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This post talks about eating disorders. Please be aware if you choose to read this.
When I was a Jr. In high school, I was having some health issues. I was unable to hold my food down and it caused me to be weak as a result. I joined the flag girls for the marching band that year. I had joined before the issue kicked in. This was in 2012. My issue caused me to overheat easily and caused me to need frequent breaks. The NT bandmates saw a different side to it. The director eventually thought I was faking because I ‘looked ok.’
You know the disability pictogram you see? We need to change it. That pictogram makes people think disabilities are visible but not all of them are. Clearly, someone who only thinks you have to see something should not be an educator. I should have told him ‘oh I can’t see your brain, I guess you don’t have one.’
He couldn’t see my fatigue so he thought I was faking. I would not have cared if he got mad. He was in the wrong accusing me of faking being sick because in his eyes I ‘looked’ fine.
How should fatigued people look? Have a depleted energy bar over their head like they’re in a video game?
There was a move in the dance that was hard for me to get. We were practicing for a competition we had at St. Rita. I guess my struggle on the move made the director mad.
Or he thought I was doing it on purpose (which I wasn’t). He went off on me in front of the ENTIRE BAND. The guy who said competition brings out the nasty in people was wise. Then he said he didn’t mean to ‘call me out.’ Shut the fuck up. He goes off me for struggling and have the fucking nerve to cover his ass and say it’s calling me out. I slipped into a deep, deep depression and I stopped eating. This was the start of my hatred for NTs. Not all of them. That and how they treated me in Jr. high and my Freshman year of high school. The NT director thought embarrassing me would magically make me do the move correctly. Anyone who thinks shaming and putting someone down helps them ‘learn’ I feel they should not be a teacher.
I did not tell my mom or her boyfriend that this happened. I didn’t tell anyone.
This lasted for a month. It happened in mid-September and I got sick from it in October. My mom noticed my behavior wasn’t right. My mom knows the foods I love and saw I barely made a dent. Sometimes I purged my food. The bathroom had a fan when you turned on the light and I’d turn on the light and closed the door to drown out the noise. The girls on the squad even wondered why I didn’t eat when we stayed after school for a contest.
I was already having problems at it is. I couldn’t hold my food down and no one knew the cause and the director wanted to embarrass me like that would help. As a result of not eating. I developed stomach pains that lasted the whole weekend. I had a half-day at school and it happened when I got home. My mom made an appointment to see the doctor and I had to wait until Monday since they close early on Saturdays. My symptoms started Friday.
The doctor did what she could and couldn’t find the problem and told my mom to take me to the ER. The cause of my sudden symptoms. I was backed up like a storm drain from not eating and caught a UTI I guess from being back up. So when I say I caught a UTI in a rare way. I really mean it. The truth behind my behavior came out a month after the director embarrassed me. My mom’s bf was disgusted at what the director did. My mom said I should have told her she cannot do anything if she doesn’t even know. Perhaps if I told her she would have talked to the principal.
What the director did to me was the start of my hatred for NTs. This is why I can’t take being in a group run by NTs. That director clearly ruined my look for all NTs. If I was struggling and he could have just told me why I was missing the move. If I started too late? He could have said that.
He went too far going off on me. And he has 2 kids. Scary for a father to embarras a child for having trouble.
You are not fit to be a coach if all you know is making people feel small if they’re having trouble. If he does that to his kids I feel so bad for them. No one should be treated like that because they’re having trouble.
Literally, all he had to do was tell me why I was missing the move. What was so hard about ‘you’re starting too late you need to star at.. and then tell me what mark in the song to start the dance. I was watching a movie on Lifetime Movie Network. It was a cheerleading movie. A girl was struggling on a stunt. Unlike that director, the coach told her why she was not getting it and gave her HELPFUL FEEDBACK. Then she nailed the move implying the coach’s feedback. See? You don’t have to shout at someone for struggling. But that’s all people know how to do is yell and put someone down.
He also could has quietly asked one of the other girls to help me but didn’t. I quit after a year.
This was partially why I have a fear of failure. All because of what one person did when I was having trouble. I wanted to get into voice-over work since forever. Would the director have patience with me if I struggle to learn the context of a line or will he/she be like the band director? No one. NO ONE has patience for someone like me. Who’s.. Autistic.
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