Freshman Year

Ahhhh, freshman year. The year that basically all my friends lost their virginity, got their belly buttons pierced, and smoked their first blunts. Everyone but me, of course. Hahaha. (I was one of maybe 5 LDS people at my school.) Not that I thought smoking or drinking made you a bad person. I just had no desire to do any of that stuff and it’s against my religion. I loved my school, though. It was a melting pot of races and cultures. Everyone was so accepting of each other. Everyone was friends. (At least, this was my perspective.) And, for some reason (you can ask anyone from my high school) the class of 2010 had the most beautiful people. Guys and girls alike. But mostly guys. A lot of my friends either had siblings or friends that were upperclassmen. I, by default, became friends with upperclassmen too. Crushing and texting and hanging out happened. My school had off-campus lunch so we’d all go out to lunch together at restaurants or people’s houses. My high school did not feel like high school. It felt more like college in a way. 

A couple of these senior guys I actually met the summer before freshman year. One of them was trouble but I was so young and innocent I had nooo idea. I only knew he was beautiful and played baseball. That’s all I cared about haha. I was very into athletes. Later, when school had started we were texting and he asked me for pictures. Being the most naive, I sent him just a regular picture of me. His response: “One problem. You’re wearing clothes.” HAHAHAHAHAA. I was so confused. The worst part was my dad decided to randomly go through my phone around the same time and he found those messages BUT HE THOUGHT I ACTUALLY SENT THE NAKED PIC BUT HAD DELETED IT! He was pISSED. I tried to explain that I didn’t but I don’t know if he ever believed me. After that it was “NO TALKING TO, HANGING OUT, OR TEXTING SENIOR GUYS.” Which was hard bc that’s all my friends did and what was I supposed to do at school when one came up to me? Run the other way??? Hide? How old are we? Anywho, that experience put my dad on high alert. So high that later on, he came across the guy at a thanksgiving football game (the guy’s name was kind of unforgettable so my dad figured out who he was) and called him out and told him to never talk to me again. Awesome. The guy promised he wouldnt and then promptly texted me saying he had had a little run in with my dad. This was unbeknownst to me bc I was grounded at the time and my dad had my phone so he got the text LOL. My dad of course responded. Couldn’t help himself. Power trip. 

Why was I grounded? That’s the next story. 

I asked to hang out with one of my girlfriends at her house one night. This was a little after my dad’s No Senior Guys mandate. I don’t remember if I exactly knew what was going to happen or if plans had changed at the last second. All I know is that my girlfriend and one of our guyfriends who was a junior planned on coming to pick me up. I told my dad that the guy was my friend’s brother just so my dad would relax. My dad insisted on meeting the guy and shaking his hand. He made him promise some stuff. I don’t remember but it was protective dad stuff. We ended up not going to her house. We went to the park and met up with a bunch of upperclassmen and then drove to a spot in mountains. Everyone was smoking and listening to music. It was pretty chill.  I don’t remember if I was offered any but if I did then I know I refused it. I was just there to hang out. The guys we were with continued to smoke in the car on the way home. They made sure to keep the windows cracked so we all didn’t reek. Too late. Also I guess they weren’t cracked enough because I got secondhand high. I’m so lightweight. Lol. My friend doused me in perfume before they dropped me off at my house. My dad let me in the front door, gave me a big hug, and then breathed in the deepest breath ever. He pulled away and looked at me in disbelief. I think my eyes gave me away. He was like...are you HIGH?! I think he started crying. Hahahaha. Oh gosh. “I didn’t smoke!” I insisted. He just told me to take my clothes off and put them outside because he wouldn’t allow “that kind of thing in his house.” 

I knew I was in deep trouble but I didn’t care because I was feeling too good. My stepmom pulled me into the bathroom and looked at me. I don’t know why but I told her I breathed the smoke in on purpose. Which is a lie. I think I was just trying to get a reaction. I don’t know. But I remember my eyes looking super glazed and crazy. I went into the kitchen and ate like half a Costco thing of grapes. I don’t even like grapes that much but these tasted AMAZING. Then I stumbled into my bedroom that me and my stepsister shared and fell under the desk laughing. My do-no-wrong-break-no-commandment stepsister was so freaked out. Everyone was looking at me and acting like I had murdered someone. I thought it was hilarious. 

The day after, my dad hit me with my punishment. It was the ultimate of groundings. 

I was grounded from books, movies, the internet, music, off-campus lunch, my phone, friends. Everything. I was basically ahmish. I don’t remember the time frame of this grounding but I know it was over a month. Possibly 2. It was during this time that I learned how to love country, Coldplay, Switchfoot, and The Fray because it was all my sister listened to and I had to adapt to survive. 

I finally got ungrounded after months. I had to beg my dad for this because I don’t think that was his plan originally but he finally caved. A week after I got ungrounded I was texting a different senior guy on the baseball team and he wanted to hang out. I don’t remember exactly how it all worked out but I told my dad that I wanted to go to In N Out with one of my girlfriends (who was a senior as well and knew the guy). My dad was okay with this but he made me promise that I was actually going to go where I said I was going. I promised.

So I got in the car and we went and picked up the guy I was talking to. Then, because I promised I’d go to In N Out, I made sure we at least did that so I wasn’t lying. Then we all just hung out in the car eating. After, my friend dropped the guy off and I walked him to his front door. He kissed me and I was on freaking cloud nine. Literally stupid happy. I got home and the second I walked in the door, my dad and stepmom demanded to see my phone. I’m such an idiot. I hadn’t deleted any of the texts and they somehow knew I had done something before even seeing the evidence. JK, my stepmom actually said the Spirit told her I was going to do something bad beforehand so she tried to warn my dad and that I shouldn’t have been allowed to go in the first place but my dad wanted to trust me so I got to go and my dad almost followed me to In N Out just to make sure I did what I said I was going to do but he ended up not going. Then the Spirit told her that I had lied and did the bad thing or didn’t do what I said I was going to do. Something like that. Yada yada. I immediately was sent to my room and my phone was taken. I was screwed.

They made me wait days before they punished me this time. Clearly, I didn’t learn my lesson from the last grounding so they were taking their time to hatch up something bad enough to make me really sorry. After a few days of painfully waiting for them to drop the hammer on me, I told my dad I’d rather he just hit me than ground me. If he could just please beat me but maybe avoid my face? That would be great. That statement alone gave him a stroke of brilliance that he now accredits to God. An hour later he came to me and said, “If I can’t get you to stay away from senior guys, I’ll get them to stay away from you. Give me all of your makeup.” MOMENT OF SILENCE PLEASE bc you might be confused. Let me explain why this was so horrible. Nowadays it’s completely normal to not wear makeup. People have embraced the natural look and it’s trendy. That was NOT IT in 2009-2010. Not wearing makeup was socially unacceptable. You CAKED your face with the most orange shade of drugstore foundation or bare minerals powder and LAYERED the mascara on. That was the minimum. Personally, I wore a full face of makeup. Eyeshadow and everything.  Daily. Mostly because I loved makeup but mostly because it was all I had going for me. I didn’t have the cutest clothes because we had no money. I had small eyes and medium-length, thin brown hair. No boobs. No butt. I was a string bean with a talent for enhancing my face. Also my brows had been plucked to an oblivion when I was 12 so I had to draw them in or else I looked like a cancer patient. My full face of makeup was a DRASTIC contrast to my naked face. I literally looked like a different person without makeup on.

Now, let me translate what his statement really meant. He basically said, “Your makeup is literally the only reason why these guys even look at you or want to talk to you. You’re ugly without it. So I’m going to take your makeup so they see that and then they’ll stay away from you.” AWESOME. THAT’S NOT TRAUMATIZING AT ALL. In that short statement, he had directly correlated looks with desirability - not inner beauty and definitely not spirituality (like he had always preached was the most important). 

Taking my makeup away was like shaving my head and sending me out in public. It was that bad. Actually, it was worse. It was like shaving my EYEBROWS  off (bc I basically didn’t have any they were sparse and super light) and then sending me to school. Because that’s what actually happened! I still can’t believe he wouldn’t even let me draw my eyebrows in. Eyebrows are an essential part of a normal human face!!! Where is the sex appeal in eyebrows?!?!! 

I had never even gone out of the house before without at least filling them in. For an extremely insecure, young girl this was the worst thing that could have happened. My confidence was shattered, zipped up, and tucked away somewhere in my parents’ bathroom. It felt like my life was over. Oh, and the previous grounding still applied. And it was indefinite. My dad didn’t put a time cap on it. No light at the end of the tunnel for me. Somehow, I never plunged into a depression. That comes later.

The first day at school with no makeup went like this:

I curled my hair as nicely as I could to distract from the inconcealable. I had never felt uglier or more vulnerable. One friend caught me in the hallway walking with my head down and was like “Whoa, are you okay? Are you sick?” when she saw my face.

 I went to my first period Chinese class. My Chinese teacher was straight from China and spoke broken English. She caught a glimpse of me and mid sentence mid lesson asked “What HAPPEN?!?!” That’s how you know it was bad. I just looked down and tried to hide.

By the end of first period word had somehow gotten around to the entire school. Or at least had reached all the people that mattered. I kid you not, I had 5 people come up to me just to see for themselves. One of my friends was like, “Sam! Omg what happened? My entire first period was talking about it!” Dear gosh. I couldn’t believe it. 

Another time I was getting something out of my locker and I heard someone call my name. I instinctively looked up to see a guy who was an acquaintance at best standing with two other people and they all were staring wide-eyed and started snickering after seeing my face. It was terrible hahaha. I definitely learned who my real friends were during this whole thing because there were actually people that stopped talking to me. I continued to walk around with my head down those first few weeks. 

My best friend’s boyfriend who was one of the popular seniors found me mid day while I was trying to take a roundabout way to class and said some pretty profound stuff to me though that got me through the day and the rest of that grounding. I’m gonna butcher this but he said something along the lines of, “Forget them. You don’t need people in your life that aren’t going to love you as you are. You’re beautiful. Remember that.” It was so simple and kind of cliche but I don’t know why it meant so much. It was just so sincere. He knew how broken I was and he cared. I’m still touched thinking about it. 

A few other people reached out in really kind ways in the following weeks. A couple girls (even one of my female teachers!) brought me makeup without asking and urged me to take it. They told me I could just wash it off before I went home after school. LOL. If only they knew or understood how my dad had literal spies and I couldn’t even get away with changing in and out of a pair of booty shorts at school without him finding out. Creepy right? 

In the middle of this grounding, I spent a few days at my mom’s per the court ordered custody agreement and she told me that I wasn’t grounded while I was at her house. I figured that made sense since I wasn’t subjected to my dad if I wasn’t at his house. So I filled in my eyebrows super light and put a tiny bit of mascara on. It felt GREAT. After I got back to my dad’s, he had of course found out and he extended my grounding another month on top of what he already had planned. I sobbed. 

My first day back to school after getting my makeup back was nerve wracking for some reason. It was another change and I was worried what people would think and say this time. I had gotten so used to the no-makeup me and was afraid that makeup me wouldn’t be accepted. Idk it was all super irrational. 

A week or so after I got my makeup back, our school had their annual Sadie Hawkins dance. I decided to go with one of my girlfriends. We made t-shirts together and wore matching shorts and neon tall socks with vans. Cute. I know. As I walked out the door to the dance, my dad slapped my butt and remarked that he wouldn’t be the last person touching my butt that night. I think I nervous laughed bc that was for sure the weirdest thing ever to say?!?! Like what the actual…?? 

We got the dance and let me tell ya, I LOVED dancing and our dances were always good. Best music. Grinding on hot guys. It was a deprived girl’s heaven. During one of the last songs, I ended up making out with a senior guy on the football team. We had gotten to know each other strictly at school in between classes since I was always grounded and never had a phone. There was definitely some chemistry but I hadn’t plotted or planned for this to happen. It kinda just did. This time, I felt some remorse and a lot of fear. I went home that night and told my dad what happened. This is how I started turning myself in. I figured he would find out anyways so it was better he just found out from me. I somehow didn’t get grounded. I do remember pretending to be very into scriptures and made sure he caught me praying a couple times so he would think I was “repenting” when in truth, I was just afraid of him.

I knew I hadn’t done anything that bad. I knew I wasn’t a bad kid. At all. My friend’s parents WISHED their kids were like me. I never actually smoked, never drank, never had sex, didn’t even have boyfriend, never snuck out. I got amazing grades. I just had overly involved parents that cared more about the people I was hanging out with or texting than my grades or attendance at school which is super confusing to me. Their instinctive answers to me asking to go somewhere or do anything were always “No.” So even when I wasn’t grounded, they did their best to keep me locked up at home. They wanted people to be at their house. They didn’t let me go anywhere and tbh I was afraid to go anywhere. I had PTSD. If I ever went somewhere and weed or a rated-R movie popped up, I knew I needed to get out of there quick or my dad would find out from either a spy or the “Spirit” would tell my stepmom and my ass would be grounded so fast and I just couldn’t let that happen again. No where was safe except for at home. So at some point I just gave up, quit asking to go out, and just stayed home. Fear, guilt, and shame were my motives for everything. Sex was second to murder. Smoking and drinking made you a bad person. Everyone I knew either actively did or had tried one of those three things at least once. So everyone I knew was basically off limits. If they had done it before, I couldn’t hang out with them.

My dad and stepmom didn’t trust me at all. Ever. Especially anyone at my school. I probably deserved their lack of trust after strike three but they didn’t even trust me with a low and outside ball that I didn’t even swing at. They’d blame me for even being in a situation and accuse me of plotting and scheming to achieve it. INSANE. I know it’s because my stepmom got in my dad’s head and made him believe the worst. That’s not an excuse for him, though. He could have used his own brain but he didn’t. I just think if you show your kid you trust them, then they’re more willing to be obedient. Let them make mistakes. Be a little hard but not that hard on them. I wish my parents hadn’t been so very hard on me from the very beginning.

My freshman year felt like I was on probation complete with a parole officer and ankle monitor.  My dad and stepmom were 100% convinced I was on the pathway to hell. My stepmom even told me one time that if I continued on this path I’d be pregnant and facedown in a gutter somewhere or in prison. Statements like that stick in a person’s mind. I have never forgotten it. And I’ve never ceased to be further from that. That was never my path. That was never my future. She was delusional. They both were. Also, I was the only kid in the family who was ever punished or spoken to like that. No one else ever got grounded. My stepmom didn’t have the backbone with her own kids to stick with any punishment. Isn’t it cool how she helped my dad hatch up these awesome punishments and then I was lucky enough he had the willpower to stick with them? It’s okay if you’re infuriated. Hahahaha. 

You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just go and live with my mom. Yes, I could have but I didn’t want to leave my friends who were all I felt I had. They were my sanity and the only people that truly made me happy. But my main reason was that I really wanted to be able to still go to church. I suspected she might take that away if I lived with her. Maybe tell me I couldn’t go anymore or just wouldn’t drive me there. So I stayed and I endured.

Being intensely grounded on and off for an entire school year taught me a kind of patience, resilience and endurance that I couldn’t have learned any other way. It taught me that I could wait out anything. That there is a light at the end of every tunnel even though you might not know when it’ll show up. The bad always ends at some point. It literally brought to life John Lennon’s quote “Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.” These groundings, although they felt long, were just training and prep for waiting til I was 18 and officially out of the house or other times in my life where I’ve felt miserable, sad, or trapped for a period of time. That’s why if you’re currently experiencing something awful, I have full faith and trust in telling you that it won’t be like this forever. Keep going. You might have to go through this awful thing first but something good is always waiting for you on the other side. God is mindful. He is watching and if you stay faithful, He will deliver you.

Stay tuned for the next post of this series. There’s more to come.

Love You, 

Sam