Diapers, School, and Social Anxiety?

Introduction

Sarah is a fourteen-year-old girl starting her freshman year of high school. She is a dedicated student and has dreams of attending a high-class university. She has blonde hair, skinny, and slightly above average height. Sarah comes from a humble family of three with her mother working as a cashier at the local supermarket and her father as a renowned plumber. They are all soft-spoken people and Sarah only has a few close friends who sometimes come and visit.

This year was going to be substantial and mark a dramatic change for Sarah; high school was going to bring her out of her shell. She plans to join in on as many extracurricular activities as she can and get the most "bang for her buck" from her high school experience. Her best friend, Emily, had encouraged her to add some more spice to her life instead of being buried in her books, "universities care about your extracurricular life as well, you know" she would say. This was true and Sarah knew it. She had to work on her social anxiety and participate more with the other teenagers.

The first day of school was less than a week away so Sarah and her mother, Amy, went shopping at Martin's for some school supplies. Since Amy worked at Martin's as a cashier, she had a discount that applied to most items except for groceries. They had been there for a little over half an hour and had gathered everything they could think of for Sarah's school supplies. Amy remarked, "now if you're serious about joining in on some extracurricular activities and making new friends, you're going to need to try more eye-catching clothes!" Sarah shuddered slightly at the thought of being put on the spotlight. "How about these" as her mother showed her several outfits of skirts and mildly revealing tops. "They're fine, I guess" Sarah dismissed. Amy held the clothes up over her daughter and was pleased with her selection "these will work great; you'll get more attention, but not so much that it becomes unwanted attention."

They checked out at the counter and Amy stopped for a few moments to have a conversation with one of her co-workers. Sarah examined her new outfits and contemplated how she would ever see herself wearing those short skirts and tops. She had always dressed rather inconspicuously and kept to herself because she was so shy in middle school. She only had one uneventful relationship in seventh grade and her boyfriend at the time was not the most desirable, nor intelligent, specimen of the lot. Sarah was anxious but determined to put forth some effort in improving on all her social fronts. After her mother finished talking with the clerk, they left for home and her mother shared stories about how her and her father met. "I saw how nervous he was, yet he waltzed over to me and managed to stutter out an invitation to our senior prom with sweating pits and trembling hands; bless your father" said Amy. It wasn't exactly encouraging to Sarah, but she knew her mother wanted to instill some hope for her in finding friends and show that shyness isn't a social disqualifier unless you just don't try.

It was fairly late once they settled in and sorted through all the items they bought from Martin's. Sarah's father, Mike came home from work at about 8:00 PM and greeted them warmly, "man, my last customer managed to get their pipes clogged with months-old hairballs. Like, are they feeding their cat out of the sink or something?" They all laughed; Sarah's dad always had some funny, sometimes stomach-churning stories about his plumbing jobs. They had a late dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread, Sarah's favorite. "Go put on one of your outfits so your father can see how you look" said Amy. Sarah rolled her eyes and went upstairs to her bedroom to get changed. She picked out a black and pink outfit with glittery gems on the upper portion of the top and a barely acceptable skirt length (per school dress code). She looked at herself in the mirror and she found that she started to smile; she did look cute in her new clothes. She went back downstairs, and her father's eyes widened "wow, you look nice honey, I've never seen you dressed like that before." Sarah shrugged her shoulders. Her father was actually a bit concerned that she'd be getting too much attention from the boys, but he kept his worries to himself; this was going to be a huge confidence booster for Sarah. "Well, I think you've made a great decision to try and be more active in school. Take your time and ease into things slowly, you have four years of high school to look forward to" said Mike. Amy nodded in agreement and said that Sarah didn't have to feel rushed into her social goals, she could expand at a comfortable pace. With that, they finished their meal, watched a movie together, and all went to bed.