An invitation to a mental health life events function and my life's RSVP to repression, stress, being valueless and panic that comes with it. Follow the journeys in this blog …

There were good things that happened like I made two new friends that were my age of five, and they lived across the street and next door to me. They were both boys. Which I didn’t mind since there were no girls my age close by in the neighborhood. More importantly, I got to be a tomboy! No dresses for me, put those t-shirts and pants (play clothes) on me and watch me run, jump, play tackle football, tag, and hide and seek. They didn’t judge me at all and life had become fun.
Then came school. My first day of kindergarten had arrived. The three of us stood waiting for the bus with colored sheets of paper pinned to our sweaters. Now to a five year old a school bus is huge, and when it pulled up I stepped back. I was supposed to get in this thing and go where? My mother walked me to the steps and told me to hold the handrail as I climbed up. Fortunately, the boys went ahead of me so it was okay as long as they were there. I stopped at the top of the steps and looked down a long aisle of seats. Wait a minute, who were these other people? Big kids and little kids, screaming and jumping in the seats. The seats were so tall, i could no longer see where my friends had gone. I didn’t want any part of this. I turned to go back down the steps and get off the bus when to my surprise the bus driver yelled at me to sit down. Terrified, I took a seat in the first row so I could be the first one off. I remember, putting my head down and staring at the floor of the bus as the tears started to fall.
When we pulled up at the school, I immediately stood up ready to bolt off the bus. I was the first off and then stood there waiting for my two friends to get off. Surprise… there was an adult waiting for me and I remember her saying “green sheet” and corraling me into a herd of children wearing the same color sheet of paper. We were standing with our homeroom teacher awaiting entrance to the classroom. Then it happened, my two friends were herded into other classroom groups. I was alone, in a group of people I didn’t know, in a place I didn’t know.
I became the quiet, introverted, shy child. I would talk when I was supposed to, but other than that I pretty much kept to myself.
As the year went on, I did well on learning educational materials and lessons. However, I wasn’t befriending other children as much as I was making aquaintances. My two friends had begun to pull away from me after school started. I was well behaved and smart and that seemed a safe place for me to be in the school setting. Keep the teachers happy and you get star stickers, an A plus, and left alone.
My parents would ask, “What did you do at school today?” and I would explain the lessons that I learned, but there was something I kept telling them that was not well addressed, “I hate school.” Now I didn’t come with a set of instructions, and they were both getting into starting new careers, and were busy dealing with time schedules, and trying to keep things running as smoothly as possible. So, I get it… they were busy trying to make the best life for our family. I loved my parents and all that they did for us. However, I feel that sometimes I was left to figure out solutions to my own problems and told to “just ignore it” or “it will get better”. For quite some time my solution was to cry, to be fearful, to try to get out of doing things, and to bury issues within myself. I was a robot functioning on repeat and not a human being able to enjoy life and process my emotions.
If I find myself saying or thinking “I hate this” that for me has become a red flag! There is always some fearfulness or uncertainty in new situations but when it becomes paralyzing and drains my energy and happiness it needs to be reviewed. What can I do to improve the situation? Is this something I really need to invest in? Who can I talk to about this that may offer helpful advice? Sometimes just getting away from certain triggers for a short period of time is a help for me. I see what kind of adjustments I can make to improve situations. Now it doesn’t always work for me and sometimes I will walk away from a situation totally to keep from being upset and shutting down. It’s not the ideal answer for me, but it assists me in finding an inner peace and a calmness in life so I am able to rethink possible alternatives.