Month: October 2018

proudliteraryaddict:

vampireapologist:

also I think it’s important we realize that being nice to children needs to also apply into their teenage years.

when I was 17, five months after my dad had died in a house fire and I lost my home and we nearly ended up homeless, I was lucky enough to go on a school trip to the bahamas to study the reefs. This was my Ultimate Dream, as an aspiring marine biologist, and I couldn’t believe it was coming true. It was the only good thing to happen to me since the fire, the only thing I’d genuinely looked forward to.

But I had ADHD and could be too loud (by then I was good at not talking out in class so I was only loud when we were ALLOWED to be) and a little whacky. My humor was “weird,” I had asthma, and to top it off, I wasn’t pretty.

When we got there, the outpost where we were staying was run by college students, probably getting their graduate degrees, all aged about 22-26. And they saw us all as their age, even though some of them nearly had a decade on us.

And since they saw us as peers rather than children, they felt comfortable making judgements about us, and they decided I was weird and annoying.

And they were mean to me. They made fun of me, deliberately made me feel excluded and odd in front of each other and my own peers, and sometimes when I’d say something in class they’d make a face, say “Ohhhkaaaayyyy,” and look at each other knowingly while they pretended they were even trying to hold back laughing at me. They avoided calling on me during classes, didn’t want me participating, and generally made it obvious how annoying I was to them.

I even noticed that another person in my class was just as weird, if not more, than I was, but she was gorgeous. And to people looking at us as adults instead of children, that mattered.

And it ruined everything.

Another adult on the trip started paying attention and thinking perhaps there was a reason the people in charge didn’t like me. After all, what kind of adult is mean to a kid for no reason? So one night at a festival when she saw me take apart my inhaler, she misunderstood what it was and told the teacher in charge of our trip she’d seen me using drugs. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone for the rest of the trip, not even the bathroom at the airport, despite my friends and a few other peers defending me.

I was mortified and ashamed and ended up lying there in bed every night, wondering how something I’d looked forward to so much could end up so terrible. I wanted nothing more as a child than to be good and win adult approval, and somehow I’d made all the adults there dislike me. I thought it was my fault.

I’d love to see all of these people again now, as an adult myself, and tell them what I was going through.

Tell them, “did you know, when you made fun of me all week back then, when you made me feel untrustworthy and called me a liar, I was grieving the loss of my father. I went away to try to stop thinking about him and the fire and losing my home and everything else, just for a week, and you stole that from me? You ruined that for me?”

Be. Fucking. Nice. To. Children.

Okay this is so important though. As much as they may act like adults and want to be treated like adults, high schoolers are still developing and maturing and it is So. Very. Important. To be kind and supportive of them. If you’re in your 20’s, a high schooler is no more your peer than the 10 year old next door is. They will expect to be (and should be) treated differently than a 10 year old, but you are still a role model/support system to them.

babelien7:

*looks at my selfies* *looks at videos of myself* *looks in the mirror* so what is the truth

yakkette:

finnglas:

I’m going to give you the best piece of Adult Life Is Hard advice I’ve ever learned:

Talk to people when things go to shit.

I don’t just mean get it off your chest, although that’s good. I mean: Something’s wrong with your paycheck/you lost your job/you had unexpected emergency car repairs and now you’re broke so your credit card payment is late. Like, not just 15 days late. We’re talking, shit got crazy and now you’re 90 days late with compounded interest and late fees and the Minimum Payment Due is, like, $390, and you’ve got about $3.90 in your bank account. Call the credit card company. 

I know it’s scary. I know you feel like you’re going to get in trouble, like you’re gong to get yelled at or scolded for not having your life together. But the credit card company isn’t your parents; they’re just interested in getting money from you. And you can’t squeeze blood from a stone or money from someone who doesn’t have any. So what you do is you call them. You explain you’re experiencing temporary financial hardships, and you’re currently unable to bring your account up to date, but you don’t want to just let it get worse. Can you maybe talk to someone about a payment plan so you can work something out? Nine times out of ten you’ll be able to negotiate something so that at least it’s not just taking a constant, giant shit on your credit score.

– Can’t pay your power bill? Call the power company.

– Can’t pay your full rent? Talk to your landlord.

– Had to go to the hospital without insurance and have giant medical bills looming in your place? Call the hospital and ask if they have someone who helps people with financial hardships. Many do.

– Got super sick and missed half a semester of class because flu/pneumonia/auto-immune problems/depressive episode? Talk to your professor. If that doesn’t help, talk to your advisor.

You may not be able to fix everything, but you’ll likely be able to make improvements. At the very least, it’s possible that they have a list of people you can contact to help you with things. (Also, don’t be afraid to google things like, “I can’t pay my power bill [state you live in]” because you’d be surprised at what turns up on Google!) But the thing is, people in these positions gain nothing if you fail. There’s no emotional satisfaction for them if your attempts at having your life together completely bite the dust. In fact, they stand to benefit if things work out for you! And chances are, they’ll be completely happy to take $20 a month from you over getting $0 a month from you, your account will be considered current because you’ve talked to them and made an agreement, you won’t get reported to a collections agency, and your credit score won’t completely tank.

Here’s some helpful tips to keep in mind:

1. Be polite. Don’t demand things; request them. Let me tell you about how customer service people hold your life in their hands and how many extra miles they’ll go for someone who is nice to them.

2. Stick to the facts, and keep them minimal unless asked for them. Chances are they’re not really interested in the details. “We had several family emergencies in a row, and now I’m having trouble making the payments” is better than “Well, two months ago my husband wrecked his bike, and then he had a reaction to the muscle relaxer they gave him, and then our dog swallowed a shoestring and we had to take him to the emergency clinic, and just last week MY car broke down, and now my account’s in the negatives and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it back out.” The person you’re talking to is aware shit happens to everyone; they don’t need the details to prove you’re somehow “worthy” of being helped. They may ask you for details at a certain point if they have to fill out any kind of request form, but let them do that.

3. Ask questions. “Is there anything we can do about X?” “Would it be possible to move my payment date to Y day instead so it’s not coming out of the same paycheck as my rent?” The answer may be “no.” That’s not a failure on your part. But a good customer service person may have an alternate solution. 

Anyway! I hope that helps! Don’t just assume the answer is “no” before you’ve even begun. There is more help out there than you ever imagined.