My crippling anxiety of failing didn’t start overnight and neither did yours

4th grade was a pretty pivotal time for me. My family had just moved to our new town which was known for their exceptional special education programs. I was going to get help learning how to read in resource room and catch up to my peers. 

My teacher was “Mr. Macy”. He was loved by most of my classmates, he was young, he was funny and also worked at the local day camp where many of the kids got to know him before school. Me? I wasn’t as excited. I was scared of being in a new school with new people and I was was anxious that because I had a hard time reading that people would think I was stupid. Spoiler alert- I am not stupid. I just couldn’t understand why the kids in my class could do something so easily and I didn’t even know where to start. 

I was called on in class at random times because I didn’t want to raise my hand often. If I didn’t know the answer he would make a joke and everyone in class would laugh or he would get really frustrated and ask in a stern voice if I was paying attention and proceed to yell at me. Sometimes he would stop the class to pull me outside to yell at me. He was over 6 ft tall and he would tower over me as he would question me continuously until I would cry. I would sink deeper into my chair everytime and wanted to disappear. 

I knew I wasn’t stupid but I didn’t understand why trying hard and succeeding didn’t correlate and so I ate my feelings. Comfort foods brought me the comfort I couldn’t bring to myself and gave me a sense of control. I didn’t think I was stupid but for some reasons many adults thought I was and they thought by embarrassing me in front of the kids in my class that I would feel motivated to change. 

I kept thinking BELIEVE ME if all I needed to do was wish that I could read and understand and blend in with my friends don’t you think I wanted that too? 

Mr. Macy had a very strict rule about extra help. “If you are coming in for extra help you need to come in with 3 prepared questions for us to go over, I am not a babysitter so you are not welcome to come early and have me watch you. I am here to help, that is all”. I would come home and try to explain to my parents what I was working on but honestly I didn’t really know. It made it even harder to grasp and ask questions because I didn’t even know where to start. My mom suggested she would drop me off at school early for extra help but my anxiety and panic set in deeper. 

With tears streaming down my face I started breaking out into hives from head to toe having full blown panic attacks sitting in my parents bedroom. I couldn’t breathe. How could I possibly go in for extra help if I couldn’t even explain what I didn’t understand or where to start let alone come up with 3 questions.  

I was terrified of him and no one seemed to understand why. How could you hate Mr. Macy? He's the best! But I had intense stomach pains all year, I was absent almost 20 days that year and ended up in the hospital under distress. 

In 6th grade my social studies teacher “Mrs James'' had a policy about tests that to this day makes me cringe. When she was finished grading tests she would call up each student 1 by 1 who scored below an 80 and show them their grade. On average I was a C student in her class and would usually get test scores in the 70s which was fine for me and other times I would fail. But EVERY TIME she called me up to see my test score, I wanted to burst out into tears. Why did she think humiliation was going to help me or the other students do better next time? My friends immediately ran after me to say “Alex what did you get? Did you fail?” I remember staying after class and saying to her how humiliating it was and I didn’t feel like it was anyone else’s business what I scored on my tests. But she basically said she was a few years away from retiring and was changing for no one. 

I was traumatized by Mr. Macy, Mrs. James and honestly several teachers all the way through college. Many of these teachers were frustrated that I couldn’t follow along. But instead of encouraging me when I asked questions or stayed after school I was yelled at in front of my classmates and sent home with notes that I would be too embarrassed to show my parents (I found collections of those notes in my desk at home after I graduated college that’s how much shame I had). 

I talk about my dyslexia and ADHD openly but until recently I didn’t realize how much my anxiety and depression were related. Did you know that 80% of adults who have an ADHD are likely to be diagnosed with another disorder such as anxiety (great read in ADDitude magazine). I don’t know about you but that felt like a real aha moment for me. All this anxiety, fear and trauma of failure that somehow I wasn’t good enough made me realize I wasn’t failing. These teachers failed me.

For as long as I can remember I’ve put this enormous pressure on myself to be perfect. My work should be flawless and people should look at me and think wow. “I can’t believe you have learning disabilities and ADHD I had no idea”. It’s given me a strong work ethic, it makes me a hard worker, determined go getter, and incredibly dependable. But it’s exhausting. That fear of failure is what looms over me because the humiliation, the constant demeaning and demoralizing language that was used on me and many other people with LD and ADHD makes perfect sense why we would have anxiety and depression. It’s made me who I am in a lot of ways but it’s not all of me and it’s not the best of me either. 

So what can we do with this information? It reminds me of a book I read as a kid. “Were going on a bear hunt”.  Each page has a similar segment of their adventure and these lines are repeated on almost every page.

“We're not scared. We can't go over it. We can't go under it. Oh no! We've got to go through it! ” 

My point is that it is important to know that we are not alone, our feelings are valid, it’s not our fault but now we have to face the fears of that anxiety/depression and trauma. We can’t just get over it and we can’t just tuck it away any longer. We have to go through it and deal with the pain that has been holding us back for so long. If this sounds like you I can’t recommend enough working with a therapist or mental health professional. 

I can’t tell you that I am fully over all of the trauma but I can tell you I am not burying it anymore either and it feels really good to be on the other side of going through it. “Mr. Macy” and “Mrs. James” are no longer living rent free in my head. I have confidence in my abilities and surround myself with people who are supportive of me and appreciate my strengths. So come join me on the other side and let go of what is holding you back.