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Life before the sickness: My life before went through many drastic stages. I am not trying to fragment the story of my life by adding this in later. The truth is that the illness was honestly the turning point. Before I suffered total long-term sickness there were only relatively minor damages. To circle back in time, it began with me being a battered child starting with my first memory of abuse at around age two or three. My father had extremely low-impulse control towards me and he was completely unpredictable. There was usually literally no rhyme of reason for his sudden and uncontrollable outbursts of rage and violence. He would be fine and happy and smiling one second and the next second he would fly into a rage. He'd hit me on the behind, back and most often across the face and skull. He'd use hard objects because he'd hit me so hard that it hurt his hand. When I was in the forth grade my dad began tutoring me at home because I was failing in school. The lessons started right after dinner and would usually last until midnight or one in the morning. Every time I gave a wrong answer, didn't get the right answer fast enough or seemed inattentive to the instructions my dad would beat the side of my head in. I'd cry hysterically after awhile and then I'd get beat up for crying. My dad thought that if he beat me enough I'd stop crying and pay attention to the lessons. My dad thought that the only reason I wasn't getting the answers right was because I was willfully refusing to work. To my father I was simply a lazy stubborn failure who didn't want to perform. Moreover, my shoddy schoolwork brought unmentionable shame upon the good family I came from. The more my dad tutored me and battered me the worse my performance became. I should've done better, but I couldn't help it. I just became so scared and scatter brained and eventually so overwrought and exhausted that I couldn't perform no matter how hard I tried. After I'd finally get to bed every night, Monday through Friday, my dad would soon wake me up again at 5:00 in the morning to begin another lesson before I got on the school bus. I was a wretched failure through grade school. I'd just sit there in class every day staring at nothing in particular with glazed over eyes. Most of my teachers hated me and they did everything they possibly could to punish me and humiliate me in class each day. I was the grand example to all the other kids depicting a failure for all to see. Teachers loved to call me up to the board to watch me fail at a problem so that they could laugh or chuckle and make loud comments to the class about me or send me to stand in the corner for the rest of the hour. They never tried to show me how to do anything; they only punished me when I failed. The teachers also worked closely with my mother, reporting everything I did wrong in school daily. My mom had the details of when I went to the restroom, how long I stayed in the restroom, what I said and did in the classroom, how I looked in class, what expressions I wore on my face, what I did at lunch and on the pay ground, etc. It felt like living under the eyes of the WWII German SS. Most of my teachers spent a lot of time telling me how bad, lazy and stupid I was. The battering at home stopped when I was in the 7th grade. I guess my dad gave up on me ever amounting to anything worthwhile despite his efforts to teach me how to perform like I should. Two teachers in the 8th grade are especially memorable because they were very kind to me. Mr. "Z," the history teacher, walked up to my desk in class the very first day and exclaimed, "You look really smart. I bet you're one of the smartest ones in my class!" I was so shocked that my attention was suddenly and permanently riveted onto this woman. Every time I was in her class I paid attention to her every word and every motion like it was the Gospel. I worshipped Mrs. "Z." I earned 100% or close to it on every history test I ever took in the 8th grade. The other teacher was Mrs. "R" from my reading class. Mrs. "R" noticed that I spent the whole class period writing notes to my friends and ignoring her. So one day she walked up to my desk quiet as a mouse and stood there peering over my shoulder. She was probably reading what I was writing to my friend! However, when I noticed her and glanced up startled she didn't try to punish me. No, instead she smiled at me warmly and said something to the effect of, "Are you going to be an author when you grow up?" And she was serious! There was a magical tinkle of bells in her voice when she spoke those words to me. God only knows why Mrs. "R" chose that response rather than plucking the note away from me and punishing me or forcing me to stand in front of the class and read my note to everyone, but that's what she did. Again, I was shocked and Mrs. "R" really had my attention. I stopped writing notes in Mrs. "R's" class and I listened very carefully to all she said. I didn't do all my homework like I should have. I'd never learned how to do homework. However, I was mannerly in class and I was learning and I turned out to be the top poet in my reading class. When we were assigned poems and I wrote one and tentatively gave it to Mrs. "R" I remember how stunned she was. As it turned out, I was a writer after all. Mrs. "R" told me honestly that I should pursue my writing and I did. With Mrs. "R's" encouragement I won that year's reading contest competing against the entire school. The moment that I was called up to front of the auditorium to collect my prize for winning was bittersweet. I remember Mrs. "A" the math teacher sneering at me and loudly commenting to all the other teachers huddled around her that I was nothing but a liar and a cheater and that I'd never read all those books. Then there was a terrible silence in the auditorium as all the teachers stared at me with a shocked loathing. My legs turned to jelly and I almost sat back down too afraid to walk up there and claim my award. It was then that I heard applause and I looked up again to see Mrs. "Z" and Mrs. "R" smiling and clapping wildly in that silent building. Mrs. "Z" and Mrs. "R" were looking right at me and nodding their heads to indicate it was time for me to walk up the aisle to the podium. I stiffened my back against the cold glares of Mrs. "A" and all her crazy friends and I strode up to receive the recognition that I had earned. I'll never forget that day. I really did read all those books. Reading happened to be my escape. I tried to call Mrs. "A" many years later, after I was a reasonable success in college, and tell her what a horrible ignorant and cruel woman she was but the school system protects its teachers very well. I also couldn't ever reach Mrs. "Z" and Mrs. "R" to thank them for their acts of kindness. There was one other teacher who came to a tragic end, this was the school's shop teacher, he was an elderly man and I do not recall his name. This fellow was sweet, accepting and encouraging. Tragically he was dismissed from his teaching position due to false accusations of child molestation that were leveled against him. I know the accusations were false because I was one of the few girls in his shop class and I was the only girl who hung out with him in the shop building between classes. He never touched me at all and he never said a single sexual thing. He was the perpetual mid western grandpa type. He believed that even a kid like me could be something some day. He tried to encourage me to tend to my homework and my studying for all my classes and he told me that I was a great kid and a good girl. The shop teacher never hugged me and he never touched me in any other way. He was totally innocent and although he lost his job he was obviously never convicted of a crime. In the 8th grade I had a lot of good friends and I was becoming a popular girl, but I still wasn't performing in the area of schoolwork. However, the illness was to come a little while later, when I was almost 16. The true horror was approaching and I didn't see it coming at all. I was happy and busy with my friends. I was busy being popular yet I stayed far away from drugs and other activities that I saw were hurting others. I knew that I wasn't invincible but I would have never guessed how fragile I really was. I would have learned to be the super star my dad demanded in school soon enough, but I never had the chance. I just needed some time to learn how to be in school. It was a new beginning that ended before it was noticed by anyone but me. |
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