I hurt people and I'm stupid and evil

Discussion in 'General Advice' started by BPD anon, Apr 19, 2015.

  1. BPD anon

    BPD anon Here I sit, broken hearted

    I had already been kicked out of attending my science fiction class, but I was supposed to continue as an independent study and keep turning in the work.

    Today I asked to turn in an assignment a day late and the email back said there was no point since I hadn't been going to the meetings. I didn't know about the meetings, probably because I am bad at checking my emails.

    All I can imagine is the people I was supposed to meet with going out of their way to be there on time and wait for me, and me never even showing up. Fuck I am the worst person ever.

    And now I'm going to fail fail fail, and it's not the only class I've failed, and I think I'm already out of classes to retake, and my advisor already didn't like it the last time I dropped a class and it's already past deadline anyways so I would have to get even more people involved, and I am just a horrible person who should probably die

    Those nice people, going out of their way so i can keep taking the class, and I fucking stand them up again and again, what the fuck is wrong with me
     
  2. Ink

    Ink Well-Known Member

    Check your old emails to see if they actually did inform you that there were meetings to go to. If they didn't, maybe you can get some mercy on retaking the class.
     
  3. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    It is possible that you missed a thing about meetings, but it seems odd that you hadn't been previously contacted about them. Unless you had but missed it because of not checking emails. Which, yeah, that can sorta screw you up.

    So, I guess: First, check to see if you can find out from the emails what the meetings were supposed to be. You should probably find out who specifically you were supposed to meet with, and whether it was actually multiple people or just one person or what. Second, write back to explain that you had not realized there were meetings, and explaining why (whether that's "I'm sorry, I didn't check my emails carefully enough and I missed that" or "I am actually not seeing anything telling me about the meetings, when/how did you tell me?"), and apologizing for the inconvenience. Once that's resolved, then is a good time to start things like asking whether you can retry that part or drop the class or whatever. Also perhaps talk to the advisor about it since the advisor may be better equipped to advise than random strangers.

    Let me tell you a thing about me in college. One year, in March, I missed a few classes. Er. Let's be clearer: I skipped some, and then I'd go to others and there'd be no one there, so I figured I missed an anouncement or something. Then, on March 20th, I got a note in my campus mailbox (email wasn't very actively used back then) from the Dean of Students. Which was really weird, because the note was dated March 23rd. Then I had a thought. And I looked at my watch. And I walked over to the admin offices, and I inquired as to whether the Dean was available, and I asked him a question: "Is it actually March 23rd?" And he looked a bit surprised, and allowed as how it was. And I said "My watch counts 31 days every month and I have to manually adjust it for months that are not 31 days." And he looked at me with amazement.

    I had made it three whole fucking weeks without realizing that my watch was three days off, resulting in me being on the wrong days of the week (we had MWF/TTh classes) for everything in that entire three-week period. I missed two midterms and three weeks of class work, because my watch was out of sync and I never quite caught on enough to notice.

    More impressively, I had no diagnosis of anything (not autism, not ADHD) at the time.

    I think they concluded that this was such a monumentally stupid excuse that no one would have invented it and expected anyone to believe it, so they accepted it at face value and let me do make-up tests or whatever. I don't actually remember. But I really sucked at college.

    And I regularly had problems with people expecting me for meetings and me not showing up, so, yeah. I know the feeling. And I don't really think it makes you a bad person, or anything. If anything, I'd be inclined to say that if someone was upset about you missing "meetings", plural, the question I'd ask is why they didn't make an effort to have some kind of closed loop after the first one. ("closed loop" as in "get a definite confirmation that you have received their communication".)
     
    • Like x 3
  4. Totally David K

    Totally David K So totally David K. Yup. David K, definitely me.

    I'm not sure how much help I can be here, but just a quick semantic point that might help your brain do the logicy thing instead of attacking you: I don't think you can be stupid and evil. If you're stupid, you don't know enough to be evil; if you're evil, you're using your knowledge about the situation to hurt others, so you can't be stupid. From what you've said, I don't think you're either, but you're DEFINITELY not evil. I agree with Seebs that they should have tried to find you to close the loop. College seems a little merciless, which is unfortunate, but the bright side of it is that if they decide you don't get another chance (by which I mean your being told "not to bother"), then you don't owe it to them to dwell or apologize. Hope this helps!
     
    • Like x 1
  5. wixbloom

    wixbloom artcute

    See, this is why I think you're a sweetheart: your definition of hurting people is so raw and honest and you're really trying to do better, and yet (I think I'm gonna phrase this awkwardly, please bear with me) I really, really wish people who actually hurt others did what you consider to be "hurting people" instead.

    And you know what? I'm a teacher. And according to my students, a really good teacher. I've taught people 20 or 30 years older than me and I've taught 11 year old kids, and one day I'm going to teach at college. And I fail classes all the time. I actually failed an entire year of High School, and I've failed electives and had to re-take obligatory classes and I've willfully dropped out, and it's always because of lack of attendance. Last night I delivered a 9-page paper I had to write because I missed 4 meetings more than I should have... for my teaching internship class!

    And it doesn't matter at all, in the end. That's the big secret: getting an education is hard for everyone. Everyone fails, everyone does worse than they wish they had from time to time and a lot of people who graduate college have failed several classes, or taken longer than they wished, or fucked up their grades now and again. It's OK.
     
  6. wixbloom

    wixbloom artcute

    Oh yeah, another teacher's secret: sometimes you honestly hope your students don't make it and you take a nice book or an art project or whatever with you and honestly hope that your student doesn't show up and you have some free time and get paid for the hour anyway because you were there. So those people you were supposed to meet? I've been one of them and I can honestly tell you they don't mind.
     
    • Like x 1
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