Rules

a rant of what is stressing me out and odd rules my parents have

Throughout the entirety of elementary school, I’ve had perfect grades. 3s and 4s, 3s were grade level average, 4s were above average.

Throughout the entirety of my childhood, I’ve never liked introducing myself. My name just sounded like nails on a chalkboard to me. So I changed it. I changed it, my gender, and my morals, and I became a brand new person. I like to think that I’m a better person than who I was in 4th grade, even if that was only a few years ago.

I became a better person morally and realized how wrong the world was. How terrible people I knew were, how bad I was. I regret it. I regret a lot of things, but I mostly regret my elementary years. I was selfish, confident, ignorant and arrogant. Now I’m quiet, solemn, and distinct. I get hurt by my sibling and ex-best friend because of jokes they make out to be derogatory towards me, even if they’re stupid bad jokes.

My mental state is declining, and soon my grades will too. I have a heart attack every time I look at my grades and see a B+. I shouldn’t be scared to get average and not perfect grades. My parents think they’re being supportive, but they’re just making me more stressed and frightened whenever I get a ‘bad’ grade. I’ve been trying to gaslight myself not to care, for the sake of my mind. I’m just so exhausted mentally and physically, I don’t know how I am still pushing in school and at home.

I see the state of America and tell myself that I don’t want to die. At least not for such a stupid reason. I hate so many things about this country but there is nothing I can do to ease my stress. I can’t talk about it to my parents, they would ask where I learned this and I wouldn’t be able to answer. I’m not allowed to have social media, not Tiktok, not Instagram, not Tumblr, not Substack. Yet I have all of these. If they find out, I’ll be in trouble big time. But I don’t want to be left in the dust about national issues. I also want to be able to find content that actually entertains me and not just mindlessly looking at youtube for anything interesting.

It’s upsetting, really. I know my parents are just trying to protect me, but I’m not dumb. I’ve seen what happens to people on the internet, getting doxxed, outted, or other terrible things. I just want to see. I want to observe. I’m already so desensitized from generalized horror and gore. I don’t care what I see. If things make me angry, so be it, if they make me cry, oh well. I want to hold the knowledge that the internet can be found as a nice place sometimes, you just need to learn the rules. I know the rules, I can survive on the warzone and battlefield that is apparently the internet. I hate arguments, so I don’t egg anyone on, that’ll just end poorly no matter what.

I know the rules.