I watched a video on Facebook today and a lot of emotions came up about how dumb I felt in school. One reason was that I was hard of hearing and would you believe I didn't know it? I knew I wasn't understanding things but never realized it was because I couldn't hear well. Back in those days no one thought to check children's hearing. No, they just thought I wasn't paying attention and scolded me or told me to "pay attention". That didn't help. Instead I felt stupid.
One day I remember standing at the blackboard trying to work out a math problem. I wasn't good at math to begin with but the teacher was trying to help and called on another child to tell me what to do. I couldn't hear the child and kind of fumbled around feeling dumber and dumber. The class started laughing at me and I wanted to just run away, run home. Many times I would stare out the window wishing I could leave and go home. But I knew they would bring me back to school and scold me. I even liked being sick so I didn't have to go to school. This was the beginning of a school phobia and led to Agoraphobia. I would have stomach aches every morning when I'd have to go to school and they thought I was "pretending". This went on for twelve years. This is actually a form of Trauma and Flight or Freeze. I froze because of feeling stupid, inept and I couldn't flee.
I didn't know I had a brain in my head until I was 35 and sitting in a used book store among college graduates holding my own in the conversation. When I realized I actually was intelligent it was like a light was switched on. I did love to read and was a voracious reader but I didn't realize I was actually smart.
Fast forward to now, I realize that if school had been different and my needs were listened to, things could have been a lot different. I'm not angry about it, there is no point to holding grudges but wow, I would have loved to have gone to school like today with internet, Google and homeschooling!
Here is the video that started my feelings and writing the blog.
