Author: ahunt7dfe4758d09

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How it feels to be me

Honestly this blog post is probably just going to be my inner monologue for the past week because I needed to get it out so it might be a little jumbled but I hope it makes some sense to whoever reads this.

You know I thought I had it all figured out by senior year of High School before I came to this PWI but now that I’m here it seems I still have so much more to figure out. Me coming probably was my best and worst mistake I could’ve made due to me starting to have that feeling like I don’t belong again because of the way I talk or the way I dress I feel like everywhere I go there are small criticisms being made of me and sometimes it comes from the people I consider friends here. Joke or not it really open up my eyes to how different everyone can grow up and how different everyone really is but do I deserve to be called a “thug” because I’m comfortable with sagging my pants or because I come from a all black area. And the answer is of course no I don’t deserve that.

But I’m not going to bash this school that much because if I would’ve never went to a PWI I would’ve never truly understood some of my thought processes, like I just came to a realization recently that I have become someone that little me would’ve never wanted me to be and it’s sad but without the people that I met this year and those “thug” comments I would’ve never been able to look at myself from a outer view.

So, now I truly am starting to understand it even if the healing process hurts but I am who I am and there’s nothing wrong with it and everyone will have their own perceptions of me but that’s ok as long as I don’t lose sight of me again I’ll be ok.

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A Nightmare in Healthcare

Before reading I just want to put a warning that my emotions were high during this post and I hope I don’t offend anyone who is going into healthcare or have family in healthcare.

As a little kid you are taught the basics; police officers arrest the criminals, firefighters put out the fire, dentists clean your teeth, teachers teach and lastly a doctor “helps” you with a stomach ache or something.

Well this can be true and untrue at the same time considering that we have this huge issue of doctors refusing treatment that occurs in the healthcare system since the 18th century. Sadly this is a recurring nightmare for POC because it continues to be a problem that POC don’t receive the same fair treatment as a non-colored person in the healthcare system. 20-30% are more likely to experience negative healthcare outcomes due to racial bias, now this percentage is continuing to be documented as research continues so this number could be higher or lower. But after hearing Lovejoy’s story about how she went misdiagnosed because she had something that only “white people” can have is sad and the fact that she had to endure the pain that she did because of that.

Now you’re probably thinking what does this got to do with me well I’ll tell you. Now I didn’t experience this first hand but I saw with my own eyes happen to my mother in 2019. My mom at the time had kidney stones that bothered her that entire year. She went in for multiple tests while it was still at its early stage of development and I think you can guess that of course the doctor’s found nothing wrong at the time. During that entire year of back and forth hospital trips they couldn’t seem to figure out what could be wrong with her (all they had to do was check her blood) and when they did start finally doing that after months my mom had endured severe bruising on her arm and it swelled up because they spent a whole 15 minutes poking her with IV because they couldn’t find her vein on my brown skinned and veins showing at all times mother. When they finally found the issue by switching through different hospitals and instated her in the hospital I had to hear the news from her doctor that she was even lucky to be still alive since she went so long being untreated.

The fact that I almost lost my mother to a system that you’re taught will help when you’re ill is frightening to see as a young black woman. Those memories of my mother being treated unjustly and watching and hearing her be in pain for months and feeling hopeless because there was nothing that professionals can do for her something I will never forget. I was 16 when this happened and now I’m 21 still in fear of what could happen to me if I were to fall ill and have to go to the hospital.

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Smile for the customers

After learning what emotional labor is from Julie Beck It really made me think about all of the times I had to be at work with the heaviest heart from my personal problems but I had to show up and be happy for a person I have never met before.

Honestly I think the idea of emotional labor is a two way street it’s good but bad all at the same time. Because it puts so much strain on a worker’s mindset to show up for their job when they have a lot of things going on in their head and then don’t let there be a rude customer because it just makes it ten times worse.

This relates to my story very well recently with my server job. About three weeks ago I was going through something that really broke my mental down and everyone knows when your mental isn’t up to par you won’t be up to par. So I had this one guy who wanted more water so of course me doing my job I was going to refill his drink regardless but the man kept using his fingers in a come here motion every time he needed water and of course I let it slide when I first saw it because I just thought that maybe he’s doing it because he thought we didn’t notice his cup but after filling up the cup the man had the nerve to shoo me away and not say a word to me not even a thank you and that really annoyed me. It got to the point I had to stop serving him all together just because of it but I couldn’t do that all night because the requirements of a customer service type worker is to make sure the customer is happy and it is always said that we need to keep a smile on our face.

I guess the point of this blog is that if you need a break try to find a way to take that break because if not you just gonna blow up on a person that didn’t deserve it or maybe they did. Also employers should stop putting the customer is always right rule on their employees and should pay attention to how badly we can be treated just because the customer thinks they have the right.

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“You’re not a girl!”

After reading “Throwing like girl’ and listening to everyone’s stories about how they grew up being treated as less than a girl or too much like a girl by their male peers had me thinking about my experiences when I was a kid and how I was treated just because I had different interests from other girls and had the same interests as some boys.

I remember in elementary school all the girls would play and talk about boys under the playground, but me I was that one girl on the basketball court or the football field trying to show out and out play the boys. Now this came with a lot of difficulties for me because at some points the boys would go easy on me and be like “well you’re a girl and I don’t want to hurt you”. But on the other hand they would undermine my skills in the sport after I beat them by saying “I went easy on you so I don’t hurt your feelings” now both of these sayings would hurt my feelings pretty bad and would make me feel like I truly couldn’t be apart of their little sports groups so it would push me away a little bit to try and hang out with the girls thinking that it would be different but come to find out I was very wrong about that.

As I gravitated under the playground so I could talk with the girls, it very quickly showed me just how uninterested I was in what they were talking about. All of the conversations consisted of them talking about how good the boys looked playing basketball or what new dress their mom bought them that week . And little old me would just sit there and listen and soon after all the girls started realizing that I wasn’t speaking in any of their conversations so they started to catch on and tried to single me out just as much as the boys. It got worse for me when we played this “girls vs boys” which was any game but with girls on one side and boys on the other, I would try and join the girls team when we would do this and the first thing I would hear was “you’re not a girl” and they would force me to be on the boys team completely altering the way I thought and I would try to change myself and act like I liked boys to please them.

Honestly as time went on the playing with boys part left after middle school and I was able to play sports freely in high school but the way that girls felt about me never fully changed because once I entered 10th grade I started becoming more masculine as I found myself so if anything it got worse. Girls wouldn’t let me say the word bitch, some girls didn’t want to change in front of me, I couldn’t be feminine, I couldn’t talk about periods because they “forgot” I got them and definitely couldn’t wear anything remotely feminine or I would get weird looks. They basically looked at me as a man and put me into a box but let me try and switch it up and be feminine it was always a problem so in the end I could never win. But as I got older I stopped caring what people had to say and it let me be as expressive as I want to be and happy in my body, masculinity and femininity.