My brain’s been doing this really neat thing every night between the time I shut off the light and fall asleep. I can’t recall specifically when it started, but for several weeks, now, before it begins its nightly delivery of nightmares and stress dreams, it opens up this box of memories labeled THINGS YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT, MAKE YOU SAD, OR OTHERWISE UPSET YOU AT SOME POINT that it recently found, pulls one out, and then spends as much time as it can doing a fucking power point presentation about it.
Most of the things in this memory box aren’t even recent. Most of the things in this memory box are from years, or even decades, ago, when I was still a little kid. None of them are particularly traumatic; most are things like “remember when this kid was a dick to you?” and “remember that time dad laughed at a thing you cared about?” and “you know, when you were 12, you could have been nicer to that guy…”
Last night, my brain was too tired to be a dick to me, and all I can recall from the few moments between turning off the light and going to sleep is listening to the white noise machine do its thing. My asshole brain didn’t dump a bunch of shitty dreams on me (that I can remember, anyway) and it even let me stay asleep for close to 8 hours before it woke me up.
And then, while I was reading the paper, it was all OH HEY I FORGOT TO BE A DICK TO YOU LAST NIGHT and it unloaded this memory on me.
I was eleven, in sixth grade. Our little private school (which was more about religious indoctrination that education, the way I remember it) gave us kids a chance to take one elective course per semester. We got a list of classes that were offered, accompanied by a slip of paper with places to write our name, grade, and then our first and second choices.
In the first semester, I had put drama as my second choice, even though it was really my first, because I had convinced myself that I wouldn’t get my first choice for some reason related to teacher vindictiveness (which, at least in this instance, wasn’t really a thing, but I was a little too smart for my own good back then). I ended up struggling through Spanish, which was awful, instead of doing improv games and putting on a show. For the second semester, I put my first choice first: Weather Science.
I was and am a weather nerd. The complexity of weather systems, how they are affected by climate, and the ability to understand weather enough to predict it has always interested me. Long before it was a thing I knew other people did, I kept a notebook journal of the weather, so I could compare whatever was happening on any given day to years before. It was fun. It made me feel smart, and even though I knew I was smart back then, I rarely felt smart.
So I put Weather Science first. When my friend, Brian, asked me why I wanted to take that class, which he thought was stupid, I told him, “Because we can be the future Doctor Georges,” referencing a legendary weather reporter from Los Angeles named Doctor George Fishbeck. This did not satisfy Brian, who was taking some kind of religious history (because we didn’t get enough of that in school, apparently).
I got the elective that I wanted, and the first day we went to our elective classes — the first time in my entire academic life that I’d gone to a different classroom for studies — I was beside myself. The writer in me wants to say that I put on a tie for the occasion, but I was probably just in the school uniform. The writer also wants to say that I was surrounded by other misfits and nerds in that class, and tell a story about how being there brought us all together … but not only did that not happen, the only memory I have — specific, or otherwise — from this elective is the one I’m about to relate.
We met in the classroom of a teacher who primarily taught the seventh graders. I remember that he was a little pudgy, wore a giant mustache, tinted eyeglasses, and acted like he was really cool and clever, even though all of us thought he was in a spectrum that ran from corny on one end to a total dick on the other. Now the writer in me wants to go back and give Brian dialog that shows us the way we all felt about this teacher, instead of telling it, now. But I’m trying to stay true to what actually happened, so here we are.
We met in the classroom, and got handouts with things on them like weather symbols on maps (which I already knew) and the Beaufort Scale (which I did not). He showed off a handheld device that in my memory is similar in size and shape to the weird little pop guns they used in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and told us that it could register wind speed and direction. Each of us would be allowed the opportunity, at least once, during the semester to hold this incredible device and record its data for the rest of the class. “Every morning, you will go outside and record the weather,” he said, “you will write down the temperature from a thermometer at your house, you will write down the air pressure if you have a barometer, and you will record the basic conditions, from Cloudy to Partly Cloudy, to Partly Sunny, to Sunny.” We did not own a barometer — as far as I knew, they were expensive bits of hardware that only people like my rich grandparents had in their sitting rooms — but we had a large thermometer outside the kitchen window, and I had already been writing down the weather in my notebook for years! I was extremely excited to be part of this class, and felt like my existing enthusiasm for weather would make me a successful student of Weather Science.
The next day, I went outside before school, and looked up into a cloudy sky. It was late in spring, and the gloomy marine layer of fog and smog hung thick over our house. It was damp and a little drizzly. In my notebook, I wrote down “Cloudy, with fog and drizzle. Calm winds. 56°” I recorded the same information on my school-issued weather homework sheet, and added that the wind was a one on the Beaufort Scale.
My mother took me to school, and my father took my sister to school, because the six year difference between us put us at different campuses, now. I went to my classes and had an uneventful day, that the writer in me wants to invent to provide contrast, and then after lunch I went into my Weather Science elective. We were only in our seats for a few moments when the teacher took us all outside. Because it was our first day outside the classroom, he would hold the mystical weather recording device for the rest of the class. I’m remembering now that we were a relatively small group of only ten or so students, so we easily clustered around him and saw that there was a very light breeze out of the southeast.
“What’s the Beaufort Scale?” He asked us.
“It’s between one and two,” said this girl named Nicole, who I remember moving effortlessly among the various cliques on campus, fitting into all of them but never really belonging to any of them.
“That’s correct,” he said.
“We are going to talk about our weather observations,” he told us, “who would like to begin?”
My arm shot up before I knew I was doing it. I was primed for this. I was ready for this. I’d been preparing for this moment, this opportunity to be smart and impressive, for years.
“Yes, Mister Wheaton,” he said, “what are your observations?”
I was in a phase that made me think Trapper Keepers were slick and futuristic, perfect for the upwardly mobile and mature student, while Pee Chee folders were outdated and better suited to elementary school, so I opened my green Trapper Keeper and pulled out the pale blue ditto sheet inside. “Cloudy, with fog and drizzle. Calm winds. 56°. Beaufort Scale: 1.”
He looked at me like I had just said it was raining unicorns.
“Really?” He said, sarcastically. The other kids laughed nervously, but I was confused.
“Yes,” I replied, earnestly.
He jabbed a stubby finger toward the sky, which was now mostly clear with just a few lingering high clouds. “Does that look cloudy to you?” Before I could answer, he added, “or is there a new definition of ‘cloudy’ that I am not aware of?”
I felt my face flush. My hair got prickly. “Well, um,” I began.
“Um. Um. Um,” he said, mocking.
“That is clear, Mister Wheaton,” he said. “That is not cloudy. That is not even partly cloudy.”
Of course it was clear. It was the afternoon, and in Los Angeles we have microclimates everywhere in the county. Right now, less than a quarter of a mile away from me, on the other side of a mountain range, it’s at least ten degrees cooler than it is here. That’s how our weather works.
“We have clear skies,” he said. “Did you even do your homework?”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to respond to an authority figure who was picking on me. My dad had done it my whole life, but I still hadn’t figured it out. I didn’t know how to respond to a teacher who was not just wrong, but who was wrong when I was clearly right. I felt the entire class looking at me.
“Yes, I did,” I said. I did my best to keep my voice neutral and non-challenging. I didn’t know how to explain a microclimate, or the marine layer, or to how to stand up for myself.
“Well I don’t believe you,” he said, extending his hand and snatching my homework sheet from me. He materialized a red pen, clicked it, and wrote an F before handing it back to me. “Try to do better tomorrow.”
The writer in me wants him to have a comeuppance. The writer in me wants to tell you that the smart girl rose to my defense, that the teacher apologized and then everything was better. The writer really wants me to meet Doctor George, tell him the story, and have him tell me that my teacher was wrong and that I was a better weather reporter than he was.The writer in me can’t do that any more than the adult version of me can invent a time machine, go back to that day, and tell the young version of me that he was right and the teacher was a dick. I can’t even remember what happens next, like the film of my memory gets caught in the projector, and melts away leaving nothing more than an empty, white screen.
My brain has been dumping memories like this on me for months, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with them.
At 8:05 this morning, It was 59° and mostly clear. The winds were calm. It’s 77° and sunny right now, with a very slight breeze out of the south southeast.
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That teacher was a dick for not teaching the first rule of data science / experimental science: Time, location and the equipment used matter at least as much as the readings themselves. All would have been well had you prefaced your statement with “At my home in at ? A.M. I observed…”
So, go back, open that memory in edit mode, insert the missing context, save, then repeat the memory for technical accuracy.
If the edit doesn’t work the first time, restart the edit in “Self-Therapy” mode.
I apologize for replying to your story with a story, but…it’s the writer in me, I guess.
Probably the thing I’m geekiest about is superheroes. Superheroes were inspiring me from before I could even read. I related a lot of things in my life growing up to superheroes. (Wait, I still do that.) I know a lot of adults found it annoying and frustrating because they told me so. Like when I was in fourth grade and we were watching the Disney movie “Johnny Tremain” for History. There’s a part in the movie where Johnny is silversmithing on a Sunday, which was illegal, and in the haste of not getting caught by the authorities, one of his hands goes into some molten silver. After we watched the movie, our teacher asked us about it, and I immediately raised my hand and said, “That part where Johnny gets his hand in the silver was like the origin of a superhero!” Now, I know that wasn’t what the teacher was looking for, I know it could’ve been a little disruptive to the discussion (even for fourth graders), but…geez, I gave the teacher an easy in for how to get and keep my attention right there. But he just frowned and said dismissively, “We’re not talking about comic books, Josh, we’re talking about real life.” Which is exactly what my dad said to me all through my youth whenever I related real world things to the geeky stories I liked.
And people wonder why we continue to be insecure, apologetic, embarrassed, anxious, and depressed even into middle age. Fuck. We deserved better.
I once had a geography teacher that gave the class two options. Study for the test or work on something else I can’t remember what. I chose to study for the test. He was a bit insane so when I chose to study for the test he came over asked what the hell I was doing. I said studying for the test. He Grabbed the textbook and notebook from my desk and threw them across the room. Then he picked them up smiled at me patted me on the head and placed them back on my desk. No idea to this day if this man was bipolar or what.
Man, teachers that are dicks to students are some of the worst people in the world.
Wow, that could have been a description of most of my school life. Never took weather, except as part of science class. But so many times my answers were not the one the teacher, or anyone else, wanted. My younger self did not know how to answer back. Now I will fight with anyone if I know
I’m right. (Of course now I have photo proof of almost everything.)
I do the same thing. My brain doesn’t shut off and makes me panic for really, no good reason. I’ve found that meditating…or really just hyperfocusing on the present, helps push those stupid thoughts away. Meditation is hard, but practice makes the result happen faster. I can now fall asleep with a minimum of internal screaming of “STFU BRAIN!”
My brain does this shit to me ALL. THE. TIME. It is very relieving to know I’m not the only one.
If he still exists go tell him now that he’s a stupid man and a bad teacher, then tell the school. If he doesn’t go spit on his grave. Then forgive yourself for not telling him off and take comfort in the fact that bad teachers are hated, and it’s his fault for choosing teaching. Imagine him in a job better suited to his talents incarsarated republican party member, for example. These are the steps I’ve followed in the past to make my brain stop blaming me. Remember, you didn’t do anyrhing wrong. They did. They are the ones who sould feel that way. Then tell yourself, “I was on tv in a hugely beloved sci-fi series, and. Horrible ass teacher, wasn’t. I win.”
At 8:05 this morning, it was 34°F, and overcast. Winds were light, and from the south. It’s 34°F and overcast right now, with a slight breeze out of the northwest. And the world remains well-stocked with arrogant dicks that make life miserable for those around them.
As the daughter of a meteorologist, I grew up checking the weather report every morning before school. I have a weather app on my phone even now that I check before I leave the house (sometimes, however, I forget to check the hourly forecast and end up sans jacket/umbrella/whichever SUPER USEFUL THING I WISH I HAD IN THIS UNGODLY DESERT WEATHER). It took me a very long time to realize that most people did not have measuring rain catchers (that have an official name that I have forgotten) outside and fought with their sibling to be the one to go report EXACTLY how many inches of rain the backyard had gotten during the storm the night before. That most people looked at the tiny numbers on the sheets that my father had on his cluttered desk and could not understand what the different columns meant (Kid Me would find patterns in them while she waited for her turn at the computer in the den). That lots of folks don’t know the names of weathermen and swoon over the pretty dresses worn by weatherwomen. Didn’t want to hide under their desks when, during Teach-In day, their father would inevitably come in and give the SAME speech before showing the SAME video and “if you look carefully here, yes that is five year old Beth crying because she was scared to go up into the big airplane” WHY DID NOAA KEEP THAT IN THE DANG VIDEO? coughcough On the positive, I had (and have) some pretty sweet ass official NOAA stickers that feature their three big hurricane planes: Gonzo, Kermit, and Miss Piggy. Yes, those are their names. Meteorologists are huge dorks, don’t let anyone tell you any differently.
But the main point. I do not like my father. He suffers from that “I am older and bigger and louder, therefore I am right” symptom that your teacher did. But I am his child. This is something I remember every time someone says, “It’s so hot. I wonder how hot it is?” and I reply back with the temperature down to a degree (often without looking up from my crocheting, because I am also my mother’s child), along with the projected forecast for the rest of the day. I remember it just the same when someone tells me that I am wrong even when I know I’m right or, god forfend, yells in my general direction (doesn’t even have to be at me, just near me) because I will immediately shrink back down to that little girl, crying because the airplane is too high off the nice safe ground, being filmed and laughed at while her father can be heard laughing the loudest as he mocks her tiny, scared voice.
…Wow, that all is stuff I haven’t thought about in forever. Geez. I don’t even know if any of this makes sense or it’s just me rambling. I’ll go now.
Hi Beth. I’m sorry that your dad was like that. It wasn’t right.
A lot of us are forever fighting with the voices in our heads that laughed when we cried. But then again, we went out and found people far kinder, and spent way more time with them, right?
Thanks, Jen. It’s always best to have those good people to go to, the ones who laugh with us, instead of at us.
As another member of the Bad Fathers Club (as in, I had a bad father, not that I am a bad father, because I hope I’m not), hear hear!
Oh, that’s so sad. My father was the same way. I wish I could say it was generational, but I’m 60 and I know it’s still happening. My brain does the same thing that Wil’s has been doing, or at least it was. I have recently been diagnosed with sleep apnea and now that I can sleep well by using the CPAP machine, I don’t wake up at 1:30 anymore, reliving bad experiences and hearing a voice tell me how bad I am.
I’m glad you’re sleeping better. 🙂 Here’s to the Bad Fathers Club. May we find (and have found) kinder, gentler, better men to look up to.
is it a pluviometer?
Probably one of the best ways to geek out on weather is the BBC’s Shipping Forecast, given throughout the day, but the most thorough version is in the run-up to 01.00 GMT on BBC Radio 4. On Sundays, you can hear “Bells on Sunday” featuring a different change-ringing moment from a church in the Commonwealth before “Sailing By” lulls you into analyses of conditions around the British Isles.
Climate is much more than weather, but weather is a wonderful thing to track and contemplate. It informs our understanding of climate.
Nick Cave said ” I can control the weather with my moods. The problem is I can’t control my moods”
I once wrote a story, which I will not share with you here, called “Serial Poopers.” It was about people like your teacher who feel as so insignificant and full of shit that they are compelled to wander the world pooping on everyone else just to relieve themselves of the load of poop they are carrying inside.
It wasn’t about you.
That’s quite poetic! When describing depression and anxiety to my patients, I have used the analogy of a field full of piles of poop. It is overwhelming, stinky, but with some guidance (and a gas mask of appropriately handled meds), you can navigate through it 🙂 Poop is universal. Everybody (almost) has an asshole, but nobody needs to be one.
Man, what a pain.
I’m another geek somewhat obsessed with weather. My dad was a weather observer during WWII and influenced me. I live in the SF Bay Area and we get some of the boringest weather on the planet. Even with the boring weather, I have my own weather station hooked up with a Raspberry Pi running an open source package called weewx http://www.weewx.com/ and posting to my web site. This might be something you’d like to do.
Seems to me that you already have a time machine and that it is working just fine, Wil.
Have you ever done EMDR? It’s a therapy for trauma that uses vibrations and sound to kind of rewire traumatic memories. It looks like voodoo but it can do amazing things. Can’t explain why/how it works but it does.
Dreams of specific uncomfortableness from your early years are prompting you to confront something in your current life, is what I learned from a pyschoanalyst. I kept having dreams of my high school years where I was skipping classes all the time, then trying to catch up and feeling bad about it. Then it hit me – I was currently anxious about completing a safety course required for my job and the dream was prompting me not to procrastinate on completing the course.
I have had two recent revelations that may or may not resonate with you.
My brain has been doing this to me too, for years, and better still it does it immediately upon doing anything that might potentially, vaguely, perhaps even to one person out of 1,000 be embarrassing or in any way odd (“OH HOLY SHIT WAS THAT WEIRD? DID I JUST DO A WEIRD THING? SHIT, FILE THAT IN THE BOX WITH THE OTHERS…”)
The first, and smaller, of the revelations helps a great deal with the immediate, and more recent, incidents. It is this: I am a nerd, a true nerd, a fucking lifelong nerd, and that’s something that nerds do. We do weird shit and get embarrassed about it. And I became Simply Done with being embarrassed with, for example, greeting someone too enthusiastically that I hadn’t seen in a while. (Really? I’m going to be embarrassed about that? No. Just, no. I am no longer going to be UPSET that I experienced a positive effect from seeing a person that I enjoy spending time with.) Call this one “flying my nerd flag”.
The second, and absolutely huge, revelation was this: I don’t actually have to RELIVE a moment when I remember it. Or, to put it in the way that makes perfect sense in my head: you don’t have to SIT IN the bad, when you remember the bad. This is really hard, and will take a very long time for me to master. Like anything else, I’m going to have to work and get better at it.
Wil, I know you’ve been working on some of this stuff for a long time, and from what I’ve read, your anxiety outpaces mine by quite a bit. So I’m not remotely saying, Oh just do THIS! All fixed! It just flabbergasted me when I realized it – that the memory can show up, and I can sort of set it next to me while it plays out. And I can try to be centered, and me, and not relive that awful moment (or class, or whatever).
I hope it helps. And if not, I hope something else does.
honestly, i think your writing voice is heartfelt and sweet. i think you should just keep writing.
Reading your post brought back two childhood memories. The first was my kindergarten teacher, who like yours felt that berating and humiliating young students in front of the other kids was an appropriate teaching method. My very middle-aged teeth still grind thinking of her.
But at the same time I was suffering through my year as her student, I discovered my love for the weather. Nearly a half-century later, that love has taken me to places I never could have dreamed of – from in front of the green screen for almost 20 years on the Weather Channel, to the inside of Category 5 hurricanes as an Air Force Hurricane Hunter (I was on the crew that took John Cusack into Hurricane Ivan back in 2004), and now to the National Hurricane Center coordinating all the reconnaissance flights into storms. The weather is always with us – beautiful, destructive, chaotic, and endlessly fascinating. Being a meteorologist requires having a lot of humility, because if you ever think you can make perfect forecasts Mother Nature will go out of her way to prove you wrong. And it also requires a thick skin, because people will always remind you of when you got it wrong, but rarely remember all the times you got it right. But on the plus side we sometimes get cool XKCD comics about us! (https://xkcd.com/1126/)
So keep watching the weather, and if you want to take it to the next level consider becoming part of the NOAA Cooperative Observer Program (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/coop/). Also, if Tom Vasel ever convinces you to come to South Florida to play board games with him and the Dice Tower crew, have him give me a call so I can give you a tour of the Hurricane Center.
I LOVE this reply! Thank you, Warren, for speaking the Truth. Even if it’s only True Right Now, because, obviously, this micro-climate is in cahoots with Mother Nature and can’t let you speak 100% Truth 100% of the time! 😉
While my parents weren’t exactly June and Ward Clever they were pretty close, in my opinion; good people and relatively awesome parental figures. My folks were the ones runaway kids would come to the house at 3am and tick pebbles at their window so they’d wake up a little and talk to them. They knew they were safe at our house. Growing up, I always thought I had like 40-50 literal brothers and sisters because there was always around 5-8 people there every day that weren’t actually related to me. But mom and dad always treated each kid as if they were their own and even at 3am, listened and cared and made sure the right path was taken, even if it was a difficult one. They taught us to not only be strong for ourselves but for the people we hold dear. The only thing horrific I can remember about bad memories was taking them minutes after they happened and rewriting them as stories where I made the outcome the way I wanted it to be. Kids can be stupid and cruel and teachers even worse. We had a teacher in some exercise class that got fired for spanking us. As I remember, we were indoors in a gym and he got hit by one of those red dodge balls. He demanded to know who did it and when no one answered he lined us up at the door and made us bend over and touch our toes as we left when the bell rang. As we did so, he swatted each of us with a paddle. There was at least 32 kids. It was an accident. Some of the kids went directly to the principal’s office and called their parents. OMG! Two kid’s parents were lawyers. I told my folks about it when I got home and they were ready to bring the place to the ground. Luckily, my parents were the kind to sit and talk with you about what you thought might be right and justified and I told them even though it was confusing, I didn’t really care about it and it didn’t hurt but whatever they thought would be fine with me. I was in 5th grade. It was 5:18pm, Tuesday night, in Texas and 91 degrees. The sun would be setting and not a cloud was in the sky and 90% humidity. It’s amazing how our minds book mark tiny details forever.
In a conversation about prefixes, specifically ‘terra’, I was told in no uncertain terms by my grade 5 teacher that “terraforming” wasn’t a word, and I must have gotten it confused with “terra firma” which didn’t count, because it was latin, and two words not a prefix. I used it in a sentence – “If we terraform the surface of Callisto it would be able to support human life”, explained the meaning to her, and the next day brought in the Anne McCaffery novel I first saw it in, but I never got an apology. In fact, I was threatened with a lunch time detention if I didn’t apologise myself and let it go. It was tough being better read than the teacher.
I ran into that in school, too. My “that’s not a word” word was avian, when I was 12. I was marked down points for using it in the journals we were required to keep for the year that “would never be corrected” (mine was the only one in my class that had the teacher marking it up; after the first few months, I started asking my classmates if she did it to theirs, too, and we compared….mine was the only one full of red-inked negative comments, lost points, and “corrections” of things that weren’t even wrong, everyone else’s was either empty or had blue supportive comments, and no one else’s had points listed anywhere). By that point, I’d had enough of being picked on, and we had a bit of a moment after class when I asked why I’d had my points taken away, which ended in her yet again telling me condescendingly that avian wasn’t a word and frustrated me telling her to look it up and walking out on her. Maybe not my best or most mature moment, but it felt good at the time.
I was a voracious reader in elementary school and would tear up the library. I still remember after a British literature phase and some Jonathan Swift, I was docked for spelling airplane “aeroplane”. I just couldn’t understand why that wasn’t allowed and was too shy to ask.
Your teacher was wrong. I wish I had had you in my class.
Mortification imprints well. I recall a different but memorable event on a 7th grade class camping trip down to San Diego. I also recall the smog, but was fortunate to have lived above it most days in La Crescenta (the balcony of Southern California!). Oddly I read this post after having dreamt of the Junior High- Rosemont? I heard it was the mirror image of the one used in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and for some reason, my dream was about being confused with the substitution. That was hella long time ago, soooo…. weird.
Yeah, they filmed Fast Times at Clark, which was the same layout as Rosemont!
Clark- that was the one! It was unused for some time, I think. Thinking of home just reminded me of the Thrifty Drug store on Foothill- the cylindrical ice cream scoops that were initially 15c/scoop, up to 25c I think by the time I fled East for college. With my peeps from CVHS (before the crazy wire fences went up), we would have out at the Round Table Pizza and the “trendy” clothing store in that same plaza. The grocery was Alpha Beta. Wow- I guess even benign memories can imprint well! that’s a relief 🙂
That clothing place was Miller’s Outpost! I bought Hypercolor T-shirts there, and at least three T&C Surf Design t-shirts that had these long, stupid, tuxedo tails on them.
I always wanted- but never got – a hypercolor tshirt. I wonder if they’re still out there…
MILLER’S frickin OUTPOST! I wasn’t cool enough to actually shop there, but I hung out with my friends who were. Didn’t they have saloon style doors on the fitting rooms? I was so uncool that I wore a real tuxedo in my senior pic. Vintage 1909 men’s swallowtail style… yeah, hipster before there were hipsters… The vintage clothing shop was right above the Bowling Alley further down on Foothill. Bowling as PE WAS cool, except at 7am, but still better than having to deal with locker rooms :-\
OMG I had totally forgotten about that thrift store. It was amazing.
That bowling alley is where I first saw Donkey Kong, in like 1983. I thought the barrels were bowling balls, because they look like that if you’re 11 and in a bowling alley and don’t know how art works in video games.
I can so relate to this. I had some horrid teachers when I was young….so glad you survived. Hopefully your brain will let you survive the night too and allow you to go to sleep with ease.
It leaks. It oozes. And sometimes it shits out when you least it expect it. Brain farts and brain crap.
I was lucky. I had parents who would back my play as a bright, enthusiastic and stubborn kid. In 5th grade we were taking a test and I had finished with about 10 minutes left in class. Another kid started whispering if he could use my erasure and I told him “shhhh” cause we were taking a test, and you know, no talking. Also, it’s not like I was going to toss him my erasure from 3 feet away (the class had a strange desk set up, sort of like a half circle, and we were near the bottom angle). The teacher (who I’d never liked) heard this and called us up and then wrote -10 on each sheet. I was angry, as I told her what had happened and felt I was being unjustly punished. (Seriously, if he’d just said “Can I borrow your erasure?” loud enough to hear, she’d have probably said “No talking!” and I’d have tossed it to him) I grabbed the paper and stalked back to my seat. She became upset and called me back up and wrote a big 0 in red ink on it. I tore it in half and then tossed it in the trash. Now she was super pissed. She told me that I needed to take it home and show it to my parents. Fine whatever. I took it home, showed it to my parents and told them what happened. My mom told me “Next time, just ignore the other person. Pretend they don’t exist til the test is over.” Next day I went back to class and the teacher wanted to see the test. I didn’t have it. Why would I have it? She said that I was told to show it to my parents. I said that I had. Well why didn’t they sign it and I bring it back? Because you told me to show it to them, nothing about bringing it back. I was told to go back to my homeroom and then to report back after school. (Cause getting kicked out of class is a punishment?) Went back after school and we then went to the Principals Office, where she called my mom at work. Oh, bad idea. My mom started yelling at her that “Yes he showed it to me. You didn’t tell him to have me sign it and bring it back, otherwise we would have. Don’t ever question my son about telling the truth, and you sure as hell better not call me at work ever again!” Then to top it off my mom went down to the school the next day after it was out so she could give the Principal an earful. In the next week or so as word got around (and I’m convinced that my homeroom teacher was the source of the information), I wasn’t any more popular, but my mom was considered a total badass.
Often it’s not sticking up for yourself that helps, but someone else sticking up for you. Becoming a shieldwall. Giving a damn when it’s easier to sit by, and putting assholes in their place. God speed Wil, and may you dream easier.
I had a very similar experience with a teacher when I was 9. I’m now 42 and sometimes it still comes back to me. I’m also a writer (and editor) and would love to change the way it happened, but sadly that’s now how life works. And my brain does the same stupid things. I can’t offer any answers, but at least you’re not alone. In the mean time I try to urge the teachers I know not to be dicks.
I’m a day late to respond, but as I read this on the morning of the 19th, it’s 65 degrees and mostly cloudy with winds from the north at 1 mile per hour with gusts up to 3 mph.
I can relate to this on a number of levels. The nightly torture on behalf of my brain for one thing and being bullied by a teacher for another. I had a seventh grade math teacher who seemed to delight in being cruel to me in front of other students. It was so bad once that even one of the popular students stood up for me (I was an exceptionally nerdy kid so I remember that being a monumental thing). It’s something I haven’t forgotten and every now and then I think about it. About three years ago I actually looked to see if he was still teaching at my old middle school. He wasn’t and I’m not sure why I really wanted to know. I think I had that desire for some sort of closure or comeuppance like you mentioned in your story. I wanted to go and confront him and say that he made my life hell. I’m not sure what causes some adults to bully children. I’m sorry you had that experience especially over a subject you were really excited about. I hope that your brain stops the nightly replays or decides to tune into a different genre soon like awesome, happy memories.
“My arm shot up before I knew I was doing it. I was primed for this. I was ready for this. I’d been preparing for this moment, this opportunity to be smart and impressive, for years.”
I feel like every person in the history of humanity has experienced this moment of pure euphoria and self-assuredness . . . right before the shoe came down to crush their soul.
The writer in you did a great job with the story.
The Wesley Crusher in you would have totally nailed that question in the first place.
Hey, Wil: I’ve been having the same problem the last few months. Unpleasant memories popping up and shifting my mood from reasonably happy and well-balanced to. . .not. I wish I knew what we are supposed to learn from these unpleasant replays, but, sadly, I do not. Just hold on to the fact you are now in a loving relationship, are staying busy doing things you love, and have a supportive fan base standing behind you. Be well.
My husband and I have shorthand for these, so when I yelp in the car next to him for no reason I can say “Bities, ” so he knows it’s just my brain being a dick.
When I have them
If I can suppress the urge to wince and shove them back down under or away, and let the feelings wash through me and accept them, it drains the sting away from the memory, and, for me at least, sometimes defangs that particular memory.
It is a lot like patting my head and rubbing my tummy,, to get used to the idea of stopping, accepting the feelings, instead of my usual knee-jerk reaction of these jack-in-the-box moments (“Reject!” “Pain!” “Embarrassed!”). But, for any one I can, I am that much freer.
Maybe helpful? Hope so!
Memories like that… I put back in the box they crawled out of, and apply an extra layer of tape. I think too many of us encountered that teacher, or another authority figure along the road. I was lucky though, in that my parents were not like that, and I was taught a good balance between respecting other people, but not letting them walk over me. In the long run I always took those moments in my life as a reason to push just a little harder when somebody, or something, wanted to stand in my way just for the sake of it. Then I can look back on those memories and think “Yeah, well, look at me now.”
Which is definitely something for a person like Wil to keep in mind. Look at where you are now. In contrast, teaching that class is likely the height of of that pudgy, mustached man’s life. At most that memory should serve as a reminder to pity those who need to stand on others in order to feel tall. Maybe that’s what these memories are, little reminders so you never take for granted where you came from, and where you are today.
I was given citalopram for this tendency to get trapped in old memories. my doc said it was just another form of OCD.
Thank you, lots of thank you
My brain likes to do this, too. I think it’s just another example of the depressed brain having excessively high expectations. It thinks your 12-year-old self should have been able to say. “Yes, it’s sunny out now, and it was cloudy at (the time on my report in the place where I was). One of the things I really want to learn in this class is why that happens. How can I learn about that?” But that’s not a realistic expectation from a 12-year-old because they’re easily embarrassed and they haven’t learned how to deal with jerks, especially when those jerks have absolute authority over them because they’re 12. So was the 12-year-old girl who was standing the sunny part of the playground that day. And I don’t even want to think about what that asshole teacher’s life was like when he was 12 to help him become such a dick. My mother taught earth science for 22 years and assigned a similar weather exercise and she never embarrassed kids in front of the class like that.
I look at your often-posted reply to the young girl who asked what to do when she’s made fun of about liking nerdy things, and I think how much my 12-year-old self would have loved to hear that. You can’t go back and defend yourself at 12, but you gave this great gift to the nerdy 12-year-olds who came after you. Thank you.
Maybe you can play that video in your head next time your brain is a dick to you.
I think all of us tend to replay those moments where “things would have been totally different if I’d been able to think quicker in the moment and give the great response I can think of now” but it seems to me that was just a bad teacher who totally missed a teachable moment to discuss variation in weather over time and distance. Not sure how he got the job
I’ve got about 2 dozen memories of various moments of humiliation, and more of times that I simply said something that no one really reacted to negatively, but that made me feel stupid when I thought about them later. They pop into my head in my waking life, rather than in dreams. Sometimes the stress they create and my inability to keep my mind from racing over them again and again… well, sometimes I find myself pinching my own arm or jabbing a finger into my side until the physical pain is greater than the pain of the memory, and I can move on for a little while. A few days pass… sometimes a few weeks… and then it happens again.
I’m 48, generally a happy guy, great kid, great wife. I don’t really have much to be unhappy about although I wish I was a better husband and Father than I am at times. It feels like they deserve a perfect husband and father, and all they get is me. No idea why I’m dragging around shit like this in my head either, although I wish I could get rid of it. Only upside to it is that professionally I run into kids who are struggling badly, their families too, and… I dont know if it’s actually true or not, but it feels like those experiences and the fact that they still haunt me for some reason gives me a little more empathy for them, if not insight into the way they feel.
But honestly? I’d give that up in a heartbeat if I could get rid of those memories and what they do to me when they come rushing back.
Anyway, that’s all emo bullshit, isn’t it? Sorry. Thanks for sharing Wil.
Will, that is such a beautifully written story. Really touching and powerful. Thanks.
NonJudgMental Ninja says you are OK. No matter what the weather or who else isn’t. Hug.
I am not a meteorologist, but at work I sit next to a bunch of them, and on the network I work with hundreds and hundreds of them. You are amazing. You have always been wonderful, no matter what your brain does to you,no matter what old wounds it dredges up that are still hurting. It was wrong when it happened and I am so sorry it did. It would be cool if you posted the weather where you are from time to time. I for one would be really happy to see it.
-Tanya
(tech support at the Weather Channel)
Don’t have time to fully write this out, but this post, along with something that happened in a conversation today, reminded me of the following:
I’m a photographer now. At least I try to be; my brain holds me back. What my brain forever brings me back to is a year 7 or 8 art class (so, 11 or 12 yo). We were drawing self-portraits. I showed my teacher, who said “It’s not very good, is it? Maybe you’d be better off going outside and counting the railings in the playground.”
To this day I’m convinced I’m a talentless hack, waiting for someone who knows what they’re talking about to put me in my place. I believe harsh criticism far more than I believe compliments, and I loathe showing my work to people who I would like to have hire me because I know that they’re going to tell me to fuck off back to my hacky little hole.
Yeah, fair to say this post touched on something I’m feeling vulnerable about today.
My daughter’s class did a mini project on Neil Armstrong a couple of years ago and being a favourite subject of mine I prepared (bored) her well. When she came out of school a couple of days later she was very annoyed that her teacher had asked a question and she felt she had answered correctly but her answer was wrong. So I asked her what the question was and what was her answer. Her teacher asked the class “where did Apollo 11 take off from?” and my daughter’s hand shot up and she replied Florida only to be told that this was wrong. Apparently the answer the teacher was looking for was NASA. I explained to my daughter she had been correct and that the teacher should have asked who launched the rocket not where it was launched if she wanted NASA to be the answer. I did also encourage her to go back to the teacher and politely tell her that she had answered the question that was asked correctly but being only seven at time I don’t think she felt she could. Instead of her teacher deeming her answer as wrong she should have acknowledged that the answer was correct if not the answer she was looking for. Another child may have been discouraged from answering questions in front of the class forever, luckily my daughter is quite resilient (I hope) and it hasn’t stopped her from putting her hand up in class and having a go. Teachers need nurture an enjoyment of learning and my daughter’s teacher and the one you had for weather science will not if they just dismiss an answer as wrong without actually listening to the child’s reasoning for their answer.
I also suffer from anxiety and depression and I appreciate you blogging about your experiences and confirming I am not alone in this. I still feel embarrassed to tell people I am on anti-depressants and most of the responses I get unfortunately make me feel like a failure for taking medication.
In my experience, my brain does this to me when it knows subconsciously that I’m am in a good, safe situation to process the bad stuff that happened when I was younger that I’d internalized without really processing, I think it reminds us that these situations weren’t our fault, but the fault of other people being dicks to us. We still internalized it and each event shaped our personalities to a certain extent, there’s no escaping that, but I feel strongly that by doing this type of post-processing, it helps us to let go of that particular event and become more in line with our true selves.
Why worry about non-sense in grade school? I’ve had some pretty low times in grade school myself and I sometimes wonder how different my life would be if things happened differently. But it doesn’t matter. What happened, happened. It helped steer your life to where you are now, but ultimately you are still in control. Do you feel if that elective went the way you hoped you would be a famous weather person on TV? If that is what you wish you were doing now, go for it! You can’t change the past. But you are still in control of your future. Learn what you can from the past but don’t dwell on it.
“Why worry about non-sense in grade school?” Because our brains are illogical and can be insecure, fretful assholes, especially when egged on by depression and anxiety. You’re absolutely right, we can’t change the past but we can control the future. If only letting go of the past were as easy as switching off a light.
My thought is to answer your brain with “Thank you for showing me the things I have faced and conquered in my past. I will use this as another example of how strong I was – even though I didn’t know it at the time. But I know it now.” Perhaps with this kinder talk Brain will relax a little and let you rest.
BTW Game Empire and Geeky Teas were both magical.
#LessThanThree
You can’t remember what happens next? That’s funny, because I can remember what happens next: you go on to be a movie star, a TV star, and a successful & beloved blogger, author and performer. He goes on to become . . . . a retired elementary school teacher.
I’m nobody’s therapist, but here’s a lay-suggestion (which works for me sometimes): you obviously have a very creative mind, so try this: envision a scene in which the sixth grader tells off the teacher in a way that embarrasses the teacher and makes him the envy of all the other students in the class. Give it actual dialog and everything. Allow yourself to feel what the sixth grader in the scene would feel. Now, when this particular memory comes back to haunt you, force yourself to remember the scene you created as well. Remembering either one (the reality or the fictional scene) doesn’t really help you in any tangible way, so it’s not like you’re “cheating” by adding this false memory. It might not even matter that you know it’s fake. If remembering it replaces the bad feeling with a good feeling, then it’s done it’s job. If not, then maybe you at least get a short story out of it.
Hope that helps in some small way…
There’s kind of an awful lie that the adult world tells itself and adamantly believes, probably because the world would be so much better if it were true, and that’s that adults are never dicks to kids. In the same vein, adults are never small and petty, adults never hurt kids’ feelings on purpose, and kids are never deeply wounded by the experience of being picked on by an asshole adult.
When I was I kid I was convinced that either the experience of being a kid at the time I was a kid was so utterly unlike being a kid at the time my parents were kids that there was virtually no overlap, or else my parents had virtually no recollection of what it was like being a kid. Because it was regularly awful and yet I was constantly assured that I had it really good. That is such a mindfuck to a kid. I had no context at all to let me know how shitty being a kid was, and I STILL knew it was absolutely shitty.
If nothing else, I can say this: I haven’t forgotten how much being a kid sucks. It does. It sucks to be small and powerless and have to depend on the kindness and caring of random adults, many of which have no business being entrusted with anything as fragile as the safety and welfare of a small child.
I’m going to really, really try to keep that knowledge in my memory, and to not only ask my kids if any other kids are bothering them at school, but also whether any adults are bothering them. Are any of your teachers jerks to you or other kids? Do any of your teachers say something and you can tell it made a student sad or feel bad?
I had a similar experience. As a kid, all I wanted, to do was forensic science. Everyone told me to take chemistry. I tried so hard but the teacher was tough and unsympathetic. I ended up getting suspended for for 5 days that year and when I returned to class I was rushing to copy all the notes from a friend so I wouldn’t fall behind. The teacher, knowing I wasn’t in school, called on me to answer a problem they had been working on. I told him I didn’t know but that wasn’t good enough. He made me sit there embarrassed in front of the while class for about 25 minutes. He grilled me and scolded me the entire time until he finally called on someone else. I did horrible in that class to which every said I couldn’t do forensics. And I believed them. To this day I wish he would have had a little empathy and that I stuck with it. It’s too late now…
In 6th grade I had missed a reading class for a doctor appointment and the next day there was a quiz on the story that we had read for homework and discussed the day I was out. The story was about a trout being chased by an otter and in a nutshell, it said “the otter was gaining, gaining, gaining until the trout reached refuge under tree roots”. One question on the quiz was “Which was faster, the otter or the fish?” I was the only one in class that got it “wrong” — I answered that the otter was faster (because it was gaining on the trout the whole time) whereas the rest of the class just put what the teacher had said the day before, “the trout (because it got away)”. I did stand up for myself (and logic), but when it was immediately clear that my teacher wasn’t smart enough to understand, I just said “OK, that’s what I get for going to the doctor instead of to class”. That was a little over 50 years ago.
That is a terrible way for anyone to treat anyone else, but it’s exceptionally rotten from a parent or teacher to their child or student.
My brain has been doing this to me, too, for the last several months. My most recent “hey, remember this upsetting thing???” intrusion from my kid-years was when my pants fell down in third grade while we were all on our way to the cafeteria. I’ll take that one over the one you related – at least my underwear was pretty that day (I thought so, anyway; it was light green with tiny dark green leaves on it).
If I could, I’d stop this type of pre-sleep reminiscing for all of us.
Oh geez, now I’m getting echos of a similar teacher slap down from elementary school. Luckily, it’s just the emotions of being put on the spot and disappointment… wait, no there it is. Mr. Carpenter. sigh It’s back. He caught me hold Stacy Skywalker’s hand (it was before Star Wars, REALLY!) and made me stand up while he went on about how bad it was to do this. Ended up not asking a girl out until after high school.
Stoopid brain. Couldn’t remember enough to pass Algebra 1 in college the first time but this bit of emotional drek? I guess it’s always gonna be there.
I can identify fully to your story. I, to this day, don’t know how to respond when others publicly humiliate/criticize me. I’m in college now and I have to deal with a difficult teacher in a distance learning course who is not very good as a teacher at all. Your mind as you fall asleep does this to you in order to find a frame of reference in order to find a solution to a situation you faced during the day. Your subconscious mind picks up on things that your conscious mind is not aware of or chooses to ignore during the day. So these memories come out just before u fall asleep as your unconscious mind is coming out to play. You know it’s like the moon coming out while the sun is setting. I hate it so much when my conscious mind becomes aware of the problem as then I can’t sleep until I figure out a solution, so annoying. My advice is just let them come and go just as fast, if u hang on to them or dwell on them you’ll never have peace.