[BlueMoonBlueEarth]

Throughout my life, I have been treated as if I'm not allowed to have emotions; I have been punished for getting angry and punished for getting upset. Now, at seventeen, I am feeling depressed.

I remember one time in infant school before a P.E. lesson, where this boy was teasing me about something. I reacted angrily and got punished for reacting, while the boy who was teasing me got off completely scot-free. I would have been six or seven at the time, I think. This was over ten years ago, and it still hurts.

Another example. In junior school, I was trying to talk to a learning assistant and she couldn't hear me. At the time, I foolishly thought she was deliberately ignoring me and got upset. The teacher saw me upset and screamed at the top of her lungs at me. I remember crying in the bath that evening over the incident, and I still feel the pain.

These are not the only examples, but if I listed every single one this post would be long, if it isn't already. What I am so confused about is: why are people punished when they are provoked into reacting? I mean, surely it's entirely the provoker's fault. I speak more of the first incident than the second because the second was a misunderstanding. To clarify, I am not at all like Carl Ericsson where I'm going to hunt these teachers down over fifty years after the incidents and shoot them dead in cold blood. But I feel so lost and confused over my emotions.

Hi! Thank you for sharing how you feel here

About the incident in infant school - when you say you reacted angrily, do you mean you hit the boy? Or yelled at him?

I think the way I'd handle a situation like that would be to hear both children out, try to get to the bottom of what had taken place, ask both how they felt in that situation (or tell them 'You probably felt like this.. right?' if they're too young to identify and name their emotions yet), explain to the boy that it's not OK to tease anyone because it hurts, and tell the other child it's understandable and completely OK s/he felt angry, but that it's not OK to hurt anyone even when we're angry - that the right thing to do, then, is to tell someone, an adult, that you're angry because x happened, and have that adult go over what happened with you and everyone else who was involved so that everyone can have their say, can share how they felt and decide what should be done about it - apologise for teasing/hitting. I'd also explain that apologising means you promise you're going to do everything in your power to make sure you never behave in the same way again.

I think it's completely wrong you got punished in that situation. I think children need to be taught how to deal with their emotions, not expect them to just know - how could they! But I think it's sadly very common that many adults haven't learned to deal with their emotions either, so are poor teachers in that sense I think this is especially true of so-called negative emotions like anger/rage, fear, sadness, etc. For instance, when I expressed anger as a child, my own mother, of all people, would flick me. That shut me up rather quickly, and I became a bit of a doormat..

The second example sounds quite horrifying. Why would she scream at you..? Weird!

I believe one of the goals of bringing children up should be to teach them that feeling is always OK, but that there's no need to react to an emotion, just feel it and release it - by talking, or if you're, let's say, too angry to discuss an issue rationally, go for a walk or something to cool off, to take the edge off your anger, and then talk about what has happened.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

These injustices, minor though they are taken individually in the great scheme of things, certainly sting and after a while it can feel like a trend.

I am still vexed by childhood happenings 50 years later, but have come to realise they are part of life, will happen every so often, sometimes there is not much you can do about it, and one has to change the way you think about them or they can lead to unwise reactions to stressful events.

After all teachers for example are just human, there are good ones, bad ones, they have off days, and indeed I have noticed that they tend to be rather childish - I have always felt this is because they hang around children all day. Some poor sod has to do it I suppose.

Anyway to hell with what some teacher etc said/got wrong, learn from these disagreeable occasions, do what you can about them in grown up proportionate manner and move on - it is the adult way.

[BlueMoonBlueEarth]

Originally Posted by d.o.a.

About the incident in infant school - when you say you reacted angrily, do you mean you hit the boy? Or yelled at him?

I honestly don't remember. This was over ten years ago, after all. All I remember is getting punished, so I must have reacted in some way. I feel a bit messed up for thinking it's the provoker's fault if somebody reacts to something. Guess that's my upbringing. Thanks for the comment.

[BlueMoonBlueEarth]

Originally Posted by ManOfConstantSorrow

These injustices, minor though they are taken individually in the great scheme of things, certainly sting and after a while it can feel like a trend.

I am still vexed by childhood happenings 50 years later, but have come to realise they are part of life, will happen every so often, sometimes there is not much you can do about it, and one has to change the way you think about them or they can lead to unwise reactions to stressful events.

After all teachers for example are just human, there are good ones, bad ones, they have off days, and indeed I have noticed that they tend to be rather childish - I have always felt this is because they hang around children all day. Some poor sod has to do it I suppose.

Anyway to hell with what some teacher etc said/got wrong, learn from these disagreeable occasions, do what you can about them in grown up proportionate manner and move on - it is the adult way.

I do recognize these are quite minor incidents in my life, but since I childishly cannot let go of things, they still sting. There's a lot of wisdom in your comment, and I thank you for the support.

[ECHOES]

Having emotions is unavoidable and of course you are 100% entitled to all of your emotions.

That said, our perceptions (feeling deliberately ignored, for example) drive our behavior. We are expected to control our emotional responses, not meaning to deny the emotions or push them away but to let them be heard or understanding our perceptions, so that we can see if they accurately reflect the reality.

We can learn to speak up and ask the other person if tgey are unable to hear us, if this is not a convenient time to talk together, if they understand what we are saying, etc. Therapy helps very much with those things.

[Thunder Bow]

You were simply being bulled by those in question, and bullying is all about control. You were being controlled by those people. Also they were taking out their own pent up anger out on you because they knew they could get away with it. People will bully others, if they think they can get away with it.