Sharing my Story to Heal the Broken Child - 6th Grade - Sweet Little Catholic Girl vs. Sr. Delores Theresa

This blog entry was written awhile ago but since I am trying to organize my "Sharing my Story to Heal the Broken Child" in somewhat of a chronological way, I have decided to repost this entry here. As you know from my last blog entry I have finally left the horrors of Sr. Christiana’s classroom, albeit a bit battered and scarred. In my opinion the abuse in 5th grade was shocking and severe even though I do not remember ever being hit physically by Sr. Christiana. Nonetheless, in my opinion, mental degradation can be just as bad or even worse. That was to change in the next school year.
Here is the true story, as I remember it, of an incident that happened to me as a student in Sr. Delores Theresa’s 6th Grade classroom. I stuck my tongue out and shoved a thumb into each ear, waving my fingers wildly.
It was an instinctive, immediate reaction, certainly not a premeditated crime. I needed to say a thousand angry words quickly. In one spontaneous split second everything I felt was expressed succinctly and with complete abandonment.
She was retreating up the aisle with her back to me, so I thought it was safe. She had proven once and for all, at my expense, that she was the winner and she was in charge.
Then it happened. My classmates let out a roar. They were my perfect audience. A bunch of 12 year olds on the verge of puberty waiting for any type of entertainment, any type of show. Their outburst was as spontaneous as my own - the result of years and years of severe and unnecessary oppression. Hearing their loud, silly laughter, she stopped in her tracks and pivoted in the aisle - rosary beads a weapon at her side as she flew back to me and stood towering over my desk. Her beet red face squeezed in an unnatural way into the antiquated pre-Vatican headgear would have intimidated General Patton. "What did she do", she demanded of my classmates. "Oh dear God," I prayed to myself in utter desperation, "please don't let them betray me". No one answered. No one said a word. I never loved a group of kids more than I loved those kids that day.
If you knew what provoked my anger, you'd have been on my side, too.