Abigail+M’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. All I’m asking for is a little respect.

If you wanted to hear about my take on the impact of music, including Aretha Franklin’s song: Respect, you’re sadly in the wrong place and a few days late, for my presentation was last week in History. But, I’d like to carry that thread, or topic, of respect into this. My America. Our America is lacking something. Something that should be considered a given, a human right from birth. Respect. The overarching topic of abiding by it with strangers and people we know. And more specifically, respect of the mental and physical boundaries between each other.

We ignore and walk past each other in the halls because of the groups we’re supposedly, socially, placed in; eavesdrop in people’s conversations to have juicy evidence for our next facetime chat with our friends; or in extreme cases intentionally make people feel inferior, taunt them, blatantly, for the sake of our own egos. Why is it that our sense of subtle superiority have to undermine people’s mental health and well being? We fail to give people they respect they deserve. We judge and make assumptions without even speaking to them.

I ask, on another note: why is it that a mental illness considered less of an issue, or of importance, than a physical one? Why is self care, self help, considered taboo. And the idea of going to therapy shamed for it’s stereotype, that only going to therapy is only for crazy people. In actuality we should respect people even more for reaching out and finding that outlet for help. Heaven forbid you talk about therapy in public, crazy person. When self care, care of your psyche, should be a top priority in your life. Because it controls everything we do, or in some instances, not do.

Where’s the respect in “giving our word” to people? Keeping promises, keeping secrets? Why do people pry into their neighbor’s business. And in some cases, overstep, and ask too much of their friends? Make them say things they don’t want to for some hypothetical heightened social status. When does someone else’s buisness, mental state or family relationships become our business, our state, our relationship to know everything about? It’s these things I find aggravating. That somehow two people’s serious conversations can evolve into lunchtime gossip. Overlooked of it’s importance and forgotten of any meaning that was there was before. This due to the various adaptations lost in translation. That what I tell my friends they might tell to their friends. That what I say isn’t private anymore and will never be. Where’s the respect in that?

And I know, by nature, we are curious. We want to know, we want to understand. Not to only with each other but also asking questions like why? how?

WHY is it that I can’t wake up at 7:06 but have to wait until 7:10? I ask myself: how do I explain this to them? It’s nothing personal, I just don’t like sharing food. It’s okay Abbie. They don’t understand, they’re like Eleanor. You’re different. 7:17. Three more minutes to go.

I’d like to start off with a story. As a child, I immediately acquired a germ and territorial, of sorts, problem. I believe, fed directly from constantly being around my sister, five years older and someone who has the willingness to share almost anything with anyone - I was pegged as the selfish, sheltered child. Throughout the years I found myself rolling with this label. I became the “germ kid”, the one who never wanted to split lunch or share clothes. In our shared bathroom everything I owned had to be “just-so”, in order, clean and accounted for. There came a point where I taped off, wall to wall of scotchblue separating my side of the bathroom to my sister’s and shoved everything over that line, into her sink, onto the floor. I walked away for her to clean it up. I didn’t even try to give her some sort of notice of my irritation. I didn’t give her the respect that she deserved.

And if you might be confused from what I said earlier: I have to wait until the 00 or the 05 of time to do something. Wake up. Leave the house. Start homework. Run. Swim. Go to sleep. It has to be on a number you can count by five with.

What a control freak, right?

But it’s not what I do that’s wrong, it’s how I and others have dealt with it. I’ve call myself OCD, for years, having a self diagnosed disorder. Where in reality I can’t even begin to comprehend what living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is like. I don’t suffer from compulsive behavior, even though my parents might disagree. I don’t hoard everything I own, besides the few movie stubs I acquire. I don’t repeat meaningless words over and over again. I don’t have ritualistic behaviors -- minus the time thing. I’ve never suffered from long term anxiety, apprehension, guilt, panic attacks, depression and fear of the future. I can’t even begin to comprehend what it would be like with OCD. So why do I do it? Why did I joke about having this disorder? Why is it that everytime I jokingly said I had OCD I knew that deep down it was wrong. I did not have OCD. And I did not respect the people who have it by saying I did either.

So if you think I believe that America is falling apart at the seams, you’re wrong. There is goodness here. People who love each other and don’t overstep boundaries that we have as humans. Our personal space, mentally and physically. People who go through their lives having the utmost adoration for their coworkers, fellow students and family. But what about the strangers? People with disorders we can’t even begin to understand the complexities of. People we don’t know the names of, but only the faces of. They deserve some respect too.