My Worst Childhood (in Lifeline Center) Ever…

When I was younger, I was breached and had a club foot. I wouldn’t talk until I was three or four. During my childhood, I experienced inappropriate but pornographic movies. Then I kept talking a lot about everything else that I would see in my daily lives.

At one point, I would be a little nervous to encounter other children on the school bus and one told me to “shut up” for no reason while en route to nursery school. By the time when I attended P.S. 147 in Hollis, I was different than everyone due to my personal characteristics (especially they wouldn’t believe that someone would believe that I wouldn’t be that person who is of Chinese heritage, but I am of Filipino descent).

I experienced bullying including one person who had performed an indecent exposure to me. During my elementary years, I struggled with second grade schoolwork and realized that most were the hardest hit by my then teacher and peers. The entire school had learned that I was autistic because I had a series of difficult times with people who didn’t understand all my needs.

So, my parents looked into various special education schools and found Lifeline Center — a school that specialized in learning and psychological disabilities. During the beginning of third grade, I was a transfer student in order to become more active and comfortable with other students who had the ability as I had. I still struggled with my anxiety while reading and writing in every single subject and then one teacher said I would need help with my schoolwork. I experienced that one teacher abused one of my fellow classmates for no reason.

Everything I witnessed would happen to me. In the fourth grade, I experienced narcissistic behavior from a paraprofessional named Mr. Simmons. He would manipulate other people, including his “second banana”, a young boy who would taunt others to send anyone to the Quiet Room, an empty room where misbehaving children would spend their time in order to calm themselves down. Every time I witnessed Mr. Simmons that he would victimize me by timing me for five minutes for no apparent reasons or would send me to the Quiet Room for being too loud and sobbing.

Things went from bad to worse after Mr. Simmons left his job to have open heart surgery, I had been introduced to any of the transfer students who were enabling me before they joining me in the classroom. Someone else introduced me to an Indian girl named Vaishali who wasn’t very friendly with me or other students in school. She would do anything but say “none of your business” for no apparent purpose or doing something wrong to make me distraught about her. She would say something very stupid and negative to me about everyone whenever she fabricated into her own opinion.

By the time I was in the sixth grade, I had found my coping mechanism which led me to write poetry which transformed into my songwriting style (which I am currently doing now). Then during my time at Lifeline, I began to witness someone that familiar during my time at ANIBIC. His name was Paul; he was morbid obese with red hair and had an intermittent explosive disorder which made him more susceptible and violent than other children in school. Before I met him, his father would introduce me as a “play date” for me at ANIBIC and he would cry or whimpered about everything that happened in his life. I wouldn’t be friends with him because his attitude towards me, his parents and the entire school would be soon tumbling down. He would be screaming “Jennifer” in his own hot temper when he would be to kill everyone else.

Things went south for me when I was in the seventh grade when I met the worst teacher ever. Her name was Mrs. Hanna and she was the only person I ever met. The same goes with a paraprofessional named Mr. Marinelli— he would use me as a reference to his own punishment for my romantic relationship with a fellow classmate named Walter. Every single one I kept forgetting about my pink permission slip until Mrs. Hanna came to me and “lose my points”. She would have placed me in the fourth grade level which I wouldn’t be comfortable doing because I would be performing my duties in any grade appropriate level. By the time when Mr. Marinelli resigned as paraprofessional, another person would do same thing to me.

During summer school, I felt a presence that Paul would shove me in a violent way while I was washing my hands and cried. In the school bus, I was in a panic because he would throw foreign objects towards me while sitting in middle row. It was the first and worst experience I lay my eyes upon Paul. I would’ve done better rather than having myself suffer in my mental state after all those things that happened in Lifeline Center.

Again, in the eighth grade, I had a bad experience with a paraprofessional who would not let me go near my then boyfriend Walter while I was the only girl in an all boys class. Her name was Mrs. Summerlin and her toxicity was a sign that she had me blocked because I was trying to be nice to him. She manipulated me and told me to stop talking to him. I was devastated when she told me to leave him alone. The worst was yet to come when Paul lashed out in front of the classroom by cursing at the teachers and do violent acts against the entire school. It was when my friend Andy was being bullied by his tormentor who came out and pushed him onto the floor in a hot tempered yet violent manner. He sobbed and was injured while the school principal investigated Paul’s psychological condition resulting into being expelled from school. It was the worst incident that happened in all of Lifeline and it wasn’t easy for me because the school district I ever attended was the worst place for me. I wouldn’t see myself going through that again because I had a bad case of narcissistic abuse by the paraprofessionals that I dealt with.

As ninth grade began, and I was still the only girl in an all boys class with same teacher named Mrs. Gross and a paraprofessional Mrs. Dima. A lot of people don’t know what they would be like without them being unable to communicate their feelings and emotions to others while in class. During class, I would remember that Martin Luther King, Jr. would obtained his Nobel prize for his work in the civil rights movement during his time in the 1960s in Norway. The most unnerving part was when both Mrs. Gross and Mrs. Dima made an uneducated choice about Martin Luther King obtaining his Nobel Prize in Sweden and Walter did the same thing in an awkward way. I cried, but Mrs. Dima would never have thought that I “cried for such silly things” whenever any other answer would come out wrong. I was stunned by her reaction when she said it wasn’t true.

My teenage years weren’t as good as mine but I had been in a series of toxic friendships that could ruin my life and mental health. During summer months, a staff member in my school would introduce me to another transfer student named Lauren. I would’ve never guessed that her red flags would be soon enough to be on her radar. I was about to turn fifteen years old and it was a my final year at Lifeline Center when Lauren befriended another girl named Jackie. I wouldn’t have known that she and Lauren would have a tumultuous yet very toxic relationship with me and realized that red flags would be so hard for me and learned that they could do anything to me. At one time Mrs. Soto and the entire class went out bowling at Jibb Lanes during our field trip. There, I purchased a plate of nachos from the concession stand and Lauren lashed me with utter disregard for my own personal life. Then Jackie joined in and did what she did to me. It wasn’t just me who got into joining her as a clique but I recognized Lauren and Jackie’s red flags in a way a toxic friendship could go wrong. After the field trip, they manipulated me into a childishly yet completely negative way to make me an immature child than a fully grown teenager. Things like showing an encyclopedia of a horse while treating me like a child while Lauren pretended to be “my other mother”. After a breakup with Walter, it was Valentine’s Day and the setting was the school dance. I remembered that time when Lauren and Jackie “played matchmaking games” would lead to some kind of rape kit for me and I was uncomfortable about that because they shouldn’t be doing anything to me. But I felt haunted that they would be destroying my mental health for all the wrong things until I decided to cut contact from them.

Months later, I graduated from Lifeline Center leaving me with scars from the past. After surviving my ordeal, I wouldn’t be coming back because the school had placed me with painful memories since I started from third grade to early teenage years. I had a few friends who survived their ordeal but never had a chance to see them when we started high school until we would turning twenty one. Hopefully that means that we won’t turn back again.