The high school pressure cooker
Since I graduated high school, I’ve hated high school. I don’t know if it’s trendy to gag when someone mentions it or it’s just cringey to look back on, but when my high school is brought up I roll my eyes or sigh in displeasure.
I still love the four friends I talk to from high school with all my heart and would do anything for them. We always look back on our memories together and laugh, and make new ones, but there’s always just this feeling of “urk” when it comes to talking about my high school.
I’ve tried to figure out why I felt this way. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was in the closet the whole time, struggled in math and science, or had to wake up at 6:30 every morning or if it was a combination of all of it. All of those statements did cause me some sort of stress, but they didn’t really fit into why I had such disdain for high school.
I had a pretty good high school experience not going to lie. I wrote for the newspaper, played ice hockey, and was a part of the band program for all four years. Outside of being a closeted gay kid all that time, it wasn’t too awful.
I struggled to answer this question until a few minutes ago (it’s currently 11:04 p.m. on June 16, 2022) when I got off the phone with my mom. Among talking about countless subjects, my mom started talking about her job, which is a security guard at another local high school.
She mentioned that there’s one kid whose parents want him to be a doctor, but his passions are in fashion design. She also mentioned a comment she’s made in the past where if you went to this certain school you’d either have to be failing or highly succeeding to receive any sort of attention.
Then it finally hit me. I feel this disdain toward my high school experience because of the pressure I put on myself (and still do put on myself) and the environment I was in. It was competitive on every level and only awarded a lucky few.
I have really bad issues with not thinking I’m enough and thinking my work is garbage. It’s gotten better as I go deeper into my career, but there’s still a significant feeling of not being enough. I think it all stems from high school.
I don’t really feel like many people believed in me. It wasn’t like they thought I was going to fail, but I don’t think they really thought I’d amount to anything. Just be someone who gets average grades, goes to an average school, has an average job, and dies a boring death.
It was never said directly to me, but it was felt. I never felt like teachers cared about what I did or where I wanted to go. I felt like I was really just a form that was filled out and submitted at the end of the year. Kind of like taxes. You need to fill them out because you have to. You can literally go to jail if you don’t.
It just felt like I was another brick in the wall and I was trying so hard to slide out. However, whatever I did just didn’t feel like enough compared to my classmates.
I wasn’t in all AP or honors classes, I had two on my schedule, but the rest were just regular classes. In my co-curriculars, I was good but wasn’t good enough to receive awards or accreditation.
I had to switch instruments to get into the top band because I wasn’t good enough at the saxophone. I played hockey for four years and was assistant captain my senior year, but on the junior varsity team. On the newspaper, I was good but wasn’t good enough to compete for awards or get a story on the cover.
I WAS JUST AVERAGE.
Having those impressions on you for four years really starts to tick with you. After graduating, I was motivated by that throughout college. I didn’t party every weekend like my classmates, because I was working on three separate papers at once. I’ve wanted to show people my whole life that I am worth a damn and it’s worn itself into me.
It’s the reason why when I think of that disgusting blue-ish carpet on the floor, those dull florescent lights and glossy white painted brick walls I get this feeling of just annoyance. It’s cause every day I’d spend seven hours in a building fighting for some teachers' attention (and for what) only to blend in with the desk I sat in.
Why to this day do I have such an urge to prove to people I will probably never see again that they messed up in not giving me a glance. Why is this still something that’s motivated in my mind?
The truth is I don’t know.
I graduated six years ago, and I continue to let this drive me. However, I’m slowly learning that I shouldn’t let people dictate who I am and what I’m capable of. I think part of it is my job entails being around high schoolers a lot, which brings up these memories, and eventually realizations.
High school takes a toll on you, but in the end, all of that shit really doesn’t matter. Yes, it’s good to get good grades and it’s so important to have fun, but all that pressure of meeting other people's standards won’t matter in six years.
I’m slowly realizing that. That pressure is slowly being lifted off my shoulders and I’m beginning to see that people who did believe were around me the whole time. My parents and friends all saw what I saw and supported that. There were also the few teachers that saw something in me, even when others had more to offer at the time.
We had two assemblies in high school that really stuck out to me. One was a spotlight assembly that had distinguished students stand under spotlights to be recognized while the entire school sat in the dark. The other was the homecoming assembly. Those parts of the court sat on the stage, those nominated in the court got to sit on chairs on the gym floor and the rest were in the stands.
As you could probably guess, I was in the dark and sitting in the stands in both cases. However, I’m now realizing maybe my place was outside of the gym and not under some spotlight in one confined place.
