As I started to grow up, I began realizing my need to be away from people, as I was afraid of any kindness that was bestowed upon me in hopes of earning my trust. A part of me just would not accept people were just nice, and would like to help you. My mind adjusted to people like this by being the opposite of who I was. I would act like a totally different person, I would go into frequent mood changes, and people did not understand me at all. I was fine with what I did, and I mastered it into an art. To be alone with myself I would go into the twenty acres of woods we owned and climb trees to stare at the sky and just walk around the woods. I was determined to stay that way. The Lee�s did everything in their power to get close to me and day-by-day they were a little closer to getting to me than before.
As a child I was told the stories of the Bible, and Mrs. Lee would tell me what they meant. When we went to church every Sunday, in Bible School I would act very knowledgeable about the Bible. This made people think of me as an intelligent and caring child. Mrs. Lee took religion and her faith in God very seriously, and we never missed a Sunday. My favorite character of the Bible was Moses because of the way he parted the Red Sea. I did not understand the way he did it, but I thought he did it under his own powers, and I thought of him as a kind of superhero as compared to Superman, or Batman.
Among the good times of my childhood, I remember we use to play a game of heights in the backyard. My nephew Chucky, my brother Jonathon, and I would find the highest tree in the backyard to climb. Whoever could climb the highest and jump without falling down was the winner. I developed an untamed urge to climb higher than the two of them, and in everything I did, I strove to be better than the others even when I couldn�t tie my shoelaces on my own yet. I almost always lost because I was short and I could not reach half the branches above me, but I told myself I would be better one day. I was four years old with an attitude of a fully-grown lion, and I had all of the strength of a newborn calf�s legs.
Around this time I developed a phobia of spiders, or arachnophobia, and a strong fear of fire, or I was pyrophobic. Spiders are disgusting creatures, and after my brother and I watched a scary movie with spiders in it, I couldn�t stand spiders. Any time I would see a spider, I would be paralyzed with fear. All the sounds around me would fade, I would hear a distant buzz in the back of my head, and the hair on my neck would stand up. The only thing I would see was the spider. Then my paralysis would break, and I would get an uncontrollable urge to run as far and as fast as I could away from the spider. I refused to touch or light a flame because the same thing would happen as with the spiders. Every time I would see fire, I would think about the fire in my old home, me hands would shake, and I felt as though I had lost my backbone as I would recall the heat of the flame as it had almost killed me.
One day in the winter, Chucky, Jon, and I were playing in the snow in the backyard with our red wagon. We had tied a string to the wagon handle to pull the sled behind us as we went down the snow-covered hills. Mrs. Lee called us into the house, and Jonathon and Chucky ran as fast as they could, leaving me at the edge of the woods by myself. I ran for a long time before I reached the house and right by the steps was our red wagon. We had tied a string to the wagon handle so we could steer the wagon when we went down hill, and then the string was lying on the white snow where I did not see it. I ran on top of the string and the wagon handle flew off the wagon and hit me in the forehead. I have a high tolerance for pain, so I didn�t cry or anything but wondered why my head was so hot. I walked around to the house and went into the front door. When I got onto our yellow tiled floor, I heard a soft patter of what sounded like someone had let the sink drip because they did not turn the faucet tightly enough. I turned around and stood in shock at what I saw. My blood trailed all around the house like a red beacon! I put my hand to my forehead and almost fainted when my hand was a dark red from the blood. I screamed and fell down for some reason getting dizzy all of a sudden. Mrs. Lee, her sister, and everybody rushed into the kitchen and saw the floor covered in blood and my lying in it. By now, I had passed out so I could not see anything. I remember being in an ambulance and this guy standing over me. The lights were bright; and I felt a sting in my arm and went back to sleep. Some time later, I woke up with a headache, and I saw a doctor leaning over me. I looked to my left and saw the needles and thread the doctor was using to stitch my forehead back together with. I left the hospital the next morning with eight stitches on the right side of my forehead where the scar remains today.
I also started to steal things and lie to Mrs. Lee. I was stealing food and candy and hiding them under my bed or until they got rotten. I had no need to steal the food, but I just had the urge to do it so I did. This is classified as my instinct to survive. I would not admit it to my therapist or even acknowledge my problem to myself but would act without thinking and with no remorse as to why I had done what I did. I acted out of instinct and to supply my needs.
There developed a problem with my sister and I. With our combined problems and needs, we exceeded the budget supplied by the government, and the Lee�s were drawing out of their meager savings to help us but this could not go on forever. Mrs. Lee and Mr. Lee started having constant arguments as to what they would do with us. Mr. Lee suggested they drop us off on the doorsteps of the foster agency. Mrs. Lee came to our rescue and said no. This caused the argument that separated the Lees forever, over twenty years in the trash and a tumult of pain in someone else�s life. I was four, but I understood what had happened, and I silently added their separation to my already long list of things to blame on myself. I was slowly eating myself alive with thoughts of premature worry and distrust. As a part of my instinct, I developed a need to ignore my emotions for a long time. I had the only key to my impenetrable �jail� and it was lost in the quicksand of my emotions. My �jail� for my emotions would last for weeks, sometimes months at a time, but I always reached a critical point went I was flooded with all the pent up emotions, and I would have uncontrollable fits of fury over little things. Tears were regarded as weak, and I silently vowed to never show my weakness to anyone. The only thing in the world that saw and felt my most secret of pains, frustrations, the only thing that felt my tears, was the very pillow that comforted my head at night. I was my own enemy when I was a child, and my life seemed a wrecking ball for anyone who would try to get to me.
The Lees filed for divorce, and Mrs. Lee moved out to support us. We moved to New Baltimore, Michigan, and bought a three-bedroom apartment for us. Even though I thought I was a mistake by God and my mother, I knew a good thing when I saw one. I saw Mrs. Lee as a person who would listen to all of my fears and comfort me when I was lonely. I slowly began to reach out for help sensing I was drowning in my own pool of blame. My survival instinct allowed me to trust Mrs. Lee and to help myself. I began to get used to calling Mrs. Lee, �Mom�. I was always around Mrs. Lee, and I would do everything I could to help out. There was talk of adopting me as a child of hers and I readily accepted the offer without thinking because of my need for love and attention. I loved when Mrs. Lee would kiss me and give me things and tell me good things about myself, she started to quench the roaring fire that was building deep inside of me, a fire that was quickly getting out of control. The unspoken question still remained in the air around me; would this be enough to pull me free of the pit that had become my private hell? Would I have the strength to venture into the unknown and risk baring my soul for the first time?