Silencing Critical Voices #4: Schools

Jump to: Introduction, Part One, Two, or After the Bugging Bug

Part One

Joshua defeats the "Harsh Part"

This year has been a bit hard for me. As school progressed, I started feeling down and having problems with a "harsh part" in my mind. This harsh part made me wish that I didn't exist, it made me hit my head on the desk when I was upset at school and feel like I didn't deserve to live. Sometimes I resisted by trying to think of good things like the presents my parents gave me and that both my mom and dad loved me. But when the harsh part was hungry it searched for things to feed on such as other kids calling me names or saying that I am fat or wondering if my parents really loved me. It got me to think: "you're probably adopted", "your parents hate you", "even if you were your parents' real son, they still wouldn't love you", "your mom has a headache because you are such a bad kid", "your parents probably separated because of you, it's your fault" (even though I know they separated when I was only a few months old). The harsh part even sneaked in my head and transformed movies that I had seen, like the Titanic, by making me think that my dad was the one who would drown. Living with the harsh part was like a bad game of tag: it just tried to get me whenever it could. The harsh part also got me at school, when people would bug me, it told me to hit them or yell at them, that I didn't care if I had friends or not, that I should play bad tricks on them. It really tried to separate me from my family and others by making me grumpy and even to make me not love them.

Talking about it really helped me. I discovered that the harsh part became smaller when I involved people such as my mom because it was being noticed by more people. My first biggest success was to refuse to believe that I was adopted, I even checked my birth certificate. I also thought that if I tried to change my life so that it became perfect, then there would be less place and less food for the harsh part. So I tried to make new friends by helping them, by being nice, and asking them if they needed a pencil and I loaned it to them. I even showed them my collection of cards and traded with them. Sometimes the harsh part got mad that I've made friends and gave me a headache. Whenever my good side would have a victory, the harsh part would say that I won this battle but that the war is not over. It would always rest and wait for the right time to get to me like if I tripped or fell down at recess, then it would say: "you are so stupid and clumsy". The harsh part browsed around like a bully trying to see what it could hurt. But I continued to talk about it to my mom, my dad and my counselor, and continued to listen to the good part of my brain. When the harsh part would try to sneak in my mind, I tried to put something else in my mind such as good movies that would take the whole place. When it would tell me to run away from school or to hurt myself because I didn't matter, I would remember that it did matter, that I wanted an education and that people would be sad if something happened to me. I tried to listen to my heart. Remembering that my Grandpa and my Grandma, who are dead, were on my side and would support me really helped too. I also love Sea Otters and thinking of how playful and swift and fast they are filled my mind with happy thoughts. I started being stronger against the harsh part and realized that it hated the feelings of fun. So I tried to have more fun by playing hockey or playing with my yoyo. The harsh part was still happy when I did a mistake with my yoyo and hit myself on the head: "Ha! Ha! You're hurt" it would shout happily in my head. But I just laughed and didn't let it focus on the pain. The harsh part always tried to make things worse, to make me hurt more. It was like an infection in my mind. But I kept on thinking that my Grandma would say: "come on, you're doing good, don't give up" and I continued to try and think about good things. I also discovered that cupcakes and biscuits were good against the harsh part. When I had a healthy breakfast it would make me stronger.

I progressively became this new and big tough Joshua. Now I feel much better, I laugh more, make more joke, play a lot and feel cool. I decided to make the world a better place and started feeding the birds. When I listen to the birds, they help me appreciate what I have; the harsh part doesn't want you to care and appreciate. Now I have trapped the harsh part into the shed in our backyard and I hope that it will change its mind and become good because it is surrounded by super nice people. I think my mom is right: "I may as well enjoy life while I can". So if any of you kids struggle with a harsh part, think about the super good things in your life and in your future such as yoyos, hockey, minigolf and a good education. Imagine the bad side away and fill your head with beauty. You have a whole life ahead of you.

Free Joshua, the happy boy , age: 10

SLACKING

Passing my eighth grade and graduating is important for me. I want to get an education so that I could get a good job in case I can't skateboard for a living. I also want to be a smart guy for myself . But when it comes down to doing the homeworks, there is this option in my head of "slacking". Since ADHD makes it harder for me to pay attention, it is often tempting and easier to just go along with slacking. Slacking has been causing me problems this year. In fact slacking has caused me to fail many of my classes because I did not turn in any of the homeworks. This slacking habit would take advantage of the fact that I was tired and felt like sleeping or that I would much rather have fun and skateboard in the evening rather than doing homeworks. It would sort of block the consequences. It would make me forget that I want good grades, that a report card is coming soon and that my teachers and my mom would be disappointed. It created a tunnel outlook, a narrow focus that would prevent me from seeing the big overall picture. Slacking made me think things like: "don't worry you'll get good grades later, you can sleep now, no one will stop you". I also realized that slacking can always justify itself: when I get good grades, the slacking habit makes me think that now I can relax since I'm doing so well and when I get bad grades, the habit makes me think that it's not worth trying. Slacking has even gotten me to think that I don't have to worry about my grades until the end of the quarter even if doing that has just made me fail the previous quarter.

As we were getting closer to the end of the year and adults started being really worried about my grades, I realized that I had to change my mind-set. I had to find a way of motivating myself to do the work. I realized that I need to keep remembering that I WANT to do it and that I don't want to let down people who have believed in me like some of my teachers and my mom. So I made some changes. Doing the work on the kitchen table at home has helped me because there there's nothing else to do, I focus more and can stay more awake. My mom also comes once in awhile to encourage me and to ask me if I need help and I like that because I know that she cares. I try not to think of the slacking option. I tell myself " I have to do this, I want to do this" and try to do the assignments one by one. The hardest seems to be to get started, the first few minutes, after that it's easy to keep going and the more I do it the easier it becomes. I'm hoping that it will become a good habit. This dedicated part of me makes me feel much better about myself because it allows me to prove to myself and other people that I can do it . It also allows me to make sure that I understand what I think I understand. In some ways doing the homework is actually much easier than the consequences such as repeating my eight grade. I also discovered that I sleep much better when I feel that I have done what is best for me. Getting good grades is actually a much bigger and longer reward than just having fun for one-hour.

Unfortunately, at this point, it is too late to catch up in several of my classes so I've decided to go to summer school. I know that it will make it easier for me next year in high school. But I have learned something: the temptation of slacking will probably never go away completely, but I can block it out more by thinking about the big picture.

Anonymous

Stress in high school

Teenage years are a great time of change in our lives. There is pressure everywhere from without and within. I first starting getting stressed out about school when I was in sixth grade. Then I developed many forms of stress such as physical and emotional stress. Stress affects my feelings about myself in the negative manner. I don't like myself when I am stressed out. My stress also affects others by making me sharp with them. It's even given me some headache and tension problems toward the end of last year. Stress makes me feel like giving up at times and screaming at other times. I've cried from stress about three times in high school. I realized that I am most likely to resist stress when I feel as if I am in control of my life. For example I can escape it by getting organized, reading a good book or watch TV, anything to get my mind off my problems. Talking about my stress was also helpful. I sometimes need someone to help me with all the problems, work, and activities in my life. The advice that I would have to a middle school kid entering high school is to not take school so hard that it affects your health. There are other important things in life beside a high GPA..

John

Peer Pressure

Peer pressure has been around me since elementary school. But the issues surrounding it became more serious in junior high. Peer pressure makes you feel pressured to be or act a certain way or not to act like you. It can make you feel bad about yourself. It can make you do things you don't want to do like smoke, drugs, and have sex. Little things too, like maybe going places you don't want to go, looking a certain way, stuff like that. I used to listen to peer pressure to feel part of something, to be liked or to be popular. But I ended up making decisions that I later regretted. I wish I had realized earlier that if friends don't respect the way you feel, maybe they're not really your friends. Now I think I'm still influenced by my friends a lot, but I never let them push me to do something I think is wrong or I don't want to do. I think my friends need to understand the way I feel when it differs from their own opinion. We don't need to agree, just agree to disagree. I also have more self-confidence now so that I'm not so concerned about what others think of me. I think teenagers should never do anything they don't want to do and that we need to talk more about peer pressure because it affects all of us.

Anonymous

Please continue reading with part two

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