yknow what??? I'm NEVER going to forgive my shitty ass year 6 teacher who in 2007, when we did a sewing project unit in "intergrated learning" near the end of the year.... told me "you'll never be a REAL woman if you CAN'T sew. you stupid child". basically, I struggled with my project, bc I have shit fine motor control and have tremors (which are genetic from my mums side of the family) so it made it really hard for me to guide the needle into the mesh thing we'd been given to sew a penguin onto.... so I frequently asked other students to help me or for my teacher to do it for me.

like yeah, I get it's catholic school, so they can get away with those sexist ass comments.... bc they all want girls to be the perfect catholic/christian housewife.... and what kind of loving, supportive, and want for nothing catholic/christian housewife CANT sew and mend her precious husband's, children's clothes, and her own clothes when in need??? or some dumbass shit. moreover, implying this utter bullshit back in the mid2000s??? get fucking over yourself.

but still. why the fuck do they feel justified to say this to an 11/12 YEAR OLD???!!! my teacher had NO RIGHT to drive me off ever trying to learn to sew EVER again in life.... all bc it's attached to the fucked up christian etc ideal of being the perfect domestic woman and housewife.... and somehow it makes me inferior to every other girl/woman, if I can't do it.

y’know if there’s one thing i didn’t particularly like in high school english classes it was the speech-writing/public speaking/rhetoric units. like obviously i did go fairly well in the speech assignments, usually getting like 25/30 or whatever (and also in year 6 when we did a unit speech writing my teacher wanted mt to compete in the regional/diocesan public speaking comp which i actually turned down bc it felt too big to do or whatever it was)...... even when i’d fuck around and misplace my palm cards in front of the class, much to my teacher’s utter disapproval and annoyance.

but what i hated the most about these topics was that they were taught straight out of a textbook, where we just wrote notes from the whiteboard or from the unit booklets we got about speech writing and body language/stage presence during public speaking..... with no development activities in between; where the teacher could’ve set an exercise about doing expressive body language etc while presenting your speech to the class.... like don’t get me wrong, i know teachers are super pressed for time in their class schedules..... but this fucked me up quite a bit.

because without the above exercises i developed this weird idea that speeches in my english classes were meant to be like unfeeling/detached and overly formal, and not like a performance i’d do in a drama class.... so when some of the kids from the top class in my half of the year got demoted into my year 10 english class.... and some of them were being hella expressive and engaging with their voice and body language.....i was super confused (and jealous). like i didn’t know we could do that???? i just thought we had to stand in front of the class for 5-6mins yapping about adversity in literature and be all awkwardly formal about it????

whereas, when i had to do my shakespeare monologue or an actual speech in my drama classes in year 10 (and maybe year 9 for a speech i can’t remember tbh), i was totally fine with presenting the speech (or the monologue obvs) with some good amount of emotional connection and involvement with the audience; that drama forced you to do,whereas english was just like “write this stuff down directly from the board/your speech writing booklets that i scanned from an Excel textbook (a textbook brand in australia) and try to write an expressive speech with precise instructions to formulate it!” while my drama teacher would encourage us to “write whatever the hell you want, and see if it makes me (or the class, in terms of a monologue) laugh or cry! experiment! do it! and obvs practice guys!!!” 

just idek how i misconstrued that speeches in my english classes were meant to be weirdly stilted, formal and non-expressive... even though there was always a whole section in english speech writing topics about “DON’T BE MONOTONE! MONOTONE IS BAD! HAVE GOOD VOCAL DIFFERENTIATION AND EXPRESSION!!!!” whereas i was totally fine in drama with doing everything from terrible accents (mostly texan/sotuhern american and general american, canadian and british) to breaking the fourth wall, usually to ask for my phone for my lines lmao or whatever dumb shit lmao.

like did anyone else ever feel the same way with speech writing etc topics in their english classes??? or was it just me being really weird and confused about it??? lmao. because i’m sure that most people would agree that stage presence/public speaking etc can’t solely be learned straight from a textbook or writing down exact formulaic instructions; and then expect students to present their tightly written correctly written to a formula speech to the class in a very expressive and almost seasoned ~public speaking professional~ style in front of a class.... when there were no activities to practice such things.

and like yes. i get that “practice your speech in front of your parents/other family member/s or in front of a mirror” was always the homework and advice with speech topics, but that didn’t really help??? like there should’ve been small group activities where you practiced a part of your speech in front of a couple of your classmates and they could critique it and your presentation of it to give pointers??? although then again, maybe they don’t want kids doing that idek anyway.

y’know i always found it weird throughout school how i was literally the only girl in my year without my ears pierced....mostly because a lot of girls got them done super young, like when they were a toddler or whatever. 

then some of the girls i know who’ve had kids got their kid’s ears pierced literally when they were like 8 months old or something, bc they have girls. like.... what the fuck is this??? let kids choose when to have their ears pierced instead of getting them done when they’re not even old enough to choose to do that???

i only say this bc i didnt get mine pierced lierally until i was 15/16, in 2011, for my year 10 formal/junior prom. the day i finally got my ears pierced, i had a pounding headache for literally like 3 days straight after it and my ears obvs ached for a while too. but it was my choice, mostly. I got them pierced bc i felt like I had to get it done for the formal as well.

i also found it hard to remember to sterilise them all the time... so much so, that when i finished high school in 2013.... i had to take my earrings out because they were going green in my ears, so then my ears were slightly infected from that (not badly!). i haven’t worn earrings since then, bc the holes have closed up. i also found it irritating how many of the cheapo earrings i was buying (lmao) would fall out of my ears and i’d lose them.

but anyway. why would you get a toddler’s ears pierced??? or do they not feel the pain as acutely as i did or something, and that’s why people do it??? or is it another stupid gender thing, where if you pierce a baby girl’s ears then you can tell them apart from boys or their brother/s (if they have a brother/brothers)???

like im just saying maybe people should think about whether it’s really necessary to get their child’s ears pierced super young, solely bc they got it done when they were young. let your kid/s have a say in the matter, instead of getting it done when they can barely string a sentence like “let me choose” or “let me get it done when i WANT to”, together.

y’know i’ve been overthinking over the last few days about how my teachers at catholic school/early-to-mid high school made me hate my body bc it was apparently “not what real men will ever fall in love with. so gain 10 kilos and they will!!!” as if they were also making an underlying implication towards me, where in their minds, i was telling my friends to starve themselves to look like me, which i never fucking did bc im NOT a horrible fucking person....

when in reality it was my body type plastered over magazines for years. and not the “gain 10 kilos!!!” kind. bc all of those absolutely fucking stupid fad diets that had celebs ironically losing 10 to like 20 kilos every week, were still super in vogue for most of my time in high school. which, don’t get me wrong, that was fucking horrible to see on the front of EVERY celeb mag rag like OK! magazine etc, and on E! news. in fact, it was still damaging asf for me. or even for anyone with my body type really.... even though some of the women (mostly) were my physique and build al-fucking-ready.. bc it was almost like they wanted people who were already skinny to starve themselves to non-functioning body weights which is fucking harmful no matter what body size/physique you are. 

when in the real world, away from celebrity magazines/shows, i was always telling my friends that i’d rather be their average weight/look like them so that our teachers would stop harassing me and making assumptions that i had serious eating disorders like bulimia/anorexia (which i fucking didn’t) or that my dad wasnt feeding me properly...... when again, in reality, i was legitimately naturally skinny and would eat like a pig, but it just wouldn’t show.... but the teachers refused to listen to my explanation bc to them i was apparently a lying devil child in the face of jesus. they just wanted to stick to their fucked up assumptions and accuse a child of “not being normal” and make out that i was “unloveable” under their standards. bc apparently that was easier for them, i guess. and why the actual fuck would you do this to a teenager anyway???? like it’s fucking beyond me.

like i would look in the mirror after a shower and hate myself bc i wasn’t what my teachers wanted me to be- which was ~curvier~ or at least have “some meat on my bones” when i literally can’t be/have/do either of those things bc i have a fast metabolism.

but anyway the REAL point of this post is that i now look in the mirror and say that “eh, it’ll do” when i look at my body... as a way to say that: yes. i have this body. and i like it. and fuck those piece of shit fucking teachers that always had the assumption that i was apparently starving myself, and that apparently my NATURAL body type wasn’t acceptable to be loved by someone else. 

and also that if you’re a teacher: PLEASE DON’T FUCKING HARASS KIDS ABOUT THEIR WEIGHT WHEN IT ISN’T YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS, THANKS. IT DOESN’T BLOODY HELP WITH BUILDING POSITIVE SELF-CONFIDENCE OR SELF-ESTEEM, YOU SMALL-MINDED, CONDESCENDING AND INSENSITIVE FUCKS.

honestly one of the most fucked up things that my teachers at catholic school told me during 2010-2011.... in the lead up to my year 10 formal/junior prom, was that in order to “get a real man of the church” (ie one of the boys in my year) to like me......

i had to basically sit down, shut up and make myself smaller in every way (bc in catholic school i was a Loud Mouth Opinionated Bitch™️ who always had shit to say, no matter whether it was actually smart/helpful or not... and who was always ready for a laugh/joke or a debate).... and on top of that, i was then also told to make sure that the boys in my year were “always right”..... meaning that i was never meant to point out that they were wrong about things, ever... (which was quite often, obviously) because, according to my teachers:  “the real men of the church don’t like women with opinions and the way that YOU behave. they like real women who do all of those things we’ve been telling you to do.” 

like yes i know the catholic church is notoriously patriarchal, sexist and misogynistic etc. but why the ACTUAL FUCK would you spit that sickening fucking bile at a 14-16 year old girl??? who most of her friends seemed to like for her outspoken and boisterous nature??? both MALE and female????? like what the actual fuck is your problem????

and what i loathed the most about the teachers that were shooting this absolute bullshit at me was that they were basically undercutting my experience (whether they knew about it or not) of the three boys in the year below me, who literally physically attacked me for money when i was in year 8.... all as if i was meant to excuse them with the “boys will be boys” bullshit. like i will never forgive and forget those creepy fuckers, who basically and easily could’ve done MUCH WORSE TO ME if they were just a little more violent, sexual, forceful and not at school. and you think those boys are the “real men of the church”????? and that i’m meant to just brush it off and act as nothing fucking happened??? when they fucking basically physically assaulted me???? please go fuck yourselves.

because y’all. this is one of my stories that illustrates why im scared of men and why i refuse to deal with them. like it still cuts me deep and makes me scared to this bloody day.... and it happened 10 FUCKING YEARS AGO. in 2009. my teachers were basically telling/insinuating to 14-16yo me that 13/14 year old her’s experience of male violence wasn’t fucking valid bc “men are always right”. they can go and fuck themselves.

like they preached and preached and preached about:

“acting justly, loving tenderly, and walking humbly with your god- michah 6:8″

(that was my school’s motto for funsies and it’s highlighted in the school colour blue).... BUT YOU’RE SURE AS ALL FUCKING HELL NOT DOING ANY OF THOSE FUCKING THINGS AT ALL!!!! YOU OVERLY ZEALOUS, OVERLY PIOUS, OVERLY SELF-RIGHTEOUS AND JUST PLAIN OLD PRETENTIOUS PIECES OF SHIT!!!!

bc like, surely parts of all those 3 things (loving tenderly, acting justly and walking humbly (with anyone not just god)) are:

•ACTUALLY telling people when they’re wrong....

•NOT brushing off violent behaviour under the rug... but calling it out intsead..... etc etc etc.

but no. apparently fucking not. apparently it’s more important to excuse men’s behaviour and shitty opinions and let them carry on being shitty people with loud mouths and boisterous behaviour...

all while the women have to make themselves smaller & be as quiet as mice; have no opinions and believe everything they do is wrong if they don’t act exactly the way that those men want; and the women also have to act as if they don’t have time for pointing out the the wrong behaviours/actions/opinions etc of those men... hahahahaha FUCK OFF. like if a man wants that from me..... and acts like that towards me.... then he ain’t a real man in my books. period. 

then my teachers wondered why i was so fucking desperate to leave... and the catholic church also wonders why millennials are leaving the church/the catholic faith in droves. like if you constantly tell a teenage girl to shrink herself for love from another person.... and then try to make out that other person is so fucking unobtainable and perfect in comparison to her (which is what my teachers were doing to me with the boys in my year for the formal etc)..... when she knows that those people aren’t really that great anyway...... it’s a wonder she wants to fucking escape that fucking unfriendly environment where she feels totally and wholly unlovable, impossible to deal with and invalidated etc.

get your fucking heads out of your fucking asses and realise that the “love of god” or the “holy spirit” and all that other religious bullshit that i got thrown at me in a way to be told to “love and respect myself as a proper christian/catholic woman would 😊😊” ironically, in turn, ARE NOT FUCKING ENOUGH TO BASE SELF LOVE AND AN ENTIRE FUCKING RELATIONSHIP ON. it breeds self loathing and feelings of uselessness and unwanted-ness and also numbness/depression/bitterness and a bunch of other negative emotions.... or at least it did for teenage me.... AND YOU STILL FUCKING WONDER WHY SHE WANTED TO FUCKING LEAVE. HONESTLY.

anyway. yeah. that’s another catholic school rant over lmao.

that meme that i just reblogged about being the weird girl just reminded me of how in my english class at catholic school from years 8-10, i was the girl that did everyone’s fucking work for them.... bc no one fucking bothered to read the goddamned assigned books we had.... and everyone always wanted me to edit their work; and to be a walking, talking thesaurus/dictionary... because they “just didn’t wanna do it” and “hated english”. like i really was the fucking backbone of each of those entire classes.... and i received no thanks for it lmao.

like sometimes i wonder how most of those people coped in the final years of high school without me to do their reading AND writing (in a way) for them..... and then how they survived uni/tafe/life after high school. lmao jokes.

pls don’t reblog this lmao.

my teachers to me at catholic school every fucking day back in 2011: you have very low self-esteem bc you’re so unladylike and unchristian with your dirty mouth and poor behaviour. what could’ve caused this??

me: my brothers in christ and sisters of sin you created this anxious and depressed mess with very unhealthy and unachievable “christian” standards of female presentation and behaviour. please fuck off

y’know i keep thinking about how i should just add all the extra curricular things that i wanted to do back in high school (eg school musical and rock eisteddfod/rocko at catholic school from 2008-2011) onto my resume, even though i never did them lmao. mostly because they’re solid examples for group/teamwork questions in job applications/interviews because you obvs work in a team of whatever role you chose to do. like mostly back in high school for both of these things, i was going to do stage work- so lighting/sound/props/maybe costuming etc- because i was terrible at singing (school musical) and pretty shit at following dance steps even when shown what to do (both rocko and musical).

however, as i’ve said on multiple posts on here (both OPs and commenting on big posts), the main reason i never did these two activities was because:

(A.) they came with a fee- rocko was like $80 for a crew jacket and participation and school musical around maybe $50 for the same thing (except replace the crew jacket for a shirt though)

and

(B). i wanted to go the fuck home after school and just veg out in front of the tv (all while avoiding my homework lmao)…. because the school day (9am-3:30pm) at catholic school wore me out not counting getting up at 6:45am lmao. i needed to rest. not spend like 3-4 hours extra back at school doing rehearsals… even though yes i knew they were necessary.

but yeah. if i said these truthfully to anyone i’d be looked at as lazy and unmotivated etc while i was at school. but why on fucking earth does my rest as a teenager not count??? why was i supposed to be constantly rushed off my feet into extra curricular (ECs later in this post) activities which even took up my lunch times as well, understandably, closer to performances. why did my rest times at school not count either???

i remember one of my friends trying to set up a book club at lunchtime or recess, but i never went. like you can all say i was a “terrible friend” or whatever….. but as the person who EVERYONE copied off and who everyone expected to read the set texts FOR them instead of doing it themselves; all while also editing everyone’s work in my english class, why the fuck should i give up my lunch or recess break for my friend’s book club (and esp after an english class period or double english lesson lmao)??? and especially if i ended up being the same person in the book club??? or give up my time for another club- like i remember the rest of my group doing the school yearbooks every year- or debate/parliamentary club or whatever other clubs were listed in the yearbooks every year??? why the fuck does my rest not count???

why try to force kids to give up their rest breaks at school (and also after school) all for “it’ll look great on your resume!”???? like bro i was 15!!!! why the fuck did i need to care about my resume??? okay don’t get me wrong, i was defs in the minority at catholic school for not having an after school job (even after we got our tax file numbers in year 9/2010), and everyone will probably say this is why i’m like “unemployable” and “unemployed” even in my late 20s.

but i truly just didn’t have the energy to do an after school job…. although i did sometimes cry about wanting one during my class meltdowns, and i did get a teacher to write me a reference letter that i never ended up using lmao. because i would’ve been stumbling into a 5pm-8pm (on a thursday night for example) shift at maccas or red rooster/kfc or kmart or target or sanity/jb hifi (where i was desperate to work bc music and tv trivia lmao) or wherever else; like a zombie half awake or whatever all because school tired me out and what i really fucking needed was a rest….. and not an after school job demanding my service, responsibility and mental bandwidth…. all so i could look like i was “put together” and a “normal, responsible and organised” or whatever the fuck teenager.

and imagine teen me on weekends too; where i was constantly getting up at like 11am to like 1pm or even later in the day in at the end of year 12. just why the fuck does my rest apparently NOT matter?? but imagine that kid then remembering that she had to rush to work on saturday or sunday??? or that she’d accidentally missed her double time and a half long weekend shift/public holiday shift or whatever on a weekend all bc she’d overslept her alarm by like 4 hours???? like whoops and unfortunate. i would’ve been fired after like 2 months or something if i’d done it frequently enough.

but like. why the fuck is a kid caring more about their rest and breaks not being interrupted for other activities to make them “busy” and probably some underlying “networking” thing, seen as lazy, unorganised and unmotivated??? and that’s besides the money and other factors that i listed above and have talked about before (ie family resources etc)…. like. let kids have their fucking breaks and rest both during the school day and at home after school…. instead of trying to force them into 10 billion different extra-curriculars and into after school jobs to be “organised and responsible” and “able to meet multiple priorities”….. when really the kid is probably really desperate for some time off to fucking cool off and reset and chill the fuck out….. instead of being whisked off to their shitty after school job (despite the money lol) at maccas where they’re constantly talked down to by customers or something.

or for extra curriculars both during the school day and after, what the kid is yearning for is a fucking rest between classes and after school, instead of feeling obligated once a week or something, to participate in the parliamentary club or language club or the school newsletter team or like i’ve said; the school musical and rocko (mostly because my friends did them and would try to convince me/really harass me that rocko was better than the school musical or vice versa lmao). they want a break from feeling pressured to meet bullshit “leadership” parameters and roles within their chosen interest club or as a school captain or something too if they were more inclined to entire school leadership positions; much like one of the girls in my catholic school group got for years 11 and 12 (she got school vice captain i think).

and honestly i think this is why so many kids leave school early (if you don’t count life circumstances and whatever else)…. like i nearly left school early at the end of year 10 in 2011, all because all the junk about having to do ECs and having an after school job and trying desperately to prove at catholic school that i WAS WORTHY of a leadership position just like my friends were (long story i’ve talked of before)……. on top of all the bullshit around the now defunct school certificate and grades and the hsc and my future with uni or tafe……. and also moving schools and my horrible period pain….. just burnt me the fuck out the point that i was depressed and anxious and just dreaded going to school every day….. that i ended up taking what i’d now term as “mental health days” but what my friends always termed as “faking sick” and “please come in! bc we’re sick and tired of teachers asking us where you are and also how you’re missing so much work!” to just escape school for either a day or a few to reset and recoup.

and i understand that everyone would suggest doing school by either homeschooling or by OTEN (distance learning here in australia)….. but i never had the home environment for it. or, as everyone’s picked up, i never had the organisational and time management skills for it lmao. like we all know what happened to my online library course literally 10 years later lmao 😂. i was burnt out and desperate for a rest, i started using library apps to avoid doing my assignments. bc i was desperate to read outside of my prescribed readings from all my years of uni. bc i just wanted to fucking read what the fuck i actually wanted to read, and not literary shit and academic papers anymore. something to help me fucking escape from being an adult lmao. and also the pandemic hit so for nostalgic purposes i went back to twilight and deltora quest lmao.

but yeah. my point is to let kids have a fucking break during their break times at school and after school too…. and i wish that a kid like me who was set on getting good rest back in school; rather than jamming their entire schedule with extracurricular shit to keep them distracted and “ready for managing multiple roles” or whatever the fuck, wasn’t labelled as “lazy, unmotivated, irresponsible and childish” against her very own friends who did all the shit that made them look “employable” and “responsible” and properly idk “networked” within the school community. why is rest demonised even when we’re kids???

and okay yeah this went off track of what it was originally about….. that i might just add the school musical and rocko to my resume even though i never did them lmao…. bc now who do i have for proof??? no one and take my word for it lmao.

i just had a random flashback to year 9/2010 while i was in catholic school, to when in one of my self defence friday sports lessons, the hella sexist and ableist instructor we had for it, gave his “best self defence for girls/women….. and it wasn’t any real self defence moves, obvs, bc according to him “women aren’t strong enough for self defence/karate, really” etc or whatever other sexist shit he spat out on this day…. but on this particular day his deep advice to a class of 14/15 year olds was “ladies always walk with your keys between your fingers bc that’s the only self defence method you really have ☺️”. like. bro. i was in HIGH SCHOOL why the actual fuck are you giving this advice to KIDS????

like instead of telling the boys in the class NOT to be trash human beings by attacking women….. instead you pin it on women and don’t/won’t give them any real or decent self defence moves to use bc apparently they’re “too weak and fragile” to pull them off in times of danger???? honestly i hope this man is no longer used as a self defence instructor by this school.

but i remember this was the comment that set off my friend who at that point, was a red or black belt instructor at her karate/taekwondo school….. and so she vs’d him with a bunch of wood blocks and kicked them in half and nearly knocked him off his feet. which to this day, is still one of the boss ass things i’ve ever experienced in a class…. even though i did try to stop her bc she’d sprained both her wrist and ankle at grading the previous week or whatever. but just like her, i was sick and tired of his sexist diatribes about women, so i was like “go for it cassie break his neck if you can”.

honestly i really wonder how on earth i managed to get through years 7 to 10 at catholic school when i skipped so much school because of my periods….. and by year 10/2011 my depression & anxiety/burnout/mental breakdown that was spurred on by the staff giving me daily guilt trips about correct “young christian woman behaviour and presentation” about getting me a “date” from a boy in my year for my junior prom/year 10 formal.

as i’ve said multiple times on this hellsite, when it came to my period, i tried to skip at least a week each month- which gives me an equal to a month off on school time over the 10-12 week aussie school terms. i remember my fuckin year 7 and 8 homeroom teacher begging me for literally like 20 S E P E R A T E or something absentee notes in year 8 because i spent so much time off in one term. i remember giving her one that had several absentee dates explained in it, but somehow that wasn’t enough for her. i never explained the rest of the absences from that term lmao. but you can bet that most of them were the period weeks where i was off for a week to a week and a half, depending on how debilitating my period wanted to be for that particular cycle/month.

and my friends never collected or sent me the homework to do, mostly because i’d tell them not to get it for me. so i’d miss like 3 consecutive days of double maths/double geography or whatever else we had for that week. the only lessons i’d force myself to in for, sometimes, no matter how bad my periods were, were double drama classes and possibly double english, then i’d fuck off back home, without explaining why i had to leave again. but that mostly happened when i had assignments due and especially in drama when you had to do a group assignment performance and the group would hound you to come in to perform with them, which is fair enough.

but the main reason i ALWAYS tried to stay home for my period was obvs because of PE. i absolutely fucking LOATHED participating in PE/sport lessons in general bc i never got along with the teachers bc you “never participate properly bc you have no care for teamwork” or whatever the fuck they’d try to guilt me with…. but it was FAR WORSE participating with my intense period pains. like the one incident of me screaming at the top of my lungs at my whole class to FUCK OFF in one year 8 friday lesson sport lesson in a game of volleyball…. that the male teacher that was on the school sport rotation kinda forced me to participate because i was finally actually in my sport uniform for once bc it was a friday (so the whole school wore sport uniform). but i obvs resisted bc yeah my friend was sitting out, but also because my period pains had made me double over in pain onto the floor of the school hall. but what does the male teacher do??? scream at me to get off the floor and to stop being overdramatic. and there was the point that silly & rebellious teen me didn’t want to go to sick bay when she really should’ve just fucking walked her ass down there so she could lie the fuck down lmao.

but generally when i participated in PE on my period, it never went down well. for instance, if we were playing some type of racquet game like ping pong or tennis or a batting game game like baseball/t-ball or cricket; i’d aggressively throw the bat or racquet into someone’s face and yell at them to fuck off. then i’d storm of the pitch/field or whatever we were playing on in a fit of tears and then also fight with the teacher on why the fuck i should just be able to sit out, for crying out loud. obvs most of the time this ended up with me going to the office to sit in the “purple room” to get counselled by one of the teachers that was a “pastoral care coordinator”- whatever the fuck that meant lmao. like i was kind of a danger to people on period while in PE lessons. how the fuck isnt that a good reason to either sit out or to not turn up to school at all in PE days on my period???

also i hated the change rooms on my period too…. bc i was never sure if or when i was going to throw up, or going to have any period stains pointed out, so it was just much better to change in a toilet stall. i’m pretty sure there were a few times that i did throw up (i threw up nothing in particular, just bile) and my friends wanted to tell the female PE teacher, but even telling the female PE teacher that i’d been sick before the lesson, wasn’t enough for them to be like “oh maybe she should sit out”….. or for her to tell me that my periods were absolutely fucked up; which i actually would’ve appreciated from and NEEDED to hear from even a PE teacher at the time.

because i NEEDED someone to validate (other than myself, bc obvs that wasn’t enough) that my periods weren’t altogether okay, considering that they were heavily disrupting my education. i was missing large chunks of the curriculum with having my period weeks off each month (if i was lucky). like obvs i didn’t and still don’t give a fuck about missing the sport side of things… but man…. for someone who struggled with maths so much, i missed loads of essential maths skills in the lessons that i missed. and yeah obvs there was the fact that i never paid attention properly in my maths lessons anyway; even though in hindsight, i KNOW that i should have lmao. but still. the amount of work i missed in everything else like history/geography/art/english/science/drama if it wasn’t a double period or an assessment performance period/religion (RE; although who gives a shit about this other than a catholic school lmao) is now immeasurable, and insurmountable when i think about it now.

i know i know. i should’ve told my friends. but with the amount of time that i was spending off, they’d label it as “faking sick again??” or the like…. and i was afraid that none of them would believe the extent of my period pain; even though they had seen bits & pieces of it in the antics i pulled in the unlucky PE classes…. or even in the periods when i went on my period and my period decided to hit HARD so i’d walk out of the room crying; citing “stress” and “anxiety” or “not coping with my workload” and whatever the fuck else i used to cover up my period pain. like to avoid all that, it was much better to stay home blaring my fave emo/pop punk etc bands and having like 6 advil to sleep all day,

and yeah there’s the turn around in years 11/12 in 2012 and 2013, when i transferred to the public school and also did tafe/tech college…. when i had to force myself to go no matter how bad my PP was all bc i didn’t want to fail my HSC/end of high school bs exams and class work/tests etc…… and most especially i didn’t want to fail my tafe entertainment industry class since it was the closed thing i had to drama class at public school. but the amount of times i ended up going to school in a daze and having my group point out that i “didn’t look well” or just straight up tell me to go home because i’d had 4 advil just to turn up for our stupid in class ancient history assessment or whatever the fuck; was so validating. actually i’m pretty sure they straight up told me to get checked by my doctor a few times too. the amount of times i turned up to my 4 hour tafe classes and almost passed out and also threw up bile in the womens toilets bc my PP was so fucking horrendous and also had to lie on the floor in those bathrooms hoping the pain would be relieved by lying on the cold tiles….. are uncountable.

the all time low concert i went to in august 2013, where very thankfully my period had let up for the said concert….. but the day after i again was basically almost immobile from the resurgence of my PP from that week that i threw up and needed 4 advil and an all day nap (not counting the late to bed night) to get over it. was not normal. i wasn’t functioning well. that one time i visited the catholic school in like 2013 and right after it i threw up and had bleeding so bad i was dizzy as fuck when i got home and was sick again??? devastating, i guess.

just. i’m posting this again to remind my younger female followers that if your period pain is so bad that you literally can’t go to school or go to concerts or do anything normally. please. just get checked. and yes i know doctors are pretty shit at listening girls and women in general, but please try to get help. even just get on the pill like i should have. try out different birth control methods to find out what works for you. because fuck. my high school years were a fucking mess because i had no idea how to talk about my periods with my friends and was afraid that no one would believe just how bad my cycles were. getting on the pill by 2016 (yes my early 20s!!!) was the best thing that ever happened for my cycles. i can function. i can do shit. i don’t absolutely DREAD my periods each month; even though cramps suck et al.

because, overall, i honestly don’t know how on fucking earth i passed school when i skipped so much of it…. all because of my fucked up teen hormones and ovaries lmao. like obvs i’m fine now, but god. if i’d spoken up earlier, the skipping off school would’ve been mitigated lol.

yknow while this hellsite continues on the whole religion discussion thing, i’d like to jump in on it with my experience particularly with leaving catholic school.

like aside from my angsty pop-punk/emo etc teen phase (which’ll obvs be weaved into story later on) that led me to have different views from the church and aside from the whole sexism thing that i endured over my year 10 formal/junior prom in 2010 and 2011 from staff there….. i found it within myself incredibly hard to leave there… mostly because i’d known literally 1/3 of my year group at catholic school since kindy/kindergarten or some other point in primary school.

this affected my choice to leave and it was quite tumultuous inwardly. knowing the safety and predictably of the people i was with for all those years was a comfort to me. i knew their parents due to parent mixer bbqs that we’d have after mother’s day and father’s day liturgies- although i hated the mother’s day ones mostly, due to personal reasons. but to leave that comfortable place for overly loyal, kinda sorta shy (although everyone who knew me at that school wouldn’t’ve described me as shy bc i was a very loud show off because of drama class 😅) and by year 10, very lonely, highly socially anxious and depressed, teen me was terrifying. it meant losing her friends and stability and she obvs hated that thought. it meant leaving the one one place she ever felt good at something, drama class.

obviously, after she did leave for public school, she visited the catholic school on a few separate occasions, to try and keep the connection “alive” or whatever the fuck she wrote in a fake deep status on her fb (that i now get in my fb memories every year lmao). but it all ended pretty badly, when everyone from that school stopped talking to her once high school finished. no one invited her out. or if people did try to invite her out, like a couple of people did, it always fell through…. and it made her feel like she was just a bad luck charm or whatever other low self esteem talk she was telling herself. there was quite a few moody statuses around that too lmao.

but yeah. leaving catholic school was a massive thing for me back then, because even though i hadn’t gone to church on sunday for literal Y E A R S at that point; i still had a strong pull to that school because i’d known SO MANY kids at that school from primary/elementary/grade etc school, regardless of their year group level. because if there’s one thing catholic school was good at, it was networking 😂. you knew everyone, and everyone knew you. it was safe, it was sound, so i didn’t want to leave.

but once you leave, you lose your friends and what almost felt like an extended family (although they obvs weren’t). but at the same time, i’d grown to hate the safety and almost insularity of the school, because as i mentioned earlier, you felt like you could predict how people would react or behave in class/events etc.

i felt the above distinctly, because as i’ve mentioned plenty on here, from years 7-10 i was a very emotionally demonstrative kid. in some classes (mostly religion and PE when i was bothered to participate) i’d end up in shouting matches with the teacher or other students…. or y’know just have a casual meltdown in the middle of class, which many people saw as “attention seeking” behaviour. i felt watched, i felt ready to snap, and to quote the ever present All Time Low i felt like the bridge lyrics from “therapy” (which was/is quite obviously somewhat partially about the price of fame and hollywood imo- but that went over teen me’s head at the time lmao):

“arrogant boy, love yourself so no one has to, they’re better off without you (better off without you). arrogant boy, cause a scene like you’re supposed to, they’ll fall asleep without you; you’re lucky if your memory remains”

like yes. i’ll admit those bridge lyrics being applied to this time is rather overdramatic, in hindsight, but hey. that was teen me for ya lmao. and don’t even get me started on applying ATL’s song “sick little games” to this at the time as well 😂😅. anyway. from all the “lms and i’ll tell you what i like about you” trend statuses that people were doing back then on fb, i’d gained the tag of “cool/chill girl”, my crush rich boy, once called me “outrageous” because of how loud i was and how willing in years 7-9 to scream out stupid song lyrics like “i want to fuck dog in the ass” by blink 182, fight song by marilyn manson and then idek probably my humps by black eyed peas at the top my lungs through the very few halls that that school had 😂😅. i was being purposely and annoyingly offensive most of the time.

but eventually, once it came to things like one of the girls in my group wanting to run for vice school captain and the other girls in my group A L W A Y S being given leadership positions (LPs)….. while i always had to apparently “repent” my behaviour by being made (in theory from my teachers) to sit alone at lunch because of my “embarrassing” and “unseemly” behaviour at the so-called “training”/ “retreat” days we had for things like being peer support leaders for the new cohort of year 7s etc etc. i felt like everyone was just waiting for me to leave…. and that they couldn’t stand my “embarrassing” presence and that i’d ruin my friends chances of being selected as co-captain or whatever other bullshit LPs they wanted to run for. but still. i felt like i couldn’t leave. just. how do you leave a bunch of people that you’ve known for so long???

and even when my teachers were nice enough to give me a chance in a leadership position once; in that dastardly bullshit internet safety workshop thing that they should’ve literally just hired a professional workshop co. to do….. but to save money they used students in my year group instead. so, instead of being marked by my teachers on this program; i was marked by the catholic education office. they had a lady come in from the ceo to judge/mark us while presenting…… and this lady went off at teen me for “not being professional, responsible and respectful” or whatever the fuck the woman told 15/16yo me…. which teen me then fired back with “i don’t have to be fucking professional and responsible!!!! IM FUCKING 15!!!!”.. so from then on i was never given an LP or any other type of “peer support” role against my friends who were littered with offers for them. mind you, i did call a whole room of 14 year olds “a bunch of cunts” or the like and then stormed out thinking that i’d made a solid point, so the CEO woman had a good reason 😂😅….. again in hindsight.

of course there was also the bitterness of teen me being angry at the english dept for not giving her a spot in the top class of english in her half of the year. but as i’ve said previously on other posts, i’ve forgiven this because i did essentially fail one shakespeare in class assessment in year 8 or year 9 😂. but i strongly felt this during my time at catholic school bc my friends believed that i should’ve been in the top english class too lmao.

but aside from those troubles and foibles, i still found it incredibly hard to leave. to leave the perceived closeness of that group of girls, who would sometimes walk me down to the office and sit with me in “purple room” while i waited for the teacher that had to act as my therapist almost lmao. even though i always told my friends to leave me be and go back to class bc i felt bad about dragging them out of class for so long.

but yeah. with all the above behaviour, the song lyrics to me at the time made sense bc teen me just felt so pressured to fit into the whole “funny, cool, outrageous girl” bs box that people had put her in…. but at the same time she wanted to escape it bc she was just *flyleaf voice* SO SICK of being laughed at instead of laughed with (atl weightless reference here kids) just because… like she DESERVED to be taken seriously for fucks sake, and not a be a “monkey do funny dance” person… she obvs felt this the most in drama class. where in the shakespeare unit, she picked a medley of romeo and juliet and taming of the shrew monologues to do for her monologue. although she nearly did lady macbeth throwing herself off the tower, to be hella edgy…. but she opted not to do that in the end. but she picked serious pieces bc she was sick and tired of being classed as the one trick pony go-to funny person.

okay. this really went off topic. but y’all get the point??? the decision of leaving catholic school was a hell of a ride for little 14-16yo me. it was confusing, terrifying and tied up in years of being overly judged and feeling like people wanted me to leave bc they were sick of me. it was tied up in years of mid-class meltdowns that had become kind of routine for me to have, and that people were just brushing me off as “attention seeking”…. but also ironically waiting for me to snap at any second for another wild shouting match or walkout; which would then make me look like i was “unruly” or “untameable/unmanageable” or whatever the fuck….. but i couldn’t take that anymore, for the final senior years. i HAD to leave it.

again it was hard to leave for loyal little teen me, despite how lonely and isolated she felt. why leave your friends when you’re comfortable??? but also: why stay in this toxic environment where people are just waiting for you to either shut the fuck up and put up with it or just blow up and absolutely lose your shit??? that’s just unhealthy asf. and the only unruly thing that’s happening here is the complete lack of mental health help or management in the aussie education system; but most especially in religious schools.

a few years back now, i wrote a big d&m post about this pic. about how in 2011, i was depressed/anxious, lonely and feeling lost. when i posted the pic originally in 2013, i was still very deep in that mindset as well.

however, 10 years on, i realise that those feelings, although brought on by the toxic environment i was in at the time (let’s not even get started on that), and my views of myself at 15/16 were false. life obviously had bigger and more dramatic things to give me at 25/26 than “you’ll never be desirable to men if you never learn to shut your mouth like a REAL WOMAN does” and such other poisonous comments i was receiving at school from staff. those comments were just a blip in time. but i’ve learnt that those comments were really a reflection of the gross patriarchal views of the church (as well as society in general) which i was so fucking happy to “escape from” (ah the dramatic queen i was) at the time by moving schools.... but those views are not a reflection of me as a person.

for everyone whose landed in teaching, please know that if you make these types of comments to your students, it really does affect them. it took me 10 years to grapple with and tackle my self esteem to the point where i am confident in who i am; all because some petty teachers didn’t like how outspoken and loud i was as at 15/16. like y’all. let teen girls be a bit feral, loud and opinionated. it doesn’t hurt for them to try that on and then discard it after a period of time, or possibly never (like i never have- except i’m no longer feral lol).

although many of my teen opinions that i find on tumblr through my archive or my facebook memories are problematic as hell and some of them i now find completely unrelatable..... at least i know i’ve grown in the years since. and it’s also funny that i don’t even look up to the musicians and actors that always bore the advice of “be yourself and see who likes you for you” or whatever the fuck general platitudes they gave for self confidence advice to fans; anymore. how times change.

and although these comments were extremely hurtful at the time, i have always known that i am more than my perceived desirability to men. i am obviously still loud and opinionated; but i know now that my opinion is sometimes not needed on things... which is unlike teenage me, who liked shooting her mouth off every 5 minutes just for funsies. i have always been whole on my own, and those comments were a counter to that belief.... because as patriarchal assholes always love to ask and state: “what is a woman without her/a man? nothing.” uh, no. she’s a whole ass person, you fuck. there’s a reason that one of my fave lyrics of all time is “im not here for your entertainment, you don’t wanna mess with me tonight”. to me, it means i’m not going to entertain anyone who thinks i’m not a whole ass person on my own. don’t fuck with me if you think a woman always needs a man to be whole.

basically the vibe of this post is just to let people grow in their own fucking time, and don’t try to force growth through guilt-tripping. personal growth is a messy ride for everyone. even more so today, with social media being such a general suck on people’s self worth.

a whole ass decade ago i was depressed, anxious, lonely and feeling lost. obviously, the lost bit is still there, because who doesn’t experience the lost feeling from time to time- and even more so during a worldwide pandemic -(that’s a big storm you’ve got coming honey)- but life is transitory and fickle. and yes i still have my down days. and yes i still grapple with my anxiety and depression. but i am enough. i am loved.

a whole ass decade ago i thought i was worthless, stupid and every other negative word in the dictionary. i felt numb and alone. in retrospect, i got through uni and still have my knowledge; even though i had to admit to myself that i had to drop out of my postgrad course due to burnout, and also realised that librarianship just wasn’t for me. i was also forced to quite literally physically feel things while in hospital, considering that i begged for anaesthesia for literally everything all the time 😂. bitch gotta feel at some point. might as well do it now.

back in 2011, i felt as though i couldn’t connect with anyone anymore. *just throw any mid 2000s/early 2010s emo song lyrics about feeling disconnected, inadequate and depressed here*. and yeah, it’s true. i still have those days where i feel like that. but i’ve got a few friends who like me for me, still. no matter how fucking messy i am.

personal growth hurts sometimes.... in every aspect of your being. growth is slow. and other times, incredibly rapid (such as my time in icu which is my decade reality check). and you know what? i got through it all as the ☀️ girl i was deemed as being back then 😂.

sometimes, in the end, you have to approach life from the sunny side up and laugh- which i can now do- since 10 years have come to pass to divorce me from my awkward, rebellious & punky teenage self. little miss sunshine has woken up to know that somebody loves her always (okay that’s my nephew) and continually lives in an endless pandemic hell as if every day is her weekend and every year is her year (okay not really- 2020 was a nightmare for everyone- let’s be real here). little miss sunshine knows that she’s whole on her own even on her bad days. she’s okay. and that’s fine.

or as one of my long time fave songs says: “stay awake, get grip and get out/you’re safe from the weight of the world/just take a second to set things straight/i’ll be fine even though i’m not always right/i can count on the sun to shine.” (c’mon we all knew this would come out).

y’know i just remembered how in year 6/2007, some of the kids in my year started pushing that i had a crush on this dude called nate who was in my class.... because we both had problems with our handwriting (like i had a macbook by that time to help with mine, and he still had a sloped plastic thing to put his book on to write evenly or whatever)...... and it was all bc we sat next to each other (and im pretty sure that was done on purpose by my teacher tbh) and talked every day.... etc etc etc. just basically all the normal dumb stuff that happens when you’re stuck with the same kids in your classes everyday.

however, it started culminating at discos and stuff as well..... bc no one would dance with us because we were “weird” or whatever (but i defs was weird though lmao).... so that then when 11/12 year old me walked up to this guy at the disco we had at the year 6 camp we went to.... because he was sitting alone on the sideline of the dance floor for some reason and pre-teen me felt sorry for him..... so she asked him to dance because IT’S! THE! FUCKING! NICE! THING! TO! FUCKING! DO!.... basically everyone obvs went: “SEE OUR PREDICTIONS WERE RIGHT!!! YOU DO HAVE A CRUSH ON NATE!!! SEE???!!! STOP LYING!!!! ASK EACH OTHER OUT ALREADY!!!! AND FUCKING ADMIT IT/MAKE IT OFFICIAL!!!! AND BE BOYFRIEND AND GIRLFRIEND PLEASE 😊😊!!!!!’” as if it automatically proved the matter of me and this dude having crushes on each other.

but like..... we were bloody 11/12????? why the fuck do you expect 11/12 year olds to date/be a couple etc???? like what in the FUCK???? we were kids and i was just being fucking N I C E????!!! why the fuck can’t people leave C H I L D R E N (like other kids as well tbh) alone with this shit??? because we were in primary/grade/elementary or idefk middle school??? why on fucking earth would you pressure 12 year olds to be a couple anyway??? this came from teachers for a bit as well.... but more often than not, it was from the kids in our year. and that’s because this behaviour was probably learnt from their parents or the media that they watched or whatever. 

so, what im saying.... to this generation of new teachers and also parents, i guess is..... PLEASE for the love of fucking god, don’t do this to kids in bloody year 6!!!! okay yes, i know puberty and the “birds and the bees” and everything else is obvs beginning around those ages... and that’s probably why people were pushing this so hard (mostly the kids bc kids are dumb)..... but that is not an excuse for this behaviour from adults or kids.

parents: don’t encourage your kids to bully/harass other kids into relationships/dating or whatever the fuck you’d call it at FUCKING 11/12 Y E A R S  O L D.... bc this seriously fucked me up with the whole transition to high school thing.... because after this shit blew over a little bit (but not much), I ended up crushing on a dude at the competing catholic primary school that we went to for a high school introduction development day; or whatever the fuck they called it. this then gave me a weird obsessive crush on that dude (he was in my group that day) with the nate guy being in my group, as well some other kids from my school who were like: “how dare you crush on that boy from the other school when nate is right next to you???”; or whatever fucking dumb shit i got that day.

the dude from the other school that i crushed on that day, however..... ended up going to the same high school as me though (unlike nate who went to the competing catholic high school)...... and he was the boy that then followed me around for nearly the whole first term of year 7 asking me “IIIISSS IIIITTTT TRRUUUEEE???” super obnoxiously, to make fun of the fact that i had crush on him (which was partially my fault, bc 12/13yo me had a meltdown about having a class with him and he heard the whole thing 😂) lmao. like y’all this was the most mortifying time lmao. like y’all see how much this entire situation was fucked, yeah? like leave kids alone with this, no matter which way it is????

and now that i think about it... it’s probably something that my inner voice reminded 14/15yo me about when she had that godawful like 3 week or something “relationship” with clear braces boy in year 9/2010 that i felt i was harassed into by my entire year group, which made it similar to the nate sitch. like it did fuck me up, man.

STOP PRESSURING KIDS TO “DATE”/BE “BOYFRIEND & GIRLFRIEND” AT A YOUNG AGE 2020 AND FOREVER!!!! LEAVE KIDS BE FRICKIN KIDS 2020 AND FOREVER!!!!

i guess is what I’m trying to say here.

i’ve hated golf ever since i had this one fucking annoying dude in my homeroom in year 7 (and just in some of my classes once he moved out of my homeroom in year 8, i think) at catholic school, who would distract every class we were in together, with questions etc about fucking golf. i was always ready to knock this dude out with my table or chair in any class where he asked questions about it.

like. no, fred. god does NOT give a fuck about your chance of getting a hole in one or what-the-fuck-ever in your saturday game. shove both your fake and boring ass prayer intention in RE.... and your distracting the parabola of a golf ball’s arch etc bullshit in maths..... right up your goddamned ass.

let my imaginary llama elected by nasa to go space, named sadie, to take the cake of pretend prayer intentions in RE.... and also let me struggle with my maths class work in fucking peace. goddamn it. fucking golf. honestly.

y’know if there’s one long running theme I’d like to stop in kids/tween/teen shows in the 2020s and beyond..... it’s that awful one where it’s kids who constantly interrupt the class and never do their work or skip class and end up in “summer school” are always the “cool kids”..... and then the priggish, uptight and studious characters, like, say, the comparisons between zack and cody or even maddie on the suite life of zack and cody or lisa vs bart on simpsons or even hermione vs the weasly twins in HP..... were always looked down on etc. but yeah, it was always more obvious in american shows on disney channel or nickelodeon and whatever else I watched.

like, I felt this super deeply in high school mostly; bc for the bulk of high school (years 7-10) i framed myself as the loud, semi-disruptive kid, with some annoying witty remark; to seem cool and funny. but then this backfired on me in 2011, at my year 10 formal/junior prom, when I wasn’t voted the “funniest person in the year” as a formal award..... whereas one of my friends in my group ended up being voted “most likely to succeed in life” or whatever the fuck.

it made teenage me super fucking bitter; because she realised that after all of her “work” trying to build up her “image” as the annoyingly witty semi-priggish kid...... and then the stupid fuckin kid who would actually ask the her teachers to go to the bathroom during class in maths and italian etc.... and then purposely spend literally 40mins out of class just fixing her hair in every bathroom etc.... that she wasn’t even fuckin playing hooky properly. like was all of this a waste to prove that I was “cool” and “memorable??!” or was I really just THAT IRRELEVANT in my year group that everyone actually found me annoying and not “cool” ??? like why should my friend get an award and not me???

bc i was so bitter like: “how dare they not fucking appreciate all the effort that I did to make myself seem “cool” and unbothered and “idgaf” all the time in an environment where everyone was so up themselves, and so self-righteous??? so much so, that literally only one of my friends in that group actually invited me over their house for a sleepover???? like fuck y’all.” thought 16yo me.

there was also that one time I had two girls actually pressure me to play hooky and hangout in the bathroom to skip class, I said no lmao. I couldn’t even skip class right lmao bc i actually asked for permission to skip class, practically. like yeah. so I was weirdly nerdy cool anyway. or so I thought.

bc i actually sat with girls who were nearly all deans scholars or honours students when they finished uni. so their atars (uni entrance scores nsw) at the end of high school were literally 80-90..... while I was just aiming for 50 without studying bc i felt like everyone from both schools at that point, thought I was too stupid to get anything close to 70 as a final mark both with studying, let alone at all anyway so I ended up with 38.25 instead (aside from other factors)....

and the above is bc i was never used to being a high achieving student; all bc i thought it was cool from years 7-10 to barely ever turn in my assignments and fuck around in class for the bulk of high school..... all to be like the bart simpson’s and the zack martin’s; instead of the lisa simpson’s/maddie’s/hermione granger’s etc etc etc. so once i started getting good marks in years 11/12 when I swapped schools; I couldn’t contain for the whole time bc it was just too much responsibility.

so yeah, from this decade onwards.... can this shitty trope where the nerdy-type characters like the lisa’s/maddie’s/hermione’s/cody’s are always seen as priggish, stuckup and prude etc are always seen as downers and seen as a negative trait (minus when it’s actually an incel type character)..... whereas the disruptive and annoyingly loud & witty kids are always “cool” bc it really does fuck up some kids ability to have good grades and stuff, like it did for me.... all because they don’t want to seem like the stuckup know it all, just like one to the girls in my group was. 

but yeah. teach the future gen z or whatever the next gen of kids is called, that being smart like hermione and cody martin is actually good... and that being the forever disruptive kid whose always “in summer school” bc they never do their work is not exactly a good thing to be.

y’know i didn’t mind maths as a subject until year 3, where the teacher we had for maths on like a wednesday or whatever decided to scream at me from my desk and be all like: “HOW DARE YOU NOT HAVE A NEAT MATHS BOOK??? YOU CALL THAT A TRACED SQUARE???? WHATS WRONG WITH YOU??? SEE CHILDREN!!! THIS IS THE TYPE OF WORK WE DONT WANT IN YOUR MATHS BOOKS!!!! *shows my maths book to the class and tears the page out* DRAW/TRACE THAT SQUARE AGAIN!!! AND DO IT PROPERLY AND NEATLY THIS TIME!!!!!”

when my condition literally made me (and still makes me kind of) unable to trace shapes or draw graphs precisely.... and gave me page space issues and stuff where I couldn’t write in straight lines for doing sums where I had to carry numbers over or just generally when you had to write the numbers one on top of the other.... or even write in graph paper squares properly. like it really fucking sucked and made me loathe and fear maths from then on in school. like so much so, that I gave up on it completely and failed it in year 10; and also ended up purposely doing an events management course to get out of maths classes in years 11 & 12 bc i knew I’d fail the exam for it due to my poor book and exam presentation in maths.

like y’all if I wasn’t treated like the above by that particular maths teacher in primary school, as well as others in high school; maybe i would’ve liked maths more and tried to continue with it past school. like yes I know most of maths is about being precise (as is science, which I soon didn’t enjoy bc of the ever present enemy of maths)..... but that doesn’t fucking mean you tear out the page of a bloody 8/9 year olds kid’s book in front of the entire class and fucking shame them by telling the class that this is how you don’t present your maths book.

bc the only place that the above never happened was special ed, which was great. and also kinda sucky. bc special ed gave me maths work that was way under me in year 5, when my year group had started to do algebra questions... that they called “working mathematically”.... where everyone else in the class would get the classic farm animal legs question, where a dog or whatever has only 3 legs and that’s the answer to the question.... and similar questions every week..... but instead i literally got 4+5= 9 and other super easy problems over and over and over again.... so when i got to basic introductory algebra in year 7, i literally had no fucking idea what to do with it, and couldn’t like translate the algebra question language to numbers or whatever.

the above literally fucked me up so much in maths that it blocked me out from doing any maths related subjects like statistics that was a core subject in sociology/criminology and psychology majors/degrees, as well as science subjects at uni..... and like I know that I have to learn maths for jobs and stuff.... but I’m so terrified of having a tutor that’s my age (24) do the same bullshit that the year 3 maths teacher and other maths teachers did to me in school.

like why the fuck can’t i just avoid maths for my whole entire fucking life???? and also I know I shouldn’t be afraid of this in my 20s and in adulthood at all.... but I am??? like it’s the failure side of things I suppose???? like idk y’all. I’m just so terrified of maths lmao. bc if I’d had one teacher who’d had the fucking patience and care to read my messy asf maths work properly, maybe I would’ve enjoyed maths more and not have failed it in year 10...... then purposely avoid it ever since then.

finally, don’t even get me started on the fucking ridiculous rant my year 6 teacher had at me once for ruling my margins in my other subject books with the inches side of my ruler instead of the cm side of my ruler... bc for some reason I ruled straighter margins with the inches side than the cm side 🙄🙄😅😅.

and one last thing: if you’re training to be a maths teacher, please DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS!!!! because if you alienate kids from maths like these teachers did to me, they’re going to be terrified of it and never go back to it for the rest of their lives lmao. let them have a fucking messy maths book for fucks sake. treat kids with learning disabilities with handwriting like mine with care and patience in maths, instead of focusing so entirely on neatness and preciseness, and maybe then they will actually fucking like maths.

anyway here’s a rant for november.