I'm depressed.
 Here, have some toxic positivity.

So a week ago I was re-traumatized.
As a child I was traumatized at home by an authoritarian, violent stepdad. I was bullied by the teachers at school. Recently in a class I discussed with a professor whether teachers who react wrong to a situation can be classified as bullies. He said no, because the criteria are not met.
The criteria are:
* long term (✔️they did it for 10 years)
* power imbalance (✔️obviously)
* helplessness (✔️ nobody was on my side)
* intention to harm (✔️not as obvious, but imo they intentionally never asked me whether I felt safe at home and just blamed me for bad tests an no homework)

The retraumatization happened during a get together with a professor for sitting in on lectures. He was everything that was wrong with school back in my days and I had hoped had gotten better:
1. totalitarian
He made a lot of absolute rules, but one that in retrospect I noticed to be illegal: He won't let kids into class if they are 5 minutes late *and have a doctors note* because of a medical appointment. AFAIK the state and state employees have a duty to educate kids. He argued the kids were exempted from class anyway, so they didn't need to go to that lesson. But they are not exempted from being tested on the subject or submiting homeworks on it.
2. dehumanization
He treated me and my collegue like mindless drones he could terrorize to his pleasing.
3. discrimination
One of his arbitrary absolute rules was a dresscode that I couldn't meet, because I'm nonbinary and won't wear gendered clothes and because I can't afford to buy clothes I won't ever wear again for sitting in on lectures unpayed.

I was in survival mode and didn't notice how bad it was in the situation. I couldn't sleep for a few days then I quit the whole thing before sitting in the first time. I felt some relief, but it was not over, by far. My mental state got a lot worse and so many things trigger me right now - though some of them are bad even if I was in a good mental state.

I need a break right now, so I'll cut this short: the rest has to do with my social anxiety, group dynamics and lots of toxic positivity and normativity.

#NotJustSad #MentalHealth #depression #trauma #SchoolTrauma #bullying #FediLZ #discrimination