I Would Never Wish This Upon Anybody

    

In the post I am basically going to be very blunt and say exactly what I did earlier/commented on Jessica’s blog. In the freshman group we run into a lot of roadblocks, I am not sure how or why. Maybe it’s because we all have leader-ish personality types, maybe it’s that we all want to have our idea incorporated. I can keep guessing but this would take me days or years. Next, all some people did  was they would criticize our way of going about things, because they are used to working more on independent projects, when they are in charge of their work. I feel that I, myself have more of a leadership type personality. In no way am I saying that I am the best leader and whatever I say is golden. I need to explain to those reading this that the Freshman group was just as bad as the Senior group, and maybe in some ways a little worse.

            I myself in the group was finding that even after the conversation we had today, we were just as bad, but instead of talking about what we where to do and which idea we could work off of; it was all about do we continue this project democratically or monarchy type? We were basically crawling in circles with all this different controversy with other people’s opinions.  No matter what any of us did I never felt quite satisfied with the level of respect we have/had for one another. I am not going to lie yes, when we started acting our age all my respect for almost every single member went out the window. As it was mentioned in Jessica’s and Danny’s post about group members they might have taken what I said as moving backward. I directly said to the group when talking today that “I am done,” and what I meant and tried to explain is, I am done with this shit. I am done trying to get everyone to shut up. I have a problem outside of STAC pertaining to one of the group members, my own opinion is bias just because of this problem, and it’s not fair for what my personal opinion of someone to affect the project because it is not fair to the group as a whole. I feel like I do often voice my opinion and was a bit of a control freak of being bossy and not letting everyone speak their mind. To fix this situation and make it a better environment I told the group that “I am done, I give up I will do whatever you tell me to do.” When I said I am done I meant it to beneficiary to the group as a whole to let it become fairer & less hostile . Instead, some took this as a sign that I had just given up on the whole group as a people/team, that I was adding more negative energy to the group and just didn’t want to fight to let my ideas be heard anymore.

            Now you have to understand, for about 5 seconds this silenced my group. After the silence I was basically bashed right in front of everyone and told that I can’t do that. This is STAC you can’t just say I am done and be done with it, it’s a group project and we are a group when you decide to let things go you are hurting all of us; we sink or swim together, remember? By this point I had already been upset that we had all been fighting, because for the most part we are all great friends. No one else had said this and only me, I had been singled out and demeaned and told that I was wrong I was letting everyone down when I thought I was being mature and helping the group solve part of its problems. After trying to listen to a few other people speak after this I couldn’t make eye contact. I was staring at the floor tiles. I felt trapped. Some people’s eyes felt just like Jessica mentioned like they were throwing daggers at me.  

            No one had defended what I said no one had even remotely tried to understand what I was saying. I started to pinch myself when I felt my emotions wrapping me up in a blanket and my eyes staring to tear up with all the power I had left in me I tried to fight the waterfall of held back emotion but after 4 people spoke I couldn’t even speak (to say I was going to the bathroom because my lip was trembling. I didn’t want to do this because while we were talking and someone said they were going to the bathroom they got “air-quotes” making it seem like they were trying to avoid talking about the group. At this point I honestly would rather be picked on more than look like I want attention and cry.  I pushed back my stool and walked out, I couldn’t help it; I see crying as a weakness. As I walked to the bathroom I saw Ashley walking and just as I walked past the auditorium doors I start getting teary-eyed and I know I am letting my emotions through the cracks. Once I got to the bathroom I open the door and said I can’t take it anymore and broke down crying. At this moment in time I am guessing I was crying for myself and Ashley because I knew what she felt when she was the one who felt like she was letting others down & was out-ed by her group.

            The thing is, I am pretty sure no one knew I had cried except Ashley and maybe those who didn’t say anything. I walked in and the bell rang, picked up my bag, and walked Ashley to her car so like I said not really anyone knew that was the reason I left. I guess they thought I was also avoiding the problem, but in actuality I was dug down in a whole so low by my group that I felt I was completely and utterly useless.  I needed to leave and you can sugar-coat it anyway you want but by leaving I did the right thing. I would have hurt the group to stay. This was not a pleasant experience and come Monday I don’t want to repeat it and I don’t think anyone wants to feel this way nor would I ever wish this upon anybody.