Why I still get so scared

When I was a little kid I talked funny. I still do, but it was worse then. I slurred my s-sounds. It wasn’t a lisp. It was more of a slur — like my tongue was kind of lazy and just didn’t want to do all the work of getting to the roof of my mouth in the right way.

My mortal enemy

So, in first grade for the whole first week Jay Jamison (almost his real name) made fun of me. I’d raise my hand and answer and he’d lean over his desk and repeat whatever I said only super exaggerating the bad s sounds.

So, if the answer was Sunday, I’d raise my hand and say, “Sunday.”
And then he’d lean over and go, “Ssssssshunday.”

And something inside me would tighten up. And something inside of me would want to cry, so I’d have to press my lips together really hard. And something inside of me would die a little bit.

Then, things got worse. Jay got his friends to mock me too at recess. They’d stand around me and say s-words, copying my voice, making their voices really high, laughing. They made fun of my last name, which was Barnard, and called me, “Carrie St. Bernard.”

It was pretty bad. Sometimes they’d pull at my jacket or my hair. Sometimes they’d monster hug me, which meant they’d try to squish me. The entire time they’d make fun of my voice, my s’s, me.

So, I stopped talking. I stopped raising my hand. I stopped answering questions. I’d talk to my best friend Kathy Albertson and that was pretty much it. They had silenced me. And I also tried to be invisible because I figured if they didn’t notice me then they couldn’t hurt me. I wanted more than anything to have invisibility be my super power. I would pray for it every night.

Pretty much all of first grade I didn’t talk. It was too scary to talk. I didn’t ever raise my hand even though I always knew the answers. And when I did talk I would try really hard to find words without s sounds. (David Sedaris has a great essay about this. He did it too). And the teacher thought there might be something wrong with me in a developmental and/or emotionally challenged way. And she told my mom. And I promised my mom I would talk more in second grade.

I spent the whole summer trying to learn how to talk better. I watched Sesame…