Downward Spirels

Many, many years ago when I was in grade school, I attended a Parochial school.  Rumor had it that from this elementary school came the "smartest" kids of the 3 elementary schools that made up our High School.  I don't think that this was anything statistically proven, but being I attended this school, I always heard this.  The method of teaching in this school worked well for most kids.

I started out one of 52(!) first graders.  I remember very little  about the first few years there, but it was likely easy for a little girl to remain anonymous, so things were OK for awhile. I think I was hard-wired  a shy introvert, but on top of that, I operated best then and now at slow speed. I also grew up in an alcoholic home where, I have learned, that feeling invisible is not uncommon.  I probably felt secure being anonymous since that is what I was used to.  My problems came when the class dwindled down to a tolerable number of students and I was noticed.

In my school, when anyone was instructed to read aloud in any subject, they had to stand up at their desk.  I don't suppose this bothered anyone else, but it made me feel conspicuous.  This simple case of stage fright made made me stumble over the words, which made the stage fright escalate into something akin to panic.  This, of course, made stumble even more. 

Then someone decided that our school needed to adapt a self-paced, reading program called SRA.  At a certain time each day we all picking up our color coded folders for each level of ability.  I don't remember what the highest color level was, but the lowest level was bright orange.  The color on the folder with my reading material in it seemed like a neon light!  I felt like everyone could see that I was on the lowest level, and I felt stupid.  The folders contained cards with stories written on them, and after the stories were questions about the story testing your comprehension and speed of your reading.  I don't remember how  we were timed, but I always ran out of it.  Sometimes I didn't even have time to finish the story.  Consequently, I didn't answer any of the questions, and technically got them all wrong.  When I was able to finish I did answer some questions, they were always correct, but I couldn't move on until met all the requirements. I was on the orange level for a long time.

Thinking back on all this now, I believe my low self esteem came from my grade school reading experience.  I came to believe that slowness equaled stupidity.  We live in a fast-paced world.  My slowness caused fear that others were always judging me poorly.  That fear caused me to fail and that failure caused me to feel so uncomfortable that I didn't want to be around people.  All of this probably added to my poor employment record, which brought on shame that I felt like I could not take care of myself financially-like a "normal" person.

My life suddenly makes sense! I have uncovered where the shame I have been carrying with me for years came from.  I think this may be a major breakthrough for me as much as realizing that my Higher Power was there by my side through it all.