Personal rant
I’ve been super nostalgic for things of my childhood, mostly like 1-4 grade. I was thinking back to that time and why I’d wanna go back to then, and honestly I don’t remember most of my life in 1 and 2 grade, especially. And I think I accidentally unearthed some mildish trauma that I just kinda didn’t consider before…
Those 2 grades were spent in a rigorous “gifted” school. I went to more rigorous than average schools for basically my entire life until college, but that school was the worst. I transferred to another school for 3rd, and found we were using the same textbook from the end of my 1st grade. I don’t remember a lot, just the rules and isolated snapshots. I remember I liked the pre-1st grade summer program. We got ham sandwiches and watched educational videos on dinosaurs, and i wanted to be a paleontologist. And then the actual school year started. I remember having too much in class work to finish at school but too much homework to catch up on my in class work. I remember not measuring up to everyone else. I remember that we had half an hour for lunch. I remember we could only go to the bathroom during bathroom breaks, but some days we didn’t get them. I remember one girl peed in class cuz she couldn’t hold it anymore. I remember gym was literally military drills, 31 6-7 year olds marching and turning on command, and we hardly ever got to play games. I remember we had 3 2nd grade teachers cuz they kept getting fired. I don’t remember the first one well, but apparently shed tell us to prick our fingers and write in our own blood if our pencils weren’t sharp enough. The second was cold and strict and she was fired after she twisted a kids arm and pulled him out of the classroom.
I remember one of my friends transferred out cuz he had adhd-related behavioral issues. In the backseat of the car, he was talking about how great his new school was, how they even had recess(!), and I remember my sudden outburst, covering my ears, sobbing and screaming at him to be quiet, cuz I was so envious. My mom very sternly, but calmly turned around and said “Emily. CALM. DOWN. Michael, dont mind her go ahead, continue”, and as he did it was like torture. I know why she did and Im not mad at her for it. I was taking out all my anger and jealousy on him when he’d had an even worse time at our school than I did, and he didn’t do anything wrong. He was just happy at his new school. But just today it made me fully realize now how miserable I was there. Like I remember liking some of the kids, but I also remember really hating it. But I think I distanced myself from it to where it was just a “child’s” hate, and even tho I still knew it was an awful school, I forgot how deeply I felt at that age. As we grow older i think we start to trivialize how we felt when we were younger, and we forget… My mom found my first gray hair when I was in second grade, when we were in a dressing room. Under the bright fluorescent lights – I remember her shock – it was so shiny after she plucked it out to show me.
I realize its not nearly as bad as a lot of childhood traumas. Not even most. But it definitely followed me for the rest of my life/education (including now). My constant fear of failure and disappointment, shame when I couldn’t do as well as others, perfectionism that had me typing papers till 3 am with 2 hours to sleep. My anxiety and reluctance to ask questions, fear of teachers noticing me, yet desperation for approval. The pseudo-narcolepsy I had for a couple years due to chronic fatigue and sleep-deprivation that caused my body to shut down. The years of hitting the ground of the school year running, cuz I was still jogging from the summer homework load, the never ending long sprint that wore my physical and mental health to dust. My perception that society/those who knew me/etc see me as a heap of wasted potential and a disappointment, my self-destructive depression spiral in my sophomore year of college after I had burnt out. I was all set to go study abroad in Japan the next year, during my last term at college as a sophomore when I finally broke down. It’s been 3 years, and I’m tentatively taking 1 online course at a community college now.
I just… Wonder if things would’ve been better if that hadn’t been my start.