Need some tips for coping with past school trauma

I can relate to this a lot. I was bullied a lot as a kid and then I was treated very poorly when I was in sixth form (not linked to my autism).

I don't know what I can say to help, but I can say that I understand why it still hurts. We didn't deserve any of that. We were just kids.

Yes 

writing about it; you’ve inspired me to write about what I have replayed angrily for forty years wishing ill on fourteen year old schoolboys 

Yes, this is what I put in my comment when I said that my therapist told me that trauma is an attack on your sense of self.

Me- a few years later.

  

I don't think I was  particularly  bad looking, but I was treated like I was a freak. Nor am I and was I  stupid. A child like me nowadays would be regarded as 2e.  I've done tests created by psychometricians that place my IQ well into the 99th percentile.

Two stand out memories. First memory. Last meal at prep school . I was unaware that one of the other boys had put tobacco in my cup of tea. I take a gulp of my tea and feel very nauseous. The person who most likely did it was a boy who'd just got a scholarship to Cranbrook. I never knew he disliked me so much. He did it knowing he wouldn't be punished , as that was his last day at prep school.

Second memory: Waiting for a geography lesson to start at public school , and  having  monkey chants directed at me by the other boys. I was treated as though I was ugly and stupid, because I was clumsy and socially gauche.  That's me around the time I started there.

Unfortunately I can't afford therapy

Luftmentsch said:

I feel that "No one hit me or sexually abused me, how can I call myself traumatised?"

Trauma can come from an accumulation of negative experiences - say you were told every day for a year that you are stupid, ugly and you stink - if this was done by someone in a position of influence over you then this can easily build up to a traumatic result at the end of it.

The same with the negative experiences we receive at school - being excluded from other groups of our peers, being told we are freaks, laughed at because we talk differently, ridiculed for our interests, left to be picked last in sports because of our poor co-ordination etc.

I also struggle to think of my childhood experiences (at home and school) as traumatic because, as you say, I feel that "No one hit me or sexually abused me, how can I call myself traumatised?" But my therapist has said that something can be traumatic if it attacks your sense of self, even if it doesn't lead to "trauma" in the PTSD sense. FWIW, bullying can be very traumatic.

Such a great metaphor!

Unknown said:

48 years on from leaving school the bullying still affects me.

Trauma lasts a lifetime if you don't work through it with therapy. It can have an insidious influence on you many decades on as you are finding.

If you can afford it, I can heartily recommend therapy as you will probably find other traumas in your past that have been blocked off to your concious memory and dealing with these can bring a remarkable improvement in your quality of life.

This will probably sound pathetic. 48 years on from leaving school the bullying still affects me. I've mentioned it online more than a few times,but only recently opened up to my care coordinator come depot nurse. I saw physical and sexual abuse as trauma, and that it would be out of order seeing bullying as traumatic. However after I'd spoken a few sentences my cc come dn said 'bullying related trauma' .

Unfortunately our brains aren't made to do that really. Burying traumatic memories is like putting a dead fish in a cardboard box; that smell isn't going anywhere.  

I feel like I need to get back in my box sometimes.. stoic aftershocks I guess..

I kind of feel like I need to repack some of it.. or unpack it.. or repack it.. Who knows..?

If you can afford it, I would recommend getting a few sessions of therapy to work through this and any other related trauma experiences you have had (most age cumulative smaller things or are well repressed) as the therapist is trained to help you "unpack" the experience, revisit the pain (sometimes tough) and analise it to take away its power over you.

A bit like dragging the monster under the bed out, typing it to the garden fence and looking at it in detail to note that the fangs are actually falsies, it has a funny pot belly, it is going bald and has really unfashionable shoes on - steal its power through analysis and it will never scare you again.

These sessions start from about £50/hour (depending on the therapist) and I would expect at least 4 but possibly more as a good therapist with experience of autistic clients will help you improve a lot of other areas of your life that you may not have realised were being impacted by your autism as well.

Thank you so so much.   I think writing would help alot

I agree I remember being a 5 year old in english class, on Tuesday, at about 11 o’clock, when I was humiliated in class by a rancorous teacher. 

I must’ve be receding from the lesson, when the teacher asked me how to spell ‘What’, I thought about it and I just couldn’t piece the word together, I said ‘I dont know..’.

She said “What do you mean you dont know, how can you have been in school all this time and not know, spell ‘what?!”

”I dont know”

”LOOK at me when im talking to ..”

That’s all I remember..

She was actually the teacher liked to the most.

The issue of trauma that many autistic children have had to go through in the school system is a poorly recognised one outside of the autistic community. 

Memories can fade with the passage of time but then something can trigger a suppressed memory and it all comes flooding back. Just walking past a school playground, when the children are outside shouting and screaming, can be enough to trigger a panic attack or meltdown in me.

It might help to write or talk about your experiences. I posted about mine at length in this discussion and I found that quite therapeutic at the time.

https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/29271/school-trauma

Online articles such as this can help you realise you're not alone.

https://theautisticadvocate.com/2018/01/an-autistic-education/

Haha.. I used to be really-interested in the reality of my schooling-experience, and just how much the system had know about me, but omitted to interact with me about.

So a few years ago I made a subject access request to the education board for the entirely of my school-records. Which was granted and compiled, but they asked for £40 pounds admin-fee which I didn’t have, so I just forgot about it..

My schooling experience was a discouraging and lonely mess..