- People who have helped me
- Caregiver
- Pre-school teacher
- Therapist
- Primary 1 teacher
- Class buddy
- Others
- Conclusion
People Who Have Helped Me (Knowingly or Unknowingly)
Looking back at the earlier days of my life, I am actually very lucky. Not just to have the money for all my therapy, but also to have had the help of people who appeared in crucial points of my life. During the time they were there, I’d always taken them for granted and once they’d left I never noticed the difference. Only now, when my mother and I think back, do I realize that what they have done, no matter how small the action itself, has made an impact on my life. I’d always believed that our experience shapes us into who we are today.
One example of someone who has helped me is the maid that my mom hired; I called her Auntie Abigail (Oh, alliteration!). She was from Philippines and she worked as a teacher there before coming to Singapore, which was a really good thing too. In my younger years, I never went to nursery (Actually I did, but only for three months and then I downright refused to go.) however when I was older, my parents told me I had to go to kindergarten or the police would catch them and send them to prison (I have no idea if that is true though). So my parents, being the adoring somewhat rich parents (high income actually, and lenient with spending, not rich) sent me to a ‘really expensive high class kindergarten’ (names shall not be mentioned) at which the other girls used to pick on me (read life story for complete complaint story) and I never learnt anything there. If anything, I was really traumatized, partly because I was already traumatized when I got there. My parents grumbled that they “paid an ungodly amount of money to traumatize our daughter”. So coming to why my Auntie Abigail was such a big help, since she was a qualified teacher, she used to teach me basic mathematics and other subjects when I came home because my parents sent me for half a day whereas the other kids went for the whole day. I am very grateful that they did not send me for the whole day because I had an unbearably miserable time there. So though I learnt almost absolutely nothing for half a day for which my parents were paying $500 a month (half-day fees, full-day fees were $1000) I came home at lunch (Auntie Abigail’s cooking is excellent) to learn all that I missed out on for free. Of course, Auntie Abigail was much more patient than my teachers, she only had me to teach, and she taught me very patiently and with a lot of love. We used to do science-experiments-in-a-box, as I have taken to calling them, and sometimes we baked cookies and bread in weird shapes. In kindergarten, she used to wait outside the room for me(diligently too, not like other not so nice maids who are impatient and feel really bored while waiting and get all fidgety and crabby) and when I was young, I used to walk up and down the stairs at shopping malls. I would slowly totter up the stairs and she would hold my hand and walk at my pace and when we reached the top, I would be all smug and cheerful and I would go “again!” (that was my first word) and she would turn around and go down again, oh-so-patiently, and of course it would repeat once I got to the bottom. My mom used to get really tired from running up and down the stairs but she said that my Auntie Abigail never got all snappy like some other maids. The stairs were good for my development too. She made a really big impact on my life, and she was not only the best maid, teacher and friend I could ever have but also the most loving, caring and nurturing caretaker in the universe. She took care of me with love and she did love me a lot too, she was my companion when I was home because at that time, my parents were always out working though they too loved me a lot and paid lots of attention to me when they were home (it was never really a case of negligent parents). Auntie Abigail stayed with us for 9 years until she left for Canada to study. My mother always said fate placed Auntie Abigail with us when we needed her most and brought her away when I didn’t need her anymore. She said that it was time for me to grow up and be independent and Auntie Abigail couldn’t let me be independent because for 9 years she did everything for me (I was this helpless little girl who couldn’t do anything by myself, must as well have been born without hands). And so ends this paragraph/chapter which is turning out to be so much longer than I expected.
In my kindergarten, I never really liked the teachers, I didn’t dislike them like I did to the other girls but I didn’t like them either. I suppose it is safe to say I disliked them moderately. But there was this one teacher; she was a trainer, who also made a big impact on my life. Without her I would never have been diagnosed (and without my diagnosis, my mom would never have quit her job to help me) and my mom told me that after my very first psychologist report, she started to pay special attention to me and she also taught me. My mom said she altered the teaching method of that kindergarten to cater for my needs as a child with learning disabilities. So on with the story, if you had read my long grumbling sob story of a life story you would know about me sitting under tables and torturing dolls in the dark(refusing to let my parents turn on the light) while muttering to myself incoherently. This is something that is obviously not common in a child of four-and-a-half years, if in a horror movie, the child might even be thought demonic or possessed. So of course, my mother was very concerned about this display of sadism and sent me for a psychologist assessment, the first one in my life , so when she got back the report, she sent it to the kindergarten where aforementioned teacher read it and started to watch me closely and started to look into the matter by placing herself as one of my teachers. After a year, she told my mother to send me for another assessment, a different one this time, one used to detect ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder… ADD, +?) And thus I was diagnosed with ADD . My mother was relieved with my diagnosis, anyone else would think that a mother would be horrified, shocked or in denial, but she was relieved that there was finally a name for all of my “problems” (which could help in researching cures for this “problem” or in this case, a coping mechanism, there is no cure for ADD), therefore proving my point that she’s a batty old loon, or in less insulting terms, eccentric. So we owe my diagnosis to this really nice lady who understood me when no one else did. Without her, I could never have received help due to my diagnosis.
Three months after my diagnosis, my mother contacted the psychologist who had diagnosed me and asked her for specialist support . And this was how the ‘next-person-who-made-an-impact-on-my-life’ came into my life. The specialist who came to help me was this nice lady who I shall be referring to as Auntie V. My mom said that was what I called her when I was younger. She helped me cope with my learning difficulties (my mother refused to let me take Ritalin, I didn’t want to either; we didn’t want to be utterly independent on this little tablet in a bottle.) she introduced coping methods. They were very simple methods; I remember that she used to sit at a table with me and give me lessons, when I started to drift off she would rap on the table and ask “Am I working?” I could be washing my hands and I could forget to turn the tap off, so she told me to constantly ask myself that question because I often needed to be prompted to do anything. I even needed to be prompted to remember that I was holding something; I would often forget I was holding something and drop it very suddenly, without warning. So she said that I needed to make a habit of prompting myself because there wouldn’t always be people around to prompt me not to drift off. And she taught me to “Stop, Think and Act” to manage the impulsive nature that was a cause of my distractibility. Later on, she taught me how to deal with my dyslexia after I was diagnosed to be dyslexic in Primary 1. Most of the coping strategies had to do with forming habits, my mom used to say “Habits are hard to break”, which I guess was her simpler version of “Old habits die hard”. Without Auntie V, I would never have been able to manage my many learning difficulties; therefore I owe whatever success in achieving control of my neurological malfunctions to this very nice lady who I was very lucky to meet.
My form teacher in primary one was a rather old but very motherly lady. My mother had quit her job to help me when I started primary school and she explained the main behavior that should be expected from me. My mother explained that about my problems with reading and writing and about my anxiety about changes in the environment. When class was dismissed and my classmates started packing up, I would be terrified. And shortly after I would start my shrieking, or in other words, crying, and my form teacher used to pack my bag for me because I would be so overcome with terror and anxiety that I was incapable of doing anything. I faintly remember that I would be terrified to be the last one left in the classroom so I would naturally want to be the first one out, but all the other children would pack really quickly and just go running out of the classroom so I’d be so petrified that I couldn’t pack faster than the others that I’d start bawling my eyes out. My mother always said that my crying was a very horrifying experience and that she still had nightmares about it sometimes, she said that my dad was probably traumatized by it too. He absolutely cannot stand women crying and will definitely give in once they start. My form teacher was also a very kind and sensitive lady, she never ever scolded for fear of hurting my very delicate feelings. I was like a precious porcelain doll that could shatter at the tiniest of touches. Because I was dyslexic, I would mix up all my words in my spelling tests and get an absolute zero for every one without fail. Normally when a student gets a zero in a test, the teacher would put a big zero in the middle of the page for all to see, but upon learning that I was dyslexic, my teacher decided to only put little crosses beside my wrong answers but not to put those big zeros so that it wouldn’t hurt my feelings. She used to take me out of the classroom for walks to calm me down when I started crying when my mother told her that my crying was a sign of extreme anxiety or distress. It could also be that she was trying to placate me in any quick possible manner; my mom told me that the teachers were scared of me in primary one and two because of my incredibly traumatic crying.
Of course, during the periods of time that my form teacher was not around to supervise me, there were others who watched over me. There was my assigned buddy, he was a guy and he was super nice. He sat next to me in class and helped me with the lessons and class work. Without a buddy like him I probably wouldn’t have been able to cope with the stress of lessons and get through my school work. I couldn’t find my books in my bag even though there were only a few books so he would help me to take my books. I also used to fall off my chair at least six times in a period, after a while I found that I would suddenly stand up for no particular reason in the middle of class. My mom has a theory that I stood up to prevent myself from falling off the chair. It was a reflex problem and I went for therapy to get it fixed in primary three. I remember that I would be doing my work and after a while I would realize I was standing up and wonder why I was standing up, I would then proceed to sit down and the cycle would repeat. I remember after a while, my assigned buddy would stand up together with me until I sat down again. I don’t know if it was because he instinctively stood up when he saw another standing up or if he just stood up to “accompany” me in my standing. But if it was the second-mentioned, I have to say I’m really grateful.
During PE, we would have to go down to the field from our classrooms, and apparently, due to my “conditions” I had difficulty adjusting to new environments. Auntie V (mentioned above) told my mom that she should brace herself for my negative reaction during my first year at primary school and my first year at secondary school. So outside of the classroom, there would be this girl who would lead me around by the hand and reassure me. She wasn’t my best friend or anything, but she is someone who I really appreciate in retrospect. I guess at that point of time I basically took her for granted. Just like my assigned buddy, I wouldn’t have been able to manage outside the classroom without her.
Of course, during before school-hours and after school-hours, that girl and my assigned buddy wouldn’t be around to guide me around so I would be completely and hopelessly lost. But fortunately, there was this prefect, my mom was amazed at her because apparently she acted much older than her age, she would guide me to the assembly area in the morning as well as back outside to the public school bus after school. I never took the school’s bus because the bus auntie was very fierce and I was super scared of her, so my mom put me in a private school bus. The bus uncle was really nice, but since it was a private school bus, the bus wasn’t allowed to drop us inside the school gates. Luckily, the prefect was there to help me around; she would wait outside the school where the bus dropped us off and she would lead me by the hand to the assembly venue. Without her, I would never have managed to get into the school by myself.
So, even though others might consider me a highly unlucky person to be born with so many “problems”, I personally believe that I am an incredibly lucky person to have all these people coming into my life to help me at crucial moments in my life, or in other words, crossroads in my life. I never thanked some of them for their help, so this is a sort of acknowledgement, if you can call it that, to make up for the lack of closure I have had with some of them when I moved out of my primary school days.