Before my issues with SM I had a fairly healthy relationship with the way I talked and speaking. I would have had stronger vocal chords also cause I used them confidently and they were being used enough not to get weaker. I used to get compliments for my speech and used to be quite good a talking. In fact, I was one of the best speakers to most people around me. But my anxiety started growing when I began going to school and with my autism I didn't cope with the environment or routines.
Rejection and ostracization in childhood can lead to anxiety. I was treated this way since I started going to school and onward. I believe that my peers saw me as weird cause I didn't act like how they did. I was a neurodivergent child and they must have noticed that in me. I'm not sure what I did that made them uncomfortable for sure but they ended up not including me in any activities and would alienate me entirely from everything social. This was before I couldn't talk at school but this was where my anxiety and trauma started building.
In kindergarten I would have no friends to play with at lunchtime, and I remember everyday I would go around and ask every group of friends if I could play with them. Most times it wasn't anything too extreme to ask for. I even asked them if I could just play with them for that day only and then I would promise not to ask again. I wasn't asking to be friends for life, It was a one time thing only. To me this sounds a bit messed up because a child should never have to do something like that. They should be taken into friendships by open arms and open hearts. Even the fact that I knew they didn't really want me around makes me feel so sorry for that little, innocent girl. I didn't do anything to deserve that. I'm so sorry she thought it was honestly all her fault.
So when I would ask them if I could play with them they would always say no. Some would even tell me to go away and play by myself. The teachers taught us to welcome a child to play with them if they were being left out. It confuses me as to why they wouldn't actually do what they were told. That's the only right thing to do and the kindest action.
So what I did everyday, I would go to my own place where there was this specific tree and what I would do was spin, skip and dance around the tree and basically stim. That's all I did and though I was quite happy, I was rather lonely. Because the only reason why I did that was because I was a reject. My class socially rejected me. It was for the first time in my life that I started to feel a gloomy, sad, emptiness in my heart. The tree however, why not be friends with the tree because when did a tree ever reject anybody? Never, not once in history. Nature does not judge and that's what I love about plants and animals.
Lucky for me I wasn't lonely the whole of kindergarten. I had a few friends who eventually came along. One lasted me quite a long time, for most of early primary school. So I wasn't lonely forever, thank goodness. But the times where I've been not accepted impacted me for good and the rejection feeling stuck with me for the rest of my life. I still feel that way and that's why I'd consider it trauma.
The teachers were kind of strict and I used to get in trouble for a lot of things. Even small things. Some I suppose were to do with my undiagnosed autism. Things like not making enough eye contact. One of the teachers would even yell sometimes but they did that to everyone, not just me. They were just grumpy in general.
I remember getting yelled at for putting something away in the wrong place and I had verbally shut down because of it. They also then pressured me to speak when I stopped answering them. That's one of the earliest memories I have of not being able to talk. Even stranger, I was standing there wishing to myself in thought to forget about the incident. It worked. It's profoundly alarming.
In kindergarten we were taught things like pronouncing words and the alphabet and all that. It required me to speak and because the teaching was pressuring, I developed a bad relationship with my speech. I didn't have a good relationship with the teachers either, which indeed got worse. They also expected more from me than my best and wouldn't stop pressuring until it was the perfect tone, pitch and all in their eyes. As you'd suspect I was called a whole range of words like rude, disrespectful. All of those. They became trigger words later down the track because I linked them directly to my trauma and struggles.
There was this chart also where there was each individual peg that represented each child in the class. I would get in trouble for having neuro divergent traits and the teacher would move my peg in the bad kid place. I stayed there most of the time. I knew there was something wrong with this way of teaching but I thought I was the problem. I don't believe there should be any kind of peg chart where you show kids if you're disappointed in them or not. It messed with my self confidence and self love, and only showed me I wasn't good enough unless I masked.
I rarely never asked to go to the bathroom when I needed to. It was instilled in me that I would be disappointed with if I didn't speak loud enough, so I gave up and decided to go when it was break. Sometimes I would have an accident in class for I was busting and the teachers would get increasingly mad at me. I felt like I had no freedom to do things I needed to do. I began to be scared to do anything like drink water or go to the toilet when It wasn't break. Some cases I even didn't feel comfortable doing them when it was. Including eating lunch. Some days I'd go the whole day dehydrated.
As time went on I'd have whole days where I would have total verbal shutdowns. Most didn't happen in Kindy though. The reason for the shutdowns being because I kept getting pressured and stopped talking freely as much. I kept getting increasingly worse at talking and there was anxiety on top of that. There was no doubt a few times where I masked autism too but that happened a lot more in year one. I believe in my life I very closely link my SM with autistic masking. It's almost like I'm battling with myself on which way to cope. Like I can't be myself because I thought otherwise I'd be an even worse stuff up. My confidence was lowering and lowering every day. I thought this was how I was supposed to feel in Kindergarten.
