Anxiety | why I still fear mistakes

Why I still fear mistakes

I had just finished crying and through my puffy eyes I could see the autumn sky rumble with thunder and lightning from the window of my school's hallway. The walls were cold and the ceilings so high I felt like I was getting smaller like Alice in her wonderland. Though the school my mom had chosen for me, the one named after Pushkin, was the exact opposite of a "wonderland" and the exact opposite of what school should be for a first-grader. The gloomy hallways always smelling like paint, the old and semi-crazy security guard who was always mad, my hateful and evil classmates...everything along with my mom just leaving me there felt like an absolute illustration of what 'fear' looked like. However, the thing I dreaded most, the monstrous and vicous being of a teacher, was hiding somewhere inside those walls, sharpening her claws before coming out. I was waiting, standing at the entrance of my classroom, looking into the dark abyss of the long corridor from where I could hear unintegible noises of screams and hysterical laughters, which I imagined to be the minions of my teacher. Just like in that poem I had just learnt "there on trails past knowing were tracks of beasts you never met; On chicken feet a hut was set, with neither door nor window showing."(Pushkin, 1820). I heard the clicking sound of her heels, which meant she had come out of her hut on chicken legs, headed towards our classroom. A shiver went through my spine and the turtle-neck sweater started pressuring my throat, making me more sick and anxious. Finally, she emerged from the darkness and I could see her. She looked like a Russian baba-yaga, who instead of eating the first-graders for lunch, was assigned to teach them math. However it was painfuly obvious that she absolutely hated little children and had no compassion for them. Arpine Pavlovna, that was her evil name, was scaring little children to death each and every day, including that one. 
That was the first time in my life I was assigned any homework. We were supposed to color something in the math book, and unfortunately, I didn't have any colouring pencils at home. It was being renovated and my family was temporarily living at my grandmother's, who wasn't much of a painter. Moreover, my sense of responsibility was still hiding under the pink cloud of childhood carelessness, so I wasn't so urged to accomplish that unimaginably important assignment. However, despite all that, I still remember telling my mom the things I needed for school, among those mentioning a pack of colouring pencils. A busy woman, always working, didn't manage to get any. Understandable, right? Anyways, the Judgement day came.
She walked in. She had red hair, wore black eye-shadow and black clothes, and always had an angry strictness between her eyebrows and in her chin. Oh, that scary chin, which she used to stiffen and move forward, like a bulldog, whenever she got angry.
"Let's check your homework, shall we?" she said in her hoarse voice.
I don't remember exactly the way she checked whether we did it or not, but finally, she reached me, the accumulation of world's indolence.
"Stand up!" her predatory voice filled the room.
Everyone went painfully silent. I didn't understand why my position mattered, but I got off the chair and stood up on my tiptoes to see her over my desk.
"Why didn't you do your homework?" I saw her prominent chin growing more profound and scary and her eyes darkening with furious and pure anger.
"I am sorry, my parents were too busy..." I didn't manage to finish my explanation, when she yelled.
"What do your parents have to do anything about this, you fool?! Do you understand that you cannot skip doing all your homework and then magically dump your entire fault on your parents?!"
I remember the exact ridiculed feeling I had when she started yelling at me. Anxiety, fear, with a handful of frustration. I shrank, started trembling and felt so small and helpless. Arpine Pavlovna continued shouting at me, but I didn't understand the words, I just saw her sinister expression, heard her voice ringing in my head and tried to retain my tears, as to not embarass myself even more. Everyone was looking at me, relieved that they weren't the ones being absolutely obliterated by that teacher. She seemed to care too much about those outlined balloons in my book that were never filled with colors, completely ignoring the immense damage she caused to the child in front of her, who definitely got filled with life-long anxiety. To a child and many other children who are just stepping into the world of education, but are growing completely reluctant to it because of teachers like her.
This was the first out of many occurences she got absurdly mad at me and other children for making minor mistakes, which I find completely ridiculous. I remember how after that incident I started hating going to school, and cried every morning, anxiously grabbing my stomach and feeling terribly sick. Some days, when global warming hadn't yet melted the strong winters, my mom's car would get snowed in and I remember crying when realizing that I am going to be late from Arpine Pavlovna's class. That wasn't right. It still isn't right. Hundreds of teachers like her make youngsters hate and fear education, because they simply do not possess any social skills. Working with children is comprised mostly of patience and understanding. Those teachers should see that those little beings are curious by default and one of the purposes of nursery education is to boost and satisfy their thirst for answers, not make them hate it.
I started being afraid of mistakes, always wanting to be perfect. Always avoiding any possibility that someone might get angry at me for doing something wrong. This unnecessary and nervous perfection constantly reminds me that I am comprised of mistakes and flaws. That each and every little thing I do has to be perfect to be considered decent at least.