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The whole purpose of high school reunions is to have a good time, give former classmates a chance to reconnect, and reminisce about the days they spent together. But even if they are planned with the best intentions, attending them often goes hand in hand with a myriad of different challenges. Aside from the financial and logistical problems that arise for people who spread their wings and move away to bigger adventures, there are also psychological issues.
To find out more about what’s going through our minds when we ruminate on whether or not to attend our high school reunion, we reached out to social psychologist Dr. Laura Martocci. She is a renowned author of Bullying: The Social Destruction of Self and the founder of The Emotion Spa. This project aims to address the stresses and emotional suffering lodged in our bodies by offering personalized emotion-health services, including meditations, expressive writing prompts, and strategizing work with victims of bullying.
After 20 years of working with bullying, she often meets people feeling anxious about attending their reunion, so she happily shared some insights about the worries we feel when we think about attending this event. According to Dr. Laura, anxiety is a trigger response to the question: "Am I good enough?"
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I entered high school with a positive outlook and love for the school my mom and grandma went to, but that quickly turned to a c**p shoot. They dropped all the classes I wanted to take (shop, auto... etc) had 40+ kids per class that were unmanageable and we were entering the entitled kid era of everyone gets away with everything. At the same time I was diagnosed with ADHD, moderate to severe depression and anxiety. After freshman year I failed every class but journalism my sophomore year. Somehow my journalism teacher thought I should be recognized for my writing potential (and this had to be backed with support by at least 2 other faculty??) But other than that I was failing everything. In the middle of my junior year I was passing Japanese class with 100% and that's it. I went to the advisors to ask about modifications for attention deficit and they told me they would put me in special ed. I told them hell no because the content was too easy. (Anyone familiar with ADHD knows that uninteresting content makes it *harder* to focus, which is why I was doing very well in the classes I enjoyed and failing the rest.) So mid-junior year my depression got the best of me and I skipped school to sleep all day. I dropped out and went to an ALC where it only got worse. 1/4 way through what would have been my senior year I caught a huge bout of depression and quit altogether, as I was only awake then for ~4 hours each day. After a few months I began an adult learning program for my GED, and other than math (which I had repeatedly failed and so never made it passed geometry in high school) I scored in the top 10%. In other words, I basically fell off the face of the earth and just skated by with the minimum. Lost my social life in the process.
This spectacle undoubtedly makes us worried about leaving the wrong impression or worse, embarrassing ourselves in front of our high school friends and foes. "Reunions bring together classmates who have (and we expect will, once again) judge us," Dr. Laura told Bored Panda. Some of the questions we often ask ourselves include "Will others (finally) see me whole, for who I am (and who I always had the potential to be)?" and "Will they see that I belong?"
The psychologist pointed out that "they" can usually be named. "'Others' are often an individual whose opinion mattered (and embarrassingly, still matters) to us. Or a group we feel the need to redeem ourselves to," she explained. "Recognize that deciding to 'go for it,' then not having the opportunity to confront the source of your anxiety, may make the whole reunion-thing feel anticlimactic. Armed with this knowledge, why not pro-actively engage former classmates you didn’t really know, and turn the tables on your nervous dis-ease?"
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This does beg the question, however, why do we care about impressing people we knew years ago in the first place? Dr. Laura explained that this stems from the fact that the real challenge we face in high school is defining ourselves in the social arena. "Our primary identity is no longer 'Keisha and Marc’s child,' but 'Jordie’s friend.' Or 'member of the skate club.'"
"The need to belong, to be included and have a social identity, is hardwired into our brain," she added. "We are social animals. Social failure—not being 'good enough'—threatens our psychological well-being, and imprints us physically and neurologically."
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Dr. Laura continued to explain that our overwhelming desire to belong and fear of facing exclusion affects us in three different ways. "Psychologically, belittling labels and rejection become integrated into our self-story ('they are probably right, I am…'). Exclusion shrivels our soul, and affects how we act in the world."
"Physically, the shameful feelings brought on by invisibility or social humiliation are unresolved, and remain alive and well in our bodies," she said, asking you to wonder about the reason anxiety around attending instantly floods you. Lastly, it affects us neurologically. "We experience rejection (social pain) in the same way we experience physical pain. Pain lays down pathways in our brain, and in high school, our brains are still developing. Because we are impressionable, many more pathways get laid down."
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Another key aspect that makes us hesitate to attend our reunion is how much we have changed as a person since our teenage years. "We want to finally rid ourselves of uncomfortable feelings by returning in triumph, as a success, and be recognized as such," the psychologist explained. "Sadly, achievements that go unnoticed call out feelings of rejection and not being good enough all over again."
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Interestingly, being surrounded by people from school can even make us act like our old selves again. "When others position us in their stories, we are assigned our old roles. And when there is no reason for them to reposition and redefine us, we slip into the same old emotion-dances." However, Dr. Laura stressed that we hate ourselves for doing it. "Old patterns not only renew feelings of shame, but they also compound them: we should not be feeling or acting this way. But because we are, we turn on ourselves, and negative self-judgments ooze into our psyche."
"Before beating ourselves up too badly, we should recall that neural pathways and 'stimulus-response patterns' have a lot to do with how easily we slip back into old emotion-dances." Luckily for us, the good news is that by putting in the work, we can create alternative pathways, Dr. Laura said.
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If you want to better prepare yourself for meeting your old classmates, Dr. Laura mentioned in her blog post on Psychology Today that it’s important to stay honest with yourself about the occasion. "Expect that old cliques will re-cohere; that the in-crowd will hang out together and catch up with each other," she wrote. "Having reconnected, some former classmates might peel off, mingle, and move beyond the old crowd. Might. Are you open to however this might play out?"
Moreover, you should recognize that you may find yourself in the middle of an emotional flashback. This can make it challenging to connect with former peers, although they may experience similar feelings as well. After all, only a few people have breezily moved through high school without any uncomfortable memories. "Remember that high school was, at that time, your whole world, and any negative experience rocked it. After the reunion, you will go home to a different world, a world in which these memories are only a part of your self-story. Keep this in mind. It will help keep any rising emotions in perspective. (And remember to breathe!)"