The stuff of nightmares: How a high school memory can haunt you

I had a nightmare the other night. At least, I think it was. I’m not sure what else to call it. At just about 2:30 a.m. I woke up in distress and felt that I had just relived a terrible memory that I have not thought of since high school.

It’s so odd how your mind can suppress something and then suddenly, randomly raise it to the surface.

My spiritual mentor says that often times, painful memories get resurrected so that there can be an opportunity to receive full healing. It was a calming thought, but in reality, after a day of reflection and a perspective of clarity, I realized it bubbled up because that day I had gone through and deleted a bunch of Facebook friends from high school.

Let’s be honest, we didn’t like or talk to each other then so I why are we going to try to fake it now? I need to open up some friend slots since I’m maxed out at 5,000 so I went through the list of people I had attended good old IHS with and cut out the weeds, so to speak.

One of those people was a teacher I once had. A theater teacher. There was no picture associated to his account, but seeing his name alone brought on a queasy feeling.

See, I was a golden child in theater. My freshman year I was one of only a handful to get cast in Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ and then I was the only sophmore to get cast as Ophelia in ‘Hamlet.’ It was a light in my life and was evolving into a life passion. My theater teacher was the only adult who I felt understood that kind of magic, that kind of creativity and sensitivity and true artistry.

Per normal,my emotions as a high school girl were erratic and intense and delicate and by my third year, he was moving away to another state and I was starting my first serious relationship and I was also starting to get severe clinical depression.

I don’t think people really talked about depression or understood it then the way they do now. In fact, people were not very understanding about it and I didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it.

My boyfriend was off in college, my mentor had left and I didn’t feel I had anyone who understood me and the heaviness began to set it and I let it. It began to consume me. I didn’t want to be around people — I remember walking home every day during lunch so I wouldn’t have to be around people. I would avoid contact as much as possible. It all just felt hard and uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, this all was taking place during Thespian initiations. I was the VP of Thespians and I was supposed to be leading a lot of the activities and I was failing. I didn’t think anyone noticed or cared for that matter, but then the big day came for the scavenger hunt. It’s a glorious day to be a thespian.

As it was about to kick off, I was asked to come into the hallway where several other students and my teacher, my mentor, told me that I was not welcome to participate in the final ceremony and thatI would be relieved of my duties as a VP of the club.

I stood there shocked, hurting, ashamed. Not once had they asked where I was during lunch or if I was okay or what was up. Nothing. Instead I felt like weak prey and they had waited for the precise moment to catch me in a trap. It was the first time in my life that I realized how cruel humans can be to one another.

The students were released and sent off to their tasks of merriment and my teacher walked me outside. Then, THEN after the public humiliation had happened, he asked me why I had acted the way I did. When I started to tell him how depressed I’d been, he got a phone call and said he had to take it. I was left alone outside the theater doors with my burning shame.

It just about killed whatever love I had for acting and theater. Enough to the point that I didn’t really try or apply myself anymore. I zombied my way through my senior year and in college, I refused to do theater or take an acting class until my final semester in my final year.

I didn’t realize until much later, how inappropriate his relationship with me had been. Don’t mistake me — he never touched me once or did the whole creepy picture thing, but it was a form of emotional manipulation and abuse that I wouldn’t be able to unravel until years, decades even, had gone by.

After the nightmare of being in that hallway, seeing their satisfied faces as they murdered my little heart, I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up and looked through the past, taking a journey through lots of memories I had anchored away in a forgotten harbor. The next day, I felt fragile and exposed.

I realized that whenever I feel that I’ve done something wrong, that is the gut response I get. That feeling of teenage Melissa circled in the hallway of Ironwood High School being told that she’s not worthy to join in. I realize we all have defining moments like this in our youths. Stories of being abandoned on prom night or having cruel tricks played on the band geeks by the athletes. It build character, so they say.

I get it. And I think I know what I want to do with that feeling now. I want it to be fuel. I want it to be a reminder to never allow anyone to steal my joy again. I want to give Melissa all the love and acceptance that I deserved then. It can be a cruel world with cruel people, but as long as there’s people like you and I, who look at these moments of cruelty and say, “That is what I don’t want for my future, my child, my generation, my life.” then I have hope in what kind of world we can create.