My low self esteem...

I don't wonder where it came from....not too often anyway.

Aside from my Dad calling me fat and stupid my whole young life, I had a memory the other day.  I do believe it is because Z is studying the states in school right now that this thought came to me, but I also realize it was very wrong of the teacher at the time. 

I was in 3rd or 4th grade and we were each assigned a state to study and write a report on.  We also had to cut the paper to the shape of the state.  I remember using encyclopedias to find information on Ohio.  I did the very best I could with all of it.  I was so proud of what I had finished.  My parents were not ones to help us with school work.  When I told my Mom of the assignment, she said look in the encyclopedia, so that's what I did.  Anyway, I got either a D or an F on that project.  I was crushed. I had worked as hard as I could on that project and that was the grade I got. 

I think after that, I felt I couldn't do it.  School was too hard and I wasn't good at it. 

I often wonder why some people become teachers.  I know I had a nun for a teacher that year and she wasn't a really a teacher, but at the time, I thought she was a real teacher and what she thought of my hard work did impact me. 

So, while I know it was partly my Dad's abusive words and behavior, I believe things like this also made me have low self esteem.  I wish I could go back and ask her why I got that grade.  I wish my Mom would have done that.  Who knows where I'd be now.