tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post2261265726786501256..comments2023-10-25T05:30:54.507-04:00Comments on Oh Get A Grip!: PhobiasAshe Barkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03390519279886657608noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-68187047452445615112014-08-27T23:55:08.431-04:002014-08-27T23:55:08.431-04:00Spencer, this is a really great post. I love that ...Spencer, this is a really great post. I love that you started with showing how phobias impact people's lives and then segued into your own story. My mother has a pretty amazing bus story that's similar to yours. I don't have a bus story because I never took a school bus. When I was young my school was far from where I lived and my mother drove me, and later I was just inside the range the bus would travel and I walked to and from school. I agree with you that there's been a societal shift from blaming kids for being away from where they're supposed to be to blaming adults. Annabeth Leonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07455191827664110878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-91435138203179918312014-08-24T11:54:42.734-04:002014-08-24T11:54:42.734-04:00Showering around strangers never bothered me.
Tr...Showering around strangers never bothered me. <br /><br />Trenton public schools would open the indoor pools to local kids in summer, two days a week for boys, two days for girls. Boys weren't allowed to wear bathing suits, but the girls could. Of course, boys and girls never got together, and the lifeguards were the same sex as the kids. But still...? WTF?<br /><br />Actually, that situation probably helped make me comfortable with nudity. It's probably a healthy thing, at least I see it that way. <br /><br />I hate wearing clothes unless for warmth. So constricting! Daddy Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-62649061780646322752014-08-24T11:29:37.749-04:002014-08-24T11:29:37.749-04:00Garce:
I've got that too. My solution, avoid p...Garce:<br />I've got that too. My solution, avoid people.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15484640447109164744noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-59215275549602486782014-08-24T08:59:34.584-04:002014-08-24T08:59:34.584-04:00Hi Spence!
I wouldn't call it a phobia but I ...Hi Spence!<br /><br />I wouldn't call it a phobia but I have a problem with authority to some extent also. In my case its more of a fear of confrontation. I'm always compromising, trying to get along with dificult people.. I'm not sure this has served me well, I don't think it has but it has become second nature by now. I think everything is adaptation. Maybe in the right context these things can be good.<br /><br />GarceGarceushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11160407485298015371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-88898984679676776372014-08-23T20:18:38.185-04:002014-08-23T20:18:38.185-04:00Luckily I attended public school and my mother was...Luckily I attended public school and my mother was always champing at the bit to go yell at a teacher who might be mean to me. She'd suffered greatly as a poor child (8th of 10) during the Depression, telling me of how the nuns had beaten her one brother's hand bloody until he learned to write with his right hand, though he did everything else left-handed. She called nuns "black cows" and usually accompanied that with a choice swear word. My dad was an orange-man from Scotland, so he felt he'd married "beneath" himself, since he'd married a Catholic. (FYI, on the Irish flag the orange is for Protestants, the green is for Catholics, and the white stripe between them is "for the peace there'll ne'er be between them.")<br /><br />About the only generational thing I can think of is the whole showering in front of your peers thing. My kids are horrified at my memories of having to take nude showers after gym class beginning in 7th grade, and continuing all through high school. You could literally flunk the class if you refused to strip down and get soaking wet, including your hair. The teachers would watch as we got out of the shower room and if you weren't wet enough, they'd march you back there and watch while you immersed yourself. Of course these days that would be considered "kiddie-porn", and "child abuse", so the fixtures in my kids' schools are all rusted out with disuse, except for in the boys' showers in high school where the jocks use them after games. But NO ONE takes showers, let alone nude, soapy ones, in the public schools during gym class anymore. <br /><br />It's not a phobia with me as much as for my kids, who've never had to shower before strangers. When we go camping, if we're going to shower in the public bathrooms, my kids are extremely nervous about the idea of anyone watching, where-as when we went to the places where only the spigot was in a private tiny space, I'd strip in seconds flat and jump into the shower, to my daughter's mortification. She'd make me hold a towel in front of her while promising not to peek while she undressed behind it.<br /><br />Fiona McGierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13495707848048468428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-5719988495219864382014-08-23T12:24:56.573-04:002014-08-23T12:24:56.573-04:00One time, in Catholic High school, I, and a few ot...One time, in Catholic High school, I, and a few other boys were asked to set up chairs for the mass we had to go to every Friday. My homeroom was just across from the gym. In the meantime, a different homeroom teacher substituted for the one supervising the mass set-up. I'd finished my job in the gym, and came back and sat in my chair. Not long later, a hard slap hit the back of my head, bouncing my forehead against the desktop. Before I could tell him I was across the hall, he hit me again, the same way, this time hard enough to draw blood. I got smart and shut up. Needless to say, the bastard never found out he did what actually happened, and probably still thinks I was late to class. (If the s.o.b. would remember, or is even alive-- or in hell) A couple of years after I was taken out of that school, I had to be talked down several times from going back and kicking some ass. A bunch of them needed a good beating.Daddy Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-29092158980373223802014-08-22T20:55:14.847-04:002014-08-22T20:55:14.847-04:00James Dean was a character and not a real person, ...James Dean was a character and not a real person, but his rebelliousness resonated with a lot of kids in my generation who didn't have the ability to act it out until later.<br /><br />Do you remember East Of Eden? Different story. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15484640447109164744noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-9099659263297436772014-08-22T19:14:38.169-04:002014-08-22T19:14:38.169-04:00Shudder. Spencer & Daddy X, I am so glad I nev...Shudder. Spencer & Daddy X, I am so glad I never went to Catholic school. I've met so many people of my generation who have, including my Chilean spouse. As she puts it, the nuns who were on her case in elementary school were fresh from the Spanish Inquisition. (They prob. weren't literally that old.) I started public school in 1957. If memory serves me, school never gave me nightmares, even though my academic parents and their friends described it as a broken system staffed by rednecks. (But in elementary school, niceness in teachers counts for a lot more than knowledge, and I was blessed to have some who liked their students.) Despite some praise & encouragement, I remember the general culture in<br />those days, when anything that went wrong was officially the child's fault.Jean Robertahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08805088081675965859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-29962009818781683412014-08-22T11:34:38.782-04:002014-08-22T11:34:38.782-04:00I remember Catholic grammar school. Every year, it...I remember Catholic grammar school. Every year, it won;ld be: Is she *nice*? Meaning is the nun courteous, polite and loving? which some of the nuns actually were, when we lived in New Jersey. When the family moved about 3 miles as the crow flies to Pennsylvania, there was a different 'order' of nuns, "Sisters of the Sacred Heart". My first day there, (must have been 1955) I saw a kid get the shit beaten out of him, which I never saw with the Franciscans in Trenton. My parents told me that the kid must have done something awful, but the beatings continued and of course I couldn't tell my parents when it happened to me 'cause they always sided with the nuns. Finally, in 10th grade when I was brought home in an ambulance, they allowed me to go to public school.<br /><br />Funny, how they always said that you got a better education in a Catholic school. Yeah, you learned the answers because they beat them into you, but the answers were filtered through a Catholic context and they were often the *wrong* answers. In 10th grade biology, I had one one-hour class on evolution, since they had to teach it for state requirements. How the fuck do you teach biology and ignore evolution?<br /><br />Luckily (or not) I took the another route, and challenged authority at every chance I had. Still do.Daddy Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-56068401507034213422014-08-22T11:25:56.890-04:002014-08-22T11:25:56.890-04:00Sounds like there is a large generational componen...Sounds like there is a large generational component. I was going to say I don't back down from authority and never have... but then again, neither did James Dean's characters, so maybe the concept isn't so new after all. <br /><br />(My mom's always telling me to keep my mouth shut or I'm going to get myself shot... and that takes some doing, in Canada, but she's probably right.)Giselle Renardehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15955755448116234634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-85990894987159191652014-08-22T09:10:11.463-04:002014-08-22T09:10:11.463-04:00I hate hearing my phone ring. There's always s...I hate hearing my phone ring. There's always someone at the other end who wants something from me. I like texting. I'd love to hear your bus story. Maybe its a generational thing-that our younger contributors haven't experienced. My boys have grown up in such a different world from mine, especially in the way adults and children relate.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15484640447109164744noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-28022622306200912142014-08-22T08:57:32.537-04:002014-08-22T08:57:32.537-04:00Hey, Spencer,
I'm not Catholic but I have som...Hey, Spencer,<br /><br />I'm not Catholic but I have some stories that are very similar to the bus story. Somehow I always ended up feeling guilty, that things were my fault. And I was terrified of simple things like making phone calls. In fact I still hate doing that - though not at the level of a phobia.<br /><br />Thanks for an honest and moving post!Lisabet Saraihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.com