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I was talking with a person who asked me for advice on a tricky situation, in which she felt that it was necessary for her to switch teams. By doing so, she was afraid that she might offend certain people. “Explain and explain more.” I said to her, “you’d rather err on the side of too much explanation, too much details than on the side of insufficient communication.” As I was saying this, I felt that I am probably the least qualified person to say such a thing since I’m an introvert who doesn’t communicate as much as I should. Sometimes I feel like a fraud, who gives people an idea, which I myself cannot practice, or at least cannot practice adequately.
And I cannot help but recall an incident. Many years have passed, but I still remember it. I know I will never forget it as long as I live, often with a pang of regret of what I did, or didn’t do, at the time. It happened in the boarding school I was attending at the time. By the way, it was a very bad boarding high school located hundreds of miles from home. I went there only because I hated my parents, who were narcissistic and uncaring. Although the school was bad, it was still a better choice than staying home.
Anyway, it was the second month of my freshman year in the high school. One evening, when I came back to the dorm, two of my classmates suddenly burst upon me, accusing me of treating them badly. I was very astonished. I couldn’t understand why they said what they said. I didn’t have much interaction with these two girls. By the way these two girls share the same dorm room with me. Our boarding was arbitrarily assigned by our teachers and we didn’t have a say about who we wanted to board with. Anyway, I liked two other girls in another doom room, and I usually went with them as a group. I was thinking that probably my roommates thought I was neglecting them.
On top of the friendship issues, there was also a dialect issue. I was the only student in my class who came from the north and who didn’t speak the local dialect. Other students, even if their homes were a hundred miles away, all spoke the local dialect. For this reason, I was usually quiet when my roommates talked about one thing or another at night.
The two girls talked very angrily for 10 minutes and finally one of them mentioned a sentence I wrote in my diary. I suddenly realized why they said I mistreated them–they had read my diary and thought certain sentences I wrote were about them. I didn’t know what to say since I didn’t even have an opinion about my roommates, good or bad. I couldn’t remember what I wrote in my diary, but I was very sure I didn’t mention them at all.
Eventually the two angrily girls settled down and we all went to bed. The second day, I pulled out my diary, which I should have locked into my cabinet but didn’t. I reviewed the ten pages I had written during the one month period, and couldn’t find one sentence about these two girls at all. I wrote about how I hated this school, its boring curriculum, its ancient Japanese windows that couldn’t be open or shut easily, its rote memory style of learning. “Everything is so stupid. I hate this place.” I claimed at the end of my diary entries.
Then it suddenly dawned on me that the two girls could report me to the school, telling them that I hated the school, which was not a real violation of school rules, but still it was an embarrassment and didn’t reflect well on me. On second thought, probably they wouldn’t dare to do that since if they did that, they would have to admit that they searched my cabinet without my permission, which was against the school rules.
The two girls hated me and refused to speak to me from then on, and I pretended nothing had happened. Just like back home, we swept many things under the carpet as if they didn’t exist. Fortunately, I did very well in exams and soon I was transferred to a more advanced class and changed my dorm room accordingly.
Every time I thought about this incident, I felt guilty. Why didn’t I pull out my diary and ask the girls which sentences I wrote really offended them? Why didn’t I talk with the two girls to understand what was on their mind? Why didn’t I sort things out? Why didn’t I ask them questions?
Now looking back, I understand that at the time I had already developed into a “grey rock” to fight against my narcissistic parents. According to Google, grey rocking is a technique used to divert a toxic person’s behavior by acting as unresponsive as possible when you’re interacting with them. However my roommates, I guess, were offended by my “grey rock” persona and thought I disliked them and had something against them. Probably they even wanted to communicate with me, albeit with a very aggressive and ineffective method. Well… they were just two 14-year-olds, and their attitudes and manners were too rough and juvenile to solicit any real communication.
I feel sorry for what I did…well…for what I didn’t do. I should have explained to them. The two girls were not my type, but still they were good girls. They deserved my explanation. And my avoiding them only made the situation worse. At the time, I was behaving in a way exactly like how people behaved in my own family–avoiding, detaching, being indifferent, being silent.
Now I think about it–it is so simple and I could have connected with these two girls so much better. However for years, I couldn’t see it as it was. For years, I thought they should apologize to me for searching my cabinet and reading my diary; for years, I thought I was the victim of their “mean girl” persecution. For years I was so blind.
Haoyan Do 
Unfortunately, these things happen. We look back and we think we could have handled it better. But I think you did the best you could.
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Yes, I was too much of a grey rock to do otherwise in those days. And watching psychology videos and reading about narcissism have really helped me to minimize my own dysregulation and avoid toxic relationship.
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I’m glad those videos help you. It’s good we live in a time where we have access to stuff like that.
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As a teenager it’s often difficult to decide how to best react to certain situations. And girls are especially mean. Not to mention that it’s an absolute no-go to read another person’s diary or just take stuff. I was mobbed by a girl for three years and I just didn’t know what to do. I think she had it in it for me because I asked her not to just take stuff from my pencil case but ask if she wanted to use something. Talk to her? Ignore her? Shout at her? No matter what I did or would have done … it wouldn’t have made a difference.
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Oh, yes, we’ve met girls like that in our school days. Probably the girl was trying to get your attention, which she didn’t have at home? Since I grew up with girls with family issues, I knew a lot of girls who had hidden trauma. Although girls don’t show behavioral problems as boys do, many girls have hidden scars emotionally. Most girls will not admit to it since family is everything to them, but it is what it is. Usually the trauma will be passed on to the family they would have and their children. It runs in the family.
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I think she was envious. She was a swimmer athlete and had a very strict home. So she and her friend had to take it out on someone. Which shows how important a good and stable home is.
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Hmm… I think she has a kind of antagonism against her upbringing and she somehow spreads a similar sentiment to people around her. I remember a girl in high school who had a lot of energy and didn’t know how to use it. Since her family pressed her the wrong way, she only knew how to vent her energy in an antagonistic way.
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I realize how lucky I was with my parents and the way they brought me up. They were not perfect, no one is. But in my family I always felt loved. One of the reasons I want to go home. Even though I only have some aunts, cousin and my sister left. Apart from friends. But it’s so important to feel loved, no matter what.
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Yes, I can see that the more you try to tell her what she should be doing, the more she wanted to do something against it. This happens more in teenagers, but if she was from a ungentle family, she could be overdoing it in a very antisocial way.
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The question I want to ask is why they looked in your diary in the first place.
Of course maturity is an issue and, while maybe communication could have help, I think you did the right thing. Some people have personal issues that drive them bananas.
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I was too “grey rock”. It is not a good strategy. I have to shed my grey rock persona and become more communicative…
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Yes – I can relate to this. In such a situation it’s almost as if existential panic grips me. I have a ready, good and obvious response but what if it falls on stony ground? There will be no third party to adjudicate. Also the response is so just and obvious that I may fluff it like an easy catch in a ball game!
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Me too. I was just silent, wishing that the whole thing would go away by itself. I was brought up this way. Good girls don’t explain, don’t make a fuss, don’t say anything about anything. Since non-communication is the only form of communication at home, I was accustomed to it. However I think I would behave very differently right now if something like this happens.
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The two girls are probably kicking themselves for giving you the silent treatment for some imagined or significant slight. Maybe they too hate the school and everything about it in hindsight and feel gullible.
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Yes, the two girls were very angry with me and stopped talking with me. Yes, they did hate the school (just like me) and they also didn’t like each other very much. However they found a bit of solace for binding together against me. LOL. At least that was what I thought at the time. Growing up in a narcissistic family with enablers and flying monkeys all around me, I often imagine that I was the target of a big concerted effort against me. I know this is just paranoia and I’ve been trying to get out of this kind of illusions.
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Diary is a personal thing that nobody else should read. Anyway I agree that the issue should have been sorted out by talking to each other. A beautiful reflection, Haoyan!
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Thank you for your wonderful encouragement. I never did find out why they felt what they felt. I should have asked them and communicated more. I was a very sulky person at the time. I was not the bubbly friendly type.
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You’re more than welcome!
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Maybe you should go a little easy on yourself? You were just a teenager, too. You didn’t have the life experiences and didn’t know back then the things you know now.
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Yes, thank you for saying so. I should be. Just let it pass. Admit I was too sulky and too flawed. LOL. I wanted to change a family pattern, but that was just a wish and I couldn’t really pull it off.
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Very nice
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