I'm happy if you don't mind reading my rant, not that I'll be angry. But it is really long, so maybe you can look for just the underlined words!
A bit of my background is that i went through a stage of post-traumatic disorder from sexual harassment at 15 and abuse during childhood. Also suffering from anxiety and suicidal thoughts growing up singled out move back to my mother's country.
Today, I'm nearly 20 and still live there. I have coped by bottling up a lot from the hurtful and racist remarks, but recently the country I live (and was born there too) has become increasingly xenophobic due to political reasons. It is unfortunate I look closer to foreign, than local. At times, I feel I have no place in this world.
I had gossip spread about me from people I barely knew for years, I didn't know enough to clarify the truth of it and neither did I want to. And was bullied and cheated by people in my group circles as a teenager.
I tried not to care, and finally I left those circles - having hopped from circle to circle. After that, I gave up and gave up school and tried to put all my energy into my future. How I coped was basically escapism, but in the middle of my pursuit, the past I had been running from haunted me to the point I snapped and couldn't continue self-studying for an exam, that I would be taking privately. I'm taking an alternative route for university entry now, and my experience has been giving me problems too.
Towards the second half of last year, I finally had my anger loosed in public (because i usually fight with my mother at home if there is an argument and communicate expressively; on the internet i flare anonymously about news i read in the comments section) when a stranger about my age - had again - started giving me dirty looks for no reason i could understand, so holding a grudge I walked back, to blink at her in exasperation because I was exhausted after my exam. When this happened, she looked half-impressed and nervous. And learning this really disgusted me, because what would someone wish to achieve by doing that in the first place - when they were going to freak out from a response?
That's when I understood I had not been fighting back all my life - even when shaken from worse things happening. But more recently I have found it humiliating when it has been overly confrontational in public view. I have not been randomly beaten up so far as a woman in public, but shoved into things in unreasonable situations and have been normally smirked at by the groups of offenders who are strangers. It's not that I don't fight back, I find it difficult to do it for myself but I don't have a problem doing it for a loved one taken advantage of.
I've been reflecting over the treatment my friends get from strangers and comparing it to my own. It has been better than mine received - no matter what they do. While I am jealous since people give me unwanted attention, that I have been overly mindful of others about and at expense of the person who is out with me too. I discovered during reflecting over this period, I have a lot of self-hatred and harshness, so learning this helped me to unconsciously decide to hate on everyone else. Lately, I've also had this idea that I should not accept being undermined as I would as a teenager, if I'm of legal and working age. So instead of looking unconfident when randoms try to pick a fight, I would look furious, and try to hold my ground if it was someone I had to deal with maintaining the same sort of look, but inside I'm shaking to hold back the tears from how intimidated I felt - about a point they brought up I struggled with insecurity of. Since "fighting back" once, every reaction of fear I have translates into this intense anger - even when I'm shaking inside for a different reason and am trying to control it badly with so many feelings.
I had a weird experience in college recently where the lecturer appears to be prejudice and unprofessional. Not only did it make me angry witnessing that he disclosed the grades of another student to a group who were out to have a laugh at her, but he would also behave prejudice towards me: Informing all the other students of things like make-up lesson individually, choosing times when I'm out of the room to help, not replying my emails to questions and showing annoyance towards me the next lesson I have with him and used his teaching time to indirectly sneer at my effort he calling it a spoiler to the project, also laughing at me after I finish my presentation and shaking his head sighing loudly when seeing me around the campus. I felt like an outcast and embarrassed having this attention.
After he accused the student he revealed grades about, as the rest finally complained about her, as having an ego problem and me, because I was against them kicking her out of the group and tried to balance my role to help her situation. He even went to further as to suggest I texted their behind back to her, by telling her, and was overly personal in his accusations. I emailed again, explaining the situation - this time getting a reply many days later to change groups. I had only 2/6 weeks to complete the project I did as pairwork. Becoming exhausted from the high drama life gave me during that period, I fell into depression from overworking and having unresolved feelings towards many people involved.
It came to my parent's attention and they wanted to complain because he was teaching for about thirty minutes of a three hour lesson, and no tutorial. To be honest, his lesson can be engaging but it is very basic, with content nothing close to secondary school level. Now that I recall, in a previous classroom he would go as far as to request us not to tap out of the classroom for attendance, promising to do it for us. He has basically been skiving. He is popular with students as they find him attractive and are pretty wild for him - but in my opinion I think he is fairly emotionally manipulative. With a googlesearch on him, I found his blog teaching people how to social climb and he makes fairly sexist comments and interestingly enough, has a post on "how to get into your lecturer's good books".
And so to my parent's horror, the management instead were pleased to inform them that he would be taking the rest of the course modules from now onward. They quickly requested to speak to the principal, which they suggested we speak to the academic head first. It sparked the interest of a Dean, who had only joined the school to take over my lecturer's department. She started going through my results starting I should not be having problems with my coursework, my parent then informed the Dean that the problem is with the lecturer. The Dean revealed right away that his comments of me were not negative - only that I am unable to work well in a group. This made me very emotional as I began to explain myself as I felt this statement was unfair for the effort I put into both groups during that semester. During exams in other semesters, he would put me in the front of his desk and slam violently on his keyboard sighing,
while on another exam, the question presented the stereotype of my ethnic group as the troublemaker within the context of my country, and I did bring this up as unhelpful for future students in general.
After this meeting, promised to be confidential except to the Dean's boss (who appears to be friendly with the lecturer according to his blogs), the words had got around about me in class. Apparently he had told this new student exact words my parent said and said it was me who complained - who appears close with this girl (same person who tried to kick my friend out) who cannot seem to stop talking about me in class. Even after three semesters, she continued to be kind of obsessed and started taking pictures of me and dishing out whatever she knows about me. It has been a little stressful as she has also been posting online about me, having people encourage her to slap me, while she mindlessly chatters on to fuel hatred of me and has apparently resorted to chatting up my ex boyfriend for information. I don't know how she possibly found him. But she is younger than me and I hate to be the bad guy to confront - or maybe I'm really too lazy for bothering with things so childish. I get enough of it. It's not a battle I want to fight to win everyday by giving in to pay attention though it angers me.
I hardly know where I stand with people, because I don't want to find out how much other people would avoid me if they knew I complained. And I couldn't take anymore emotional involvement so I stopped attending his module classes and attended the other as it needed practical work, mostly avoiding everyone while the girl booms in class about me swearing her head off that the another lecturer shut her up on several occasions. In the midst of this, the bad lecturer pops in to check on the other lecture I attend twice and storms in gossiping about the Dean once (when only another student and I were there) - acting all goofy as if I wasn't there. I think the fondest memory I had of him is when he brought a cane into a class of four students twirling it around while he teaches, as he approached near the desk, he lost control and knocked some items off it. Nobody laughed. I don't know why nobody laughed. I don't know what to make of it but if I'm not wrong, the sequence followed some time after the lesson he brought up 50 shades of grey (somewhat related to lesson).
The Dean got back to me by email after a meeting with his boss and him, where the story had been quite fabricated and he claimed he was unable to recall the things I mentioned. For my exams in that latest semester, I suppose as "punishment" he had arranged the seating and this time was put next to the girl who goes off about me the most - who was clearly unhappy about it too she threw her bag on mine. Her new friend whom he leaked to, followed her example by arranging to pile her laptop bag and iPhone on it the next day. Suddenly my tiny bag was like this cushion of the room. And while the invigilator goes on toilet break, he appears storming in again to the middle of the room, a few rows from where I'm sitting, to glare at me. I got pretty furious and started typing for the practical with some force. The next thing that happens is, he moves to the whiteboard, rubs his hands together and tries to control his cackling. Then he stops, blank, moves the a pillar and faces the side of the room where the door is. And stares until the lecturer returns.
He denies making eye contact with me in the email and unbelievably claims he was sitting down. I reply saying there are witnesses to all the things he denies doing and the recent exam had the most, where everyone would testify to him being in no way seated but standing the entire time. In the next email, there is an account from him saying, "You were taking the test and I believe you would have been very focused working on the practical test questions and answers. When I entered the room, I looked at you and you acknowledged my glance on you and then you immediately started typing, hid behind the PC screen and did not look at me at all. I took a physical headcount of students in the lab and left the room."
In the next sentence of the Dean's email reply I had "Your lecturer did not frame you as a liar. He is unable to recall the incidents that you raised. He is more stressed preparing for his wedding which is next week. Hope you understand that this period is a very crucial time in his life and he is not deliberately doing this."
That's how my case was dealt with. No action taken against him, nothing. The best part is when I described to the Dean of him pulling faces at me around campus, she laughed loudly and told me he does that to her too! She wondered why and asked her boss about it, who replied "Oh he does to everyone". I asked my friends about it, apparently he doesn't. In fact in the first term, he would call their names in an overly familiar way, though they barely know each other, while mine was stressed with suspicion.
The thing is, he's been doing this since I came. It's hard not to think this wasn't deliberate from the effort he made to cover up from first saying he made no eye contact to that, I wasn't trying to screw up his wedding and neither was I hiding anywhere, I was so pissed off my body stiffened up to stay in control to move position than what I was already in, typing. He didn't need to take a headcount for only standing in a minute, why would you? And I'm still pretty sure he stood behind the pillar some time and didn't leave until the invigilator was back.
I didn't know when he was having a wedding, but did hear he was engaged. I feel freaked out about the way they entirely dismiss me over that, not even bothering to investigate.
Writing this now makes me feel less angry with everything in better perspective, but I'm not sure when I'll be blowing up at someone as I almost did this morning after a few events. But I hope you could share a way with me to how to deal with my prolonged victim mentality that comes with fear, and now intense anger I feel guilty for reacting to. Like when I react back to someone repeatedly hitting their phone into my spine this morning as I'm trying to get out of the crowd, I turn about looking for someone, they stab again, whine about my speed and viciously step the back of my sandal. Once I find my friend, I say something mean about them and they disappear looking scared with their phone. And I feel guilty. I did something else seriously petty and made someone else feel bad about a mistake they made. I want to break this vicious cycle. I used to have better control but since I dared to react once, I can't seem to stop. Is this anger addiction as well?
