Oh god, my head is spinning

I can't remember when I began to recognize what happened to me in middle school was emotional abuse, but I do remember moments that paint a portrait of how I was feeling even back in 9th grade, and that support the given aftereffects of classroom emotional abuse (OH HOW I LOVE THAT TITLE! I've found a title for it!).



First, there is an article that outlines classroom emotional abuse and what counselors can do about it. I found a really long excerpt of it online and read it, and it was long enough to adress the problem and name some of the emotional/psychological consequences.



In the section labeled "Academic", it goes on to say:

"Emotional abuse can lead to lower motivation for school attendance, incompletion of academic assignments, and negative student-teacher interactions (Hymen & Snook, 1999). Hymen and Snook contented that students may also experience difficulty paying attention; staying on task; thinking clearly; focusing on schoolwork in general; and performing at lower levels, academically, on measures of ability and achievement. The factors cited can significantly affect academic emprogress and impede promotion to subsequent grade levels, placing students who have been emotionally abused at risk of failing in school and potentionally dropping out of school early. Consequently, thoese measures are strong indicators to counselors that a student may be experiencing emotional abuse."



I had to pause and remember to breathe when typing that because it hits me on the most personal level. EVERYTHING there describes me with some things even leading up to my last year of high school. That is how long that shit lasted for me.



Oh my god, this is just amazing.



In the next paragraph, it goes:

"Students who experience emotional abuse in the classroom display behavioral problems in schools (Hymen & Snook, 1999; Stevens, 1996). They may become rebellious and belligerent toward teachers or display impulsive aggressive behaviors (e.g., hitting and fighting) towards other students. They are often seen picking fights with peers and may at times act cold, hard, and unfeeling (Gootman, 1993). In addition, some of these students may experience feelings of anxiety and phobic reactions toward school. Students who have been emotionally abused may learn to fear and resent their teachers rather than respect them. Teachers become aversive individuals in the student's life, someone to escape from or to avoid (Gootman, 1993; Maggiolo, 1998). Emotionally abused children may also demonstrate hypervigilant, suspicious, and mistrustful behavior or appear to always be on the lookout for potential dangers (Conlee, 1986). Often, they are moody and afraid to express their feelings (Gootman, 1993). "



The way that I can recall reacting at the time wasn't aggressive because I was wrapped up in grieving and too busy feeling like an awful kid for failing in school. Although, there is one instance that happened in 11th grade where I was very unfeeling to a comment that maybe would have hurt me on a different day, but on that particular day and in that moment I literally did not give a shit.

It was in my Speech and Debate class and a friend and I were set to go on to debate against each other. However, my friend started to have a really severe panic attack with the shakes all over and everything. She could not go on for the debate in that condition so I got up to tell the teacher that we could not debate today and that she was having a panic attack. The teacher was looking me in the eye and she said "You just ruined the whole class period." in a very cold voice. I reacted by grinning and almost laughing in her face because my priority was not in defending George Bush in a debate, but in getting my friend to the counselor. I did that and came back to the classroom and we did some sort of writing assignment instead. The teacher had frustration just oozing into her voice but I still did not care.



I don't know if that would count in this case of the behavioral effects of EA, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I read that bit.



There is one more article that I found that also hit me really hard: First Do No Harm: Emotional Maltreatment in the Classroom.

It quoted the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct in saying "Above all, we shall not harm children. We shall not participate in practices that emotionally damaging, physically harmful, disrespectful, degrading, dangerous, exploitative, or intimidating to the children." When I read that, I actually laughed because I thought about these teachers from my past and thought this quote was funny in disbelief. They had violated this.

Now, the thing that I found most difficult to read in the article was the example of Ms. Jones and Robert, a first grader. The constant reminding that Robert would be put back into kindergarten has been completely.... imprinted on my mind because almost the same exact thing happened to me throughout 7th grade. Instead of threatening to put me back a grade, the teacher instead said "You will be held back in 8th grade if you keep this up. I am one of the teachers that decides wether or not a student gets retained a grade." I could not meet their standards and robotic feelings so they were going to attempt to hold me back but my family had moved.
Odd. I find it difficult to talk about this now.

The really hard thing about this is this quote from the first article talking about how "the factors cited can significantly affect academic progress and impede promotion to subsequent grade levels."

I believe that, at first, my low grade levels were directly from all the grief I was feeling over my sister's death, and now I feel that the continued failure in school is a direct result of the emotional abuse that I was experiencing. The threats to hold me back didn't motivate me and instead made me feel worse. Though we left after 8th grade, I continued to not feel motivated/even care about school and afraid of my teachers even if they were different and I continued to have low grades. I ended up having to repeat the 12th grade because I lacked the right amount of credits to graduate on time. This was really hard on me at first in my second around and I was starting to consider dropping out because I already felt worthless and like a failure, and that I could never be successful at life.

Fuck. I need to stop right now.