School

A half-assed psych evaluation I did a couple years ago reported that I did well in school. I was successful at school as an adolescent and young adult, but I never did well at it.

As a child in elementary school, I failed everything that wasn’t creative and up for interpretation. I don’t process information like everyone else and no allowance was made for me, so I never acquired a solid foundation to build on. That meant the confusion in the classroom piled on itself. My home life was unstable and kids always bring that distraction with them. Was I punched before school because I made a noise while getting ready? Have I had food available to me at all lately, let alone nutrious food? Am I going to be pulled out of class to talk to the counselor because one of my sisters slipped and exposed something about home?

The first time I succeeded at anything outside performance was in third grade. I still remember my teacher at the chalkboard as she introduced us to cursive. She told us that we had to learn how to do it correctly but after we accomplish that we can find out own personal style of cursive. That gave me a drive. Since then my handwriting, particularly my cursive, gets complimented often. It makes me feel proud that can make something mundane pretty, but the compliment comes with the sting of knowing why I’m good at it.

I continued to fail everything else. In fifth grade our teacher required each of us to read a chapter book of our choice. I got to pick mine out; I chose The Wizard of Oz and was engrossed. That began my love of reading. Reading gives you an escape into a different world, a chance to experience other people’s lives, and it’s open to interpretation. I also come from a family of readers so having my nose in a book gave me positive attention while not having to interact with those bullies.

With middle school my life changed. My parents were divorced after years of lawyers so there was finality and clear directions on how to interact going forward. The pain of being a pawn in it all instead of loved was a sting that stayed with me. The four separate classrooms that we had been divided into all the years before took a different structure and created cliques. I sat by myself at lunch. At choir I was transitioning from singing in the crowd to being the star. The pressure for perfect discipline and to fit into “southern lady etiquette” while being manipulated and abused by the adults I was just trying to please was overwhelming. Puberty hit. Hormones plus cliques plus chronic stress plus ongoing abuse gave me suicidal ideation that has never left. And I was told in no uncertain terms by both parents and my middle sister that the time for playing around in elementary school was over. It was time to start taking advanced courses with an A so I wasn’t a public embarrassment.

With enough discipline and a few hours of sleep a week, I was able to grasp language arts, soft sciences, and fine arts. Those are all open to interpretation, and if I slipped up by not explaining myself as everyone else naturally understood, I was deemed a poet. Those classes were achievable and achieving made me motivated. Math and science were their own struggle. There is only one way to solve each problem. To keep up family standards I learned how to store recitable facts short term and tried to teach myself in any spare time.

I often say that I process information and experiences differently than everyone else, but I never give explanation. As an aside, let’s try this example. In standardized testing for math, it is expected to have a series of questions wanting you to “show your work” by picking which of the below is your equation to fit the question posed. Those are the best because you don’t even have to take the time to solve them! Except for me. None of the below “show my work” and so to answer it I first have to write in the margin my actually work with complete answer. Then I have to solve each of the choices by the rules I memorized. And only then can I match my answer to an answer with its specific equation.

Thus went my education all the way until graduating with my bachelor, with the variations expanded upon below. I excelled in class while leading “smart kid” social clubs. My star was rising and the people holding on gave me empty relationships while keeping me out of my early isolation. My family was no longer physically abusing me or frequently raging, but I was still the pariah being jabbed at any way they could.

The psych eval claiming academic success while missing how very much it wasn’t, is so fucking ironic. If ANY discipline should take into account more than societal norms while evaluating a patient, it should be psychology! And this is one isolated event – but they happen constantly. How the fuck are we supposed to get clinical help if the very professionals trained, and presumably motivated, to understand us won’t?