Holiday memories

[fbhjr]

When I was just starting in school, I was correctly assessed to have a
number of “learning disabilities” that almost had me kept back in
kindergarten and did have me placed in special needs classes in first grade.
I was also hyperactive. When excited, I liked to twiddle my fingers.

Just after I turned 6 in the fall 1969, when in first grade, I was put on
Ritalin.
I didn’t know what it was at the time. I only knew it was something my
mother told me I had to take. It was more than a decade later that she
told me what it was.
I was told I had to take it because I was sick and this was the medicine
for my sickness.

And, there was no doubt that when I was taking it I felt sick.
It was like living my life in jello. Everything was slow. I couldn’t
think, I couldn’t understand, I couldn’t react to what was going on around
me.
I remember sitting in front of the TV with some animated Christmas special
playing while I ate some candy someone had given me.
“You know you’re supposed to take the wrappers off, right?” my mother asked
me as she walked past.
I looked down and realized I had been eating them with the paper wrapper on
them and hadn’t noticed.
I remember going to lie down on the couch and my brother running over and
jumping up and down on me. I didn’t do anything to stop him because I
couldn’t think of what to do to make him stop.

After only a few days of this, my mother stopped giving it to me.
She sat me down at the dining room table with her and put the bottle of it
in front of me.
“Do you like taking that?” she asked me.
“No, it’s horrible,” I replied.
“You’ve been told to take it because you scare your teacher,” my mother
told me.

I found this hard to believe. I was six. I was the third youngest in my
class, which was the youngest class on the playground at recess. So, I was
third youngest on the playground and without friends. (The two people who
had been my friends had been held back in kindergarten and had recess at a
different time.) I could not believe anyone would be scared of me. (This
is to a large extent still true. Intellectually I know I’m a 49 year old,
6 foot 3 inch person. But, that feeling of being the youngest and smallest
has never totally left me.)

“Your teacher is afraid because she doesn’t like you playing with your
fingers,” my mother said. “So, if you do that, you have to take the
medicine. If you don’t play with your fingers, then you don’t have to take
it.”
The deal was struck. I would not let anyone see me play with my fingers
and I would not have to take the dreadful medicine again.
At the end of the year, my teacher told my mother what a wonderful
difference the Ritalin had made in my behavior. I no longer fidgeted in
class and paid much closer attention to her.
It was only then that my mother told her I hadn’t been taking it for the
previous five months.

I still do it. I do my best not to be caught.
Two of the things I developed to cover it are cracking my knuckles and
biting my nails. That first grade teacher did both of those things, so was
a viable cover for twiddling my fingers.
Over the decades both have become independent habits as well.

Why was I thinking about this last night as I again was in the dentist
chair?
Since I was six, I always used the same tooth to chew on my nails. It was
one of the ones the dentist fixed last week.
The new shape of it makes it harder to chew my nails. And, the new
sensation of it is not good.
For the last week, for the first time in 43 years, I have not been chewing
on my nails as every time I start it feels unpleasant.

“How are those new fillings?” the dentist asked me last night.
I hesitated for a moment.
“They’re fine,” I said.
“Excellent,” he said. “Now let’s get the others going.”

It’s time for me to stop being afraid of my first grade school teacher. I
can give up one of the covers now.

Comments

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

I sucked my thumb until I was seven. Then once I was finally broken of that habit, I chewed my nails to the quick for my entire childhood. My fingers were often raw and bleeding.

How did I stop?

Knowing my family history, it shouldn't be any surprise that the moment I left home (for boarding school) I stopped biting my nails. Haven't done it since.

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

Even the dark, ugly looking clouds can have some sort of a silver lining!

[ravena-kade.livejournal.com]

The "Your teacher is afraid of you" comment broke my heart. I have had a 7 year old say they want to rip nipples off of people and that was scary, but fiddling with your fingers. You are such a success story on how to overcome rotten nurturing and learning disabilities.

I have some nervous issues that didn't come out until I was a preteen but no one was afraid of me, they just tried to humiliate me without trying to find out that they were the cause of the issue.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Wow.