Strange incident at school when I was a child- what can I do about it?

[Flamingo49]

This is a bit of a weird one. I'm in my 40s, and every so often a memory pops into my head of something that happened to me when I was at school in London, during the 80s. I get two images in my head. In each one I'm in a room in an area of the school that we would never normally go to unless it was sanctioned by a teacher. In the first image, I am sitting with an adult going through one of those psychological tests- a stack of cards which each have lots of coloured dots on them, and you have to try and pick out a number which is hidden amongst the dots in a slightly different colour. The other image is more disturbing. I am sitting in the same room with a young Asian man, some kind of mask is put over my mouth and I'm asked to take a deep breath in. It tastes sharp and peppery and unpleasant. These memories make me feel.... strange. I'm not sure if something untoward was going on but I find it very difficult to hold onto these memories when I have them. In that, I'll say to myself "I should investigate this further" but then my brain immediately blocks it out until it pops back into my head many months later. I suppose my question is, does anyone know why the mask test might have been carried out? An innocuous reason like checking for asthma or something? Or did anyone else have a similar experience? The memories feel so slippery that the closer I try to examine them the harder it is to hold onto them, and I wonder if my brain is playing tricks on me.

If it reassures you- We had dental treatment at school- I remember it used to be set up in the library- a little mobile clinic. I had a filling once. I remember it vividly (early 90s).

Terbutaline is an immediate relief asthma drug for nebulisers (ie breathing on through a nebuliser mask thing) that apparently tastes bitter.?

Not very helpful, but the dentist still comes to my children's inner london school. They don't do real treatments but they do inspect teeth, fill a form to say if any treatment is needed, and apply fluoride I believe. Serious decay in primary children is a huge problem in the borough so I suppose that's why they've kept it.

I agree that the odd "mask" memory sounds like either gas and air (prob dentist related) or some sort of spacer device for an inhaler. I used one for a while and it did taste slightly unpleasant.

False memory syndrome is actually reasonably common. In therapy, therapists have to be really careful not to accidentally implant false memories

Was the second one headlice treatment and the cloth over your mouth and nose to try to lesson the noxious smell? I know they certainly used to check for headlice in schools but not sure if treatment used to be done as well?

It's very possible to have false memories OP, also the brain plays tricks on us and can merge different places/people etc.

@MargaretThursday

Dentist used to come to our primary school back in the 80s.

yes, what i was thinking. and fits with the other eye test there. could have been a medical room. sounds just like having gas for dentistry. you're not very old. can't you look up the school on facebook or similar esp for any old staff who might know what was the norm at the time. by the way, what compass point of london was the school in. but can't be mine; we didn;t have primary schools then.

I was thinking maybe some sort of research student type trial, - did you live in a particularly air polluted area or anything like that that they could have been measuring?

Are you sure you couldn't be mixing memories as I'm a similar age and the 2nd is exactly like having teeth extracted with gas!

My guess is an asthma rescue medication (like salbutamol) being given via a mask because you had a wheezy cough or similar. Or a school dentist - they were really common in the 80s.

I remember lots of tests back then too, eyes, nits, hearing, teeth, having the polio on a sugar cube. I think it was more common for all this to be done in schools because a lot of people didn’t drive like they do now and they also needed to make sure all kids were looked after not just the ones whose parents would follow through with these tests. Pulling kids teeth for no reason was also very common back then as dentists got a government incentive.

I remember being pinned down by 2 drs, 2 nurses and my mum when they tried to give be my tb jab and travelling home on 3 separate busses sobbing my heart out. I was only about 6 but I remember it clear as day, all my family had to be vaccinated as we’d been in close contact with someone with TB. My mum tried telling me I’d made the memory up when I was older, as she did with a lot of my childhood memories, luckily my Nan overheard her and corrected her that it really did happen the way I described as she remembers meeting us at the bus station with me still sobbing. But saying that sometimes I have memories and dreams where I can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.

2nd memory - I'm guessing school dentist. They were very common in 1980s and would certainly do baby teeth extractions with gas in school (the rules changed several years later as so many kids died so they now have to do proper anaesthetics and usually in hospital). Our school had a medical room and was used for the nit nurse, eye checkups (inc the colourblindness test you described as your first memory), polio vaccine (on a sugar cube) age 4-5 as well as the school dentist.

I remember someone coming with a brown see through thing to blow into to test for asthma. I also got Fisher sealant on my teeth and I think they used a shade over my face to seal it with light. Late 80s.

Is there a Facebook group for your old school? - you could join, and then ask old classmates, who might remember...

Lots of dodgy things used to happen in schools back then OP. i remember being taken to the head teachers office when I was at primary school, and being placed front down across a chair, my skirt pulled up, and slapped several times with a slipper across my bum (over my knickers) by the elderly male head teacher as punishment for playing in an area of the playground i shouldn’t have been. The memory occasionally pops up, and I feel uneasy about it, but not sure if it was the ‘norm’ back then, or something more sinister.

Just remember that childhood memories are unreliable.

I have a memory which is more vivid feeling than clear detail in which one of my peers died in a really dramatic way that would have made the papers.

A little boy who I didn't know well enough to speak to had a bad fall. Couple of cuts and bruises and he was fine.

Another vote for a dream potentially. I have a very vivid memory of being chased by our two Siamese cats one day. One had been sleeping in the (empty) fireplace and the other on the sofa. When I came into the room they woke and chased me out into the hall. A perfectly pedestrian (if slightly scary) memory, except that we had neither a fireplace or Siamese cats. But that memory is as vivid as any thing that happened to me in my childhood, actually more vivid that some big hitters (including my only sibling being born!)

@Livelovebehappy

Lots of dodgy things used to happen in schools back then OP. i remember being taken to the head teachers office when I was at primary school, and being placed front down across a chair, my skirt pulled up, and slapped several times with a slipper across my bum (over my knickers) by the elderly male head teacher as punishment for playing in an area of the playground i shouldn’t have been. The memory occasionally pops up, and I feel uneasy about it, but not sure if it was the ‘norm’ back then, or something more sinister.

Unfortunately it was the norm in the 70s for junior school head teachers to give people the slipper. It was the same at my junior school. It just seems so awful and weird to us now though. Thank God it's a thing of the past.

@foxgoosefinch

We had some university people come into my school, parents were asked to give permission. It was about a liquid that some people could taste and some people thought it was just water. Seems weird but I know it happened.

@ancientgran
There’s a substance called PTC that some people can taste and others can’t because of a genetic predisposition - so it was probably that (when was this by the way?)

Yes I think that was it, they asked lots of questions about where family came from.

It was probably 1968 but could have been 67 or 69.

So students must have been doing some research on genetics. Thanks, I've wondered what it was.

Sure you weren't having a nosebleed? That could involve a cloth over the mouth and nose and a metallic spicy taste.

Peak flow test is a tube you blow into, not a rubber mask. Spacers again, don't have masks, they have mouthpieces. Inhalers generally don't taste peppery either.

Did you have a school dentist? It really sounds like anesthesia by gas to me.

@nothingcanhurtmewithmyeyesshut

Peak flow test is a tube you blow into, not a rubber mask. Spacers again, don't have masks, they have mouthpieces. Inhalers generally don't taste peppery either.

Did you have a school dentist? It really sounds like anesthesia by gas to me.

Spacers can have masks, especially the ones for young children.

I had teeth out due to overcrowding as a child, and was anesthetised with gas, which was the norm for that era.

When I read your post, I remembered the taste of the gas which was as you describe, it was exactly like your description.

Why don't you ring the school and ask if there is an alumini of past students and see if anyone else remembers?