Dear Teacher

With our children going back to school this week after the christmas holiday’s don’t forget to check in on how they’re feeling about it. If they are complaining about a teacher take the time to sit down and see exactly what’s bothering them. You never know how it could effect them long term.

**Trigger Warning, this post contains references to self harm and mental health. This is my personal experience**

Dear Teacher,

You’re never going to read this letter but I feel the need to write it. I left school over 13 years ago yet the way you treated me torments me still to this day. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you chose me to be your target. The sly remarks, nasty comment’s, singling me out and embarrassing me in front of the whole cass almost every single lesson.

I would cry at home the night before your class knowing what would be coming that next day. I’d beg my parents to stay home. A subject I once thrived in, I then failed and grew to hate. Even year’s later when I tried to better myself a pass again, I could’t get your voice out of my head telling me I’d ‘never amount to anything’.

No matter what I did it was never enough. You knew the struggles’ I was going through yet still you went out of your way to make me feel like I was drowning in what felt like a never ending nightmare.

I once spent hour’s in A&E gettng my hand seen to, with no sleep and in alot of pain I still made it into school with my arm in a sling the following morning. Yet you spent the whole lesson telling me how ‘pathetic’ I was because I couldn’t write with my non-dominant hand. When I kept trying and dropping the pencil you would laugh at me followed by telling me off even though you knew I had co-ordiation difficulties which was why I couldn’t grip the pencil.

I often had to miss school due to my health. I’d spend days in hospital linked upto machines and IV’s fighting to get through the next health scare terrified of what procedure I’d have to have next. Another surgery?? More painful tests?? Then one day I’d had awful news after being in hospital for a week, when I returned for school you started by shouting at me for not doing the homework that was assigned while I was in hospital. When I told you what was going on you laughed in my face in front of the whole class and said “If you were a dog they’d have put you down by now and if you were a horse they’d have shot you and given up on you”. Then you laughed and most of the class laughed with you. That day would stay stuck in my head for the rest of my life.

You would never realise the damage you did to me. I held strong for 4 years but that last comment would change me for the rest of my life. I stopped trying, not just in school but in life. My self worth plummeted and self harming became a daily thing. My last year of comp you dropped me out of your class and it was the best thing you ever did for me. That I can’t thank you enough for.

All these years later your name still sends shivers down my spine and tears sting my eye’s. I still hear your voice, humiliating me and telling me how pathetic I am. But now I know how wrong you were. I am worth so much more than you will ever be. I am kind and caring. I may not have a cure to my illnesses but I’m beating them every single day because my life is worth living!!

Regards

The Pupil You Never Gave A Chance…

Also see HERE my post on tips to help you with a child who is showing signs of anxiety.