Coughing and Perfectionism

I coughed a lot as a child. My colds always continued on for weeks into night coughs and it was a great break mover the period of covid shut down and precautions not to have a regular cold that trailed on for weeks disturbing my sleep and just being unpleasant.

I have one horrible memory of a coughing fit. In about grade 6, I was singing in choir before and assembly. And I started coughing. Turning away to cover my face but trying to stay with it in between. That was touch enough until the strict kindergarten teacher that had taught for centuries came up and pulled me aside on the stage as the rest of the school came in for the assembly. She told me offndor turning away to cough and told me it was rude or distracting or something. And then of course I start coughing in front of her. “Don’t cough at me” she yells and I say big can’t help it I have a cough. Eventually she let’s me go and I head outside and cry. Another , also known as strict teacher sees me and I cry that I have a headache and she let’s me sit outside for the assembly and calm down.

I wonder if it was connected that this was the teacher I had in kinder when I got upset at home because I was too sick to go to school and distressed I’d fall behind.

Who knows

I used to get jealous of the kids who got kept home from school less sick than me.

But at least I was a good kid and never shut in the storeroom.


Discover more from phonakins

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

One thought on “Coughing and Perfectionism”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.