Rewind back to the very beginning

When everything started in elementary school, I really wasn't too concerned with my peers. I wasn't really worried about if they were laughing at me or if they would say hurtful things. None of that really crossed my mind. What did cross my mind were thoughts of a teacher that would often make a spectacle of me, especially at the lunch table.

Every day at lunch I'd sit with a group of friends, but try to make myself invisible when I saw a certain lunch duty teacher stroll past our table. I'd busy myself with the kind of forced conversation that can only happen when you see someone you really don't want to talk to. During this period of time was when I started having symptoms of Crohn's and general anxiety so my appetite was pretty much non-existent. I'd eat a few crackers, drink some chocolate milk, and poke at the sandwiches my mom had cut into cute little heart shapes for me. But I never really put a dent in anything. And this teacher knew it. [Let's call her Mrs. Q for all intents and purposes--"Q" is not her actual initial.] As soon as I saw Mrs. Q coming I would cower. It seemed like she could smell my fear and anxiety from across the cafeteria and then beeline her way over. She'd come up to me and check my lunchbox. She'd inspect what I ate and hadn't eaten and tell me that I needed to eat more. She'd stand over me and just watch. This may not sound that bad, but it was the scorn in her voice that made it so awful--as well as the fact that everyone at the table could hear what was going on. A few times I had to fast before having tests done at the hospital so my mom would send a note explaining why I wasn't eating. I felt like I was at least given a pass on those days.

The worst part of all this is that it did not stop at the cafeteria. There was one day in paticular when I was in music class and Mrs. Q poked her head in to ask the music teacher a question. I felt my face flush and started talking to my neighbor about nothing. Then she pointed me out. She said something about how I looked a little better, about my eating habits, and some other nonsense about my appearance that really had no business being talked about in front of a class. I felt so red in the face and humiliated for being pointed out like that in front of my peers and by someone I should've been able to trust. Other than doctors, she was probably the person I most dreaded seeing. When I got to middle school, I was a little more at ease for not being around her. But I can't say that when I did see her, even as I got older, I didn't at least cringe a little.