TW: Self-Harm Mention

Earlier I mentioned how English class was awful today; allow me to elaborate.

So, it’s getting close to the end of class, so the teacher puts on the movie version of the book we’re reading, which is normally hella cool.

Except, of course, when the movie has a graphic self-harm scene with no warning I mean we already all knew the protagonist is suicidal but honestly none of us were expecting a gratuitous scene where he picks up a shard of glass and slices his arm open jfc Hamlet and at least two people in the class are in remission/recovery from cutting.

So that was fun, and by fun I mean extremely triggering and painful and brought on a splitting tension headache.

And then, when I wanted to check on my friend who I know was badly affected by seeing the scene, I asked the teacher if I could go check on them because I was worried ((they stormed out of the room)). Instead of showing any semblance of concern when I mentioned they may not be okay, the teacher began to interrogate me as to why I was referring to them with “them” pronouns ((which are their preferred pronouns btw)). I was still kind of shaken and didn’t want to explain this so without thinking I told her that was what they preferred to be called by and I don’t even remember most of what was said but me and my English teacher got into a very brief, hushed banter about “they/them/their” being strictly plural and me telling her that for some people singular is used as they and then she gave me the world’s snarkiest eye roll and at that point I was so far gone I grabbed my backpack and ollied on outie.

English was a wild ride, and not in any sort of good way.