Well, I'm bored and I've been thinking about this lately, so I thought I'd make a thread on it. At the age of 4, I got sent to speech therapy. Up until then I had made efforts to communicate at school, but as I moved into Primary I began to withdraw. It wasn't just my speech that was affected either, as I also slowly stopped writing and all forms of communication. Most of my time was spent alone, away from everyone else. I was lucky that my school picked up on it from a young age. Unfortunately, even when I began to talk at school I still struggled, as I'd missed out on several years of social communication (only really started to interact more at the age of 6) and made some pretty silly mistakes as a result... Thankfully I learnt over time, and these days I don't struggle with speaking at all- in fact you'd be lucky to get me to shut up, haha. Does anyone else have a similar experience?
I don't know if this is the same thing but I had severe social anxiety all through my schooling, to the point where kids thought I was physically unable to talk. I still have social anxiety but I'd say it's more moderate now. I didn't go to a speech therapist but I was made to see the school psychologist when I was six years old. I remind it really vividly because I was absolutely terrified of her. All she really made me do was play with toys and make stories while she wrote down what I said. I also painted some pictures, that was it. But I hated that I was forced to do it. It was frustrating when I just wanted to stay in class. I had another psychologist outside of school too. She scared me too because I thought she sounded like a robot XD I have some bad memories of school, to be honest. Most of them involve boys trapping me in somewhere and I was too afraid to tell them to leave me alone. And it was just a game to them, we were only in elementary school and they were "taking prisoners." I actually cried because one of told me I was a prisoner in the jungle gym and that they were keeping guard. It's so funny now, I could've easily escaped. Oh, and once when I was six, I really needed to use the bathroom but I was in class. I was terrified of asking to go to the bathroom so I decided I'd just hold it in all day. I actually intended to ask the teacher several times, I was like, "I'll just do it now...I'll do it now..." But every time, I choked. And honestly, it was pretty impressive because I got to like 12:30pm before I wet my pants. Then I cried and the teacher sent me to the nurse's office. I had to wait for like half an hour for my mom to come pick me up but after I got over my trauma, I was psyched about getting to go home early. The only other awkward story I can think of is when I was in high school and did Shop or Woodshop, Woodwork. We had a classroom for theory work and I don't know how many places have these, but it's like a double desk. A long desk that two people are supposed to share, basically like two desks joined together. And I was sitting at my desk alone but we got a new kid in the class so he had to share desks with me. I think I was literally the only one in the 12th Grade who didn't have anyone to share with. He wasn't new to the school, just the class. But he had bad social anxiety too. It was painful. I mean, looking back now it's funny but back then, it was mortifying. He used to always put his head on the desk so he didn't have to talk to me and I'd just kind of look in the other direction. I think we literally had one interaction that entire year. I walked into the classroom and he had his head on the desk but he sat up for what felt like a second lol. He yells, "Hey!" at me, without even looking and then puts his head back down. And I just mumbled, "...Um...hey..." We both awkwardly waved, even though we were sitting right next to each other. My proudest moment was at graduation though, when I had to give a speech in front of the whole school. The students, staff and parents. I thought I was going to throw up or pass out and the hand that held the microphone was shaking but hey, I made it lol. Sorry, I just gave you my life story but I wasn't sure what else to say.
Personally, even after I had gone through speech therapy, there were people that were still under the impression that I couldn't speak. When in actual fact I was just quiet, and wanted to keep to myself. Sometimes the other kids would talk down to me, as if I were an idiot. I'd just sort of freeze, and wait until they left. Thankfully, I found it easy enough to talk to my friends though, but with people I didn't know so well I had a habit of freezing up in front of them. Well, I also had to see a school counsellor, and similarly to you I disliked them. Although, I was never really scared of her, more confused by the things she'd ask of me. Each session would start the same, I'd come into the room and she'd ask me to stand on one leg, then the other, and then she'd tell me to sit down. Never explained why, so it left me wondering what her reasoning was. Perhaps it was a mindfulness exercise, or maybe she was just testing my balance. My current therapist thinks it might've been a dyspraxia test. We talked about my school counsellor in one of our sessions. I was never made to play with toys or make stories, instead we often worked with booklets and flip-charts. We'd discuss the kind of connections I would make, and sometimes I would have to name what I saw in a picture, such as a scene of a town market. The only time I came close to feeling scared of her, was when she had a mental breakdown in front of me. I was just 8 or 10 years old so I didn't know what to do, I had no experience with people freaking out in such a manner before. At the time it felt quite sudden, she asked me a question and I gave her an answer she didn't like, and she started yelling at me, calling me a stupid child, and asking if I'd even learnt anything from her sessions. Kept telling me to "Just do it correctly, don't make things harder for yourself". That was the first time she'd ever yelled at me before like that, she was clearly quite distressed because she kept making unusual noises, and pulling at her hair frantically. I wondered if I should say something, apologise for not saying the answer she wanted perhaps, but judging by the current state she was in, I worried that would just make it worse. She told me that she had to go, but that she'd be right back. Then, she speedily walked through the school exit, later I heard a car door close, and an engine start in the distance which I can only assume was her getting in her car and driving away. They never did come back after that. I guess she lied. Well, I saw her a month later in the school corridor and she looked shaken. I didn't dare approach her, understandably. At that age, I spent a good deal of my time wondering if something was wrong with me because of my experience with my counsellor. What kind of child scares away a counsellor? I'd wonder to myself. Overtime I realised that it probably wasn't due to me, she probably had other things going on in her life that caused her to act that way. It's a shame that I'll never understand why she left that day though. The answer I gave wasn't even stupid, I told my therapist about it and she thought it was a highly intelligent and creative response, especially for someone of that age. She told me that if a young child gave her the answer I gave to my counsellor, she'd be quite impressed rather than angry. At times, I wonder if my perfectionist tendencies are tied to my counsellors remarks on "Just doing things right", perhaps it's a little ironic that my time spent in counselling gave me more mental health issues than I had in the first place... I was just unfortunate, really. She clearly wasn't in a good place mentally. Hopefully the majority of school counsellors are more stable and calm than she was.
I was years ahead of my age group in reading and from a young age had the ability to get lost in a book and I used to read during lunch and between classes and didn't talk much. It got worse when my parents moved us several times. We finally settled my last year of primary school but I always struggled making friends and was bullied in that year of school so didn't talk much. In secondary school I had no friends and by then had the ability to get so lost in a book I could block out the world around me. I once had someone ask me was okay after some other girl apparently said some really mean things. I hadn't heard a word I was absorbed in a book and you would have to say my name to get my attention. I prefer books and animals to people my dog doesn't care what I say as long as I pay attention to her.
