What A Difference

It's hard to believe that I just ended my last day at my graduate assistant job. I also find it hard to believe how different the ending is as compared to what I imagined at the start of the academic year. I thought for sure that I'd be gritting my teeth until the very end but that hasn't been the case. I'm not quite sure at what point things began to change although I can definitely put my finger on when I started seeing a therapist to specifically address workplace difficulties. Once I did, I was gently encouraged or even challenged to reconsider my thoughts, which in turn affected my feelings.

Once I began to release some of the thoughts and feelings I had, my actions and attitudes were less defensive. This doesn't mean the people I was working for were any less mean or hurtful but when I began to recognize that much of what they said to me was not personal, I actually did feel better. At the same time I can't help but be reminded how very subordinate I am in my role and that in the end I had to subsume who I was in order to "get along."

I suppose it's just what marginalized people must do to survive yet in the end how does this serve me (or any of us)? When I feel compelled to be silent and submissive, I begin to carry a knot of frustration and resentment within me. Some would say that I should speak up but the cost is so much greater for someone like myself than for others. As my therapist told me, I need to weigh what is worth fighting for and in the end for this job, it wasn't.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Institutional Racism and Higher Education

Image
There's so much happening that it's hard to start, as it has been two years since I've written. From March 2020 to June 2020, much of the US (and the world) was shut down to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's strange to read my past postings and to find myself here - isolated most of the time and hesitant to leave the confines of my home due to this highly contagious virus which to date has killed over 500,000 and has infected over 14 million , and disproportionately impacted BIPOC . Then in May, our nation was roiled once again in racial violence with the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota. As a result, many companies, organizations, and institutions published statements of support and a commitment to change. What's disheartening is that the murders of Black men, women, boys and girls have been happening for time out of mind, and in recent memory have been viewed and heard in social media for at least a decade. Four years ago I walked i
Read more

Split and Stereotyping

Image
***This posting has spoilers for the film "Split"*** Last weekend I went to see the film " Split ", which is about disassociative identity disorder  (DID) or is still commonly known as multiple personality disorder. For many of us, we think of the book " Sybil " back in the 70s then later the film featuring Sally Field as the client, Sybil. However, interestingly, the client admitted years later that she faked her diagnosis .  Although DID as a diagnosis is fairly uncommon although the  phenomena of disassociating  is more common that we think due to stress, trauma or even illness. As I watched the film, it was clear to me that there was a significant amount of stereotyping to depict the different identities such as "Barry" who liked to design clothes and had an affect that would be stereotyped as "gay." Another is that the film was reinforcing the belief that mental illness is over-the-top and beyond repair. Also that mental illn
Read more

Lost & Found

This morning I had an argument with my BF and it did not go well. No surprise. Also no surprise that the argument started at point A and ended up at point Z or what I'd call "planet mars." My poor BF, he had no idea what hit him (metaphorically of course) but neither did I. By the end of the argument, I found myself standing alone in the middle of the living room with tears threatening to stream from my eyes, and eventually they did. The feelings that arose were a powerful potion of regret, anger, sadness and perplexity as to my teaching experience in China in 92-93. As some people know, I was interrogated in China in 1993 and my visa was unexpectedly cancelled because I allegedly broke the law. Later, Chinese officials admitted that they "may have made a mistake" which is pretty much an outright confession for having done something wrong and being sorry for it. For years I always believed that what I set out to do in China came out of a sincere desire to
Read more