 Third grade
My school merged with another Catholic school in town, pre-K to 3rd grade moved to the other building and everyone else stayed in my old building. I wasn't too nervous about the move, actually. Marie left me on the first day to join the 'cool crowd', so I was on my own. 'Suzie' came over and hugged me, and we became friends. Because of the merger, I had the misfortune of meeting the person I still refer to as the 'evil nun'. If I didn't notice her walking through the hallways in time to hide or run, she would pinch the back of my neck and ask me why I didn't talk to her. She said it was rude. This nun also got mad at my class for not knowing how to pronounce 'spelunking'. Though I had assumed the kindergarten 'bathroom incident' had been forgotten, I was very wrong. One day, when our class was sitting around in a circle, Mandy, the one who started the rumor that I was singing in the bathroom, decided to tell everyone about it. The teacher asked me if it was true, and I desparately shook my head 'no!'. She replied, "Yeah, you just don't want to admit it." I wanted to cry. Even people who didn't know me before that started making fun of me for it. How could I ever talk, knowing that something that didn't even happen was never forgotten? I believe we were learning a few Spanish words, and my teacher told us to make the 'r' sound, sort of rolling your tongue. I tried, very quietly, because the whole class was doing it and I figured no one would hear me. Someone did, and announced very loudly that I was talking. Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen. Any sort of sound, laughter, coughing, a chair squeaking, people would immediately yell that I was talking. If I dropped something or opened a book too loudly everyone would turn and stare as though they were expecting me to do something. I practically lived on vitamin C in high school, so I wouldn't get a cold. The one good thing in 3rd grade was a sign-out list on the board if you needed to use the bathroom. But even that turned out to be no good for me. The doors to the stalls had no locks, so you had to hold or have someone else hold your door shut. If you were alone you had to announce you were there or else the person would keep pushing on the door even though you were holding it shut. When I didn't say anything, people would kneel down and look under the door. They would practically crawl under and talk to me, saying things like "Why don't you just talk to me?" or "Why don't you say that you're in there?" They would stay for what seemed like forever, and this happened so often I again tried avoiding the bathroom. I considered kicking them in the face, but then it would be their side of the story only, so I didn't. We tried tape recording this year. I think we did this the year before, but it was this year that I will remember forever. I absolutely hated the whole thing, but I thought I had to do it so I forced myself to record myself reading something at home. Not only did I not want to do it in the first place, but then I hated the sound of my voice on the recording. It sounded so small and timid, I hated to listen to it. I took it into school, and during class my teacher played it, for the entire class. I wanted to sink down into my seat as far as I could go. Everyone was turning around to look at me. We did this about 3 or 4 times, and at one point another student brought in a tape recorder. I was sent to a different room, to record myself saying something. I didn't want to go, but I would look bad if I refused. I went over and tried to say something, I tried forcing the words out, but I knew it would be played for the whole class. It was no different to me than talking right in class. I took the recorder back over to my room, and the teacher played it for the class, but she couldn't find anything on the tape to listen to. She sent me back over, thinking it just hadn't worked, and the same thing happened. She had another student come over with me to make sure I did it, and naturally I couldn't talk with her there. So I was sent over again to try one more time, and again I couldn't do it. For the times I had recorded myself, the kids started using "I already heard you talk!" to convince me that I could talk to them. My teacher told me she didn't think it was me, she thought it was my sister. Often my teacher would keep me for a few minutes after class to pretty much tell me a couple times that I could talk to her. She would ask me something, and she would tell me I could whisper in her ear if I wanted. She would hold her ear inches away from my face, causing me to back away. All this ever did was make me more nervous, it was as though she truly expected me to talk to her. The talks were always the same stuff, 'you can talk to me', 'I won't tell anyone', 'I won't laugh at you', etc. Eventually I just started not listening to her during these 'talks' and I would try to pass time by daydreaming or whatever. I would be so bored that I tried to make it interesting for me by staring directly at the wall behind my teacher, making her think I was looking at her. I had to stop this when she told me to look at her when she was talking to me. I was also biting my fingernails a lot back then, and my hands showed it. My teacher noticed during one of these talks, and told me if I was that hungry to let her know. It had more to do with stress, anxiety, and boredom than hunger. Previous Page | Next Page
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