The controversial essay that almost failed me

I have never been a good student and I have never been good at school. We'll skip to the year that matters, senior year 2020; I had been planning to leave my abusive parents home for years at this point, fought off a stubborn depression, and had been falling deeper and deeper in love with the act of writing, whether it be fiction or something honest like this.

But I was bad at school, despite the hours and hours I had spent writing and the hundreds of thousands of words I had typed on my own time. In my mind I knew I was smart and capable, but my grades reflected otherwise. No matter what I did I couldn't force myself into the shape of a perfect student. I remained socially awkward, anxious, and overwhelmed by things my peers had no trouble with.

So skipping to the very last month of school where I and grit my teeth and taken it for four years. I had told myself that this was how things would stay and I knew I couldn't change it. This school wasn't made for me, none of them were. All I had to do was make it out those doors and I'd be free from the expectation of molding into a cookie cutter copy of my peers.

Of course my home life was rough and I'll leave it at that. In English we were told to read The Things They Carried, by Tim O' Brien. If you're not familiar with the story, it's a work on the relationship between fiction and reality that centers around a Vietnam soldier who (spoilers) admits at the end of the book that most of what he wrote was made up and that he'd never went through what you were made to believe. Tim says in doing this he revealed more of the truth than he would've if it hadn't been fiction. He said it would make better sense to us and that the story, faux but just as moving, would put across the same feelings he'd felt.

The problem was I couldn't read this. I was never a soldier and I'd never been to war, but the fear and paralyzing uncertainty that these stories held dug up raw wounds in my mind and every class I'd have to lean down and pretend to grab something from my book bag as I teared up. It was humiliating, I had no idea why no one else was experiencing this. Why it had to affect me so deeply. I told myself everyday, 'I hate this author, I hate this book. I hate reading it.'

So I told my school counselor that I was struggling and I needed her to tell my teacher I just couldn't read this book. It would put such a terrible feeling in my chest and I would freeze up as if there was a gun to my head. She told me, 'There's no way around it, just finish the assignments and talk to your therapist about it.'

Which was messed up, now that I remember. Of course back then I couldn't fight her. So I went back to class the next day and we had to write several paragraphs on a few chapters. I thought maybe I could skim them over and make something up, just spit words onto the page and get it over with.

Obviously, my mind wouldn't let me. The chapter called, The Man I Killed was one we had to read that day. That's exactly what happened, Tim killed for the first time and stood silently staring for a very long time. He was paralyzed and as I sat at my desk, I could feel it. I had never killed and I never wanted to, but the descriptions he wrote just wouldn't end and the prickling dread reached it's hands out of the pages and took me by my throat.

Several of Tim's troop mates tried to talk to him, but one I remember got to me. His name was Kiowa and he was sympathetic towards Tim. He stood by him and talked him through it, but Tim stayed completely silent. Kiowa, became slightly irritated with this and said,

"Talk to me."

Just like that. It could've been a demand or perhaps a gentle prompt. I remember I was sitting there, shivers rolling up and down my arms, and I couldn't stop reading that line. Talk to me. It hurt so deeply, but it felt so intimate. Everything began to make sense then. It was as if Tim was inside my head, taking out all the hurt, all the uncertainty, and fear and spinning it through these words like spider silk. I would have dreams of these characters and the funniest thing was that it never scared me, I was used to these feelings.

I had never been diagnosed with PTSD and I hardly told anyone that I suspected that's what I was experiencing. I was again, humiliated. I had simply thrown away that blank page and went to my teacher and told him straight that I couldn't do the assignment.

I got in a lot of trouble for that. I remember reaching out to my teacher through email and begging to be let off on these assignments. I told him the book was too graphic and the topic was too heavy for me, when in reality it was my own life that was too much to take and coming into class everyday to sit down and relive it all over was tearing me apart. As much as school felt like a burden, it was somewhat an escape from home. This was my last straw I think.

Then covid hit and with the increased time at home and the isolation I began to grow confident. I didn't deserve this, I told myself. I was going to leave the second school was over. I had begun making plans, plotting where I'd go or how I'd live on my own. It became an obsession, because it was my only way of survival.

And then that book, that damned book would not leave. It was the final week of school now and I was tasked with an essay to analyze Tim's The Things They Carried and The Life of Pi and use these two things to identify the difference between fiction and reality. As I sat down to write this essay everything began to build up through me in a helpless anger that I had been living with for too long.

I remembered that line, talk to me, and I realized no one had ever asked me that. No one had ever listened, no one had wanted to hear what I had to say and I had so very much crammed behind my ribs that needed to be expelled. I realize now that unsolicited, this might have been too much for a lowly school teacher, but it was a cry for help. The words bled from me and I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to turn this in. It was messy and I had cried the whole time, thinking that someone was finally going to understand. Someone would finally know. I wished someone would recognize what I was saying and somehow help me. I didn't know how they would, but I was so broken and so weak at the time it's all I could do. It was the only thing I turned in for any of my classes that week. I'll put the essay here for you to read;

Cont. Topics Final Assessment

The reason why Pi tells two different versions of his story at sea is because in order to properly express and define the emotions and hardships he went through, he has to alter the truth. This is because people on the outside won’t understand his experience and feel the same things he did unless he changes the story and exaggerates some parts in order to connect with them. That is the connection between reality and fiction, fiction makes people empathize with others in ways they never could through spoken words or other means.

“…he wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt,” (O’Brien 89-90) Here is a quote that supports that. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien, like Pi, Rat Kiley wants people to understand him and become absolutely immersed in what he experienced. In order to do this he told intricate stories of his encounters, all twisting the truth, of course.

Here’s another quote that perfectly coincides with Pi’s experience; “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness” (O’Brien 230) Pi could’ve very well just told the truth, the dry truth, but he didn’t because if he did then no one would listen. No one would care because they simply wouldn’t understand what he really has to say.

But, now that mechanically I’ve hit all the criteria for this essay —not well, but I’ve done it— I want you to know that I didn’t read Life Of Pi. Things in my life and in the world right now have kept me from being able to do things like complete assignments and sit down to read full books like this one, but regardless I think I can still properly answer the prompt of this essay. I understand the relation between fiction and reality very well. I know that I do and I know that my grade does not reflect my knowledge. Maybe I don’t even have to prove it to you, maybe I won’t graduate high school. I’m positive I won’t and it doesn’t bother me because as loosely as I fit into the expectations and criteria to count as a graduating student, I know fully well that I’m an experienced person who is smart and empathetic enough to thrive in the real world that high school tried so hard to prepare me for. And I didn’t have to read Life Of Pi, in order to be that person. I’ll tell you how I did it, even if you don’t want to know and don’t care to hear it. I’d like to prove it to myself at the very least.

I wrote a story; a story that ultimately saved my life and continues to do so, just as Tim says he saved himself on the last page of The Things They Carried. I read that one, it was difficult, but I did it and I’m glad that I did. It helped me realize that my story is just as real and valid as an award winning author like Tim’s can be; It helped me realize that I wasn’t alone with my craft, that stories are a universal means of communicating feelings and ideas that only some will truly understand deep in their hearts like me and Tim do. These feelings and ideas can be accessed by everyone else, too, you don’t have to be a writer, all you have to do is read.

Writers have to write, it’s like breathing but the exhale is a creation of everything we’ve witnessed and experienced, processed into something neat and easy to digest. The truth is we don’t understand our own experiences as much as an outsider would —it’s human nature to be confused with your own trauma— but writing is a very indulgent and cathartic way to sift through the mess in our heads and mold it into something we do understand. We go back and read our own work because it reminds us who we are and reassures us that we’re alive and still living; it’s like a picture album where the photos are abstracted and enhanced, but still pictures of ourselves. The pictures are pieces of us, frames of points in our lives, and our fears and desires.

And the readers can reminisce with us, they can be nostalgic for the same things and mourn the same losses. All they have to do is read.

I won’t tell you about my own story, because I’m still writing it and it’s still very much my lifeline. I’m not at the point of letting anyone into my creation, but I can give you some more realistic examples of the relationship between fiction and reality if you want, because personally these ones are easier for someone like me to understand than Life Of Pi. Also that’s what this essay is supposed to be about anyways, I want you to know that I do understand what this class is trying to teach. Yes, I haven’t participated much, but I certainly don’t deserve to fail because I learned the very same lesson as all the other students did, just in a different way. So I’ll tell you about my sister and a phone call she had earlier this week.

At the beginning of junior year we both began to see the same therapist —I’ll call her Karen— because we both felt we needed to. Over about a year Karen began to help me less and less, her focus shifted from trying to confront my tattered mental state to insisting impatience with unrealistic goals like getting a job and acquiring a driver’s license. The thing was I couldn’t do either of those things, still can’t, because I’m not mentally well for it. Though Karen thought that if I could drive I would be free and if I had a job I would be responsible enough to take care of myself. I sat with this for a few months, reluctantly smiling and agreeing with whatever Karen told me, knowing deep in my heart that she wasn’t right and didn’t know what was good for me. The times I genuinely opened up to her, she would offer tissues and nod along saying, ‘That must be really hard, I’m so sorry’ and then send me home with that same little fortune cookie that said “Get a job!”

So I took the liberty of breaking up with my therapist sometime last winter. I did It over text because I was afraid and my social anxiety — that Karen had promised she would fix— was still very prevalent. I was called a coward, told I was running away, and putting myself at a dangerous risk by making this decision. Karen wanted to keep me on that couch under those soft orange lights and continue on like a broken record. She probably thought she was helping, thought she was being supportive, she wasn’t.

Karen said it was my own inaction, my own fault that I wasn’t already living that dream. A dream for one, I didn’t even want. I would tell Karen that I wanted to be an author and an artist. She said I couldn’t do that, what I needed was a career that gave money so I could run away rich like she wanted me to. There was nothing wrong with me, Karen said, I just had to pick up my feet and go. I was the one keeping stubborn, Karen said, I was the coward for leaving. She said that there wasn’t a single thing in my way to getting in a shiny car and driving it as far as I could away from my problems and buying a nice plump house with the money I’d procure from my brand new job.

The thing was Karen never said those things to me during our sessions. There was just those two words she spat out. A job and a license. Though I heard her true thoughts loud and clear. So I quit and got myself a better therapist.

My sister however wasn’t so stubborn. She stayed with Karen and experienced the same problems I did. Whenever she brought up real issues Karen would become impatient and negative. However she stuck with a different plan to deal with it. She lied to Karen. She would tell her just what she wanted to hear, what would get a positive response. Karen was proud of her, told her she was doing great with therapy. In fact, I overheard a phone call between them earlier this week. Karen was telling my sister that she had ‘graduated’ therapy and didn’t need to show up for anymore appointments. Her life was perfect, there was nothing left for Karen to fix.

My sister hung up the phone and said, ‘Thank god, I hated talking to her.’

I’ve been thinking about this a lot; about Karen’s fiction versus her truth. Her truth was that she didn’t know how to deal with me or my sister’s complicated mental health issues and wasn't equip for it, so instead of mentioning that, she made up a story for us. A story I almost believed and went with for a while, but luckily I could see through her fiction and so did my sister. In the end Karen was happy, she got to have her perfect recovery story with my sister. She feels she’s a good therapist, a successful one.

This story I’ve provided shows a lot about fiction. It shows how it can enhance life, make Karen feel better about herself and make my sister and I believe our problems weren’t as bad as they were and that the solution was right before our eyes. It shows how a complex message can be passed through just a few words of fiction, when Karen tried to make me believe that I was my only enemy by just repeating the same thing every appointment.

Obviously with this story I’ve left things out, things that would complicate it and make it hard for you to understand without being me. I twisted the truth and tweaked things in order for you to feel my frustration and get the greater meaning to it, just like Pi did when he told a different story to the interviewers than what really happened. And I didn’t have to read the book to know that.

This story I gave you also says something else. Something about systems and how they don’t work for the individual. Like me and my experience with this class and many others. I’m failing high school right now and I’ve barely filled the criteria for the essay prompt you provided, even using pronouns knowing fully well that’s unacceptable in an essay setting. I’m sure my grammar is horrific as well, but I’ve answered the question, haven’t I? I’ve analyzed the role of fiction and truth within a story and how that can relate to reality, I’ve given examples and I think I really do understand the point of this whole class.

I’ve missed assignments and gotten zeros on countless things, granting me a lot of emails and lectures about being lazy, careless, and disrespectful. The truth is that’s all fiction too, because it’s easy to judge someone on how they fit into a system like that. If you don’t fit you’re not good enough, simple. Though as my writing is still very private I can’t prove much in my ways of that, but I am working and I am making progress everyday on a craft that I’ve been evolving my whole life. The reality as we know it is being warped and sewn to fit into my little book of comfort because if it wasn’t, well I don’t think I’d be able to make it another day. I live as I write and I write as I live. People will read it when I’m done needing it, when I’ve moved on and they’ll understand how I felt; they’ll know what I went through and they’ll fall right into my shoes. They’ll know what it’s like living through a pandemic by reading about a girl sitting up in a quiet castle and they’ll know what it’s like to be a part of a worldwide movement for justice by following an angel and his fall from grace.

And maybe that’s my fiction, that I don’t need to pass high school with flying colors in order to call myself a good person, or a writer. Though that’s what I believe and it’s what keeps me hopeful for my future, so even if it’s the furthest thing from the truth, it’s my twisted truth and it keeps me going.

_

That was several years ago and it was pretentious, but god, was it honest. Maybe pretentious isn't even the right word, maybe it was brave or maybe it was confidence. Things I had rarely felt under the thumb of my abusers. I understand that teachers aren't meant to handle a student's home life, but his response was truly hurtful.

He told me I was going to fail unless I rewrote the essay correctly. I remember he used the words, I appreciate you expressing yourself, but this is not the place for it. Which I get, but the lack of effort to understand why I had done this and the lack of curiosity of what was going on behind the scenes really baffled me. I remember I had faced a lot of anger from my parents for this and all I could do was sit and take it. I'll spare you the details, but it wasn't a happy ending like I hoped.

I wasn't sent to my counselor, I wasn't asked if everything was ok at home. I was told I was going to fail for telling the truth.

And that is the most ironic part of all of this. Tim was right. No one wants to hear the truth because it's messy and it's ugly. You hear these stories about students like me finally breaking and writing essays like this then receiving tuitions or high scores for challenging the system, but I want you to know that never happens except for on the news.

No one wants your truth and no one wants you to be different in this world. Especially not within education from what I've experienced. It's all numbers and points to them and the percentage of students who pass that gets them a promotion.

I'm glad I wasn't in that percentage and I almost wanted to fail high school in some petty work of revenge towards everyone who ever covered my mouth and shoved me forward into the establishment that never wanted me. I wanted them to know I never needed them either, which is not true, but in the grander scheme of things it would've felt damn good.

So in the end I never got to prove what I wanted to. The fact that even though I failed all those assignments, I knew what Tim wanted me to take away from The Things They Carried. I understood every word in that book and it touched my heart so deeply that years later I'm still thinking about it. I'm still proud of myself for what I did and what I had wrote. It's true, it's ugly, but it's true. I've been a writer for seven years and I know that I'm good and that I'm worthy. I've never been told, not even now, but I know it. And I was just as worthy back then all those times I was ignored and disregarded. The best part of my healing is remembering that. I had never done anything to deserve the treatment that I'd gotten and in being so different in experiences, Tim's story still helped me understand what was happening to me and accept that just like him I had been hurt.

All I want is to tell people that regardless of what you do, people are going to eventually cast you aside and disregard you. It's how this world is set to work, but the most important thing and the thing that got me through it all was believing myself when no one else would.

You have to know your worth and never let anyone touch it. You are good, you are worthy, and your mind is precious. You have good ideas and I promise someone out there wants to hear you speak. Someone will sit you down and say, talk to me. It might be months or maybe even years, but you have to keep going. You never stop and you never let up. I haven't found this yet, but I know it's out there because I know I would do the same if I met someone like me. I wish it weren't so difficult to simply be heard, but if you take anything out of this silly little article just know that you are worth being heard. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Never stop telling your truth.