"Why are you preaching?" My mother says as we're both standing in the backyard, she's leaning down clipping and clipping away at haggard weeds, and I'm just standing there in my righteous anger. "No one cares but you."
The truth is sometimes difficult to chew up and spit out. Or swallow. Or whatever.
It's Engl 201A, and Maria is still up front with me. Strength in numbers.
"I'll remember that next time I want to skip class," I say to the English instructor after he explains that he doesn't forsee his 6:00pm class being full because members of the baseball team will be absent and watch the World Series instead.
"You don't need a reason to skip class," he says to me.
Okay. "Well, that's encouraging," I reply, but I don't think he hears me.
Other students join into the conversation, and honestly, it's nice to see my classmates take some personal interest in their professor, being that the person in front of the class has a life and priorities and responsibilities like everyone else.
"What if I don't want to read at all?" One of the students says. He's the one who likes to use the words "delusional" and "insanity" (which, as far as I know, doesn't even have a medical meaning anymore--it's outdated--even though in law, obviously, it's still used).
I almost turned around to face him, and say, "Then why the fuck are you in college, asshole?"
But I didn't. You can't blame other people when you're having a bad day, like being in love with a married man, who gets a divorce, only to not want to see you when he's actually available.
The English instructor comes up with a better, less aggressive response. "Try online courses?"
You still have to read for those too, but I keep my mouth shut--again.
As a class, we view a video about Eugenia, YouTube star, and change.org, who wants her off the air.
(http://www.medicaldaily.com/will-youtube-star-eugenia-cooney-get-kicked-vloggers-unhealthy-look-rumored-402940)
Why? Why are we discussing this? Are we advocating censorship?
"Why are we focusing on her? You can watch people die on YouTube," the same student comments.
For the record, anorexia and other eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
(http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/)
The news report argues that her videos are "triggering," which is completely true. Want tips of how to lose weight? Talk to "pro-ana's," and they'll share tips with you and with each other.
Another student, a woman this time, says, "Would we be saying this about her if she was overweight or fat?"
Well, being overweight or even obese is not a mental illness. As I told Mom, you can't die from being fat, you die from the complications of being fat, mainly from Metabolic Syndrome. You can die from being anorexic, like cardiac arrest--or passing out from hypoglycemia while you're behind the wheel, and then either killing yourself or someone else on the road--or a number of other reasons, including suicide.
But the first question is--is Eugenia an anorexic? And why does that matter?
When you see a man in ragged clothes who hasn't bathed in more than a week, who is wandering aimlessly down the sidewalk, all the while shouting that "I'm a god!" and talking to other imaginary deities, you can get the sense that maybe he has a fucking mental illness--and you can narrow it down from there like schizophrenia or possibly a psychotic manic episode.
As I told the class, I'm not a psychiatrist and I'm not a psychologist, and therefore I can't accurately diagnosis her. However, when someone is sickly thin, beyond even the normal "thin" beauty standards, you have to wonder and connect some dots. Of course, she's lying and saying she's just naturally that way. We all lie at some point in our lives about our mental illness--either to ourselves or to other people. (Interestingly enough, there are some genetic disorders that curb someone's ability to gain weight--I learned this little factoid while attending group therapy--so the possibility is there that someone can be deathly thin and not an anorexic or engaging in self-starvation)
Why does that matter? Well, we are products of our environment and under the influence of other people's fucked-up-ness. We see thin models in the Victoria Secret's windows or anywhere really, and we can't help but think about our waistline and how we're just plain bigger than what society says we should be. Almost everyone in America's consumerism recognizes this. My first English class at the University, first quarter back in 2001, discussed "heroin chic." The idea that looking strung out on opioids, wasted away from drug abuse--that it was attractive to the opposite sex.When do we take these messages too far?
The correct response to all of this is sensitivity to the issue, and discussing it in a full and enlightened manner.
But we can't have a straight talk about any type of mental illness because the only person who it's important to--
Is me.
So, after having a short conversation with my mother over my cellphone, while standing in the soccer field, I went back into class, gathered up my belongings and fucking left.
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