My Complicated Relationship with Confetti
On a breezy summer afternoon in late May of this year, I entered the Trader Joe’s parallel to my high school and paused when I saw glittery miniature graduation hats hanging over the store’s entrance. Students were bustling in and out, and I overheard snippets of their conversations. Their smiles and squeals sparkled with excitement about finally reaching graduation week and entering the next chapter in their life.
As I have done on countless occasions, I swallowed the lump in my throat that was beginning to clot like blood. It happens every time I am reminded of my teenage years. I am part of Palo Alto High School’s (Paly) graduating class of 2018. The campus is located directly across from Stanford University.
My high school experience was far from the traditional set of adolescent milestones. Instead of going to dances and formals, my “socialization” happened in behavioral group therapy sessions. While most of my peers were attending parties and sleepovers with their friends, several nights of my sophomore, junior, and senior years were spent staring at the ceiling of my psych ward room. I almost didn’t attend my high school graduation because I knew I was one of the kids who wouldn’t have a four-year university mascot on their cap in Paly’s sea of Ivy League-bound students.
I don’t believe that I earned my diploma. The teachers, counselors, and tutors dragged me to the finish line. Going into community college, I lacked fundamental knowledge in each subject. I hadn’t developed any study skills or time management techniques. My first couple of years at my two-year college were spent doing a lot of trial and error, resulting in flunking many courses. Seeing myself fail was heartbreaking, and ironically, the force that got me back up is precisely what had knocked me down in the first place.
Today, I am holding down a steady job, excelling in classes with ease, and am the author of two books along with a series of published essays. And yet, I still feel like I’m not enough.
Since childhood, I have stapled my self-worth to my success. Those traumatic years of falling behind during high school cut deeper into the emotional wound that led me to the hospital to begin with. Something as small as seeing pieces of confetti blown onto the sidewalk from a graduation party is enough to take me back to the days when I could barely get out of bed, let alone make it to class.
I am trying to unlearn the belief I have held close to my heart for years. The mantra in my head tells me that without my achievements and accolades, I am still that seventeen-year-old patient in a hospital gown. I am still that kid in handcuffs who was escorted to a treatment center by the cops. It’s the fear of failing again that keeps me moving forward. I have already witnessed the unsustainability of this cycle, and the fact that I am still unable to let go of it despite facing the consequences scares me beyond measure. It's terrifying and heartbreaking knowing that this is the only way I know how to function. This fear is what I’ve always used to pump air into my life jacket to keep myself afloat.
It took three hospital stays to see that the ground I was standing on was the platform of a self-destructive thought train. It's as clear as day now, and that's a step towards stepping away. Before I hit rock bottom, I didn't know where I was going wrong. I didn't realize my lungs were collapsing because I had locked myself in a room full of smoke. All I have to focus on next is how to walk out. It will take another series of trial and error—another long string of efforts to find and turn the doorknob in the dark.
But I have done it before.
I know how to not hurt myself after years of doing it compulsively. I know how to talk myself out of leaping onto a permanent solution to a temporary problem—an option I have flirted with several times.
I am powerless over the emotional grip that graduation confetti has on me. It’s during these moments when I am thrown back in time that I try to remember all the instances when I conquered several life-threatening challenges. No matter the obstacle, I try to remember one sentence that has always helped me return to the present. It’s something that someone in my group sessions once said, "I survived my trauma. I will survive my recovery too."
If you or someone you know is struggling, there is help available. See the resources linked below.
