I grew up in a middle class way too. We had the problem child no one wanted to deal with, my older brother, I was the youngest in my family. Well, we could not hide my older brother, he struggled with school, ran a way a lot and things at home were bad too.

I remember like it was yesterday when my parents took him to see a psychiatrist as they were at wits end with him. I remember sitting in the waiting room really hoping that man behind the door that my brother disappeared behind would have the right answers. Oh, I was not going to see that happen, the advice was "discipline" and my
mother was not to coddle him in any way. The discipline happened in a shed out in back of the house where my father would take my brother and we would hear him screaming,
I think it was a belt that was used. That did not help, it only made him worse. And as little as I was I can remember seeing my mother pacing back and forth crying and talking to herself thinking she was alone and she said, "This is wrong, this isn't right,
I am his mother, why can't I just love him and cuddle with him?" and she was weeping and pacing back and forth, back and forth.

I was just behind my brother in school and I was going to see how really bad it was for him every day. He had to stay back twice so he was just above me in school and from my first bus ride, when I was young all I saw was him being bullied from the minute we entered the bus. I will never forget the pain in his face either, every day twice a day, and even in school, he would try to run away, but that didn't work, so instead he suffered on the bus and in school and often when it came time to get the bus home, I would walk to the bus and he would come out of the principals office, another punishment day for him where he was told how bad he was, everyone told him that "constantly" except for me. I felt bad for him and I was his only friend, and that was
not easy because while there were times where he like having "some" attention, there were other times where he just could not take it and would rage and I had to run and hide.

I dealt with that for "years" and often I was so exhausted from the bus ride to school,
I was too tired to pay attention, I honestly don't know how I managed to learn anything either. I did stay back a grade, I was in first grade and I just could not concentrate so they would bring me to kindergarten where I could finger paint, I loved that and now I know why, it was a way to be "calm" for me. Now that I think about it, because my brother struggled I was considered just another problem too when I struggled to pay attention. Often I would get so exhausted that I would play sick just so I could go to the nurses office and actually "sleep".

Teachers were always "mean" to my brother except for one that I liked too, she was sweet and read stories to the class, I loved the stories she read, and she read them so well too, I could get lost in those stories and not have to think about all the other challenges I had to deal with constantly.

I have mentioned before that my brother got so bad that he sucked his thumb all night long, he did so loudly and feverishly that his lips would swell and bleed and blister. My parents tried to put something bad tasting on his thumbs, it didn't work, he sucked his thumb anyway. He also peed his bed and the floor too, my mother had to make his bed with shower curtains and lay them on the floor. She would go in there and have to change his bed every day and I could hear her crying.

My brother had to face the bullying on the bus about his lips too, they called him big lips. It was so bad but never "once" did that bus driver turn around and stop it, I remember him looking at it through the rear view mirror, but he would look away and
keep on driving. I always felt so sorry for him but as I mentioned, I had to learn how to know when he was going to have to rage it all out.

He was scrawny, but a miracle happened, he grew and he got bigger than the other boys. When that happened he began to fight back and they all knew he would be
coming for them one by one. But, he still struggled in school and got in trouble.

Then my parents found him a tutor and for the very first time someone helped him and was "nice to him", and I got a break. He began to change and do better and began to have more self esteem, I could see it, and I felt so happy for him, so happy that someone else saw what I saw, did what I wanted to see happen for him for so many years.

That is what I wanted to be for my students, I wanted them to walk away from me with that same look that I had seen in my older brother, I didn't know what that was, that
it had a name, "self esteem". I wanted that for my husband who also struggled in school because he had dyslexia, and another challenge I did not know about and really wish I had called "compulsive ADHD". He had wanted to work with children too, he wanted to be a special ed teacher but he struggled in college because of his dyslexia, and there was no real help for that back then. I stayed with him because I wanted to find a way to help him too, I trained a beautiful white pony for him to take out so he could be with children. That really helped him so much, it filled that niche and he certainly was very popular with his white pony. When that pony was so badly damaged,
that he could no longer do that, I found my husband crying in the woods.

I also spent a lot of time with my daughter who also had dyslexia, she just happened to
love riding and was good at it. I supported that because of how she struggled in school and the riding helped her with her self esteem too. The other children made fun of my daughter because of the dyslexia, so because she did well with the riding, I did everything I could to keep her busy with that. I also took her to school a lot so she would not have to ride the bus, I picked her up from school too and took her to riding lessons, that was very expensive, but I kept working constantly so she could have that. Yes, there were things we dealt with in our home too, things we didn't talk about either. People on the outside looking in would make comments, even be disrespectful, yet we all kept trying and working at it.

As I read the stories here, I feel so bad for those who struggled, it sure was not fair and
yes, we are not supposed to talk about it either. I am sorry for that, and I am so glad
to see that happening here so we can all hear we are not alone with the challenges we
all had. I think that is important to our healing too.

OE