I usually don’t post abt my school life on here, but I’m 18 and abt to graduate and I wanna share how absolutely fucked over I was in my marching band bc everyone in the band knows but are too fucking loyal to it so no one else knows/cares and honestly I need to know if it’s just me or if this is all insane
To preface this, my school is small (K-12, 1300 students total, middle of nowhere). We decide if we wanna be in the band at the end of 4th, play with our class 5-7th, then become an entire high school band once you reach 8th. A lot of 8th graders are alternates the first year. We’ve also gone through a lot of band directors bc our school is poor and they always end up getting a better offer, but they mostly stayed the same for me. We needed a head director and assistant director. Let’s call them Mr. A and Mr. S. From 6-7th I was taught by Mr. S and he was rlly nice and chill. He was straight out of college and one of the youngest teachers at the school.
I was homeschooled in 8th grade, though I had gone to band camp the summer before, and my mom took me out after school started due to some family circumstances. Anyway, I do go back in 9th and I’m in the band. I go to band camp, but I’m an alternate, just as I would have been on 8th grade. I absolutely hated it and thought Mr. A was being dramatic, but I could also see why. It was due to health issues, given that I had epilepsy and hadn’t marched before, and they didn’t know if I could handle being there the entire season yet. Sadly, after that year Mr. A had to leave, as he’d just had a baby and got an offer at a university as a director which was closer to his wife. Mr. S became our director and we got a new assistant who isn’t rlly pertinent to the story.
I became a full fledged member that year, however, I was also hated by some people in my section. All the upperclassmen liked me, but my best friend had ended up being a bitch and I cut ties the year before, and another girl in my grade had decided she hated me since her first day of school after transferring years before. The only girl in my section younger than me went along with anything so she wasn’t singled out. It was still fun with the upperclassmen, but the random girl who hated me, M, was even worse than my ex bestie, who acted civilly with me. I think it’s also important to note that this is the year I began having focal seizures we thought were PNES, though I hadn’t had one at school that year. I had state marching competition the Saturday after the Monday I first had that kind of seizure, had to be at the school (45 min from my house) by 6:00 (before I even take my seizure meds) and still did it.
Junior year, I began having focal seizures all the time, still thinking they were PNES, including at school. I also no longer had any upperclassmen to talk to in my section, and the only friend I regularly talked to in band had dropped it. I was now fully excluded from the band, but still fucking did it. I went to practices and games and competitions. I never got a chair higher than M, even though she couldn’t play any of the three instruments she insisted on getting. She always got the chair cutting off who was in orchestra and who was put in the lower band (her mom was president of the band funds. I’m not even from that town and have no connections.)
Anyway, I was really fucked over in senior year. I didn’t miss a day of band camp. I only missed like two or three practices (we had three practices a week and one before a game), either because I’d had a seizure that day or I had a doctor’s appointment an hour away (where the only specialty clinics are). I had an alternate to replace me in case anything like that came up, but I never took advantage of it. I went to the pre-comp. I helped my fellow band members and section mates, ignored the bullying and exclusion from the others. And then I had to go in for a video EEG.
If you do not know what a video EEG is, you are placed in a hospital room and constantly monitored for at least one day and night. Mine was scheduled for 3 days, but they usually only wait for you to have a seizure before diagnosing and discharging. I had a seizure, found out all the doctors were wrong and I’d been gaslit for years, I had two types of epilepsy and was now going to be put on new additional meds.
I had state comp a week after. It is my senior year. I’m working hard at practices, lying through my fucking teeth and saying that I’m fine.
I got an IEP the year before to let me make up work and to not be penalized or get detention for checking in late, as it was hard for me to go to school given my circumstances (I’m not going to go into detail). Anyway, I was thirty minutes late to school on Friday, and we had a “golden hour” practice that day before the comp the next. I didn’t know what that meant, and my section leader was my ex best friend and they had all created a separate group chat without me so I couldn’t ask. (we were told to create section group chats during band camp. I got locked out my phone and had to reset it during the camp and asked three times to be added back in, even going to Mr. S. I was never added into the chat).
The pep rally was starting when I checked in, but it was black out so I couldn’t go because of my photosensitivity (they do strobes and everyone wears neon and glow sticks in the pitch black gym. Not a good idea). My band was entirely aware of this. Everyone knew I wouldn’t be there in the gym, and knew the exact reasoning as to why.
The “golden hour” practice meant they were taking us to a local community college to practice on their better field. I didn’t know this. I asked the principal what I was supposed to do, she said she could get the counselor to drive me there. But it was the last day before a break, and I still had an exam to make up, as I’d been swamped by work from my hospital stay. She told me to go take that, and I missed the practice. Okay, whatever, right? I practiced in the rain the day before, as it had been one of our practice days.
Mr. S texts my mom. I can’t march at the state competition. I’d missed one practice, and I couldn’t march my senior year final show.
I held it together despite my anger, but they BLAMED ME. I was crying and yelling the guard instructor why I was so upset and it was because I couldn’t go to state my senior year and her and another band mate were like “you could have went you just chose not to”. And I was like “??? But I wasn’t allowed to march???” And they were like “you still could have went that’s on you” like??? EXCUSE ME???!!!
And then the man who ruined my final year of school, Mr. S, just. Quits. He quits on a random Thursday in February because he had a baby and got a better offer. Son of a bitch.
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