At primary school my nickname was Biscuit. Because I was thin, weedy and fragile: I would crumble so easily.
I’m now realising, 55 years later, how much I used to
dread play-times. I don’t think I was bullied as such, just couldn’t cope with
the rough and tumble. I’ve long remembered how I used to hate sports and games
at secondary school and would (subconsciously?) invent all many of minor ailments
in order to get a sick note from my mum so I didn’t have to do them. But it’s
only just coming out (thanks to the universe getting me to live in an area of
town that, due to its proximity to a primary school, is, effectively, a play-ground)
just how bad it was for me. Reliving it is bringing on my IBS as little has before:
reflecting the stomach aches I regularly had in those days. And the hay-fever
is being triggered so easily, reflecting the regular colds I always had whilst
at school. I was sickly. But was that cause of effect in relation to my
play-ground aversion? Probably a vicious circle.
And one not
helped by a couple of other factors: my eyes were bad (short-sighted) but we
hadn’t realised it
at the time, so I wouldn’t have been able to see balls to catch, for example.
And my mum was school secretary, so would always be keeping an eye on me and
protecting me.
And we didn’t
do emotions in our house. So, however I felt about it all was bottled up, held
in. It came out in all my minor ailments, but those were physical, weren’t they?
Treated with a dose of this linctus or that tonic. No mental health advisors in
schools in those days . . and would they have picked up on my fears and helped
me face them?
Who knows,
but those memories have to be faced. The biscuit has to be taken, dunked and
dissolved.