Curiosity Kills, and So Does Anxiety

Is a stupid question really a thing? Yes, there are things that people term dumb questions, and it gets mildly annoying when people choose not to listen in class and proceed to ask the teacher what the assignment is. Other than that, I don’t think there is such thing as a “stupid question”. I think it’s people’s actions leading up to asking said question that can be stupid from time to time, however asking someone something that you genuinely don’t understand doesn’t make you stupid. It just shows you need them to elaborate on what was said, but that doesn’t make someone, nor their question, stupid.

I won’t bore you all with going into too many details of my past, as my other posts on this site go into far more detail than I plan to with this. The basic overview of how my life was as a child is I was abandoned by my mother, abused by my dad’s exes, and my dad had some bad addictions, not to mention the fact I was bullied by my peers in school. So I was raised by my grandmother most of my life.

Now that all that background information for me is established. I’d like to make a point that in a long-term study conducted and published by the Journal of Child Abused and Neglect, it was found that by the age of 21, 80% of child abuse survivors develop psychiatric illnesses like depression and anxiety disorders. Keep the anxiety in mind, as it will be relevant throughout the rest of this.

As much as I hate to say I fit into a statistic, I do. I may not be 21 yet, and may be just shy of turning 18 as I’m writing this, but I fit into that 80% of child abuse survivors with depression and anxiety. Growing up in my house was not fun as a child.

If it wasn’t my dad and his girlfriend at the time fighting, it was always something else. And they never listened to me when I tried to talk. My father was always busy, and claimed bullying in school was normal, and that he and his girlfriend fighting was normal, but nothing too serious for a little girl like me to worry about.

If I tried talking to my grandmother, she would always go on a lecture about how I need to pray to God that he will make Dad and his girlfriend stop fighting, and fix the flaws in their relationship. She also always brushed off my bullying story as me overexaggerating. Or once again, going on a lecture about that I need to pray that God will change the attitudes of my peers towards me, even though I tried that many times, and nothing worked. I was just a kid, I didn’t know what to do.

And don’t even get me started on what happened if I asked my dad’s ex girlfriend anything, even for food. If I caught her when she was in a bad mood, she took her anger out on me and her son, saying we were ungrateful for what we had, and ranting about how bad her home life was with her little sister being the family favorite, and how she was abused. Then ultimately, that lead to us getting hurt if she wasn’t stopped, then again, it was hard to stop her. She was tall, she was strong, and fueled by rage, which is a terrifying combination, and my father didn’t want to get into a physical fight with her in front of the two young kids.

And I think the fact I was bullied a lot says why I was afraid of asking questions in school. Fear of judgment by my peers, and that I would sound stupid if I asked even the simplest of questions.

Needless to say, I grew tired of getting hit, lectured, bullied, or belittled for asking questions. So I ultimately became scared of doing a thing called advocating for myself and asking questions in front of people, and if I did, then I was really quiet, and tried getting out of it as quickly as I could. I developed anxiety at a young age. Having to constantly look over my shoulder, afraid that someone with cruel intent to bully or hurt me would be there walking through the halls in school. Or that I was terrified of my dad’s ex girlfriend, and I’ve already explained why.

For a little insight on what was going on for me whenever I addressed my father’s girlfriend as I grew older, I would always panic. I would feel my breathing start to get heavier, feel my heart start racing as though it would burst through my chest at any second. Then I would feel my breathing start to become uneven as I struggle to catch my breath, feel my limbs start shaking violently, and sometimes even tears start making their way out of my eyes and down my face as I feel like my entire world is going to crash down around me. In these situations, this was my way of wishing that the Earth could just open beneath me and get me out of that situation, where it takes me, I don’t care.

I became terrified to do simple things. I developed anxiety, dreaded ever having to advocate for myself or speak up and ask a question about anything, and not to mention the fact I became that abused kid who cries any time she gets yelled at or someone even remotely raises their voice at her.

Let’s not even talk about how I apologize for anything and everything too. It is so bad that my managers at work, friends, boyfriend, and even some teachers have told me to stop apologizing for things that either aren’t my fault or that I can’t control.

All things stemming back to my traumatic past, and struggles I go through daily.

I will say that I have gotten slightly better at advocating for myself, that being why I’m writing this. All I know is that in my opinion, there is no such thing as a “stupid question”, and that the examples I just told you are all examples of my growth and regressions of dealing with my anxiety of self advocation due to an abusive home life.

Featured Image: “Anxiety Attack” by PracticalCures is licensed under CC BY 2.0.