the wrath preceded the destruction

So my favorite teacher/ director was fired due to abuse allegations. And now you know. And I don’t have to elaborate any further on that front.

But I guess I probably should though, given the fact that pretty soon I’m going to have to talk about this with my real name attached and not an internet pseudonym.

I’ve known about this for several months now, but I only learned of the full extent of it last week. I can’t really start from the beginning and offer only my perspective, because my perspective is a fraction of the story. And said story was learned out of order. Due my own limited knowledge, I’m going to try and explain things the best I can.

This post discusses abuse of minors by someone in a position of power over them. Some of these discussions involve sexual topics and some will be in a first person perspective. Reader discretion is advised.

My story was when I was rejected from booth camp. We were given the bad news and then expected to be all sunshine and smiles for the alumnus less than 5 minutes later. We being me and one of my best friends. It feels weird calling them just a friend because truly it’s more familial in nature. But it’s a lot to explain right now so I’ll just call them a friend.

One might consider me lucky. My story didn’t involve her offering me alcohol or being alone in a dressing room together or publicly humiliating me for some whatever reason. I could never be good enough for that. Could never be “special” enough for that.

They were pretty cynical about the whole thing. I suppose I also will be, in a couple weeks or so. I guess I just never stopped to consider the wrongness of it all because this environment is such a disgustingly familiar one for me. You can do whatever you want as long as this one adult likes you, and whatever happens in between shouldn’t keep you up at night.

You keep it in your back pocket, like a piece of bitter chocolate. But you’ve got to take it out at some point before it gets to the dryer. Maybe you shouldn’t put it in there to begin with. But what else are you to do with it besides choking it down and letting that resentment build?

Maybe it’s better to forget.

I remember one day. I had a run in with a school admin and I was shaken up and I don’t want to get into why. But she let me talk about it, even though I *really* didn’t want to. And then she starts talking about how alike me and her are. We’re so similar in the way we speak to people. In the way we solve problems and Jesus fucking Christ what am I supposed to do with a comparison like that?

It’s gross. It’s gross and icky and I hate hearing about what happened while I was busy being praised for every little thing I did while still never quite being good enough. I hate hearing about how someone who hurt me hurt other people cuz I decided to be a selfish little

I defended an evil person because she was good to me.

At least I’m not one of the f*ckers who still is.

I can be logical enough to recognize that criticizing the system would have been social suicide. I can be logical enough to say that I didn’t know the extent that it went to. But these people do and they still insist on building a shrine to this monster.

Delusion can reach unfathomable rates I suppose. I just wish he hadn’t been able to capture those emotionless eyes so goddamn perfectly. She smiles, but there’s always something off about it. Like it’s the best feeling in the world, but it can end at any minute and God help you when it does.

I think the worst part is the people who didn’t know. The people who still looked up to her. We can’t exactly tell them what happened, since most of them are still too young for a revelation like that. So, we keep smiling. We keep shutting down questions. We show them how things work now and hope that they will respect it enough to continue it once we’re gone.

We’re rebuilding from the ground up. Perhaps that’s something to be proud of.

I crave the solace and security I once felt. There’s only so much I can do in creating it for others. I think we’ve done ok so far. There is a lot of bad blood within the community of seniors right now. I’ve managed to somewhat stay out of it. It turns out that I have a lot less enemies than I thought I did, so long as I continue being publically neutral.

In the end, I blame the school administration for not looking into any of this sooner. Suppose toting your leading performing arts program is worth some destroyed childhoods huh?

I typically offer some final defense or resources at the end of posts like these. I don’t feel like defending anything anymore. I already blame myself for all of the fallout. Which is oddly unlike me but hey. Who’s to say I’m not just like her? She certainly seemed to think so.

Total writing time was 5 days. Might go and take an undecided amount of NyQuil for no real reason. I wouldn’t mind sleeping a little longer.

—TG

All that I did to try and undo it
All of my pain and all your excuses
I was a kid but I wasn’t clueless
Someone who loves you wouldn’t do this
— Conan Gray; Family Line

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[Twilight Glimmer]

I’m not going to k*ll myself. I have work tomorrow.