#school experience

[bitterswtdvll]

god i wish distancing yourself from toxic friendships are more normalized.

i really should not be feeling pressured to deal with people who accuse me of saying/ doing stuff i know i would NEVER do, constantly brush out insults as a joke, never try to understand people's struggles while also complaining over and over about the same thing!!

shame others for anything they can't control, give out unsolicited advice that no one asked for, have the biggest ego complex ever, & also have the most obvious secret animosity towards me for no apparent reason

[decayed-and-decomposing]

Back when I was still in school, there was one teacher that I disliked. When the school was trying to convince me to start going into school again, they asked if I had any problems with my teachers — I brought up the teacher that I disliked, but the only reason I could give is that he was "too happy".

At the time, I didn't even know what SzPD was, much less see the symptoms in myself. My autism also wasn't diagnosed at that point, nor recognised within the school.

I disliked the teacher so much because he was overly-enthusiastic and energetic, extroverted to a level that made me viscerally uncomfortable. He couldn't just leave me alone like the other teachers did. He asked me personal questions and commented on my hair when I changed it, made comments about me like he knew me, joked around with me without my consent — he acted too familiar. He forced his friendliness and apparent need for socialisation onto me, someone who is largely apathetic towards everyone, someone who finds socialising with others to be nothing but boring, draining, uncomfortable, stressful, etc.

Every lesson felt like I was sitting there, waiting to be executed by this too-friendly man who wouldn't just leave me alone, despite my clear discomfort with all his questions and comments and jokes. Most people seem to prefer chatty teachers, but they genuinely and wholly seem like a death sentence to me. I cannot just ignore them, I am constantly aware that they have the power and the right to force me into something I find difficult and uncomfortable whenever they please, without my consent.

But, of course, I didn't know that at the time, much less know how to verbalise it. All I could say was "he's too happy". They just laughed and chalked it up to me being a regular "moody teen". Even if I was just a moody teen, why should my comfort and consent have less value? Sickening.

[space-homosexual-the-third]

rant post but here goes

teachers of neurodivergent students, what the fuck? Ok im going to be up front: NOT ALL OF YOU DO A BAD JOB! Some are amazing (posted about this in the past but tyyyy profe libby). It’s just some of you, weirdly in my experience usually health teachers, who REALLY seem to need more training.

Recently I had a panic attack, my first in a while. Wha happened was a children’s game that we were playing in class (which had caused many openly neurodivergent students to cry before) was played and made one of my friends have a meltdown. The teaches dealt with this in a harsh manner by grabbing their arm and pulling them outside. I have trauma around my meltdowns and had a flashback/panic attack. The teacher left us in the hallway with only the care of a third friend, who is not trained. We are all under 18. This has happened to me before, with different teachers.

teachers NEED more training on how to help neurodivergent students in a truly helpful manner. So often it’s just insults or rude comments.

[astracaedes]

that one girl in my class who was a raging homophobe but only towards gay men. lesbians were actively shipped and she was literally writing a lesbian romance

turns out she ended up spreading rumours about everyone to everyone in our class and she eventually just stopped attending our school

[nove15]

this is exactly my experience in high school as an freshmen

[itsmythang]

He walked into that classroom with the same hope every child carries.

A pencil.

A notebook.

A quiet belief that school was where futures begin.

But before the lesson started, he learned something else.

The teacher looked at him not as a student—but as a problem.

Not because he was loud.

Not because he was cruel.

Not because he lacked ability.

Because he was Black.

Imagine being that young and already feeling an adult’s hatred.

While other children were taught letters and numbers, he was taught where some people believed he belonged.

Less than.

Separate.

Unwanted.

That is the cruelty of racism.

It steals confidence before it steals opportunity.

It wounds children long before they understand why.

Yet he came anyway.

Sat down anyway.

Opened his books anyway.

Tried to learn anyway.

Because courage is often quiet, especially in children.

The teacher may have tried to shame him.

But history remembers who was trying to grow… and who was trying to stop it.

How many brilliant Black children were made to suffer simply for wanting the same education as everyone else?

Look at the police, who were just as racist and probably worse. May their souls suffer for every act of hate they committed while living.

[ponkydraws]

School is traumatizing.

At least it was for me.

I know that’s a wild statement to make so just let me explain because I don’t know where else to say this. But I do wholeheartedly believe it. Generally being kept in a building without any means of communication to those you love with a bunch of loud, mean people you didn’t like and being forced to do things you didn’t want to do would sound pretty bad, let alone for an autistic kid. Which I was. Undiagnosed. And for ten long years I put up with the noises, the people, the lights, the expectations, the burnout, the panic attacks, the separation anxiety, the bullying.

And boy the separation anxiety was so bad. I used to cry and shake for hours my first years in school. It was so bad my teachers knew me as the kid who wouldn’t stop crying for her mom and who had violent breakdowns if left without an adult. And they just let me cry. For hours. For years. Til exhaustion crept in and I went through a depressive episode at the age of 9. I have never been so utterly miserable. I would’ve done anything to get out of school. Anything.

So then of course I hated the kids who didn’t go to school. Whether it was mental illness or whatever I didn’t care, I just hated them. Misplaced jealousy and anger, I guess. Til this day it makes me squirm if someone tells me they didn’t go to school or were homeschooled because the desperate pain starts bubble up again and I can’t stop it. I just change the subject nowadays. But when I was a kid I would cry. And cry. I mean, how is an 8 year old supposed to comprehend that the living hell they were in was avoidable for some, but not for her. It translates to the conclusion that you just weren’t worth saving from it all.

In high school I fell into some…bad habits in an attempt to get people to realize just how sick and miserable I was. And they noticed. But they didn’t do anything. They pat me on the back and told me to go on. I had no will to live. And a bunch of scars that served as no help whatsoever to my condition because my teachers didn’t care and my parents didn’t understand the extent. I wanted out and I cried and begged desperately for it because I was just so miserable but it didn’t do anything.

So I graduated eventually. Began higher education. Left with hyper vigilance, memory gaps, panic attacks and imposter syndrome. It could’ve been prevented. School traumatized me.

I am 16 years old now, going on 17. I’m still in education, of course. But I feel nauseous when going the same routes I used to take to school, I wake up sweating and shaking from nightmares about my experiences, and I still feel my stomach drop when I see people that look like my bullies. I am better now but I will die on this fucking hill because YES. School is traumatizing, or it can be. It fucked me up in my formative years and I will never have normal stress responses. I am screwed over because my brain was spending all its time on either dissociating from the stress or repressing what it couldn’t handle. I have been in therapy. They came to the conclusion that I have complex childhood trauma, partially from everything I’ve just described. So if you’re like me, just know that I see and I hear you. You’re valid.