Sultan Mohamed

Professor Pugh

First Year Writing

24 January 2022

Personal Narrative

Growing up, I was never the type of kid to get into any physical altercations with other people.

The only person I would get into fights with was my older brother, but half the time, it was wrestling.

We were both avid fans of the WWE and had always loved seeing wrestlers like Randy Orton or John

Cena doing their finishing move. My brother and I would imitate these wrestlers by getting a mattress

and trying moves like the RKO, or the Attitude Adjustment, both by the same two wrestlers I mentioned,

respectively. Other than that, I never try to fight others. Especially now, as I am typing this essay in my

dark abyss of a room, getting violent is never an option for me. In school, I did not bully nor get bullied. I

was as non-violent as a kid could be. This leads me to how I ended up viewing myself as a monster.

In the year, 2017, a plethora of great things was happening. We had one of the greatest Super

Bowls of all time, Kendrick Lamar released his fourth studio album, DAMN, a solar eclipse, and many

other wonderous events. I was an 8th grader getting close to transitioning to high school. At our school,

there were plenty of events going on. Every other weekend, we had this cart called the Munchy Cart

that would sell candy, chips, and other snacks middle school students loved. Every couple of weeks, we

had a bake sale. Those bake sales included every Little Debbie snack in the world; 13-year-old me loved

Little Debbie Snacks like they were my own kids. We even had an end of the year field trip to Dollywood,

a theme park situated near the beautiful mountain town of Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains.
My friends and I were a part of the soccer team and loved every aspect of it. I will say I was not a player,

but a manager; it did not take away from the excitement of being with my friends on the team.

One trend during my final year in middle school was necking. From what I remember, it just

meant hitting someone on the neck. How hard the slap on the neck was meant to be was up to the one

slapping. There were specific variations of this movement including getting your fellow classmates to

look at your hand in a curled-up position or playing a game like “rock, paper, scissors” and having the

loser get their neck slapped. The hand position would require you to touch your fingers at once. One

day, on a sunny afternoon in spring, I was in my U.S History section learning something useless. It was a

typical spring day, one filled with rays of sunshine and the most comfortable weather known to

mankind. The sun would set a bit later in the day, allowing people to enjoy the sexy climates Nashville

had to offer for a just a while longer.

During history class, there was an intermission during class for us to socialize and relax for a bit.

Immediately, the necking trend was going around the students. They were using any method to draw

attention like calling out names, showing classmates’ drawings, or just trying to slap their neck without

any warning; I too was invested in it. The first student I saw I gave a rough slap on the neck. The second I

did it, I left looking for other classmates to hit. As I was leaving, I noticed the student I had hit started

crying. I had thought that I did not slap my classmate's neck as rough as it ended up being. I immediately

apologized but the damage had already been done. He ended up leaving early and I ended up in trouble.

I was in the counselor’s office and she was explaining to me how I could have caused a serious neck

injury, which made me realize how terrible of a thing it was that I did. That was when I believed the

actions I inflicted were an example of monstrosity. The following day, I went back to my classmate to

apologize once again and he accepted it. I had learned my lesson and the mistakes I caused had felt

resolved, but my counselor did not think so.

 Two weeks later, I was sitting in lunch with my friends talking about typical 8 th grader stuff: the

upcoming field trip, the next video game coming out soon, and sports like basketball, soccer, and

football. It was during that lunch that the counselor spotted me and called on me to talk to her. She had

asked if I had apologized to the classmate I had hit and I replied, “yes”. She gave me a look, one of a

mother staring at her child hiding an obvious lie, and told me to apologize again. As I gave her the most

confused look, I went to my classmate who was sitting on the other side of the lunch room, and

apologized to him once again. Coincidentally, he gave me that same confused look and accepted the

apology, once again. During that moment, I had thought that maybe what I did was worse than I had

thought since the adult in the room believed that to be the case. I once again viewed myself as a

monster because of that situation for the rest of the week. It eventually faded away when I had asked

my classmates how they viewed that situation, and they answered with the same feelings I had had

prior. Especially now, when I look back at it, the thing I got out of that situation was not to hurt people,

even unintentionally. I had grown enough to the point where I could never imagine myself in a situation

like that. Regardless, that monstrosity that I had committed was something that really made me reflect

upon myself and helped me mature as a result.