So long story but I grew up in kinda a toxic environment, my father was the only sane person but he worked far away as an expat, and this made my mother irritated a lot as well, especially because of the nature of society we started living in, I really love her but she is kinda the standard conservative type so we don’t really have any meaningful interactions anymore, and most of my teachers were crappy as well, so I kinda got a bit insecure and shy overtime.
Fast forward after COVID and all of my old friends had left me, so I was alone for pretty much half a year, and then made some toxic friends out of desperation, which are still with me today.
Anyway after completing my junior high I worked a lot on my personality during my senior high school year 1 (this year), I started to try to put myself out in the world more (even though I normally hate unwanted social interactions), learning an instrument, going to the gym, I was always only met with criticism with my mother and my ‘friends’ (partly because I started taking them less and less seriously, which made them think I was ‘selfish’), but I pushed on, and I think at this point, I am satisfied with how I am as a person.
However there was one person that I think played passive role in all of this, my class teacher, this was really the second time ever I got a decent class teacher, but I wasn’t really worried because I also developed kind of a ‘fuck all’ attitude at this point, but halfway through the year I noticed more and more that it seemed like she was the only one keeping tabs on me and actually encouraging whenever I tried to start some sort of extra-circular activity in my school, she listened to my problems and helped me come to solution(s), encouraged/helped me to get stronger in my weak subject (which was taught by her), asked me when l was absent from an event I participated in and at this point, I think I have kinda developed a sense of respect for her.
I know there might be some sort of romantic reason as well or maybe a ‘crush’ but to be honest I never really felt that way the way I have ever felt about my crushes, instead of being awkward, I was comfortable (idk how much of that maybe to more confidence), and I never really had any sort of confession or any weird dreams like that, I just felt that there was finally a person who seemed like they would understand me (I know this a really immature part on my side, but can’t seem to help it)
Today was my last day in school for this session, and I have been feeling kinda heavy hearted ever since I came back from school, I still have a year left, but who knows what kind of Class Teacher I may get next year, it might be another narcissist a-hole and I really don’t want to say goodbye
You sound like a great person working hard to build yourself a bright future. The best thing you can do for your teacher is to keep at it.
I used to teach (martial arts) and there’s nothing a good teacher loves more than to see a student applying themselves and growing - even if it’s outside of their subject (Though that’s nice too.)
Others’ advice here is spot on. You can love/respect/ appreciate someone in an entirely non-romantic way. That’s normal. I have teachers in my past that I still think about gratefully 30+ years later. Teacher-Student relationships can be very healthy mentorships, but due to the handful of pedos taking horrible advantage of the students in their care, it’s safest for students (and schools) to ban overt friendships. (And it is depressingly common. I was student to three teachers in three schools - in different states even - who were eventually arrested for abusing their students.)
So - to avoid accidentally getting your teacher in trouble - you should avoid using the L-word. But 100% write then a letter or note thanking them for their positive impact and encouragement.
For the rest - do your best to learn at school, even if you get a bad teacher and your old friends try to drag you down. It’s going to suck sometimes. You can do it. Do your best to keep learning, in or out of school. Everything you learn - from algebra to making a killer peach cobbler - will help you somewhere down the line.
I know because I’ve seen it firsthand.
My Dad came from an abusive household. (His dad liked to use baling wire as a switch.) By the end of his high school career, Dad was heavily into drinking, he’d lost multiple jobs by getting into fist fights with coworkers and was only on track to graduate because he lived in CA during a time where the school system literally refused to fail anybody. So Dad graduated with a D average and swore he’d never set foot in a school again.
… And then he decided he wanted to do better. At 18, he gave up his entire friend group and started hanging out with some people who were more like he wanted to be. It was awkward at first - he was coming from a very different perspective than these other dudes had. To their credit, they always included Dad and let him hang out with them. And slowly, Dad began to change. He mellowed out and quit drinking and fighting.
Dad worked in factories after high school. Eventually he and my Mom married and I came along. Dad worked a number of blue-collar jobs for the first years of my life. Iremember him saying though that when he had downtime at work, he made a point of going to other parts of the factory and asking to watch and learn their tasks. As a result, he survived a number of layoffs through the years and for those times he didn’t, Dad was often rehired at better pay in better roles shortly afterward.
Eventually, he tired of factory jobs and decided to return to school. To become a lawyer. That became the next 12 years of our lives. There were whole years where I’d see Dad only first thing in the morning at breakfast. He’d go to school all morning, work swing shift into the night and get home long after little I was already in bed.
It was an incredible amount of work. But he stuck to it.
I was sixteen when Dad finally graduated and became a lawyer. He’s a pretty damn good one too.
I’m definitely not saying you should become a doctor or lawyer or whatever - do what you want to - but please know that you don’t have to listen to people who want to drag you down. You can work hard and wring what you want out of life.
Surround yourself as much as you can with people who encourage and support each other. Learning that people can encourage and help each other purely for the pleasure of seeing the other pain succeed - that may be the best lesson you can learn from your teacher’s example. Lean into it. Find good people. Make yourself one too.
And you will do amazing things.
Thanks a lot! I understand why there is tension in these kind of relationships, because bad actors ruin everything, even one of them puts an entire community at risk