So when I went through school you’d have two types of struggling kids:
Kid A would struggle to pass tests, but work hard and get every assignment done so they can keep their average in check. Teachers like this kid. Not that there’s anything wrong with this kid, but teachers project virtue on them sometimes just to shame kid B when kid B asks for consideration.
Kid B is who I assume many people here were and who I was. Kid B struggled to get from start to finish of all of the assignments that kept popping up and per haps couldn’t do the same task for very long. Kid B, however, could get high grades on most tests. If Kid B asks for some consideration to pass the class as they’ve gotten the information but weren’t able to finish all of the assignments and are told no, because Kid A exists and “I can stand someone who struggles with the tests but does the work, but I’ll never tolerate someone who is lazy”.
I have cptsd from years spent as kid B, but I’m pretty sure that’s a generic thing that happened to others as well. I had that quote shoved down my throat by a double digit number of adults. And the too-radical thought is this: I believe the teaching approach that holds kid A as a paragon of virtue and kid B as a lazy snot is quite discriminatory and maybe those are just two differently struggling kids. And maybe some consideration should be given to both. And maybe PTSD causing trauma should be withheld from both groups
I’m with gimp. I was “essential” but had a few “work from home” days during the pandemic.
Guess who didn’t get any work done.
It’s not like I don’t have ideas … I could be so many things right now… I could make a video game, I could paint like 500 paintings on photo paper with my posca markers or my gel pens or my colored pencils or my oil pastels or my acrylics or my oil paint… I could finish crocheting a blanket with the bag of yarn I bought, I could make jewelry with all of my jewelry making equipment, I could read the hundreds of books that I have access to, I could write at least four books with the ideas in my head, I could build a website, I could make more music albums, I could do some exercise, I could color in, or draw some coloring books, I could cook or do baking, I could deconstruct and organize this house I live in because I live with a hoarder and I could try fixing his life, I could do so many different things… but I don’t because nobody tells me what to do anymore haha it’s so fucking annoying.
People Like Us need to be forced to do things, I think. Being forced to do things makes us uncomfortable, and we will always find a way to be comfortable, so we do the uncomfortable thing to get back to comfortable. If we are never forced out of our comfort zones we stay there and rot.
Sorry to reply to two of your comments, but to specifically address “people like us need to be forced to do things”, but people trying to force me and belittling me when I just could not in the end, is what gave me cptsd. There definitely are other ways than force, and for me force just isn’t even a way. For me, seeking out that sort of force would be a form of self harm that would only serve to drive and reinforce my (now dissipating) self hatred. Maybe for others it is a form of self harm that also gets results, or maybe for others it just isn’t harmful, I can’t be sure, but we can’t be forcing it on every kid.
I get what you’re saying, because I also get resistant when I’m “forced” to do something.
I think the force that they are referring to above is a more gentle “You know you want to/need to do this, and it’s now or never, so get to it!”
It’s not a force against our will, (like putting a gun to someone and saying do this thing you would never do.) but more like, X needs done and the consequences of not doing it now will be worse than the act of doing it.
If my wife asks me to take out the trash (which I have been ignoring for three days) before she gets home, I will do it because I want to be a good husband and I don’t want her to be upset with me, but if she hadn’t asked, it would probably be there for another three days.
In most cases the more aggressive forms of force came from well meaning people that started out with the type you describe, with a very gradual escalation. The problem is that my burnout was compounding, not reducing, over time when I tried to comply which would lead to this increasing dread over time and eventually would lead to just a total failure. When I reach total failure, they just keep on pressing until it’s a more overt form of abuse. The more overt forms only came out initially a very small number of times. So I really was talking about the sort of force you’re describing, but on a sort of spectrum that leads to the sort you were inferring.
Nail on the head.
But don’t forget the part when you think about all the things that you could be doing, and get too disappointed in yourself to do any of it.