Concrete Angel... can we rise above?

When you least expect it, some not-so-pleasant thoughts come rushing back.

A few days ago something happened at the school where I work. One of the male teachers has a very difficult class this year. I personally feel it's a combination of having too many behavioral problems in his class and his lack of classroom management.. but I guess that's beside the point.

I was walking between buildings when I saw two students huddled on the sidewalk with a stick. I called out to them and asked what they were doing. They had a small snake there and was poking it with a stick. Now if you're thinking what I was thinking, "It's a harmless garter (?) snake".. well, it wasn't.

It was a baby, but it was trying it's damndest to take a bite out of one of those kids.

So, I took the stick from one of the boys and told them to get Mr. XXXXX. I figured maybe he could find a five gallon bucket and place it over the snake because this just happened to be in a place where kindergarten students walked through.

I'm standing there with this mean and quite mad snake, holding a stick and keeping my distance just in case any more students wandered along... and suddenly the doors burst open and about 6 students rushed out.

They all rushed toward me like they were on a mission.. all babbling, "Where's the snake.. let's see it!" I held up my left arm and told them to back off, and get back to class. That's when their teacher... Mr. NoClassroomManagement comes out and YELLS at them. Now, when I say YELLS, I don't mean just raised his voice.. I mean he yelled.

Something inside me just froze and I could feel myself lean forward and cover my head. It was so embarrassing... I had this pissed off snake trying to bite me, I'm weakly holding a stick and then I look like I just had a brain aneurysm because I'm 'ducking and covering' certain that I was about to have the shit knocked out of me.



Then I have students asking me, "What's wrong!?" and Mr. NCM starts yelling even more at them to leave me alone.... and I feel like I'm back at home and my dad is screaming at me right before he started swinging and hitting me upside the head. I started crying and didn't even realize it until the principal was summoned and found me outside bawling like a baby.

I haven't had a trigger for years, and then suddenly I was thrust back to a time where I was around 12 years old... it took me by surprise so much, that now I'm almost afraid that it will happen again.

See, I don't really want the people I work with to know about my past. I just feel as though it's embarrassing as hell. I tried to explain it to one co-worker a few years ago (when I worked for a bank) and she looked at me like I was telling her these things, just to gain some sympathy or some such crap.

I wish that people would just realize how hard it is to admit that your parent(s) are less than perfect and in fact, sometimes they are almost monster like. Even though I know now that none of the horrible stuff that happened to me or my siblings was MY fault.. it's still embarrassing and I guess a small piece of me still wonders if maybe I had done "x" just a little differently... maybe it wouldn't have set him off.

Why in the world would a person share such horrible things with another for only sympathy? Hell... I would have taken a better childhood in lieu of living with this shit any day! Much as I know anyone who's been through similar stuff would as well.