There's a particular experience of saying something true and watching adults decide it doesn't count. Not because they've evaluated it and found it lacking — just because of who's saying it. Because you're young. Because you're a student. Because the institution has decided the institution's version is the one that matters.
The assessment plan incident
I was told I couldn't use my laptop for a written assessment because it wasn't in my assessment plan. I questioned that. I had reason to — my laptop was a reasonable adjustment, documented, in place because of ongoing hand pain and an OT referral. So I pushed back. And what came out of that pushing back was the discovery that the assessment plan the teacher cited as the reason I couldn't use my laptop didn't actually exist. The school didn't have one.
The adjustment I relied on was being denied based on a document that wasn't there. And the response to my questioning wasn't "you're right, we got this wrong" — it was the kind of institutional shrug that happens when adults don't want to be corrected by a student.
The pattern
This wasn't a one-off. It was a pattern across the whole school situation. I found a data breach and tried to report it — it became an allegation against me. I used my own webmail when my laptop was taken — it became evidence of suspicious behaviour. I questioned a teacher — it became a problem. The content of what I was saying, the accuracy of it, the reasonableness of it — largely irrelevant. What mattered was the power dynamic.
What it does to you
When your accurate perception of reality is consistently overridden by adults who have decided they know better, it creates a specific kind of self-doubt. Not "maybe I'm wrong about this" — more "even if I'm right, it doesn't matter." That's a corrosive thing to learn. That being correct is insufficient. That being right doesn't mean being heard.
My mum pushed back on all of it, in writing, correctly. That helped enormously. Having someone who believed what I was saying and acted on it meant I wasn't completely alone in it. But the fundamental experience of adults not taking me seriously — that was still there and it still had an effect.