Writer's Block: Life's lessons
Mar. 4th, 2011 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchance[Error: unknown template qotd]
Dear Ms. 7th Grade,
It is really deeply inappropriate to force a 13 year old with body issues into a shower. Especially when it's just you and the 13 year old. No, I don't really care if you're both female and if your intentions were good. We didn't have that kind of relationship, where you were a kindly mentor and I was the adoring student who really wanted to know if you thought I sufficiently washed my hair. You humiliated me in every math class, you watched my classmates humiliate me and told me I ought to try harder to fit in, and then you took it that step further and forced me, naked and crying, into a shower. You told me I was unclean. You told me I stank. You told me my mother, who left, should've addressed this.
Fuck you, lady. I've had issues with my body, my scent, my hygiene, ever since. My self-harming started the year after, and I'm not saying that it was your fault; I'm saying it was a trigger among many triggers. I didn't need that shit.
Also, if you suspect a kid is being abused, don't ask them point AFTER you force them to be naked in front of you, AFTER you shove them under a too-hot shower and watch them soap themselves to your satisfaction.
I hope to God that you never did that to another kid. I wish that anyone had reacted with anything but dull "well, she was trying to help you!" advice when I told them what you'd done. I wish you were removed from the position of influencing children. I wish I knew that you had retired in disgrace, but you didn't. You went on, didn't you. People like you always go on.
I wish I could forget your fucking face. I wish I didn't gag when I smell apple-scented shampoo, still, even after all this time.
I wish I could tell myself, chubby awkward little teenage me, that it was her damage, that not everyone could smell the stink and sin on me, that nobody was going to take me from my father, that in time I'd be away from that fucking school and that I'd be happy. It'll be all right.
Dear Ms. 7th Grade,
It is really deeply inappropriate to force a 13 year old with body issues into a shower. Especially when it's just you and the 13 year old. No, I don't really care if you're both female and if your intentions were good. We didn't have that kind of relationship, where you were a kindly mentor and I was the adoring student who really wanted to know if you thought I sufficiently washed my hair. You humiliated me in every math class, you watched my classmates humiliate me and told me I ought to try harder to fit in, and then you took it that step further and forced me, naked and crying, into a shower. You told me I was unclean. You told me I stank. You told me my mother, who left, should've addressed this.
Fuck you, lady. I've had issues with my body, my scent, my hygiene, ever since. My self-harming started the year after, and I'm not saying that it was your fault; I'm saying it was a trigger among many triggers. I didn't need that shit.
Also, if you suspect a kid is being abused, don't ask them point AFTER you force them to be naked in front of you, AFTER you shove them under a too-hot shower and watch them soap themselves to your satisfaction.
I hope to God that you never did that to another kid. I wish that anyone had reacted with anything but dull "well, she was trying to help you!" advice when I told them what you'd done. I wish you were removed from the position of influencing children. I wish I knew that you had retired in disgrace, but you didn't. You went on, didn't you. People like you always go on.
I wish I could forget your fucking face. I wish I didn't gag when I smell apple-scented shampoo, still, even after all this time.
I wish I could tell myself, chubby awkward little teenage me, that it was her damage, that not everyone could smell the stink and sin on me, that nobody was going to take me from my father, that in time I'd be away from that fucking school and that I'd be happy. It'll be all right.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 10:43 pm (UTC)