Blogging Day 5 - School Made me Feel Dumb, Stupid, Useless


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.

7 comments:

Effy said...

I'm so sorry that happened to you!

Just Me said...

Jean, how strong you must be to have made it through that at such a young and tender age. Congratulations on turning it around. Very inspiring morning read. Karen Harwell xo

NM_Creatrix said...

Huge scars can be left behind from seemingly innocent incidents in school. I remember an incident from the 6th grade...

Jean Maurie said...

Thank you Effy, I discovered Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/tapping) and it has helped me heal most of it. I am a team member on Thrivingnow.com and facilitate once a month calls with a co-creator and help other people. So I feel it was part of my soul's plan this lifetime. Yes I still have emotions coming up about this but tapping helps and so does writing blogs and sharing. <3

Jean Maurie said...

Thank you Karen, I am glad this inspired you. This is what my coach says, we are stronger than we think. <3

Jean Maurie said...

NM-Creative, yes this is called the Flight or Freeze trauma. I so wanted to flee out of school and run home and be free. I experienced this in jobs too after high school and got fired. I was so ashamed but so happy to be free again. I didn't understand who I was back then. But I am healing these scars. They helped make me a more compassionate person. I hope your 6th grade incident isn't too traumatic.

Jana said...

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. But I'm so glad you've risen above it❤️