In Third Grade I Had A Teacher Who Really Hated My Parents. I Don’t Know Why She Felt This Way But

In third grade I had a teacher who really hated my parents. I don’t know why she felt this way but she did. So she used to take out her hatred of them on me during class.

Now, I was a very outgoing and happy kid back then. I liked performing on stage and talking to people and doing my best with everything, including school work. So I always tried to be really nice to my teachers, bringing them gifts on holidays, offering to help in the classroom, giving them hugs whenever I came to or left class. I saw them as people to respect and appreciate, because that’s what I felt they deserved. And that was fine in the past but it kind of just made things worse during that year.

I did everything I’d always done but it was never rewarded. Instead, I was constantly being yelled at and singled out. I was never allowed to talk for any reason, even if I just answered a question she would say that I was talking too much or too loud but she would also accuse me of ignoring the lesson and being bad whenever I just remained silent. Even outside of the classroom I wasn’t allowed to talk.

I vividly remember one day when we were all having a bathroom break, I went into the bathroom and realized that there were no more napkins. So I told one of the other girls, because I was too afraid to tell the teacher, but the teacher still heard me from outside of the bathroom and came in to shout at me for talking during the break. She didn’t care why I was talking, she just didn’t want me to talk.

She never treated the other kids like this. She only ever yelled at me for my “bad” behavior.

Eventually, I started trying to find ways to avoid her and school all together. The solution I used the most was to make myself physically sick or injured so that I could go to the nurses office. I used to hurt myself whenever no one was looking so that I could say I’d bruised myself or I’d make myself not eat anything or eat bad things so that I had a stomach ache. I eventually learned how to force my mind into believing that I was sick. I even figured out how to make my stomach churn so that I could throw up on purpose.

I was just so scared of staying in school with that teacher that I was willing to do anything to get out of there. Unfortunately, this meant I got in trouble for truancy. So me and my mom had to go and talk to the vice principal.

I don’t remember everything from that meeting, but I do remember her leaning over her desk, looking me straight in the eye, and saying “You don’t want your mommy to get arrested because of you, do you?”.

And it was honestly one of the most horrifying things I have ever experienced in my life.

I mean, I was a child. I was seven.

And this woman just straight up told me my mom was gonna get arrested because of me.

I was terrified.

My dad was living in Virginia at the time, since he was still in the navy back then, and my sisters were still teenagers so my mom was all I had. She supported us and took care of us and now she was gonna be arrested and it was all my fault.

I immediately started crying.

But my mom, who knew better and was already upset about me being in the meeting in the first place, left in an outrage. She spoke to some other school employees about what had happened and filed various complaints and things and then she took me back home.

I don’t remember most of that year past a few of the more distressing events and a lot of memories of sitting in the nurses office. But I know that, after that year, the vice principal was fired and the teacher became a teachers assistant and was no longer allowed to teach classes by herself anymore.

But, unfortunately, the damage had already been done to me. I was no longer an outgoing and happy kid. I was terrified of talking after that. This ended up extending to me being terrified of interacting with people at all and, eventually, a fear of leaving my house.

By the time I entered middle school, I had no friends and had no idea how to interact with people past ignoring them or just being polite to them. My fear of everything led to me being bullied which led to everyone being scared of me when I fought back. I ended up failing a lot of classes, despite knowing and understanding all of the material, because I was too scared to talk to the teachers and I was just so tired of school at that point, and always feeling instinctively unwell, that I usually just took naps or read books during class.

Despite that, I worked hard to improve on myself and fix what I knew to be wrong. I entered spelling bees, I auditioned for talent shows, I won science fairs, I got awards for reading the most books, I got into marching band, I made some friends, and I got into anime. I did a lot in middle school in the hopes of making myself better as a person.

But when i got into high school, the transition kind of made me regress.

I lost all of my friends again, since I wasn’t interested in sex and dating while all of my other friends were, and I was placed into all advanced courses alongside my extra curricular activities. The stress quickly got to me and I ended up slacking on my classes and eventually dropping my extra curricular. All of the drama from the few friends I still had made me lose them as well. And everyone was still scared of me from middle school.

But, thankfully, I had a single saving grace.

Or really, two saving graces.

I joined choir that year and it was one of the best things that could have possibly happened to me. The choir instructor was an amazing woman who told me early on that I had a good voice that would only get better if I was brave enough to use it properly. She taught me all about singing, everything from reading music to properly projecting my voice. She gave me special attention and told me she was proud when I got into the talent show that year. And when I performed in the talent show(after spending almost ten full years auditioning for shows and never getting in)I made almost everyone in the audience cry.

It all did wonders for my self-esteem. I felt more like myself that year than I had in so very long.

Alongside my choir instructor was my creative writing teacher.

He was actually known throughout the school as the craziest and most troublesome teacher. He didn’t pull his punches and was brutally honest with all of his students. He was ex-military and it was pretty easy to tell, not from his appearance and maybe not even from his attitude to most, but to me it was obvious because he acted just like my dad. He was crazy and kind of rude but he was always looking out for his students and trying to help us learn in whatever way we could. I only had him for creative writing that year but it had a huge impact on me. He didn’t know why I acted the way I did but he always tried to find ways to make me talk. He’d ask me questions, he’d randomly move things away from my desk, he’d ask to talk about my writing, or he’d seat me next to people he thought I would talk to.

But he never really pushed me.

We were all supposed to read our work out loud, that was part of the class. But he always asked me if I was willing to do it. He never said that I had to and always gave me a choice. I think I only ever did it once or twice but he always made sure I knew how happy he was for me to talk. He encouraged my writing as well, always telling me how I could improve and what I was already doing well. And always trying to remind me that I was the only one who could limit myself.

That first year of high school had a huge impact on my life.

My second year was less useful.

I ended up having a scheduling conflict that kept me from entering choir and I didn’t have any classes with my old creative writing teacher.

But I ran into him sometimes.

And he always recognized me and usually said hi and checked in on how I was doing and ruffled my hair and called me random nicknames.

And the next year I got back into choir.

We had a new instructor but she was also pretty nice. She liked my voice as well and tried to encourage me to the best of her ability.

And my creative writing teacher found me again and invited me to join a new after school club he was going to be in charge of.

So I entered the creative writing club and got back into choir.

I’d also managed to gain a pretty solid friend group by then.

I was a lot more talkative than before and way more honest with myself and other people. I still had a bad habit of hurting myself, which escalated a little that year, and sleeping through classes. But I was slowly getting better than before.

I ended up becoming a regular in detention that year because of being late to most of my classes.

It was a very conflicting year.

But my senior year brought it all to an end.

I ended up becoming the go-to soloist in my choir. I was in every choir class I was allowed to be in and I had an English class with my old creative writing teacher teaching it.

I was still in the creative writing club and I’d started going out of my comfort zone by hosting panels at conventions.

That year was probably one of the best years of school I’ve ever experienced.

I even got to see my old choir instructor again.

She even invited me to join the choir at the university she was now teaching at. I’m still planning on taking her up on that offer in a year or two, even though it’s been years and she probably doesn’t even remember me.

After that I graduated and went to college for a year before dropping out.

And I’ve been working hard since then to focus on myself. To repair the damage done by that teacher so long ago and make myself a better person.

I’m a small time voice actor now and also a small time writer.

I work hard to improve myself and work towards living my dreams with the help of my family.

I’ve accepted all aspects of myself, my depression, my anxiety, my sexuality, and my gender identity.

It took me years to get over what that woman did to me.

So I want to just say this, after this long ass rant that I’m sure nobody bothered to read, emotional abuse is not a joke.

It is not something to take lightly.

Just because you weren’t phyisically hurt by someone doesn’t mean you weren’t hurt at all.

It doesn’t make it any more or less traumatic.

And teachers are not supposed to use methods like that to teach kids.

That is wrong and fucked up and not at all what helps kids learn and develop into functioning members of society.

This doesn’t mean all teachers are bad and like that.

Some of them are amazing and can help kids grow into amazing individuals.

But those teachers that hate their job and treat kids like that are monsters.

If you are tasked with the job of helping kids grow up and learn and develop then you should work hard to do your job right instead of just taking out your own issues on kids that don’t deserve that kind of treatment.

Fuck my third grade teacher and fuck all those other teachers for being terrible human beings.

I hope all those kids look back on their emotional abuse one day and think about how much better they are now that they’re away from those terrible people.

Someone Should Talk To This Principal