Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm just watching this Yo Samdy Sam video and already noticing (in spite of her posh, private school education - privilege alert!) that many of the teachers' observations are almost exaclty the same as on my own. Almost eerily, in fact, although I went to a very rough comprehensive in the North East of England. My reports were, on the face of it, rather good, but there are some little asides which indicate constant high levels of anxiety combined with my supposed "giftedness" (I was actually terrified into appearing "gifted", I now think). When I look back, I'm getting more of a feeling of, "My goodness - what did they do to me?" Very interesting, I think, And I'll probably reflect some more on this as I watch the rest. My "giftedness" didn't exactly carry over into most of the workplaces I got myself trapped in and I then experienced decades of anxiety and fairly poor mental health. So... and if you care to share, how was it for you? www.youtube.com/watch
Hard working, good grades, good all-rounder (except PE), quiet, needs to participate more. That was pretty much every school report I got. I can't remember if I was explicitly told that I needed more friends.
In retrospect, I wonder how I managed going to a very big (1,500 pupils) secondary school, involving a long commute on buses and Tube every day, not to mention bullies, but I had a mini-burnout in the Sixth Form and a bigger one at university, so the answer is probably that I <i>didn't</i> manage it, I just postponed the collapse.
Luftmentsch said:I just postponed the collapse.
I come across this kind of experience a lot and certainly went through it myself. The sad result has been that, even when I didn't collapse, there was that constant feeling of living on the edge. And it would only have taken schools and educators to consider the whole person, drill down into the reasons behind the lack of participation and give reasonable support. Sigh...
To be honest, I think the schools wouldn't have got very far at understanding or helping me given how unknown high-functioning autism was (it wasn't even recognised until I was in secondary school) and how resistant I was to any suggestion that I wasn't living my life in a healthy way. I was very resistant to anyone "interfering" (as I would have seen it). I did go to counselling at one point, but got selective mutism (which I've never had in other contexts) and just sat there in silence for four sessions until I gave up, even though the counsellor wanted me to continue and said I needed help.
That actually sounds excruciating and not at all therapeutic. I think one of my sons is similar in that respect as, although therapists haven't divulged any confidential information, I got enough feedback to suggest that he just wasn't engaging at all. The trouble is, it was said in a way that put all the responsibility on him instead of looking at ways around this. He might have been better off communicating via text or email, for example, or working creatively with sand play or choosing representative pictures, stones, dolls or other objects.