Story manuscript

Trapped in 5 years of hell

Chapter 1: YEAR 7

This was it; I was leaving Primary and going to Bishopston. It was
inevitable. I was unsure if I was more nervous or more excited. Six
weeks and I’d be there; little did I know just how awful it
would turn out to be. I had been put into form B on induction day and
from what I could vaguely remember my form seemed horrible. I was
ready to go, in September id be going to Bish Comp and id be in Year
7.

On my first day, I had no idea where to go. I followed my older sister and
asked her where I should be. She told me to follow the crowds of year
7s eagerly walking down the Science corridor. When me and my friends
arrived in form, I was surprised to find out my form was nicer than I
thought. We sat down and almost immediately Dr McCabe calmly but
almost certainly told us all off in the nicest way possible. He told
us that the majority of us had come into the classroom with our
t-shirts hanging out and that a lot of girls had earrings in. This
included me. I had never taken my earrings out on my own before, I
was only 11 and up until a year ago when my little sister came along
I had been babied tremendously. I had immediately begun to panic.
Eventually my earrings were out and my t-shirt was tucked in and I
was able to continue the day without another confrontation like that.

Shortly after we started we had tests and assessments to put us into sets for
Maths, English and Welsh. In French we had our first oral and this is
where Madame Thomas first showed her true colours. She kept coming in
asking for volunteers to go next, which was fine. But then out of
nowhere she came in, there were plenty of other children left even
ones with their hands up. But she called for me to go next! I
suddenly started to panic and froze. Then and I quote she said “come
on Erin I don’t have time for this”. I dragged myself off
my chair and walked out of the classroom. My friends Elera and Katie
followed close behind. I sat down and she proceeded to ask me the
first question over and over. I didn’t reply. She kept asking
and I then was unable to hold back my tears and began to cry.

After that I had many problems with Madam Thomas over the years. She
repeatedly asked me questions in front of the class, blamed things on
me and at the end of year 7, I got a good mark in my French exam and
she put me in set 3 for French! Just because, she didn’t like
me and I had problems speaking from time to time. What a cheek! 

In year 7, I began seeing a woman during school time, who was called Mrs
Hutchinson. She tried to help me with my problems and diagnosed me
with Selective Mutism. I had been afraid of talking in school since I
was very little. I think it got slightly worse when I moved primary
schools and then slightly worse again when I went to Comprehensive.
The furthest back I can remember being physically terrified was in
year 6 when everyone including me and my parents thought I was just
extremely shy. We had made presentations on ‘light’ and
Mr Short was picking people’s names at random out of a pot, to
do their presentation. Every time he put his hand in, I can remember
my tummy having horrible butterflies, my hands went all sweaty and my
heart began to race. 

In Science we had a teacher called Ms Smith who was almost as bad as
Madame Thomas for a while. Every register I would answer but she
would fail to hear me and tell me off and say I had to answer even
though I did and that was very hard to do in the first place. 

We had a learning teacher in science, I’m not sure what she was
called it may have been Miss Thomas. One day she was teaching us and
Ms Smith was sitting at the back watching. She had given us all a
sheet of paper full of writing. She was deciding who to pick on to
read and I could already feel my tummy going at the prospect of her
picking my name. Of course she did pick my name and I was completely
terrified. The boy next to me even muttered “oh no” to
himself. It was silent for a while until she said “are you
stuck?” and I shuck my head. I tried to get the first word out
but it was stuck in my throat. The boys behind me were laughing and I
was getting more and more worked up by the second. Finally my friend
signaled to Ms Smith and in the end Ms Smith told the teacher to
move on. 

I also had trouble in Drama for the first few lessons, until Mrs Dennis
understood. For example, one time near the beginning of the year, we
were in boy/girl pairs. We had to pretend we had no money and had to
beg, I couldn’t do this and Mrs Dennis attempted to make me. I
hated being put with random people. If I was put with my friend’s
maybe I could have at least practised, even if I didn’t perform
it in front of the class. It was like this in other subjects like
music, my friends wouldn’t have minded coming back at break.
Also in group work I may have been able to contribute if I had been
in friendship groups. After Mrs Dennis understood though, she was
lovely for the next three years when drama was compulsory. The only
problem I had then was boredom. 

Soon year 7 was coming to an end and I had sat my exams and my results
weren’t too bad. I ended up in alright sets, apart from French
which my mum sorted out in the end. During the summer holidays
nothing could happen, could it? No, that’s what you’d
think. School can’t affect me from my own home, can it? Turned
out it can! Our timetables were on moodle and in a few subjects I had
no friends in my class. This meant id have nobody to stick up for me
and nobody to help me if I was in a horrible situation again. This
was something I now didn’t look forward to every year and
something that made me worry and stress all holiday. My mum always
saved me in the end though.

Chapter 2: YEAR 8

It was year 8 and I now had at least one friend in all my classes.
Except Technology, so I dreaded a Monday for the rest of the year. I
found it very difficult to make friends, so I felt very lonely. It
was impossible to switch classes because we had all started our
projects and if I moved I would end up missing one project and doing
another twice. So I was stuck a loner for 2 hours straight every
Monday morning. I was in the wood class once and everyone had friends
and I just stood by a table on my own and silently struggled to
complete my work. Because I had no friends to ask for help and I
couldn’t ask the teacher for help because I was too scared.

Year 8 was a lot better, nothing drastic happened. The odd teacher forgot
and asked me a question, which caused me a bit of anxiety now and
then. 

I went to Glan llyn which was a lot of fun with school. I also started
to visit Trehafod, to help me with my Selective Mutism. As a result
of visiting Trehafod I was able to order my lunch at school and
answer the register. 

Although Year 8 was a rather good year, Madame Thomas was my teacher again and
she was a nightmare. Out of spite she kept asking me questions and
keeping on at me to answer them. She didn’t understand. It felt
like nobody really understood, not even the ones trying to help me.
One time I was just sitting down quietly listening and she just asked
me in front of the entire class what the answer was. There’s
was a massive pause, until my friend answered the question and she
just gave me and my friend a glare. In French, Madame Thomas also did
these power points where the whole class would repeat the word that
popped up on the board. At the end of every lesson with a PowerPoint
I would get the same thing “Try and join in Erin”, even
though she knew about my problems and had been reminded on several
occasions.  

Chapter 3: YEAR 9

By now I had been put without friends again and I had not improved at
all. Mrs Morgans made sure I was with friends in the end though. At
this point I was feeling very sad and depressed; in year 7 I thought
I’d be normal by year 9. But to be honest, id barely changed at
all. Mrs Hutchinson had stopped coming to see me, last time I saw her
was at the start of year 8, which was a year ago now. I found out she
said she thinks I don’t help myself, which ultimately means she
doesn’t understand.  

Nothing bad really happened in year 9 though unlike year 7. 

The worst things were music and drama. My music teacher didn’t
understand and kept asking me to play in front of the class and got
annoyed when I didn’t. The other pupils in my group got annoyed
too because they didn’t want to come back at break or lunch and
play the piece then. I’d just sit at a table and when people
got put with me they’d sigh really loudly and roll their eyes
at me. They would also shake their heads at their friends and their
friends would just laugh. 

Even though Mrs Dennis was one of the only teachers who understood, drama
was still a stressful subject. Mrs Dennis would tell me what we were
doing in the lesson and let me sit out, which was great. But we’d
play games at the start which would always draw attention to me. Zip
Zap Bong was the worst. I remember once when we were playing zip zap
bong a couple of the boys in my class kept zapping me to see if they
could hear me say the words and when they couldn’t they would
laugh. Then for the rest of the lesson everyone else would be in
groups practicing and I would either just sit out or sit with a group
and do nothing. It was boring but also very sad because id loved to
be able to join in but I just couldn’t.

So about half way through the year after pushing through the first few
years Mrs Morgans saved me from music and drama and I was able to sit
in the library and do homework during music and drama. That took a
lot of stress off my back for the rest of year 9, music and drama
were a real nightmare. 

In February half term 2015 year 9 went on a skiing trip to Valoire in France. I was very excited for      this trip. We went by bus and caught a ferry from Dover to Calais. The first two days were amazing   and the area we were staying in was very pretty, especially at night when it was all lit up and the      snow was glistening on the mountains. On Monday night we went ice-skating, when we got back from ice-skating I felt ill so jumped onto my bunk and lay down. A few minutes later I was shivering and felt like I was freezing but my friends say I was hot. I was forced to ski the next day which I think just made me worse. I didn’t ski again the rest of the week because my mum thought I was too unwell and as she is a nurse they teachers listened. On Friday I began having nosebleeds every few minutes. We traveled home later that night on Friday and got back on Saturday. My parents were waiting in the school car park for us to arrive home. When I got on the bus my mum grabbed me and gave me a massive hug. While my friends mum said ‘Oh Sian get her in the car she looks terrible”. I continue having nosebleeds and it turned out I had the flu and ended up missing a week of school. I felt like    such an unlucky person, anything good that could possibly happen something comes and spoils it!

I picked double science, history, geography, ICT and business studies for my GCSEs and I did very well in my year 9 exams and I got good levels in for my end of key stage 3 levels. This meant I was able to stay in accelerated maths like my older sister and I was possibly in good sets for welsh, English and science. The only things on my mind now were GCSEs in September and whether I’ll have    friends in my classes.

YEAR 10

I will be in year 10 in September coming!!! I will add to this as the next 2 years progress! :)