During kindergarten, my dad was on sabbatical and our family temporarily relocated to Madison, WI. I was enrolled in a Catholic school called Blessed Sacrament. This was primarily out of convenience, as it was across the street from the house my parents were renting. Being away from my friends back home was an adjustment, as was the new structure being imposed on my life. There was less time spent outside, and more time doing meaningless busy work, like worksheets where we draw capital letters next to lowercase letters over and over. I knew how to read and write, but I couldn't tie my shoes. The reverse was true for most of my peers. When we were allowed outside, almost everyone would go play a sport together. I would hang out on the playground and make up stories and act out goofy scenes with the other one or two kids who weren't into competitive team sports. My teacher didn't believe that I knew how to read until I proved it, and she told my parents she was worried that I wasn't conforming because I wouldn't play sports. This experience had it's good moments, but it left a sour taste in my mouth about school overall, and I started to recognize it as a trap: I'm spending less time with friends and family, I'm increasingly restricted from going outside, more of the people around me are interested in pleasing authority than exploring and co-creating reality, the people in positions I'm supposed to look up to are treating me like I don't belong, and my own interests are no longer a priority for the people attempting to control how I live my life on a daily basis. There is also instability. Just as I'm making meaningful connections in one place, I can be transplanted to somewhere entirely different that's less suitable for me with no ability to resist. This is probably when I started to learn to suppress my expression and dissociate from my surroundings in order to protect myself from criticism and change.