#No I wasn't actually expecting recognition from her or dad I've given up on that they don't do anything

[c0nji]

Finally canceled my doctor's appointment because seeing him for my ADHD+depression+trauma wasn't doing anything at all, even after almost three years.

Not that I was expecting a full consultation since he's a psychiatrist and not a therapist, but I expected a bit more from someone with his educational background and experience.

Told mom about my decision to quit meds, and her reaction to my explanation that I have passive suicidal ideations either way was nothing but a vague noise that sounded something like, 'Why are you telling me this out of nowhere?'

[elprupneerg]

at risk of doxxing myself: i went there! yes, the high schools are conjoined twins.

most of the building is symmetrical along an invisible line (with the auditorium, music area, and gyms being weird growths that ruin the symmetry, its fine). anything on the east half of the invisible line was East high, anything on the west half was West high. which school a teacher was officially employed by depended on which half of that dividing line their classroom was on. so my French teacher had her paychecks officially come from East while my German teacher had his paychecks officially come from West. i still took classes on both sides of the school even though i officially only attended one of them.

there were technically separate departments for math, English, science, and social studies classes, but they ultimately followed the same school district rules and tried to mostly keep education the same between both schools. my freshman biology class was in West, so my class dissected fetal pigs, while the freshman biology classes in East that year dissected rats iirc (might've been frogs? it wasn't pigs though). but we both did our dissection unit at the same time of year after having learned from the same textbooks and having done roughly equivalent homework.

school pride was always a weird thing. people seemed to expect us to be more invested, but its a bit hard to see the kids from the other team as "the enemy" when you're in the same theater program. especially since half our clubs and teams were combined anyway. there were separate teams for most sports since there were enough students from both schools to run 2 teams. but the anime club, gay-straight alliance, student council, school newspaper, marching band, and plenty of other clubs/activities/classes were all combined. there was still a lot of participation in school spirit week since it usually meant wearing silly costumes, but there wasn't that same sort of intense feeling people seem to have in movies. my dad still has his varsity jacket from his own high school days hanging up in his closet, and his high school yearbooks were full of little drawings of the school mascot. that wasn't really the case for anyone i knew in school.

at one point when i was in school they were talking about combining our schools again. they wanted to take the East Suns (maroon and gold) and the West Spartans (blue and white) and combine the mascots and colors into the Sunny Spartans (maroon and blue). this would've made our football team have a shot at not being in last place in our district sports tournaments (East and West regularly fight for last place), but it would've given a lot less kids a chance at actually playing. and for sports where both teams were actually genuinely good? it would've messed up people's abilities to get scholarships. similar issues around recognition of academic achievement (and also the combined mascot and color scheme being ugly) meant that they remained separate.

i've had people ask me how administration was split up between the schools. i'd love to answer, except i happened to go during a period where the superintendents kept quitting and the principals kept getting shuffled around. there were always at least 5-6 principals, but the exact number/who filled the exact role depended on who'd quit last iirc. it was a bit chaotic and i remember being very frustrated with it even as a student that didn't really have to actually deal with them.

our graduation ceremonies were separate, and Thank Fuck For That. all the ceremonies are so long already even with it being split into 2 schools. one of the valedictorians at my brother's graduation had a speech that lasted 45 minutes. there were about 200-300 students getting their names called to walk on stage. there was barely enough room in the auditorium/gym (location depended on if you were East or West) for all the guests. the air conditioning was not made for this many people to be crammed into one side of the school for this long so its also hot and sweaty as fuck. i'm trying to imagine the nightmarish hell of dealing with all of that while also having to wait for roughly 500 students to walk across the stage. and they're all wearing maroon and blue and getting called, i cannot stress this enough, the Sunny fucking Spartans, i genuinely do not know who thought that was a good idea but they need to stop having ideas. my school pride goes so far as getting called either a spartan OR a sun, Not Both.

as far as i'm aware it was otherwise basically the same as attending any other particularly large high school. there was just technically 2 of them

remembering that time i met someone who attended high school in west bend, wisconsin and they told me how their school district works. to them it was completely normal while i was wondering if they were messing with me.

their schools are conjoined twins???