It was fall 1969 and I was in my dorm room at Kansas Wesleyan University. I was a freshman and just received my report card. I got four F’s and a C. I was amazed that I got a C and the professor told me later that I did well considering I only showed up to class occasionally.

I treated my dorm room like a hotel where ongoing, excessive partying took place. I had no goals and no direction. I majored in LSD, Codeine cough syrup and miscellaneous other substances. I realize now that numbing my emotional pain was the main function of my partying.

My father had died three years previously and hadn’t dealt with that loss. I was masterful in denial and avoidance.

I believed that intelligence was elusive. My fifth-grade teacher announced to the class that I was the dumbest kid she had ever taught. She was old and taught hundreds of kids in Lafayette School, Highland Park, NJ. Therefore, it was imprinted in my psyche that I was dumb and a disgrace to mankind.

My grades hovered between C’s and F’s throughout junior high and high school. The ninth-grade counselor had a meeting with me and my parents. She informed us that my SCAT (School and College Ability Test) indicated that I was not smart enough to go to college and should therefore take vocational classes.

Now there is nothing wrong with Vocational Classes or being trained for working in the trades, but the counselor made me feel like I was an inferior life force. I felt deep shame as I watched my parent’s blank expressions. I don’t remember how they handled it, but I didn’t feel they stood up for me or at least I wasn’t feeling it if they did.

I proceeded to take college prep courses anyway and proceeded to flunk or nearly flunk all of them. Of course, my attendance was dismal and my interest in being a good student was zero.

The strategy (if you want to call it that) was to never put forth much effort in any schoolwork. This stance would allow me to think, “Well If I don’t try, I can forever be uncertain if I am really stupid or not.” This help keep this fear at bay: “What if I put forth maximum effort and failed anyway? What would become of me then?”

Sitting in the dorm and smoking a cigarette contemplating my future; The Dean of Students made me come to his office and asked what I would like to get out of college and had no answer.

I remember my mother telling me that I was smart, but her fear of what would become of me ruled her conversations. She gave me worst case scenarios of me failing at life which only increased feelings of hopelessness and isolation.

I had just started dating Gail. She, along with her mother Lavya, showered me with unconditional love. This was new and powerful. They both gave the message that I was indeed a smart person. This opened the courage to take the risk and try.

It was the month of January 1970. The college offered one intense class to take for the entire month. The course I chose was Fiction of Utopia. I consciously decided that it was make or break it time. I was going to put forth a full effort. I planned on attending every class, doing all homework assignments and asking questions about anything I didn’t understand. The report card came in the mail and I got an A!

Elation ruled and the image, icon and archetype of stupid man vanished!

The remainder of college classes were A’s and B’s. The improvement in grades led to an acceptance into The University of Kansas’s School of Social Welfare where I did well and graduated in 19
79.

Now forty years later, looking back at that time fills the heart with sadness and righteous rage. How could they have treated me like that? I was just a kid who they needed to vilify and hurt. Why did this happen? How many others have had similar experiences?

The gift of this experience is understanding the important of instilling confidence in children. I practice this at The Meadows-Livingstone School in San Francisco along with the founder Gail Meadows and her teaching staff. Anyone watching the videos of the children at this school can connect confidence to success and self-love.

The other experience I share often is to not trust the results of standardized tests. If I had continued to believe the guidance counselor and the high validity of the standardized SCAT test, I would have never gone to college or graduate school.

I would never have a booming psychotherapy practice; never would have written five highly acclaimed self-help books, never would have learned to play percussion or the guitar; never would have believed that the possibilities for me are endless.

I overcame the emotional abuse of being labeled as stupid, dumb, inferior and less than. This is a struggle that I won and no one can ever take it away from me.