The Trouble With Adults

My senior year in high school was tough. The older I got, the harder it was to continue to live in my father's house. The harder it was to live with the ways he had already fucked up my life. There were times--quite a few, actually--when I was seriously suicidal. In retrospect, it's interesting that the closer I got to leaving, the more I wanted to die. It was like I just couldn't stand another day or that deep inside, I knew just how far the damage would reach into the future.

My teacher, who had blessed me with her care, got very concerned. She was pretty much the only person who was concerned about me, as usual. I was writing suicidal poems and submitting them to the literary magazine. They all got published. She took it upon herself to take me over to a state social worker (I'm guessing here--she may have been a psychologist) to see if she could keep me alive.

The social worker was a young woman, probably not out of school for very long. I remember she had light brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. I'm sure she was completely unprepared for what I had to say. It wasn't so much that my story was necessarily the worst (although it was very, very bad), but I doubt that most people who've been that fucked over for so long even understand that there was anything wrong with living that way. For those people, it's very difficult to find someone to care for them because pain and terror and sexual corruption don't make for a very appealing kid.

I don't recall how I started the tale. For years, I'd been telling it in one way or another to any adult who'd listen. The results up until then didn't inspire much hope. I told her everything. It took several sessions to get through it all. I'm not sure whether I had completely mastered dissociating at will under all conditions. There were some situations in which I had no control--I dissociated immediately even if I didn't want to. I also don't know which emotion was most visible--my anger or my pain.

So week after week, we trudged through some of the worst stories I had to tell. I liked the young woman; she didn't seem to be immediately repelled or incredulous. Right off the bat, that put her in the top two percent of adults I liked. Understandably, I had a generally negative view of the adult world. Aside from my beloved teacher, I ended up wanting to kill the last adult I'd trusted with my secrets.

I went to talk to my counselor when I was 14. My best friend had talked me into going and was kind enough to go with me. I started out with the old "my friend has a problem blah blah, etc." I wish I could remember the moron counselor's name. Anyway, I went through this wrenching tale and waited for her response. She leaned back in her chair and started telling me that everyone has problems. She herself had problems, the biggest of which was that she was paralyzed on one side of her face. Wow. How could I possibly compete with that? She told me that when she cried, tears only came out of one of her eyes. There's a cross to bear, alright. I had supreme contempt for her. How could she possibly think that compared to the Auschwitz of the life I was living? If I hadn't hated adults before, she definitely gave me a hearty shove in that direction. I still haven't forgiven her.

My point here is that I never found adults to be particularly reliable. Oh my god, I just realized what an understatement that was--it's actually almost funny. Her name just game to me--my social worker's name was Mary. After I'd laid out as much of my life as I could for her examination, she asked me what I wanted to do. I honestly didn't know there was going to be something I'd have to do. The deal was that I had to allow Mary to tell Child Protective Services (or whatever it was called then) or we were through with the sessions. It was like I'd been hit in the face with a brick. I was terrified of telling anyone because I knew that, if I wasn't taken away, I'd have created an even more dangerous situation for myself. I knew exactly what would be waiting for me at home and, even though I might have wanted to die, I wanted it to be as painless as possible. That would most certainly not be my dad's way.

Quote of the day:
"If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern." ~ Ursual K. Leguin

America held hostage day 1302
Bushism of the day:
"Speaking about barbaric regimes, we must deal with probably one of the most—not probably—one of the most real threats we face, and that is the idea of a barbaric regime teaming up with a terrorist network and providing weapons of mass destruction to hold the United States and our allies and our friends blackmail."
Source: FDCH Political Transcripts, "George W. Bush Participates in Alexander for Senate Luncheon," Sept. 17, 2002

Website of the Day: Dr. Andrew Weil's Self Healing
http://www.drweilselfhealing.com/default.asp