Traumatised from Mum hitting teacher

[Whewhew]

I'm not really sure what I'm looking for from this post, probably just a place to write it down to try and work through it.

Background... I had a very difficult childhood. I won't go into detail however to give you an idea of how difficult it was, my ACE score was 10.

I've had lots of therapy as an adult to work through this however there is one memory that seems to haunt me for some reason.

At the age of 5 I had a minor dispute over some stationary with another child in my class. I noticed this other child using what I thought was my stationary and I snatched it off them and refused to give it back. As a result my Mum was called in for a meeting with the head.

I very VIVIDLY remember standing in the head teachers office with my MUM, I remember the teachers name and exactly how she looked that day. Baring in mind this was over 30 years ago. There was a disagreement between my Mum and the head and the next thing I remember is my Mum attacking the teacher and punching her multiple times. There was blood everywhere and I was hysterical, as was the teacher understandably.

After that I was treated really badly by the rest of the teachers. They obviously took their hate for my mother out on me. It makes me so sad thinking of what I went through and I genuinely can't believe that professionals in such a position could treat a child that way.

I'm now an adult and living a "normal" life. I have children a similar age and it seems to have brought all these memories back with a vengeance.

I now have friends that are teachers and the thought of them being attacked at their place of work is absolutely horrifying. The thought of a child witnessing this and then being subject to horrible treatment from the school is also horrifying.

There's obviously nothing I can do about this and I understand I am not to blame for my mother's actions however I still feel very responsible for the whole thing. No amount of therapy seems to make me feel otherwise. I guess these feelings come with a traumatic childhood. I wish I could just erase these memories from my head completely.

@GuevarasBeret I feel guilty as it's my fault that the situation happened. My Mum was called to the school because I snatched the stationary from another child. If I hadn't, the head teacher wouldn't have been assaulted.

I would want to apologise for creating the whole situation in the first place. Even though I'm not responsible for my mum's actions, it's still hard to convince myself that it way all because of what I did.

You did nothing wrong. Your mum obviously behaved terribly and those teachers treated you cruelly. You should not feel guilt or shame over this. Anger would be more appropriate but I suspect that you were raised not to feel anger.

But OP, that’s accepting the view of the crazy adult that “you made me do it”.

Maybe, if she was a better parent you would have asked the other child politely, or not been so frantic about having it back. You hadn’t been equipped to handle things in a way that doesn’t escalate.

Do you really think that any other six year old (no doubt with a couple of ACE’s already) should, thirty years later, feel a sense of responsibility about this?
What the teacher will be thinking is “that poor child, growing up in those circumstances”

But let’s say you’re right, and you did do something wrong- don’t you deserve forgiveness already. People who committed murders that year are all out of prison already and have rehabilitated their lives. You too deserve that.

Who do you need to get permission from to let this go too?

What you did was think that another child had taken your pencil and taken it back.

What your mother did was assault a teacher.

The first thing (what you did) did not cause the second (what your mother did).

When it comes to adults assaulting other adults, a small child can neither make that happen nor prevent it from happening.

I'm very sorry you are feeling like this and that the teachers took your mother's actions out on you. You were never to blame and they let you down by making you feel like you deserved anything other than comfort and support.

I do like the chocolate boxes idea pp had though. Might that kind of symbolic gesture help you release this feeling?

Have you tried to find the teacher? I wonder if maybe speaking to her about it might help

OP just to add that the adults in the situation were responsible for keeping the children safe, not the other way round. Your mum made this unsafe for all of you. It's not your fault ❤️

You shouldn’t feel guilty - you didn’t do anything that bad - just quite common 5 year old behaviour. If your mum was how she was , if it hadn’t been that for an “excuse” it would have been something else - and nothing excuses what she did.
a 5 year old cannot take responsibility for follow up bad actions of an adult. I’m sure if one of your children at 5 did something bad you wouldn’t blame them if you were then violent (I know you wouldn’t be ! ) x

I don’t really have any advice and just repeating what others have said. I’m really sorry all that happened to you and you were so badly let down by the adults in your life at the times

You should never stop giving yourself credit for what you’ve achieved, giving your children the loving childhood you should have had. You’ve done an incredible job coming out the other side and living a “normal” life.

It’s completely understandable to suffer a form of PTSD from such an event at that age, I hope you’re able to resolve your feelings ❤️ take care OP x

There’s a book called ‘the body keeps the score’ that may be worth reading op.

Im sorry you experienced that. I think being a parent and dealing with schools if you’ve had trauma in your own childhood ( as I also did) is a really difficult thing. It does get easier the more time you put between that experience and the present. Be kind to yourself x

It wasn’t your fault. Your mother was violent. The teachers treated you badly by association. That’s on them not you.

I would go back into the memory. Sit with the little girl, notice how upset she is that her stationary has been taken. She is so upset. Comfort her, be understanding of how it feels to hold on to her things when her life is so difficult at home. It’s all she has, the only little bit of control she has. Her school life is literally her only safe space. Everything is calm and orderly at school.

Then watch, as an adult, her mother smash up the little girl’s ONLY safe space. It’s ripped away and nothing goes back to the way it was. Everything changed in that moment. The teachers are cold and unkind. The warm place she had is gone. There is an unprocessed loss there op.

This little girl can’t blame her mother, that is far far too dangerous. She has to survive. So she internalises the blame. It becomes her fault for snatching stationary - as all children do at that age. It is much safer to take the blame than it is to dare put the responsibility where it belongs.

You did the right thing op. You were looking after yourself, you were clever and bright and capable, learning how to get through your childhood without being seriously injured or killed. Internalising blame and shame kept you alive and well. Some of it is still left over, and you can reach that part with empathy and with understanding. Of course you are going to have battle scars.

But the loss of your teachers regard and your safe space will have had the most enormous impact op. Of course it is not, and could never be your fault, and you should have been treated with more kindness not less after that event. Did they imagine she was different at home?? With you?

If you have a dp let him do most of the school stuff. Give yourself permission to take care of yourself in that environment. Know your children will be enjoying a completely different experience to you.

I hope you have happiness, peace and love in your life now. I am so sorry you were treated that way op, you fully deserved love, protection and care. 💐

You are describing me here @Pootlemcsmootle in your first sentence.

I was also treated badly by my teachers in primary as a result of my Mum causing a ruck but she had good reason and there was no physical violence.

I still have bad dreams about the head teacher violently attacking a boy in my class in 1972. It was a full on brutal assault that other children remember and I was so pissed off at waking up in a sweat about it yet again at the age of 62, I decided, recently, to contact the boy and talk it through.

Incredibly, he has no memory of it but does remember an interaction with the teacher that was almost certainly sexual assault. He had kept that to himself all this time.

I wait to see if the dreams will stop but that trauma has lasted in my head all those years OP. It's a bloody menace.

I'm so sorry for what you witnessed, and for how the teachers treated you afterwards. There is NO excuse for treating a child badly because of the actions of their parents. I've never been attacked by a parent, but I've been sworn and shouted at several times, and it only makes me feel sorry for their kids.

I am so sorry for what you went through.

Well done on having a normal life now. Xxx

Another post to just say he proud you should be of yourself to have created a great life for your children despite everything you went through! You know it wasn't your fault and that's the main thing. Other memories may come back at other times of your children's lives I suppose, but keep looking at the big oicture and how you are not to blame for the things your mother did.

This.

It sounds like school was your stable place and in that moment it all changed, that will have had a big impact on your life going forward.
If your child behaved the way you did on that day, what would your response be, would you hold your child responsible for your response? The response of the teachers?
You need to be kind to yourself, the adults around you made choices that day, how much control did you have in that situation? 5 year olds would have had no control, you could not have foreseen that arguing over the stationary would result in a teacher being assaulted.

i think this is it and really insightful.

I know you’re feeling down but the fact you have broken the cycle with your own children is a huge achievement and you should actually be feeling very proud of yourself.

I can see how triggering it must be, having your own kids at school.

I agree with @Longsummerdays25, the memory may be so upsetting because it ruined your one safe space. And you perhaps felt responsible for setting off your mum.

Could it be a slightly false memory? It’s possible you may be conflating two separate incidents; a violent physical attack and something upsetting that happened at school. Such a bloody attack on a head would be a very rare and serious in incident. There may be local press reports. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were excluded from the school. Your mother certainly wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near. If you really wanted to be sure, the local education authority may have a record to confirm what happened, even if the school’s closed down. It may be worth emailing them.

Also, would it be worth talking to the head at your DC’s school. I’m sure they’d be so understanding, and this may help neutralise how hurt you felt that teachers turned on you. Or some primary schools now have free counselling for parents.

Don't feel bad, it's not your fault at all. Your mum would have exploded over the smallest slight at some point with a teacher. The teachers were wrong to treat you unfavourably, they should be ashamed of themselves. Perhaps it's a good thing it happened as the event meant you lived with a kind family. This meant you didn't learn any violent behaviours from your mum. I believe it happened for a good reason, and life helped more you to more stable parents.

I'm so sorry. I think in the past there was a tendency to view some families as "problem families" and view all the members in the same light. Some areas do still have this issue in terms of a culture of low expectations for children from certain backgrounds, but I hope that if an incident like this happened nowadays, you would be viewed as a child at risk or in need by the school and given additional support.

Try and frame it in another way. Say one of your kids stole a pencil case and you got called to the head teachers office. And the headteacher punched you. Would you blame your child, or the headteacher?

@Whewhew you are a cycle breaker! Your children and their children will likely never experience that level of trauma/ACEs and that’s all down to you! How incredible is that?

She was a very violent woman and I have much worse stories from my childhood however, for some reason, this story is the one that haunts me.

We know that school is often a child’s only safe space and your mother violated that space. It was no longer where you felt safe.

The further loss of how the reachers treated you made the experience worse - you lost twice.

Nothing unusual in their reaction - 'please don't make it difficult for me', 'they will take it out on me' my dc told me when I wanted to go and complain about one particular teacher - I was shocked that a 10-year old told me that. I was also told by one of the parents 'not to rock the boat because your dc will need a good reference for uni', and when I protested that no reference will be required from that particular teacher, I was told not to be naive and that they are 'thick as thieves'. Try making a complaint against a GP - you will be expelled from the surgery 'because we can't guarantee you won't be asked to see that doctor again and in your best interests. etc. etc. it is best for you to change the surgery'. I am not saying this is normal, I am saying this is disgusting, akin to mafia-style behaviour, but this is how lots of human beings operate and such behaviour is so 'normalised' that as you can see, I was warned 'not to spoil my dc's chances of getting to a uni of his first choice' by complaining about that teacher - I was warned by a parent OTHER teachers would retaliate (!!!!!). And there was no hitting the teacher, no verbal abuse. This is madness, but this is life.