Post the Thirty-Eighth: Inhibited

There's this guy who I went to high school with. For the sake of privacy, let's just call him N. N has Tourette's Syndrome. He would often be overtaken with verbal tics, and, although it was at first kind of startling, it just became a background noise in the classroom, like the drone of traffic outside. I never really got close to N, but he was in a lot of my classes.

Now, I go to SFU, and so does N. He's also a History major, and so far the only two History classes I've taken, he's been in as well. It took me a few weeks to notice it, but I noticed in that first semester that I forgot about him being in my class because he no longer has these verbal tics. I thought it was kind of weird at first, because in high school it was a constant thing. Sometimes he had to leave class because his expulsions would become so loud and distracting.

When I talked to my classmates about this, we came to the conclusion that the main cause of the severity of N's Tourette's in our high school was the fact that he was bullied and teased. He wasn't the coolest guy to begin with, with a low, slow heavily-accented voice and nerdy disposition, but the Tourette's made him an extra-easy target for the jerks in our grade. Now that those jerks aren't in his classes, it seems that he's much, MUCH better.

Now, I could be totally off the mark with that diagnosis. Maybe, over the summer, he learned some coping strategies. Maybe he's taking some sort of therapy for it. But even so, I find myself sort of identifying/sympathizing with N.

I was never bullied in high school. The 'cool kids' and I had an ambivalent sort of relationship: I ignored them, they ignored me, and we went on our happy way. But, even so, I felt sort of... constrained, I guess. Even though no one said a single thing, I felt like I was constantly being judged and watched and therefore had to hem in my behaviour to fit in with the norm. Even with my friends, I restricted parts of my personality that were less than likeable, so I could get along with everyone.

Today, as I was walking around campus, I came to the startling realization that I was completely happy and comfortable with myself. I listened to blasting Wizrock, dancing a little bit as I walked to class, ducking and weaving my way through the crowd, and didn't care a bit what anyone else thought. This is a very, VERY new thing for me. And it's not like I suddenly woke up this morning and just felt peachy; this has been encroaching for awhile. Maybe it's just the thing about being sort of anonymous in the crowd at university, but I feel like no one really cares about me except the people I love. And that's sort of awesome.

I'm not really sure what triggered this. Like I said, maybe it's the university experience: leaving behind the people from high school and even elementary school who I felt judged by and surrounding myself with people who either didn't care or loved me for who I was. Maybe it's the fact that I've just been surrounding myself with a lot more geeky stuff lately. But I honestly think that the university aspect has a large part in it. With the geeky stuff, I feel like I couldn't like that stuff -- and like it OPENLY -- without fear of rejection.

I think it might just also be part of growing up. Along with the usual growing up stuff, one thing that has really changed for me is that I'm finding myself able to trust my friends a lot more. I know that sounds kind of bad, but I've always had trust issues. I could psychoanalyze the shit out of myself about that -- in fact I'm pretty sure I know why I have those issues -- but that's not the point. The point is that I'm slowly becoming less and less afraid that my friends are going to run out on me. But, again, that could be a part of the growing comfortableness with myself. When I like myself, I believe others do too?

So, yeah, the point of this long rambling train of thought is just saying that I'm becoming a more confident, honest, trusting person, and I'm really happy about it.