My school was my entire community during my childhood. I studied in a boarding school for six years, from age six to 12. It was a huge international private school that stretched from preschool all the way to high school, with one campus in Beijing, China and the others in Michigan, New Jersey and North Carolina. We lived at school from Monday to Friday, only going home on the weekends.
When I was around eight years old, I was studying in the Beijing campus, and we had a new Chinese teacher. All of my classmates loved her; they would fawn over her, like fourth graders would do.
But she loved to make nicknames for us, and some were very mean and negative. I was always afraid that she would make fun of me one day. And then that day came.
I can’t remember what I did exactly, besides that I was answering a question. She was laughing at me, then she said, “Why are you talking so girly, Linda? You talked like a baby girl.” Everyone began to laugh at me. Then she told me that I had princess sickness, which describes a condition of narcissism and materialism in women, or “princess” behavior.
Then she told the whole class that the people who have princess sickness are the people who were spoiled and that my parents should really take care of me before I come back to her class.
At that specific moment, I just wanted to cry, but, if I did, I knew they would judge me harder, so I ran to the bathroom and cried. But when I came out, my classmate pointed at me and said: “See, our teacher was right, she really does have princess sickness.”
I couldn’t call my parents, I couldn’t go home, and I definitely couldn’t find my teacher to tell her how I felt. So I found the person who I thought was my best friend. I told her everything: how I felt, how mean the teacher was. Then after I was done talking, I looked up, and my friend said, “You should really control your princess sickness, don’t talk to me until after you recover. ”
I never knew why my teacher called me that. Maybe she was just joking. But I bet she could never imagine how much of an impact it had on me.
When everyone tells you that you are a bad person, then you think you are a bad person. So at that time, I really thought I had princess sickness, even though I did nothing wrong.
My friends and classmates wouldn’t hang out with me, because they thought our teacher would get mad if they were close to a person with princess sickness. Every time I walked into my teacher’s classroom, she would say, “Look, princess sickness is here.”
I became very unconfident and lonely. I thought I deserved all the negative things they called me, but I shouldn’t have.
Even after I graduated from my elementary school, years after that teacher left, people would still call me that.
I am 16 now, but if someone tells me something negative about me, I still think it’s my problem and worry about how I should change so that person won’t dislike me.
But the truth is, I never had any connections with most of my teachers and classmates after elementary school. Like my parents always said, the friends you think are your friends right now might not be your friends for the rest of your life. The scar of hatred from my teachers, classmates, and even friends would never leave me, but the experience built me stronger.
I’ve attended seven different schools, so I experienced many different teachers. But there was always one or two teachers who would make up nicknames for the students. Maybe they never meant it to be cruel, but for a young student, whatever the teacher tells them is right.
Verbal violence happens around us, and we all might do it ourselves too. Maybe we never meant what we said, but sometimes we do verbally abuse our friends and classmates. And that can hurt them and impact them as they grow up.
