i have no mouth and i must scream

By Josephine

If you recognise this title, I see you, hell yeah. This title, I feel like, is the most suitable to perfectly encapsulate what I am feeling. I am frequently surrounded by adults, I volunteer in an organisation full of adults, parents, teachers, the whole nine yards. Great. Amazing.

I know I’m young, I know that I have not lived and have not experienced enough to get the eternal wisdom adults seem to possess that makes them better than me. I feel like a starved dog sometimes, begging to be taken seriously, people see  a young girl and think ‘Oh teenagers’. I hate assumptions especially when they’re made by adults.

Let me tell you all a story. When I was seventeen years old, minding my business, not giving anyone any trouble, someone, an adult, decided it was a perfect time to give me one of their clearly warranted life lessons. They said, and I quote, I know you’re young and you think that you know everything…trust me I’ve been there… bla bla bla’

Do you see what I mean? I have a feeling most adults see us and just project the younger versions of themselves onto us. Why do they all want to give us advice? Why do they think that we’re all pious and arrogant, why do they treat us like we’re the cutest little thing to ever exist, ‘awwww jaħasra she’s getting upset! Sabiħa when you get older you’ll know what it means to be mad!’ and cue the annoying pompous laughter that just makes my blood boil.

I remember being ten years old and severely traumatised to the point where I was very quiet, for that I was rewarded with the famous phrase ‘You’re so mature for your age’. Looking back, they thought I was mature because I did not demand attention, I did not voice my needs as other children did, even if I desperately wanted to. It made me close up even more, if I even dared to slip up, in other words, act my age, the feeling of disappointment bestowed upon me would be too much to bear, so I just shut up and took everything.

I have to admit, being called mature by adults, the superior and omnipotent beings that we should all bow down to and never question, felt really good. I felt better than everyone else my age, I felt like one of the adults. I claimed that I never got along with people my age because I was ‘more mature than them’ and that they were not worth my time. It was clear that I was not mature, I closed myself off with the idea that I didn’t need to learn anything and that I already knew everything. Now that I grew up a little bit, I am aware of my ignorance, of how little I know, and I opened myself up to absorbing any knowledge that is available to me. The more I learn, the more I realise how much there is that I don’t know. I have accepted that, embraced it instead of letting it intimidate me out of putting myself out there. I feel like that’s a sign that I am maturing, but I will call myself literally anything else before I settle for mature.

Looking back, I keep thinking ‘what an idiot’, I can happily say that now, all my friends and people I am closest to are around my age. I have this apprehension when it comes to adults, I know I am anything but mature, but I still want to be taken seriously. I have ideas and opinions that I don’t want to repress or be brushed off as silly naive juvenile thinking. Sue me for having a brain that thinks!

I am grateful for the adults that are a constant presence in my life. The organisation does take me seriously and I do feel heard. When you guys read this, Thank you, you mean a great deal to me :)

At school, it’s very intensified, not much now since Sixth Form is a bit more lenient, but in my primary and secondary school days…yike

I remember a funny story, we weren’t treated very fairly at the school I used to go to and I was not going to stay silent and let all of this slide, no way! I was beyond sick and tired at that point, on behalf of me and all my friends. An opportunity to finally make our voices heard just fell into my lap, and of course I took it. But fifteen year old me was so naive to think that justice will ever be served. We spoke up and let ourselves be heard, hoping that some action would be taken, but no of course not, it never is. A few months later I heard from my mum that the person I told called me ‘cute’. That’s it. Cute. And of course we continued to be tormented by that sad excuse for a school that I will not name for obvious reasons, though I really wish I could.

Respect goes both ways, I don't care who you are, the Queen of England, the Pope, whatever! I don’t care. The thing is, when people get even a lick of power, they tend to treat other people as if they are subhuman. I feel like that applies at school too, even though one is a position of authority, when the power dynamics are not equal, I do expect my dignity to be respected. I want to be regarded as a human being, and when that respect is not shown, then they could forget the respect I ‘owe’ them.

Despite my apprehensive nature, there is one teacher that I deeply respect, because she respects me as a student and as a human being. If she is reading this, which I doubt, I hope she knows the impact she had on me as well as other students. Miss, you have taught me well in every aspect of life, and I will miss you dearly, all of your students and I are very lucky to have a person like you in our lives and we will never forget you.

I know this is not an LGBT issue, but I am a teenager, I have big feelings, and I feel the rage coursing through my veins as all the other women in the generations before me have felt. I want to honour them, and I want to honour the youth, in every aspect.

As for any adult reading this, DO BETTER