, I started to doubt whether I did it because I was gay, and later I found out I'm perfectly straight. Besides, I didn't have any kind of sexual/weird thoughts about the person staring at me, and I probably looked away because of the great desire to get rid of the feeling she was reading my mind).
There was that family problem I had to deal with for one thing, and the fact that the teachers left me to explain the situation. I'm normally worrying about small things in life, but I can deal with it. It was big things piling up like this that just made my anxiety in that situation so bad.
I felt so uncomfortable in that situation that I tried to calm myself down. The only way I did it was just stare at the floor so that I wouldn't see other people whispering about why the teachers were looking around the school. Because of my social anxiety disorder, if I feel uncomfortable I tend to compress my face. It must've been a sneaky/creepy face because person A got delighted and used that as evidence to say that I was actually gay
Despite hearing that (she was saying it loudly), I kept my head down, avoiding all eye contact. I tried to tell myself that I was probably being paranoid, and the people weren't actually talking about me.
It went worse, because later on in the lesson the person I was looking at asked me why I was called by the teachers. It just confirmed that what they were talking about was what I thought they were talking about.
My friend advised me to call it a problem with ucas, so that's what I said. Then I realised it sounded as if I had something terribly wrong happen with my university applications, which wasn't. I think the school started spreading a rumour that there was something wrong with my ucas after that.
I nearly went crazy both because of the family problem at home and because of the rumours going around the school about ucas going wrong (although untrue, it's hard to bear that people are against you precisely because they're talking about something that's not true, and there's really no way I can undo me saying there was a problem with ucas or trying to correct what they're saying. It would look like an excuse - they would wonder why would I lie in that situation. I would then have to say something convincing, which would either be another lie heavier than the problem with ucas, or tell them the heavier truth about the family abuse. I couldn't do the former because I know lying just makes things worse, and the latter just can't be said because well... family problems are just your problems. It's a privacy that needs to be protected, and other people don't really have the right to know that.
The worse thing was the cynical person also started to try and convince other people I was gay because she stated that she's an honest person, wants other people to know the truth about everything (basically she wants an excuse to gossip about other people, and to show off what she thinks she knows about other people... but er... she doesn't really know about other people, that's the problem. She's not a friend, though she calls me one).
I've completely stopped talking to that cynical person because everytime, she just says something negative, and hell she's creepy. She's so intent on trying to find out evidences (she says so herself 'I'm finding these patterns which made me realise that it's the truth,' something she said to try to convince other people which was stupid).
She's not only negative about me but with other people as well, and I can't bear that because I'm an optimist myself - I only want to hear good things about other people, and say good things about other people, though I'm pretty aware what reality is. This desire for optimism probably has something to do with my anxiety disorder - it's a mechanism to make myself as comfortable with society as I can (i.e. by tricking myself that society has its positive sides). Even though recently I've realised I need to speak reality and that means being able to say negative things myself.
I've tried to slowly solve the ucas thing, but one painful thing that remains is the judgements that people have made. Whenever I remember that judgment about me being gay, despite myself the disgusting feeling (when I had the doubts) comes back and it's horrible. I wish there was something that just could stop me remembering.
Last edited: