Jessica had been having trouble adjusting after the move. She had never been very popular at her old school, occasionally getting picked on for not being part of the “in crowd” and now moving to a new town had torn her away from the few friends she had. Her old school had been for Kindergarten through 8th grade, with high schoolers having their own school. Her new area had a school for Kindergarten through 5th grade, with 6th through 12th graders sharing the same building. This meant instead of entering 6th grade as one of the older kids in school, she would now be the youngest grade in the school.
They had moved in a week ago, and she still hadn’t left the house, so her parents gave her a self-help CD specifically designed for young students to help her adjust. It was a week long program with a month of exercises for each course on the CD, but there were only 6 days until school, so they said she should keep doing it after school started.
The first step in the program was to specify a gender, she thought this was odd at first, but then realized that the courses might be tailored to each gender. She thought that was a good move on the writer's part, and clicked on the pink ‘Girl’ button. Next the instructions read “What do you think the problem is?” with a list of options. The list included several options, including things like “Improving self image” and “Getting ready for a first date”. She thought that was an easy decision, and picked “Making friends in a new area”. After she had selected her problem, a dialog box popped up and a narrator started reading it for her.
“Moving to a new area is the perfect time to reinvent yourself, start over from scratch and try something better. Many people see moving as losing the things they had gained in their old location, but they don’t realize that leaving stuff behind is one of the best parts. Now you get a once in a lifetime do over, a chance to forget the parts of you that you don’t like, and become who you want to be. If you were picked on or mocked, now you can change whatever you were picked on or mocked for, and you can forget your past, whether it was because of your unflattering clothes, or the way you behaved, now you can change everything.”
She had never thought about it before, but Jessica had been picked a lot because of her clothes. The popular girls had been the only ones who really said anything, but she had always felt like an outsider. Maybe this time she wouldn’t have to go through it, maybe this time she didn’t need so many unflattering clothes.
“Part of the program is to listen to motivational phrases you will record for yourself throughout the day and while you sleep. For tonight we have some pre-recorded phrases for you, and tomorrow you will record some phrases you would like to use. For the rest of the day you should remember this session, and think of phrases you would like to use for tomorrow's recording. If you have any trouble thinking of things to record, you should talk with the person who gave you this CD, because they will want what is best for youand can always be counted on. Remember that the recordings should focus on reinventing yourself, forgetting your past, and changing everything about yourself to become something better. The ideal number to record is 10, but if you don’t come up with 10 ideas, simply repeat some of them with different phrasings until you have enough.
This marks the end of this session, remember to open the next session first thing in the morning. If you would like to, start an additional course at any time. If you are having trouble with something repeating previous sessions helps, so it is advised you repeat all the following sessions at least once before you go to bed in the evening.”
Jessica decided to talk to her parents about what to record, and maybe ask them to record some for her too. They will want what is best for her after all. But it was too late to go out and talk to them, so she downloaded the pre-recorded phrases she needed to listen to onto her phone and went to bed. She fell asleep listening to a woman's voice reading off pre-recorded phrases that she couldn’t remember when she woke up.
