Broken Child: You Mean I Really Am Different - Enlighten Me Series

Part five of six here. We have one left to go. These excerpts point to the beginnings of my depression. From what I have gathered, my situation was the perfect storm for a little girl to lose her way. I was in great need of enlightenment and guidance.


CLUELESS AND IN TOTAL CONFUSION - THE ELEMENTARY YEARS

Part Five: You Mean I Really am Different?

PART FIVE:
I felt isolated and alone. When I tried to make friends, they kept looking at me funny or laughed at me. What was going on? I don’t get it, why doesn’t anyone want to be near me? Probably because I was what… ugly, weird, or just confused? Would someone care to enlighten me? What was so weird about me?

To confirm that I was different, I was sent to special ed class. When I looked around me, I was confused. I didn’t resemble anyone in the classroom. I didn’t have the same disabilities or learning problems. My new teacher looked at me and said a little too sternly, “You shouldn’t be here. I don’t understand why they sent you to me. You don’t belong in this classroom.” I whole-heartedly agreed with her indignation, because I was feeling the same way about the situation. All I understood was that she seriously didn’t want me either. That I didn’t belong anywhere. I cried.

I was intelligent, but not articulate. I stuttered slightly when I got nervous. And I was anxiety filled for most of my school life. Once I remember my kindergarten teacher telling me to speak in English. I kept insisting I was. “But I am speaking English!” I cried. The principal came to our home and told my parents to only speak English at home, because I was getting confused. I remember thinking, “What is he talking about? What is wrong with these people, don’t they know English when they hear it? I hear English, I can read English, and I can speak in English.” I just didn’t get it.

Apparently when I first started school, I spoke nothing but Spanish. Years later, I realized that I must have mixed the two languages together, that it sometimes came out as a stutter searching for the right word. My mind was translating quickly but my mouth wasn’t fast enough.

Why didn’t anyone enlighten me? No one told me I was speaking Spanish! I didn’t know I was speaking another language. It would have helped me understand why no one understood me or wanted to play with me. It would have explained why every time I opened my mouth, the other kids would laugh or tease me. It would have also explained why teachers wouldn’t respond to me at times and instead gave me a lot of blank stares as though I wasn’t there at all.

How can I have not known that I was a different culture? It goes to show you that when a child, me, goes out into the world, too naive, too young to understand, with no real guidance, and adults too busy to realize my dilemma that I became a lost girl. I was a smart child, but not smart enough to figure it out.

I was a broken child and no one knew that I needed to be fixed.



The last one coming up. Part Six - No Way! You Mean I'm a Different Race? Confusion arises when you're as lily white as your neighbor, but then again, you aren't. WTF?

Broken Child: You Can't Be Happy When You Can't See

Coming near the end of my six part story. These excerpts point to the beginnings of my depression. From what I have gathered, my situation was the perfect storm for a little girl to lose her way. I was in great need of enlightenment and guidance. My confusion was so complete when I was a child wondering around my elementary school. What have we learned so far:
Crying was the only thing I heard the first year of my life.
I was too young to go to school.
I didn't know I was a poor little girl.
And now: Add seeing on the list of things I do poorly.

CLUELESS AND IN TOTAL CONFUSION - THE ELEMENTARY YEARS

Part Four: Seeing Could Have Helped

PART FOUR:
One day our second grade teacher announced that we were taking a new test. It was called an eye test. Why didn’t I know about this test? Why would she spring a test on us like this? I wasn’t prepared. If I went up there I knew I would cry and everyone would make fun of me. As the teacher administered the test to the other children I watched intently. There was no way I was going to fail this test if I could help it. I noticed that she pointed to every letter in the same pattern. By the time it was my turn, I looked at the board she was holding up and didn’t understand one letter on it, except for the big E. Why was it so difficult to make the letters out? Good thing I had memorized the pattern and passed the test with flying colors or so I thought. When I got my new glasses, by golly, I could see!

I realized that the confusion and haze I felt when I was a child was due in part to poor eyesight. Everything was blurry. I couldn’t see the black board. I couldn’t see people lips move. I couldn’t see the expressions on people's faces because my eyesight was that bad, almost clinically blind. But even after I started wearing glasses, my confusion about the world around me still didn’t get any clearer.

I wish now that someone had taken the time to enlighten me, to tell me that the reason I didn’t understand was because I was so nearsighted and had needed glasses for a very long time. Glasses just appeared on my face and Bam! Clarity. And Bam! Instant Dorkdom.

Glasses apparently were not cool.


Yeah. Something else to be made fun of. From now on whenever I was paired up with someone, they paired me with the other geek in the classroom. At least my glasses offered a new way to hide. I could hide behind them. They were like a miniature fence on my face that kept people out. It actually helped to repel them. I was considered a good looking girl until those glasses landed on my face. Boys never looked at me again.



Part Five: You Mean I am Different? Who knew? There was actually something different about me after all and I didn't even know it. And it wasn't good.

Broken Child: You Mean We're Poor? - Enlighten Me Series

I've broken down my story into six parts. These excerpts point to the beginnings of my depression. From what I have gathered, my situation was the perfect storm for a little girl to lose her way. I was in great need of enlightenment and guidance.

CLUELESS AND IN TOTAL CONFUSION - THE ELEMENTARY YEARS

Part Three: You Mean We're Poor?

PART THREE:
Who knew? I was clueless. Poor children don’t know they are poor. Not until others point it out. Some of the laughter or jokes came because of the clothes I was wearing. I didn’t know that they were laughing at me because I was too poor to afford nice clothes that fit well, or looked worn out, faded, or most likely, mismatched clothes. I knew that I was being laughed at but couldn’t understand why. My parents have five children all a year apart. So our clothes were shared among us, as were the shoes and coats. Every once in a while my brother even wore a girl’s coat. On rainy days we didn’t wear boots. Sometimes there were no socks to be found. I realize now that the clothes probably weren’t as clean as they could have been either. When my glasses broke, they were taped up bringing more jeers and jokes. I became the geek, the unwanted, and the unwashed. I was confused. I cried.

I wished someone had enlightened me that being poor put you below others on the social scale. I didn't realize that the poverty moniker was showing all over me. It could have explained the behavior of the other kids. I didn’t care or even think about clothes or how someone else dressed or looked, but it meant so much to so many other people. I was confused.

I didn’t realize we were poor until my mother and I went shopping for my communion dress. These were the most beautiful dresses I had ever seen. Every time I picked one off the rack that I liked, my mother would say, “Sorry honey, that one costs too much.” She said that after the next six dresses I picked up. That’s when a paradigm shift happened and I asked, “Mami, are we poor? Are we a poor family?” She thought for a minute and then admitted that yes indeed we were what people would call poor. But as long as we were together and loved each other that we were rich in love and family. To this day, she regrets telling me yes, because I would never let her buy me anything ever again after that. I always told her I didn’t need it and to spend the money on my brother or sisters instead.



I became embarrassed, self-conscious, and tried my best to be invisible after that. But it was becoming easy. No one pays attention to you when you look so pitiful, unless of course, its to make fun of you. Other than that, you become a nobody. That was fine with me.


Part Four coming up: Seeing Could Have Helped - when you're blind as a bat, no wonder everything seems hazy. Geez.

Broken Child: Haze of Confusion - Enlighten Me Series

I've broken down my story into six parts. These excerpts point to the beginnings of my depression. From what I have gathered, my situation was the perfect storm for a little girl to lose her way. I was in great need of enlightenment and guidance.

CLUELESS AND IN TOTAL CONFUSION - THE ELEMENTARY YEARS

Part Two: TOO YOUNG FOR SCHOOL

PART TWO:
I entered kindergarten when I was four years old, turning five three months later. In those days, four year olds were allowed to start school early. I can only tell you that my memories of this age substantiate that I was wholly unprepared for school. I could write my name in cursive, understood two languages, and was very good at math. I had book smarts but no street smarts. I never ever understood socially what was happening around me. I was too young and couldn't relate to other children on their level. Everyone looked at me as though they were seeing an alien and didn't understand me either. I didn't get it. I walked around in a haze of confusion for the longest time. That's the word. CONFUSION.

The only thing I could focus on or make sense of was the teacher. I needed praise, affirmation, acceptance and I got that from teacher. I excelled in her presence and I was appreciated. So I did everything in my power to please her. But even then she kept giving me blank stares and no sense of understanding. WTF was going on around here!

It took a long time for the haze to lift. People would laugh and I never knew why. Jokes zoomed over my head like a roaring jet. If I looked around and the laughter was directed at me, I cried. I could have been the one that made the joke, unwittingly of course. I never knew why they laughed. I cried even more. I excelled at the schoolwork, so they placed me into an advance split level class for math, which meant I was with even older children. I never understood what was happening around me. Socially I didn't have a clue. After a while I just stopped talking altogether. It was better to be silent, to be invisible.

Why could I understand the work so thoroughly but not understand the people around me or why they acted the way they did? My confusion was so complete that I would fill in the blanks with what I thought was happening and about myself. What was it about me that made people act so? I cried a lot.




I wished someone would have enlightened me to help me understand that the reason folks reacted to me the way they did had more to do with the fact that I was too young, and wait for it...
I was speaking another language. Now that was news to me. More on that in Part 5.

Next is Part 3 - You Mean We're Poor!?!

Broken Child: Deep Seeds of Depression - Were they planted from birth?

I've broken down my story into six parts. These excerpts point to the beginnings of my depression. From what I have gathered, I was in great need of enlightenment and guidance.

CLUELESS AND IN TOTAL CONFUSION - THE ELEMENTARY YEARS

PART ONE:
In my search to understand my depression, I needed to go back to when I first felt it. Like Freud would say, “Tell me about your childhood.”

But I can’t tell you when I first felt it. It was already a part of me before even sentience. It has always been there.

My childhood was not a pleasant one. When people say the “good ole days,” I cringe and think, “What good ole days? I never want to relive those days again.” They were agony for me so forgetting them seems so right. But revelations come every so often with age. I’ve come to understand how the confluence of events and circumstances created a ‘perfect storm’ leading to my distress, fear, and confusion of those “ole days”.

Conditions were just right for a clueless little girl to read all the wrong signs, to misunderstand so many meanings, to look inwardly for the problems that plagued her mind and heart. The most important element missing was guidance. As an adult, I cannot stress enough how important the impact of guidance can have in a young person’s life. I needed guidance to help me understand what was going on around me. My mom was way too busy with the other four babies to help me and my dad was too tired and worn out by work. My parents could not help me and my teachers couldn’t either. I couldn’t articulate my issues. No one could anticipate how I would interpret the things that were happening to me. I was in uncharted territory and on my own.

Was the Seed of Depression Planted – Is Crying a Learned Response?
As far as I can remember, I cried. I cried about everything. If someone looked at me and I didn’t like it, I cried. If someone admonished, teased me, giggled at me, pointed at me, looked mean, yelled at me, showed disgust or disdain, said something mean, stuck their tongue out at me, or called on me when I was unprepared, or worse, ignored me, I cried. Everything wounded me. My crying jags were monumental, legendary even. The more people tried to appease me the worse I got. Family, teachers and classmates soon knew me as the crybaby. I was teased by my siblings, exasperated friends and teachers, and ridiculed by classmates.

At my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, many old family friends and neighbors told stories, reminiscing about the good times, the great parties, and about their lives together in the 1940’s and 1950’s. One family friend recounted the story of when my mom lost her first child, my brother when he was three years old. He died the same week my mother gave birth to me. The friend leaned over and whispered that all my mother’s friends were highly concerned for her sanity, her grief was so great and no one could console her. It took months and months before she was able to cope. This was a revelation to me.

My mother’s first child, a boy, the sweetest, gentle soul, I’ve been told by so many, died when my mother was in the hospital giving birth to me. I looked at my son, now sixteen, sitting across the table from me, and my heart broke for my mom. I did not want to imagine that kind of grief.

I asked my mother several days later about that time in her life. I asked her if when holding me, did she cry for her son. She told me she cried practically non-stop for a full year until my sister was born. She then realized herself that she cried whenever she held me, that all I heard for the first year of my life was her immeasurable grief.

Did the seed of my depression go that far back in my history? I don’t know. But I think if I had realized it sooner, I might have been able to put my crying jags into perspective instead of thinking I was crazy.


Next time, Part Two of Clueless and in Total Confusion – the Elementary Years - Too Young for School

Opened the Door and Said No

The other day, I opened my bedroom door and could not think of any reason to leave. I stood there looked out and no one was there. Nothing or no one to greet me. I ran down the checklist in my head of what needed to get done, and I found nothing. There doesn’t seem to be a purpose for me that day. No one needed me, nothing needed to be done, deadlines were nowhere in sight. I was unsure of what to do. I closed the door and returned to my bed.

As I lay there, I decided that there was no reason to get out of bed all day or all night. My hips fell asleep. I’m getting sore lying here. No television to distract. Some sleep. No food. But I don’t care. Oh I know I will get up tomorrow because there is something I am supposed to get done tomorrow. I see my future. An old woman lying on her bed in the fetal position, getting sore, getting bedsores and not caring. Or worse, caring but only when it’s too late to change.

This is the first time that I have done this. I mean I have lain in bed all day before in my life, but because I was already depressed. But today was the first time, I found no purpose. The first time I have gotten up with real intention and when I opened my door and looked out, nothing was there. It was a big fat blank out there. The first time I closed the door and said no.

Analyzing the Flashback

The Flashback

When I get like this, I need about a week or so to figure out what’s really bothering me. Over the decades, I figured out a process that helps me recognize and pinpoint the exact moment when I got the darkest. The conflict starts inside of me unconsciously and then it manifests itself as an outburst. I feel angry at everything. I finally explode with irrational anger or manic depression. The outburst is way out of proportion for the infraction and I lash out with fury. Then the search is on - why? Why did I react this way? If I can find the trigger, I can get rid of the negativity.

The most shocking thing of all is to find that the thing that knocked the breath out of me today was the exact same thing that knocked it out of me when I was a seven year old. Who knew that at the age of 47, when I feel more in control of my mental and physical capabilities and potential that I can experience in a flash, the wave of intense emotion that I had not felt in years. It was truly unpleasant and sorely unsettling because it came like a lightning bolt. I was expecting enthusiastic approval but instead got transported back in time, to a time similar to this one, seeking approval and getting nothing. NOTHING. How deeply it had affected me then, and how quickly it reached up and grabbed me by the throat now was the biggest surprise.

I remember bringing home four A’s and one B, and mom said, “Why couldn’t you get all A’s?” or when I amazingly was a runner up in our two-class spelling bee. I was extremely shy, constantly bordering on anxiety attacks. To stay in front of the classroom, in the limelight, as all the other “spellers” were eliminated was a real triumph for me. When I came home with the news that I was runner-up and almost won, I heard, “I knew you couldn’t win.”

Later in life, when I asked my father if he was proud of me, he would say, “No, I can’t be proud of anything. It is a character flaw to be proud.” I told him that I really didn’t mean that particular meaning of the word, that he might be able to feel pride that I was his daughter and was a good student. He said again he could not be proud of me because it was a sin.

So when I waited for someone (translation: husband and 17 year old son) to enthusiastically want to read my first printed piece in the local paper, (with picture and by-line, thank you very much) and no one volunteered, I felt an old hurt. I thought, “Oh well, it doesn’t really matter.” They were happy for me and thought it was great, but they would read it later. I shrugged off the hurt. But later became days later and only when I brought the subject up again did they read the piece.

Luckily for me when I told my sisters about it, they couldn’t wait to read it and insisted I show it to them immediately. One sister insisted I fax it to her; the other went to buy the paper and called me back. Ah, thank God for supportive sisters. They exhibited just the right amount of delight, enthusiasm and kudos for my first literary triumph. They extended the joy for me. They were proud of me. It was immediate and oh so satisfying.

But the real support that I needed was the “want” to read my article or more so, the “need” to read my accomplishment by those closest to me. I do it for them all the time. I was always the cheerleader for my husband and son. If it was important to them, it was as important to me. I shrugged my shoulders and let it pass thinking that they were “just” men, as though that was justification. I thought why am I feeling like a seven year old. “Come on. Get it together.”

I kept saying it didn’t matter and convinced myself that my reaction was just a manifestation of a past event and really had nothing to do with the present. But then something else makes you angry about two weeks later, just a little thing among a thousand other little things and I blew up. What’s wrong with you? Why get upset over such a trifle? I didn’t know what was bothering me. But I knew from experience that if I blew up like that it meant something else was gnawing at me and for my own sanity, I now have to figure out.

At this point I become my own analyst. (German accent.) “Why do you think you blew up? Was there anything recently in your life to upset you? Tell me about your childhood. Ah, I see.” Then I realized it was that my husband and son never asked to read my article without my prompting much later. It was not a top priority for them. It didn’t really matter to them. I translated that to mean that I was not a priority to them. I realized further that the reason that it affected me so adversely and intensively was because of a past childhood experience. Not the same experience, but the same feeling on how it felt to be dismissed. I was amazed that this old feeling could reach all the way up through forty years and grab me so intensely.

So you might think you are well over certain old childhood hurts. As an adult, things like this shouldn’t bother you. But there are times and when you least expect it, that past and present will meld and you will be knocked for a loop.

Denying The Light

Even in the darkest moments, light tries to filter through, even through a pinhole.

We know it is there, trying to talk to us, to make us see.

The effort is in denying the sliver of light.

Not to acknowledge that it is there, that it even exists at all.

We close our eyes, becoming blind to the light.

But in the act of closing our eyes, in the act of trying not to see, we acknowledge its existence.

The light is there. It cannot be denied.

Open your eyes. Bravely open your eyes and face the light.

Because it is there, you must give it its due, its chance to save you.

Swimming Life's Ocean

Life is like swimming an ocean. As children you stayed near shore in the shallows. You could frolic in the water with abandon, without strife, able to sit in the water, with one cheek in the ocean and the other on the sand.

But as you get older and bolder, you frolic farther out, bringing toys to play in the wind and sea. Life is a thrill. You are vibrant and intense on so many levels. But yet, you learn a healthy respect for the ocean of life. And it’s frightening out there. You might have already experienced Life’s slap. It might be too much for some of you and you quickly head back to shore. Peter Pan forever.

Then it’s time to swim because you’re way out there on your own. There’s no shore. Pick a direction and go. Find your own shore. Swim! Swim. You have to swim.

From now on in Life, you swim, and swim, and swim. In Life’s ocean, there is always someone swimming. Maybe they are swimming below the water line, poor bastards, the struggle immense. Or you might look up and yeah, some lucky or rich sons of bitches are skimming over the top of the water barely getting their feet wet. And you keep swimming. You become a strong swimmer and get respites when you reach a sand bar or two. But a sand foundation is not stable and erodes, so you swim on.

How many people are fuckin’ swimming out here anyways? See there, some have come to a stop. Sitting alone atop a small un-tethered island where the legal safety limit of occupancy is one. For so many reasons, they will stay out here in the vast ocean of life and let the currents take them where it may. I look at them with slight envy and at the same time with pity. I need to swim on.

See there below me, some are drowning. The depths, the murky waters and even the light coming through the water doesn’t help. It’s hard to see them through the moving prisms of light and ocean waves giving me the illusion that they're moving ever so slowly. But no, they are not. They look upward with unseeing blank eyes. I turn away and swim harder. I don’t want to be lured downward and become a permanent guest.

Then I catch up to the slow ones, the old ones. They have been swimming for years and their struggle shows in their faces. I’m afraid of them. They are reminders of things yet to come. They look around for someone to help them, yelling out that they have wisdom in swimming, things to teach if one would come to them. But no one will come. What do I have, to trade for this wisdom, the little strength I have left, to help buoy them? So many swim away.

See there, some are skimming. There is no swimming for them. Oh, they will tell you they have swum before, or that their struggle is as mighty as anyone else’s, but we don’t believe them. They run over us with their boards or boats, sails in the wind, too fast to see the people struggling in the water. They belong above the water line and see nothing but the horizon in front of them.

Most want to be skimmers. But for most of us, we will always be swimming, constantly.

To be happy do I have to make believe I like to swim? Become adept in Life’s ocean? Learn to take more breaths than to gulp water? Not happy perhaps, even tortured by it at times, but resigned and accepting that I will be swimming to the end of my days.

Siblings - Time to Just Get Over It

A few years back I tried writing a story about my family. We’re a little quirky and I thought it would be fun to write down some of the stories of my youth. Mom recently told me some stories, or filled in some gaps, and it got me thinking about preserving some of the family’s history. I wrote stories about my mother and father, stories we loved to tell. I remembered all the crazy stuff we used to do, the funny situations we got ourselves into, and how imaginative we were. I thought writing a book about our lives might be interesting reading.

After writing about my parents, I turned to describing my siblings and our childhood relationship. As I wrote, trying to jot down all the ideas and experiences to flesh them out later, my mood changed. It got darker and darker because I remembered that my relationship with my siblings were not always happy ones. By recounting the past, I reopened old wounds. Here I was forty years later, and rehashing these old stories and memories made me feel awful. This was an exercise I should not have engaged. I didn’t realize that this exercise would affect me this way.

We were getting together at Christmas and I thought I would pick their brains about certain events and what they remembered from our youth. I also wanted their version of the stories, just in case I missed an important detail or maybe get fresh stories that I didn’t hear before.

But the more I wrote the more aggravated I became. Old wounds were felt again, old words resonated in my head again. Their past cruelty, or perceived cruelty put me in a depression. Obviously I wasn’t ready to write these feelings or stories down.

The problem is that I attempted this just before Christmas. We were all cool with one another. We love and support each other very much. Our relationship went from fighting siblings to highly supportive and loving women, mothers, and sisters. The bonds are very strong.

But after the above exercise, I no longer wanted to go to the party. I didn’t see the point of spending time with my siblings. I did go, but with a heavy heart and old resentments.

I noticed that whenever I joined in a group, the group would disperse within ten seconds. My presence seemed to be the deciding factor to go talk to someone else. WTF? You might say I was paranoid, but I wasn’t. It’s happened most of my life. We’ve all been through it. My sisters only half listened to me most of the time. Let me count the number of times that my sentence was cut mid sentence by their enthusiasm to speak to someone else. Someone they loved more. It cemented my mood.

As children, I was their adversary. I was their doormat. I was the geek, the nerd, and the ugly. “You are so ugly, no one wants you.” Their laughter echoed in my ears. The distant memories kept floating to the surface.

Why am I here at this party? Why do I come to any of them at all? I was not the popular sister. I was the moody shy one, the crybaby, and the overly sensitive sister. I admit I don’t have much of a sense of humor either and absolutely no patience. The stories made me re-evaluate my present standing within the family. And what I saw I didn’t like.

They wouldn’t miss me at all. They always say they do, because of course you miss family when they aren’t there during a traditional, somewhat mandatory family party. It’s like missing a piece of the puzzle; you need it to make the family unit feel complete.

But I fouled myself by remembering those childhood feelings, the emotions that they were able to evoke. The way they expertly pushed all of my buttons, by feeding my self-doubt and poor self esteem. Was there no solace even at home when I was a kid? No. The taunting was the same whether by the kids at school or by my siblings. There was no refuge.

Man was I a bummer at that party. Took me three months to get out of the funk when I thought of my siblings.

Some things are better left forgotten.

Scrutiny Plus Insecurity Equals Full Blown Anxiety

What is up with scrutiny?

Here is the definition that I found in the dictionary.

scru·ti·ny - noun

1. close, careful, searching examination or inspection

2. careful study or surveillance

3. a searching look

Scrutiny Plus Insecurity Equals Full Blown Anxiety

When you are on the receiving end of scrutiny it is unnerving. Personally, I’d rather not know when someone is giving me the once over. It’s annoying to watch as others make a careful inspection of you, down to your shoes and then back up again. You’ve got two choices, either look away and pretend you didn’t notice or maybe you really don’t care. Or like a car wreck, unable to divert your eyes no matter how uncomfortable it makes you, you look and wait for the judgment.

What information can someone get out of this type of scrutiny, the searching look kind of scrutiny?

Checking out the clothes, rich or cheap. Checking out the shoes, old or designer, polished or scuffed. Checking out for jewelry, gaudy or rich. Checking out the hair, salon or do-it-yourself. Checking out the body, frumpy or slim or better than mine. Checking out the demeanor, how’s she taking my scrutiny, my eyes laughing at what I see, my smirk. Have I made her uncomfortable yet or not? Haven’t made my mind up on this one yet or totally not worth my time.

I used to care. I have had many full blown anxiety attacks in the past, precisely because I cared what people thought of me. What a retched existence and complete waste of time it was. It took me many years to “get over it.”

Any admonition, any criticism, any giggle, any finger pointing, any smirk, any dismissal, any cruelty were all a sword that cut very deeply. I reeled in mental anguish. I felt physical pain although no one inflicted it upon me. What a baby I was. Where was my backbone? Why did I allow people to affect me this way?

Masks

I learned that many people wear masks. These masks give a sense of security and help folks cope with the outside world. I’ve had long term relationships with co-workers and friends, yet I know nothing personal about some of them. They have never revealed an intimate thought or moment. They are very guarded and trust very little to others. These people are closed.

When it’s a conscious choice, I find this trait to be admirable at times, the fact that they can reveal so little when others will inappropriately tell you their most intimate history within the first few minutes of meeting you. But there are those that are hiding who they are, because they cannot take the judgment they perceive will come.

There are those that play the superficial game. Every thing is light and airy. They want to be perceived as nice and very sweet. No serious conversations, lots of joking around, quick quips and put-downs all in a friendly way. Any details are given in stereotypical terms, such as complaints of the “ball and chain” or “the kid’s are driving me crazy” or “the boss is such a jerk.” They want to join the Club of Humanity, but in all its banality. These people are afraid that if you scratch the surface, you will find them out and this must be avoided at all costs.

Then there are those that have learned through experience, that being open opens you to cruelty. Maybe they felt different or didn’t even know they were different, until their fellow human beings began pointing it out.

These people have endured a lot of mental abuse and have learned to steel themselves against any future scrutiny. They have learned to step back and scrutinize others carefully, untrusting, as though they are waiting for what will inevitably come, the judgment of their person and eventual cruelty. They’ve learned others will wait until their guard is down and so, are vigilant in protecting themselves from others by perhaps pushing them away first.

Others are paralyzed trying to avoid the scrutiny. They won’t try new things because the need to be perfect or because it attracts unwanted attention. They don’t want to be judged for their ineptitude, mistakes, or missteps. Decisions they make are based entirely on what others will think or say. They make no move without the advice and guidance of someone else, so blame cannot be placed at their feet. They busy themselves distracting others from looking too closely.

I practiced all four. I was closed. I kept it light and airy. I waited for the inevitable. I became immobile.

I was a disappointment to me. Human beings were a disappointment to me. They are such fragile creatures resorting to all kinds of subterfuge. Their egos required so much. It was hard to be around them and I was finding it to be very hard to be around me. All that I had experienced led me conclude that maybe they were right about me.

Social Scrutiny - Suck it!

After years, and finally growing up, I realized that other people didn’t matter. What they thought or their opinions of me were inconsequential. I made a conscious choice to choose whom I allowed into my life. I would no longer accept the negativity that was so eagerly offered. My time on earth is finite and precious and each moment would not be stolen or given away again. I was able to get rid of my fear of social scrutiny. That’s what happens when you finally grow up and gain experience and perhaps wisdom, you no longer fear social scrutiny.

Hide and Don't Seek

But the one scrutiny that I was most afraid of, terrified really was the scrutiny of the one I loved the most. This relationship is the most crucial in my life. It means that I allowed someone to come very close to see my vulnerabilities, to even scrutinize.

In the beginning of the relationship, its as though you are holding your breath perpetually, waiting for the judgment that must come. The facades go up, morphing and reinventing yourself into whatever you think he will want in a woman. When he stays, you realize that you’ve done such a good job hiding your true self that you either keep hiding or slowly reveal who you really are, dreading the inevitable outcome.

If the relationship lasts years and the goofy, manic, crazy woman that you are is finally revealed and you still haven’t scared him off, you start to relax a little, but the doubt remains. He has seen all vulnerabilities, your emotional being. He has had time to scrutinize and has made the conscious decision that he wants you. You wonder why.

Throughout all this, add the physical hiding. Women have a tendency to hide their bodies from their husbands when it’s not the same body he made love to in the beginning. Just as the emotional wall drops, we build a physical one. We hide in the dark. Rarely do we disrobe in front of our mates anymore. If the sex is good, it helps to delay the scrutiny a little longer, so the doubt continues. Maybe that’s why he stays.

But I was hiding a deeper secret about the person that was me. The person I was hiding from further inspection not only had a lot of emotional issues but deep character flaws.

He must have known, but we both pretended that they were not there. As long as we both pretended, I felt that my flaws were hidden and there was no incentive to correct them. I imagined that he didn’t even know the depth of my flaws.

Since the scrutiny didn’t come, I could imagine that he chose not to care, that he loved me enough. I realized that years of this would definitely turn him off, his patience would be tested, and I waited for the inevitable.

I agonized, had anxiety attacks, I judged, questioned his judgment, his reasons for staying. I did everything in my power to make the inevitable happen because he grew as a person, and I didn’t. I did little to change and this was my biggest flaw. He would finally know who I really was and decide he had had enough. I would lose him. He would finally turn that scrutinizing eye and look deep within and know, or more terrifying, verbalize what a useless human being I was.

But it didn’t happen. His acceptance, his understanding, his deep love for me was real. The scrutiny was comprehensive, his knowledge complete, but he had a need for me. He wanted me for the forever. He made me his One. He made me his queen. This and this alone saved my life and my sanity.

Darkness - Not a Peaceful Hiding Place, Treading Depression

Darkness, in the dark clouds on the horizon. I see them coming. Can I dispel them before they get too close? I get depressed by just seeing them there. Go away.

Darkness is not a peaceful hiding place. It’s not a time to sleep. It is a tumultuous place. Pandora’s box is opened every night. The pain was searing, I seek distraction to quiet the emotions and the never-ending stream of questions and answers that are in my head.

Depression comes as dark moments. It envelops me completely. No matter what direction I turn there is total darkness. It is my darkest moment, the moment when my mind turns from peace to anguish.

It is a heavy presence. It presses on my head and drapes over my shoulders. It throws its hood over my head and impedes my sight. It drapes all the way to floor.

It soon becomes warm and comfortable. Soon the abnormal seems normal. The paradox becomes truth.

But I am treading. Why am I treading? My darkness has volume. Besides completeness there is depth and breath to the darkness like a vast sea.

But I never look down. Why not?

It was a place I did not want to go. I couldn’t acknowledge that space. It was as though I was treading above a slow moving vortex; one I couldn’t see but could feel was there.

No, I look straight ahead, turning my head back and forth looking. I’m barely there above the darkness. Why is there no darkness when I look up? Why am I treading? Am I trying to survive?

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

My depression would come in that way, like dark clouds on the horizon. I could see the stormy clouds and sometimes tried to avoid them by distraction. I would try to build up a high-pressure system to keep the low one at the horizon line. I could sense them. Could I talk myself out of it? Could something happen that would shift the winds in another direction?

Other times the depression would come in a snap. A word, a voice, a comment, a delay, a laugh, an interruption, a dream was the trigger and I would hear the sound “snap” in my head and my neck would involuntarily twitch to the right, or was it my neck that snapped from the sheer force of it?

Keeping the clouds at bay meant distractions. It’s a human’s answer to an overactive negative mind. I need to stop thinking and during daylight hours there is more than enough distractions to keep my mind busy with other pressing matters. Attending class, doing homework, later working at the office, reading practically non-stop, doing sudoku for hours, and watching television long into the night until exhaustion put me to sleep.

If the storm clouds stayed away, I was relieved that only a few stray clouds rolled in and created only a few days of shadow.

Remission from Depression

When did the torture stop?

How different I feel than a decade ago. My mind was in constant anguish, a fiery anguish I myself kept lit for many years. I feel so different now. The torture I put myself through, the constant barrage of negative thoughts I spoon-fed to my psyche no longer plagues me today. I no longer feel that my life is a waste. But I am a realist, so in essence I still do, but I don’t seem to care about it anymore. I almost revel that my supposed punishment for a life wasted is not what I expected. What happened? Why did I stop berating myself? When did it shift? How did I stop the torture?

Was it when I looked around and found that the things that were supposed to go wrong didn’t? Was it when I realized that who I really was had become known finally and totally, and I still found acceptance? Was it when after living almost a half century I realize that my self-loathing was a fantasy? No. It was real enough, but why did it change? What happened to those thoughts? What happened to the hate?

Was it because I was becoming older? My anguish tempered because I no longer felt I had to compete. Were my hormones changing relieving me of my mental pain?

Was it that I still had love and will always have love from my man? Yes, that helped so much. I love him for waiting it out with me.

At one time I loathed him for it, for his apparent shortsightedness, for his unceasing gestures to soothe me, for his total lack of judgment in this need of his for such a girl, his weakness. My self-centered loathing did not deter him. Maybe his complete acceptance was really the example, the lesson I had to learn. Was that when I stopped the torture?

My soul and mind are taking a break. They are finally taking a few cleansing breaths, deeply inhaling while they can.

I think I can say that I’m in remission.

Are there dark clouds on the horizon of my mind? I can’t see any, at least not of my own making. I don’t feel any either. The knowledge was certain a decade before that they would be there again, dark clouds signaling the approach of a tsunami that would hit shore with a deafening crash and awash my brain with mayhem. But now I don’t feel any doom.

With fifty years behind me, the scale of life is tipping. My experiences are tallied and the scale tips more on heaven than in hell. In truth, my life overall has been pretty good. My life as an adult has been better, so much more than that of my youth. There is a distance now from my youth and my thinking processes of that time.

As an adult I am a different version of myself, at least it is different. I can live with different.