I sucked- we sucked- and life goes on

Not a good tournament for my school's varsity LD team. Nobody broke and we all had dismal records. I went 2-3, but one of those is a bye and can hardly count.
I was at first a little bothered by this, but I had some time during my BYE to think about it, and I realized that whether or not I am just being a cocky idiot in saying this I believe in myself, and I believe I am better than a 2-3 record, and better than a lot of the kids out there. There are some amazing speakers in varsity, but my argumentation can match them all. If I can only get my speaking up to par I know I have a chance.
The girl who won today should not have won. I watched the final round. She didn't uphold her burden at all. She didn't understand her opponants case. She didn't argue it. There was no clash. Her opponant, though, did uphold her burden, and therefore it was pretty obvious to any debaters in there that she won. But she lost. Why? Because the girl that won is a freaking amazing speaker. She never says um. She never falters. And actually to be honest I lost a lot of respect for her watching that round, not because she had crappy arguments (which she did) but because she was being such an aggresive bitch going on about how the other girl didn't know what she was talking about when it was her that wasn't upholding the resolution. It really, really pissed me off. But did the judges understand the resolution, or burdens, or why the neg clearly won? No. They understand convincing speaking. They understand aggression and short skirts on skinny girls. The girl that won tied their heads in knots even though she wasn't right. She... always looked like she was winning, like she was right, even though to me it was obvoius that was the crappiest debate I've ever seen a varsity debater debate. But that didn't matter.
And I realized that my arguments are there. I'm missing the speaking/convincing junk that allows you to be able to convince the judges you're right even when your obviously (to other debaters) wrong. In varsity LD, unfortunately for me, logical arguments do not win nearly as many debates as convincing speakers who can make their crappy arguments look logical and can convince judges with speaking abilities.
Although I will never be as much of a bitch as this girl was during cross ex. I just wanted to kill her. She kept asking questions, but would cut off the other girl without answering and basically said she knew nothing about the resolution. If it was me being cross-exed, it would have been hard to not feel like crying. Although being confident wins rounds, I don't think it's ever appropriate to be downright catty like this girl was.
My point being with all this mumbo jumbo that I'm okay with doing badly at this tournament because (whether this is right or wrong) I believe in myself and my ability as a debater, and I know I am better than this.
Brittany, my debate friend who did badly as well, actually felt worse than I did, and I had to boost her confidence again, go back to our LD paper we wrote last year (I think I posted it on here in like January) about not letting judges get us down.
To look at it fairly, it wasn't just bad judging. It's important to be convincing, and I sometimes have trouble with this, especially if someone throws of my groove (funny expression). But I know I can fix that.
My coach said to me today that the most important thing is that I reacted 180 degrees differently to doing this badly than I would have last year. She said that matters more than debate. I was thinking about that, and it's true. I would give up nearly everything for debate. But I would not give up this progress I've made in a year and go back to the bulimia and self-hatred and self-injury. I would not going back to that misery, even if it meant I could never debate again.
Thankfully for me, although I resented it at the time, people saved me last year. Now I am angry with all the people that knew long ago and could have stopped my eating disorder or self injury before it got to be such a big issue but didn't. My friends, a few adults... at the time I sure was glad they didn't take action to get me to stop. Now, I resent them. Now, I realize I owe everything to the people I was so angry with last year for upending my life. Now I realize that if nothing had changed, I would still be miserable right now and would probably be having a breakdown over this tournament.
Amanda (my coach) is right. What matters most today is how differently I reacted. No matter how mad- I'll admit I was mad at the time, and scared and frustrated- I was last year when I felt helpless when people (including that coach and another coach) finally took action against what I was doing, I am very ready to admit now that they saved my life. And right now it's a good thing they're good people, because they are in the position where they could ask me to do anything, literally almost anything, for them and I would do it, because they mean that much to me.
I know that when people hear about bad things their friends/people they know are doing, it's easier not to do anything and let it go, because that is, after all, what the people think they want. But that is never the right thing to do. I've done it with my friends, my friends with eating disorders and stuff. I haven't known what to do so I did nothing. I regret that now. It takes a strong kind of person to stick with someone who is as screwed up as I was. Everyone else that had helped me had helped me briefly, and then found me too much to handle. It's an amazing person that sticks through that.

Matt (my ex-boyfriend) cut out an article from the paper for me, proving he still sadly understands me better than most of my friends do (he was always so understanding). It's an article about these coaches heading their college debate team. It made me so happy, just to read their names in that little article. It made my day. Everyone was trying to figure out what in the world I was so excited about, they read the article and didn't get it. Nobody got it. But when I showed it to Brittany she got really excited too. Because... we would do anything for Amanda, and I would do anything for Shea (if you read this, I mean it). It's not codependency. It's not pathetic obsession. It's an absolute devotion to the goodness of these people. I have never met and doubt I will ever meet anyone as... as just perfectly pure as they are. They are what I want to become. They are everything I value in a human being. They are the first people I have ever met that I believe in totally as... people, for lack of a better way to explain it. I try to talk about it with Brittany... how the h*ll are we ever supposed to thank someone for doing what Amanda has done for us? (Or in my case Shea?). It's so impossible it's actually disheartening. At the tournament two weeks ago Marcus, this guy who might be our coach next year and might not, said he didn't think we understood how much time etc. these two people put into their teams. And I realized how absolutely right he was... we have no freaking clue. Being the selfish people we are, and loving someone very much, we want to have them with us. I think that we feel safe when Amanda's at the tournaments. It seems like no matter how horrible the world gets, her presence makes things okay. But I understand that that's selfish of us, and that they give up more for us (especially me) than I could ever imagine. And that feels hopeless.
Anyway, the best thing I could give Amanda today was to react the way I did to what happened. In some small way maybe I am showing her what she has done for me, but in the same way that I will never understand how much she puts into our team, she will never really understand how much she gave me last year/this year just by caring. There are really only two people I trust in the whole world: those two coaches. And they are the first people I have trusted in a very long time.
So for now, before I can think of some miraculous way to explain to my coach how much she means to me, until I somehow become articulate enough to convey how much she's given me, I guess all I can do is to be happy, and to live with a purpose, and to exercise everything she fought for me to have.
It still feels hopeless, the prospect of thanking them.