In case you didn’t know, I got dumped the weekend before Christmas break. I don’t recommend the experience, for obvious reasons. But it’s an experience that pretty much everyone is bound to go through. And it wasn’t pretty for a while, but clearly, I lived to tell the story.

Anyone who knows me well knows I’m not an emotive, heart-on-my-sleeve type of person. In fact, I earned the nickname “gargoyle” sometime in Middle School because I didn’t cry watching “The Fault in Our Stars.” Or “If I Stay.” Usually, at school, I don’t express much beyond indifference or happiness or laughter.

Nor do I like to or tend to share details of my personal life or answer questions, especially about myself. I can be a big fan of the monosyllabic response, whether the question be about what I made for my lunch last week or my future career.

I presumed, based on my aforementioned lack of real emotion, that I would be immune to the sadness one typically experiences upon being broken up with.

So, it was confusing to me to suddenly both be highly emotional and want to tell everyone I saw, whether we were close or not, what happened. The unfamiliarity compounded the bad feeling that seemed stuck inside me. Feeling vulnerable and exposed are two things I hate more than almost anything, and my emotions were suddenly completely obvious to many of the people with whom I interact on a daily basis.

At Parker, and as teenagers in general, we tend to mask vulnerability for fear of being perceived as weak by others. I am by all means just as guilty of doing so as anyone reading this right now, possibly more. My typical emotional response to something that’s bothering me is to pretend it doesn’t exist, at least publicly.

This only works for internal things, though—that is to say, problems only involving me. When there’s a problem in my life in relation to another person, people know about it—especially at Parker, where gossip spreads like wildfire. And Parker raises curious students, which is a euphemistic way of saying people like to ask you about your life, covertly or overtly.

Normally, I would hate being bombarded with these kinds of questions about my personal life. Shockingly, though, this was one of very few times I could remember wanting to talk about my weekend. I was super upset, and feeling the support of those around me—both my close friends and people with whom I only share a class or two—helped me a lot, whether I needed a quick laugh or just wanted to know that I didn’t have to be sad AND alone.

Parker is very much a school filled with facades of people trying to make their lives appear perfect, or, at the very least, desirable. Occasionally, people compete over who has it rougher when they compare how little sleep they got last night. But rarely does someone admit their true struggles to their peers in school.

As stupid as it probably sounds, being dumped helped me understand that it’s okay not to hide the rough patch you’re going through. In fact, making others aware of whatever you may be grappling with helps your peers understand how to best support you, and I found this support critical as I thought through my relationship and moved past it.

In such a community-oriented institution, we often discuss leaning on each other for help. Just bear in mind that leaning on your friends and classmates or offering your own shoulder for support can extend far beyond events that take place inside Parker’s walls.