Massachusetts Chapter 766

[b]Chapter 766 is the Massachusetts law which guarantees the rights of all young people with special needs (age 3-22) to an educational program best suited to their needs. Team evaluations and Annual Reviews are conducted to develop an ongoing individual education plan that ensures an appropriate education.

Back then, it translated into long, elaborate evaluations, by education professionals seeking higher income as "certified 766 evaluators."

Where the tire met the pavement, it meant absolutely nothing to me, my education or emotional health.

And oh boy...was Dad ever proud of his son.

You know...with all the shit I went through, wouldn't you think ONE adult in my life would have asked if I was "okay inside?"

Look where they left me.

I think that one of the most painful parts for me was how the day the report got handed to my parents and changed everything and formed a clearly defined "before" and "after". I was quite young when it happened but if I think back, I remember how family life was pretty much normal up until then and it ended with that report. I also distinctly remember the day the report got handed to my parents. I was pulled out of class near the end of the day and brought to a meeting in the nurse's office with the school's vice principal, two board of ed psychologists and someone who I think was the school's nurse. They went over the report with my parents and most of it went over my head at the time except I knew something bad was up because my mother started to freak out and there was discussion about pulling me out of the regular class for part of the day and putting me in the special ed room. I vaguely remember mom refusing to sign the paperwork, and back in 2005 when I read it myself for the first time, I saw that all the parent/guardian signatures were dad's. When everything was done, my parents and I left and the walk to the car seemed to take an eternity, like it was parked a million miles from the school, and we walked in silence. My parents were stomping along clearly furious about something and nobody had explained anything to me so I thought I'd screwed up and done something bad but I didn't know what it was, and whenever I asked my parents what was going on they snapped at me and told me to shut up. The drive home was in angry silence and when we got home, I got sent to my room so they could talk about it alone. That's how the change took place - when I left for school that morning I was a normal, happy kid and before 5 PM, I was this board of education certified "defective first child" that my parents were stuck with.

That's what happened right when the learning disability assessment came down with a thud. After that, my parents would be enraged whenever tests or assignments came back with low grades or I had teacher notes and report cards that needed to be signed or teachers phoned home. Those were all frequent occurrences and my parents would yell at me and call me a stupid/useless/lazy and sworn at or use that "defective first child" phrase. I'd quite often get spanked by both parents but dad would use a wooden slipper, or he'd chase me around the house kicking and hitting me. I remember one day, I don't remember what set dad off, but he chased me around the house kicking me and eventually kicked me down the basement stairs and into a corner of the room he had his home office in and found one of those birthday party sparklers that had a spinning disk that'd strike a flint to make sparks on his desk and held it up to my face and made it spark while I was boxed into the corner.

Dad would always hear about the latest screw up of mine from mom over the phone while he was at work and he'd always arrive home in a foul mood and I used to try and gauge what I was in for and get ready for it based on how hard the car would stop in the driveway, how hard the car door would slam shut, how hard/fast he'd stomp from the car to the house and how hard the house door was slammed shut. Worse was when something had gone so wrong and mom was so upset that he'd come home from work early. I remember the sinking feeling whenever that happened and I'd walk in the door and he'd be sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me and he'd say "Your mother's upset" and thrash me while she was upstairs in my parents bedroom while this used to take place and it'd always end with "I'm taking your mother for dinner out" and I'd have to make sandwiches for my brother and sister and I and get them to go to bed. The used to be scared when mom and dad got enraged at me and go to bed without any fuss when this happened. Sometimes my mother would storm around the kitchen waiting for my father to get home, screaming about how she'd been stuck with such awful kids that she wished she'd never had kids and wished they'd gotten dogs instead because those could be boarded and they could go somewhere warm for Christmas. Sometimes dad would come home from work and walk into that and he'd blow up and they'd end up storming out of the house to go out for dinner to get away from the kids for a while. When this happened, either they'd be calmed down and ok when they got back or they'd be discussing my most recent misdeeds and they'd come back even angrier and I'd be stuck with whatever punishment they'd come up with over dinner at a restaurant.

At that time, my parents used to make me study multiplication tables and words for spelling constantly, for hours after rest of my homework was done so I never really had time after school to do anything, so I didn't have many friends plus I was constantly being grounded for various things anyways. While I was studying, my parents would be walking around the kitchen checking on me every few minutes, pounding their fists on the table and screaming at me to study harder if I looked distracted and this would go on until bed time. My parents did this insisting that I do it all as well as a normal kid could and the constant disappointments always infuriated them and led to more and more of the same. It was hard to go asleep at night back then lying in bed and hearing them sitting downstairs talk about me and my screw ups between the two of them, or on the phone telling my grandparents all about it.

To answer Robbie Brown's original question about overreacting or overcompensating mistakes and screw ups etc, I desperately tried to correct everything to be what I thought my parents wanted as much as I could because of what even the smallest screw up would bring down for consequences when I was a kid after that learning disability report came down. I got moved to another school because of that too since there weren't enough openings in my school's learning centre, so between being the new kid and in special ed, there was an awful bullying problem I was trying to cope with too. Also, keep in mind that a lot of this was loud and violent and the neighbours saw and heard quite a lot of it over the years, including the guy who lived next door who eventually befriended me and my best friend of the time who lived across the street and did normal, fun dad stuff with me until the weekend I was alone with him at his cottage and he abused me. He must've known I'd be easy to take advantage of with low risk of getting caught since there was obviously no way I was going to tell my parents what really happened at the cottage given what he knew about the situation at home.

SD -
some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids.
you didn't deserve that.
it hurts me to read it. i can't imagine what it was like to live it.

ironically, i was a straight-A student - but it still didn't make any difference to my parents. nothing was ever good enough. took a L-O-N-G time for me to figure it out.
it was just me - not my performance - that was not acceptable. by that time i was obsessive about doing everything perfect - and couldn't stop - even though it made no difference.

Lee

And today...just now...

Saw a woman who considered ex-wife and I practically family at one time

saw her at the post. she teaches piano. i askde about her taking on my daughter as a new student. SHe barely answered. i think i had to Ask twice. She looked like she wanted to pass-through the PO Boxes to get away from me.

She would not look at me. Here I am, in a micro-town, known her for 15 years, know here grown-adult kids, and she would not even look at me...not talking eye contact....she would not look at me...like i'm fkg Methuselah over here??

Ok, so this is the pain i was talking about. she clearly has been on the receiving end of the propaganda campaign waged against me during the divorce battle. so its not just a perceived error on my part...this isa tangible 'bad.'

Perception is reality for people.She percieves I'm evil. I perceive i'm evil and she knows it.

My face, my skin... hurt in pain...activated and tingling. My eyes want to gush, but can't. Ears ring so loud.

Its like the time I went around the neighborhood as a kid, selling greating cards to get points to buy a chemistry set. About 30% of the housewives rejected my existence. some said horrid things, being very direct as to what they though of me. One sarcastically looked at the catalogue and began to berate me into dust.

I SO wanted the ground to open-up and take me out of their sight.

Feels exactly the same today...right now.

Wow. Just when I start wondering if I really need to do any work on this stuff again, I read this thread.

Yep, I qualify. I overreact to mistakes. I avoid and fear making them in relationships although I know they're amendable if I do.

I'm getting better at reasoned, principled confrontation in the moment if need be. I'm often shaky afterwards, but I'm at least able to get through them occasionally without shrinking away.

As to why I overreact. I think I just got conditioned to think lower of myself than non-CSA's typically would. So, when those feelings kick in, I nosedive much more quickly than those that haven't been there. Since that happened when so young and little, I more easily feel helpless and powerless when I connect to those feelings. I'm much better about riding them out without behaving irrationally in the interim these days, but I still unnecessarily guard against making mistakes that would lead me to those feelings.

Good insight to gain on it. Maybe some awareness about it will help me break away from such hypersensitivity to interpersonal mistakes.

Robbie - just had to share this:

this morning at breakfast, i guess it was cause i got crumbs in the butter - with no negative repercussions! - i started telling my wife about the clinking silverware taboo in our house as i was growing up. she told me that once when she visited my parents before we were married - and i was not there - the step-dad yelled at her for doing the same. NUTSO!

we took a moment right then and there and both clinked our silverware like CRAZY against the dishes and glasses and had a good (slightly vindictive!) laugh. it was good for the soul.

Robbie - have one on me - it'll do you good!
Lee

Lee,

You uncultured trash!!!!!

"Don't you EVER let me see you doing that in public, or it'll be the last thing you eat!"

You ever get yer hand jabbed by a fork. My left hand did all the time for being on the table whilst not in use. I still flash back to those events and feel the pain.

Too bad that as a kid I had already given-up feeling any betrayal...I just felt bullied. Oh yeah!!! I really wanted to disclose the SA to him.