STOP THAT, MISS BRIGGS!

School's Out -- For Now

I don't remember the moment in June of '68 when I left Miss Briggs' classroom on the last day of school. I recall no final "farewell" abusive act by her, nor do I recall any sense of relief as I left the building. That may seem counter-intuitive, but leaving was not yet liberation; with two more years to go in this school, my problems could resume any time I encountered Miss Briggs in the hallways, cafeteria, playground, anywhere.

As the 5th grade drew near, I hoped against hope that Miss Briggs -- for no reason I could fathom except that the fates had decided this boy had suffered enough – was no longer there.

In September, I entered the school watching my back for any sight of her. Our 5th grade teacher was new to the school and young, but as she introduced herself, Miss Perkins came across immediately as having a simpler, more homespun personality than the dazzling Miss Briggs. That was soothing to me. The new teacher then asked us to raise our hands if last year we were in Mrs. Conway's class, then Miss Briggs', then if we were a transfer.

After each of the three groups did so, I set my characteristic social unassertiveness aside, raised my hand again and asked, "Is Miss Briggs still teaching here?"

I braced myself. The next word I would hear would send me into anguish or ecstasy. I don't know whether it was evident, but Miss Perkins' answer caused me to let out a sigh of relief that could have made a blip on the weather radar: "No, she's left the school."

Thank. God. I'm. Free.

Asking that had been my only verbal indication to anyone that something may have been wrong the previous year. Miss Perkins' low key response and quick move on to other matters indicated that my question signified nothing unusual.

And with that – and a few seconds of sigh aftershocks – the matter of Gloria Briggs was put away deep into my mind's back closet.

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In the first year and a half since February 2010, my grappling with what had happened and how long it had remained concealed went through an initial stage of shock through a fervent determination to right the wrong to a circumspection over whether I was making too much of this.

Two people in whom I confided the story both tried shortly to steer me to the "let go of it and move on" mode.

I realized how my problem was sounding to people: a man in his 50s stuck in the past, blaming his problems on some obscure if unfortunate episode that amounted to nothing more than, "My teacher was mean to me." A story most anyone has from their childhood.

Not necessarily. I agree with the statement on a medical website on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that, "PTSD isn't a person refusing to let go of the past. It's their past refusing to let go of them."

Though I have not been diagnosed with PTSD (except by Dr. Google), those words described my situation, and I realize my task is first to make it possible  to let go, not to aim for any superficial quick fix. Moreover, the long duration my suffering had lasted verified that this wasn't just an ordinary "mean teacher" remembrance.

Still, I was gravitating toward a belief that I was making too much out of 1967-68; that perhaps I was exaggerating the severity or frequency of the teacher's actions toward me. I could all along be misinterpreting "teacher's pet" partiality toward me. Maybe it was time to declare the Miss Briggs episode to be just one of those un-explainable things.

That had happened before. Though the full realization didn't come until 2010, one morning in 1977, while I was studying (a psychology textbook, I believe) during my 2nd year of college, all of a sudden, the reality of her behavior toward me a decade before peeked through my subconscious. Though I beheld with some awe and bafflement how inexplicable the episode had been, I felt no dread.

Over the next couple of decades, one or two other medium-key realizations of the 4th grade teacher's odd ways toward me also ended with, "Hmmm. That was strange. Oh well..."

After the 1977 recollection, I missed the chance to talk to Mom about the matter. It might have been easy; at that point, I was not traumatized from the memories and I had forgotten any suspicions that my family had been in on it. Mentioning the Miss Briggs matter could have given me the assurance that no such collusion had happened, which the child in me still needed to hear.