Today's post will be a very long one. I went ahead and wrote about my bad experience with school because this is one of the reasons why I struggle with my weight and emotional eating. I thought by typing it out, I will finally get it out of my system and be able to grow from it and take care of the emotional eating issues.
I had a weird childhood in terms of schooling. When I was age 5 to 11, I was at the residential school for the deaf. I was an outcast because I was a big fat kid, way too smart for my own good and very young. I was not with peers of my own age, I was with kids 2 years older than me. I had to skip a grade so that I wouldn't be bored in class and call teachers dumbasses and stuff like that.
in 4th grade, a new student came to school and this group of people were taunting me, so he decided to join that group of people and taunt me. I got so mad that I ran and pulled out a good chunk of hair out of his head. But today, he and I are close friends. He realized how good of a person I am. Then in 5th grade, I was stabbed with a pencil because my other classmates urged my roommate to stab me to prove that he wasn't my friend. Of course the punishment was I had to move to another room and got new roommate.
The next year, I moved to the middle school (grade 6-8). I was only 10 years old living among the guys from age 12-16. That year was the worst year ever...I got picked on because I had deaf parents, my cousin was 2 grades ahead of me, she tried her best to help me out, but she couldn't do much. The staff pinpointed me as a trouble maker and would be on my back about every little thing I have done, what many others would have gotten away. It was the first time I pondered on the idea of suicide. The situation has gotten so bad that I got one week suspension from school and got sent home. That was when I finally had a long talk with a family friend and asked what I could do to change the whole thing. She suggested that I develop a hobby and not do anything that would get me in trouble. So when I got back to school, I saved my seeds from the apples and oranges I ate and I planted them in a pot. I was so excited when they sprouted. A staff took noticed that I was always trying to be good so that I could check on my "trees" so he said "if you are good for one week, I will give you two walnut saplings" so that was my reward. I was good all week until that night before when another student out of the blue punched me in the nose and I was screaming in pain. He told the staff that I kicked him so he punched me. I told them I didn't do anything, I was minding my own business, doing my homework. The staff believed the student and I was punished. I couldn't go out that weekend, couldn't get my allowance until the following week.
That year, my academic studies suffered, I went from an A student to D/F student. The principal knew something was wrong. He kept encouraging my parents to consider relocating me to a public school with an interpreter. He thought I would do much better being at home away from a hostile environment. He also recommended that in an Individual Education Plan meeting that I be a candidate for part time schooling at the local public school. The committee vetoed the idea because of my grades. The committee also put me on a strict diet because I was overweight. The counselor said that I was looking for attention and that I would do anything to get some kind of attention including getting myself all beaten up. That was the very same counselor who told me pointblank that all the troubles I have is my own fault.
Came back to the same school, same dorm, same classrooms the next academic year, only stayed there for 3 weeks. Within the first few days, I had enough. I lost my temper at dining room, slammed the tray with everything on it. Broke it all, and I screamed "I am sick and tired of you all picking on me, you *bleep* are no help. I know you are friends with my parents, why don't you help me?" after that, I ran out of the building and kept running until I collapsed and I cried so hard that I hyperventilated and fainted. I was woken up by the Dean of Student Life, he took me to the infirmary and then he said "You are moving to another dorm." Well, I was 11, I was moved into a high school dorm. Of course I was good, I was scared for my own life. But those guys knew my parents and they knew me so they watched out for me, and kept me safe. Then I insulted a teacher by saying "Hey you dumbass..." so the principal had to call a meeting to deal with this because I was being distruptive in class. My mom said "I have had it, I am taking Tomas out of here." and she did.
I was in 7th grade at the deaf school, when I moved to a public school, I was held back two years because I wasn't with my age group and they said that 5th grade would be a good place for me to start. I had a choice of picking 5th or 6th grade. I was scared of 6th grade because my brother was at that school the year before. So onward to 5th grade I went. The excitement of being a new student wore off quickly when my classmates began to realized I am different. Kind of hard to miss that when I required an interpreter. the only thing that stood out in that year was I got in trouble for asking what the person said to me. It turned out that he called me "Geek" and I had no idea what it meant so I asked my friend. Another girl heard me asking so she went to my interpreter and told her. My interpreter told me that I should NEVER EVER say that word to anyone.
The rest of my academic life at a public school was a lot of lonely times, not many would take the time and effort to chat with me even when they know that I can talk. It was as if I had a disease and that if they were my friends they would be deaf as well. I had "friends" but they were teachers, the librarians, the secretaries. One day I decided to skip school. I showed up wearing shorts when I shouldn't be wearing shorts and I left the school property, ran around downtown. Of course I knew that I would be facing consquences when I came back to school so I decided to deal with it at the end of school day. My parents and my shop teacher found me lurking around a building next to the school. I walked in the office to get my punishment from the principal. The guidance counslor came out of his office and saw me. He immediately said "I don't know what to do with you Tom, I never expected this kind of behavior from you. From your brother, yes, but not from you. Just come back tomorrow, Principal and I will deal with you." My interpreter then took over and started to yell at me in sign language saying "If you were my son, I would whip your butt until it is all red and ground you for a long time." My reply was "Well, you are not my mom, she is right here" and I pointed at my mom. My mom replied "He is just a kid, I know him, he won't do it again.
From that time on, the staff wouldn't trust me when I called in that I was sick. My interpreter would come over to my house to make sure I am really sick. I finally got mad at the principal and said "do you do that to all of your students? if no, then you can't do it to me, it is not fair." He agreed with me and told my interpreter to stop doing that.
My interpreter quit in middle of my freshman year, I quit as a crew member for the drama production and couple of other student organizations because I knew I needed that time to study and prepare myself for classes. Since I had no interpreter, I had to come to class prepared with notes and then spend the whole hour guessing what my teachers were saying when I was lipreading them. It was tough but I made it with A's and B's. I moved to another school district and I was so alone the entire two years I was there, then finally my senior year, I made friends in my homeroom and I had a teacher who really cared about what I wanted to do. She encouraged me to go to college. She let me come in her classroom an hour early and let me do what I wanted to do. She knows that I will get my homework done. She lets me miss her class if I needed to do other things because I am almost always ahead in her class. I almost didn't graduate that year. I was failing a class that I must pass for graduation. But I made it. I was so lonely and I was also struggling with my sexual orientation. On top of all that, I also struggled at home, which by itself is a whole other story.
