Suddenly remembered how, as a kid, my Math teacher got angry & shamed me in front of the entire class while we were learning inequalities because I said PacMan ate the bigger number. That took all the joy of learning Math out for me, tbh.

From then on all I remembered every time I tried solve problems, all I remembered was that I would be yelled at if I tried to learn it in any way other than what was prescribed to me.

It made my brain shut down whenever I had to do Math, and even up until high school I could still feel the fear of possibly being yelled at or made fun of in class.

Even my mom got mad at me for trying to memorize things like that, tbh. And I stopped asking her for help with my hw. Anyway, she would always tell me she was too busy to help.

My youngest brother was a really bright, creative, and imaginative kid, but a lot of that got stifled when my parents transferred him to a traditional all-boys school (he was in a Montessori school previously.)

They just kept trying to correct his writing (he was a lefty,) stop him from drawing all the time, try to make him sit still even though he couldn't, etc.

Sucks how, now that I'm older, I can see how traditional schooling + lack of appropriate support (and support in general) fucked my siblings and I up in very different ways. I remember begging my parents to let me transfer to a non-traditional school, but they wouldn't let me.

While I'm thankful for the friends I made & mentors I met, my days in my traditional Catholic school were honestly some of the most miserable in my life. I always felt like I was so stupid because I understood things differently

& teachers like my Math teacher above reinforced that mindset. It was really confusing, too, because everyone kept telling me how intelligent and bright I was, and that I was just lazy or not applying myself hard enough whenever I got mediocre results.

I also excelled a lot in certain subjects/classes, and I think that's mainly because those teachers/fields of study allowed me to be a little more flexible in the methods I used to get to my conclusions.

It's also worth mentioning that my therapist said that I was most likely depressed even back then, I just didn't get the help I needed.

I did a lot better (and was a lot happier) when I got to college, because I think I was finally able to strike a balance between challenging myself + allowing myself to think the way that suited me the most. But I wish my younger self was given that freedom, too.

It really grinds my gears when I hear older relatives/aunts/uncles etc. saying "sayang, what happened to Mai? They were so intelligent & promising." re: all my bouts of mental illness, breakdowns, etc. in recent years. Maybe you should've supported me when I was a kid, no?

There isn't really a point to this thread, maybe except that I wish adults were more aware of the ways their styles of teaching/ways of educating and just relating in general can really mess kids up. There's no one size fits all.