When I was between the ages of 4 or so and 10 or so, I underwent the beginnings of a social transformation within my own world that led to the state of being in which I now find myself.
I have in mind a few tableaux. Age 4 or 5: Nursery School. Girl lifts her dress. I stare. She smiles in triumph. I see saw with Joy Brooks. I kiss a boyfriend then we stop because it is clearly not allowed. Girls tell me not to play with them because I "am not a girl." I withdraw, begin to dissemble about myself. The beginning of the end. I am removed from all social contact, I forget why,
Age of 6. I multiply six digit numbers together for the unbelieving response of same-aged kids I am visiting while my parents meet their parents. I know myself to be innocent and without guile, unlike my peers.
I refuse to climb the monkeybars to the top, thinking I do not deserve to do so. I do not run as fast as others. Kids sort themselves into competitive groups. I belong to none of them.
Age Six or Seven. Boys routinely open the door when I urinate sitting down and call me, scornfully and derisively, humiliating names. By age 10 at camp I spend four days without defecating in order to avoid others in bathroom.
Again age four: I am standing in line on stairs leading to a kids' carnival ride. The others are rough, rude, dismissive.
Age eight. My father is in Korea. I refuse to be any more than "Scotty" in the group being Star Trek.
I stare at older kids jumping into the pool with a sick knowledge of my unworthiness, difference, incompetence, uselessness, lack of belonging, insignificance. I never recover.
Age nine: I am with kids making something. Kids push me away and laugh at me for my incompetence.
Age six: In first grade I am nervous and fidgety and scared and isolated. The only friendly presence in the classroom is the teacher. This is momentously true for many years.
Age 10: I whack a kid behind me with a baseball bat. I feel nothing. I am filled with rage. I spend all my time at recess by myself investigating ant hills.
Age 8: I am on my third reading of all of Dr. Spock's baby book.
Age 10: In confusion, fear and separation I watch my peers playing ball. I am full of dislocation, anxiety, numb withdrawal and inferiority.
Fast Forward 8 years. Freshman year at Stanford. I am unable to say hello for six months. No one likes me unless I am drunk. During one blackout I threaten a football player. During another I throw up on skis of other dorm residents. I threaten suicide.
Fast Forward 32 years. I am at fault for my contempt for others. I must integrate myself with my tormentors or face the rest of my life depending on family -- also without comprehension -- or in a nursing home, or die homeless and drug addicted.
Did I miss something?
I bullied people who didn't go to Stanford, who were people of color, etc.
The intervening variable: Marxism as a source of structured understanding.
I have missed something.
My innate cruelty, the anger of decades in a slow explosion, the botched and mistimed
sex change operation.
Psychiatrists and therapists are of the same ilk as those who tortured me. So are most of the other people in the world.
What will my fate be?
I live because I need to live.
I am a drinker. Unfortunately, I cannot drink on my meds or with my medical condition(s).
My resentment grows every day as my numbed sexual response produces more and more frustration.
Why not become free for a week and die high?
I have no happiness from soft troubles. I have only a Rage.
Maybe poetry will help.
Your
freedom
Depends
On
My
Pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Go Ahead: Comment.