Ms. Que BanhWhen you were young & in elementary school, do you remember what subjects that you struggled with the most & why?
I'm just curious about this. Also, please indicate if you're ND or NT - when responding. Thank you.
Quasit@PhoenixSerenity
Math was always hard for me. But what I HATED was gym class. I still remember the gym teacher. She would divide the class into two teams to play against each other, and she ALWAYS put all the good athletes together on one team. The "losers" team always got crushed.
I, of course, was always put on the loser team (I'm the kid who was always picked last when kids were picking who was going to be on their team). One day after we got crushed by the good athletes, the gym teacher started yelling at us for being so bad at sports.
I lost my temper.
"Of COURSE the score is always lopsided!" I screamed. "You always put all the GOOD athletes on one team!"
"Oh, and you think *you* could do better?" she sneered.
"Yes!" I answered.
For some reason she decided to show me up. She told me to divide the class into teams. So I did, as fairly as I could. Then we played a game between the two teams.
The final score differed by ONE point between the two teams.
She never said a damned word to me again.
Gym teachers are scum.
@Quasit I was ostracized from gym classes. It was very noticeable & made me feel like an even bigger outcast.
@PhoenixSerenity
Everyone ostracized me, too. I was beaten up several times a day, every day. Back then teachers didn't do a damned thing about bullies. If I'd had access to a gun, I'd have brought it to school.
I read all the time - in class, by myself during lunch in the cafeteria, and during recess huddled as far out of sight as I could get. But they always got me at recess. Hunting me down was one of the favorite pastimes of the many bullies at my school.
In retrospect, it's amazing that I'm not a lot more damaged than I am!
@Quasit I was beaten up a lot in elementary school days too, until I lost my shit & fought back. I broke a school window during my public freak out too, after knocking down the bully who had been terrorizing me(and others) for 2 years.
@PhoenixSerenity I fought back two times, but I wasn't any good at all. I tended to go blind, somehow. The beatings finally stopped when I decided that I wasn't going to give a damn any more. I wasn't going to cringe and hide. I told the bullies to go ahead and do whatever they were going to do; I didn't give a shit.
That was in my first year of high school, as I recall. I was never beaten up again.
Well, except by my ex-wife. But that's a different story.
sport of sacred spherical cowsOnce during a melt-down, where myself "spazzed out", my vision was reduced to black and white. That would be the time myself got kicked out of a Quaker elementary school.
@beadsland @Quasit I had a full out, autistic meltdown but didn't know what it was when it first happened to me. I was really young & unaware of my ND brain at the time.
Yeah, this was early grade school, so had no context for understanding what was happening either.
Personally, would love to be able to say my meltdown (plural? no idea, recall* too little of childhood to say for certain) was due to autism, as that would indicate being part of a group of folk with common experiences.
But the more myself am educated about the lived experiences of autistic folk, the more clear it becomes that my neurospicy brain ain't fit that designation.
*Probably only recall that event because of the trauma afterward of being told that would not be coming back to the Quaker school. Though, of course, don't recall being told. Only the fact that being told happened.
@beadsland @Quasit I remember my full out meltdown experience like it happened yesterday. It started on the tetherball court where the longtime school bully called me a "gook chimp" & then threw a soccer ball at my head. I tried to ignore him & kept playing tetherball. He wouldn't stop bullying me. Called me a "Chink gimp" & kicked me. I lost it at that point. I started screaming at him in mixed English & Teochew. I hit him with my crutches & kicked him in the belly & balls, when he was down. I took soccer ball & punched him in face with it. I ripped his shoes off & put one into his mouth. I smashed one big school window, right after & screamed : Will you teachers listen to me, NOW?!?!
It was a dramatic day.
@beadsland @Quasit At that point, I'd already tried to tolerate 2 years of relentless bullying & getting zero help from school administration. That is why I finally lost it.
Yeah, per my reply, myself didn't really lose it from the bullying at home until was out and safe from that decade plus of abuse. Losing it only enough to hurl a book at school had only resulted in my being suspended, sent home, away from the only refuge had ever experienced, and told by my mother that they'd suspended me from school for good.
School administration and teachers were no help, despite being sympathetic, until the police finally took my abuse seriously, and the police didn't finally take my abuse seriously (had previously brought me right back home after a runaway attempt) until myself walked into the police station inconsolable, yet finally old enough to be articulate about what was happening to me, after several days of mental and physical torture, during that week of being suspended from school.
@beadsland @Quasit I don't think I'd still be here, if my parents weren't supportive. I'd likely be dead.
Once described my home life to a classmate at lunch, someone who was being sexually abused at home. (This was something we kids just talked with one another about. In the time other kids must have been talking about dating or shared hobbies, or something.)
At the end of my tale they had one question.
"How are you still alive?"