My Imaginary Childhood

I didn't know I was supposed to be afraid. I was being invited to play with the boys at the treehouse. I was "IN," and I wasn't about to turn that down. I asked if there was a ladder and one of them pointed to some boards nailed into the tree ascending up the trunk. They gestured that I was first, so up I went. One of the boards pulled out completely when I grabbed it, but I still kept going. When we reached the platform wedged between the tree trunks at the top, I noticed this rope stretched tight between the tree trunk and a pole at the bottom. In my adulthood, I know this to be a 45-degree angle. But, back then it looked like it went straight down. The next thing I know, a boy handed me what looked like a bicycle handlebar and told me we were gonna use it to slide on the rope all the way to the ground. It sounded cool to me, so I grabbed the bar from him, and off I jumped. I started screaming at first when I realized how fast I was going. But when I felt the wind on my face, my pulse was racing. I started laughing. That was so much fun! I hit the ground running, looped back around to the tree ladder, and begged for another turn. I was the only one that jumped that day.

Fast Forward: All I had to start 8th-grade middle school with was one outfit and a pair of jeans that I stole from my brother's closet. Mom decided it was her turn to buy herself and my brother new clothes. I should have expected it because that's what happened every year right before the school year started. My mom always told me that she was the important one, not me.

I would always eat a cheese sandwich with ketchup after school every day. I gained so much weight, but I was hungry. We couldn't afford lunch. Government cheese came in block shapes, so it was easy for me to hide the depleted size in the cardboard box it came in. Mom always made sure to force-feed me at supper time. She said she just didn't want me to be taken away from her for neglect. I didn't know it then, but it was because she needed the child support she was extorting from my Dad to "make ends meet." I was so fat I could barely walk. My one outfit was held together at the waist by a safety pin because the zipper broke halfway through the school year. I stole a pair of jeans from my brother's closet.

I was afraid to shower every day because I was afraid she would take the jeans. All I would have been left with is that damn pair of purple pants with the broken zipper and a "ghostbusters" t-shirt. I didn't have underwear, so when I did take a shower, I made sure to take the jeans with me and wash the crotch area. (I was trying not to smell too bad. At least for a day anyway. )

Kids can be so cruel. They didn't use my name. They just called me "ghostbusters." ( I know it sounds like a line from a recent movie, but this actually happened to me.)I had no reprieve in any direction. I was in no shape to resolve this myself. One of my teachers sent me to the "counselor's" office for some reason. I can't remember the exact details, but basically, it was for "my attitude problem." He advised that " I should try being nicer, get along with other people, maybe take a bath once in a while, and put on clean clothes." I tried to tell him about what mom was doing at home.

He made an appointment with her and sent out a social worker to check out our living conditions. He gave her too much of a heads-up. Instead of finding a single outfit in my closet and lack of everything else, they found her nice clean clothes in my closet. She convinced them that I was lying. (Bear in mind that my mom was half my size physically. I was morbidly obese at a very young age because she just kept force-feeding me. Especially when I said I wasn't hungry. That was when she accused me of being a whore and trying to look "good" for a boyfriend that didn't exist. ) Clearly, the "social worker" did not investigate this at all, or she could have easily seen that these were not my clothes.

So during the following "counseling" at school, it was decided that everything happening to me was deserved because of my supposed "bad attitude." I spent the rest of my childhood trying to stay away from counselors and family. We moved in and out of towns and roughly about 5 different high schools.

Something wonderful happened. I was finally given my very own room. I was under house arrest by my mother. I spent many years in my room with the door locked. Pacing up and down the floor and listening to the radio as loud as possible to cover my footsteps. (Anything to burn a calorie.) I stopped snacking after school. The pounds started coming off slowly at first. I became skilled at making my mom so angry at dinner time that she started "punishing" me by sending me to my room without supper. Which is where I wanted to be in the first place. I began daydreaming a lot during my pacing. According to a book I read once, I ended up going on more than one vision quest.

Fast forward to age sixteen. I ran up an astronomical phone bill calling the psychic hotline. So, my mother insisted that I go to work at the restaurant she was working in to pay for it. I had to give her my first whole paycheck to cover the cost of the phone bill, but after that, I was allowed to keep half of it for myself. She told my supervisor to be as hard as possible on me because it "builds character." I can't begin to tell you how much cleaning that involved. Needless to say, I became very good at my job. The usual team of workers for my job and shift was 3-4. I ran my department by myself at age 16. I eventually did it so easily that they offered me the dept. supervisor position. ( I turned it down because it smacked of desperation.)

I started exhibiting independence and self-reliance that summer. I even started saving some real money because I wasn't allowed to go anywhere and do anything. When my mom realized that, she quickly sought to put an end to it. She told me to gather up all my money. She was going to take me shopping for school clothes. So I bought enough to have everything I needed for 1 week of clean clothes. I had shampoo, soaps, and makeup too.

I planned to keep working to save up enough to find my Dad, but then I noticed my clothes started ending up in her closet. She would wear them so that I couldn't. This kept going on. So, I kept a part-time job off and on throughout High School. I was trying to stay ahead of that Ogress greed. I became disenchanted with school because she was working her mojo on my teachers again. (In the "way of the sociopath," they convince other people to watch you so that they no longer even have to be in the room.)

One day, I got tired of just standing there and waiting for the bus. At the time, we were living across the road from the beach. So, I slipped away and took off my shoes at the pier. I left them there and started walking along on the beach. I'm not sure how long I walked, but I ended up in a place where you couldn't even distinguish where the wet sand, sky, or water began. The fog made it even harder to tell. With all the lines being blur I just kept walking. After that, I pretty much skipped every other day until I got busted.

Basically, my house arrest tripled in term and had an endless stream of chores added to it. Something snapped in my head. I just started to think of it as a very aggressive 14 hour a day workout. I used the money from my part-time job to pay my rent at mom's house, keep myself in good hygiene products and clothes(which I hid), and buy myself grapefruit juice. I got rid of a lot of weight and was starting to look pretty good.

It infuriated mom when she saw what I was doing. So, I ended up back in my room again. I wasn't allowed at the beach anymore. I relied on pacing, grapefruit juice, and my vision questing to keep me healthy and sane. I caught myself, on more than one occasion, talking out loud. Then I would think to myself, Where did they go?

So, I looked into the school library and ended up in the "altered states of consciousness" section. I studied meditation techniques, yoga, etc., etc. Instead of continuing to scream, I started laughing at my situation and leaned into it. Just like I did when I jumped out of that tree when I was younger. I learned how to manipulate the sociopath that "raised" me and that fasting and spirituality can set an otherwise imprisoned soul free. (I became the ultimate escape artist. I was right there where everyone could see me, but lived world's away.) I may not have been liked, but I ended up being myself again, no matter how much the people I was supposed to trust tried to turn me into something else.

Guess what? I did make it to adulthood. People like mom still come into my life every now and then. I try my best not to fall for it when they offer to "help" me.

Perspective is magic which makes other people's problems seem simple. As long as we're not the one in the direct line of fire, we can fix anything. The only problem is, as an on-looker, we don't have "skin in the game." Rising out of the wheelchair is only miraculous if your the one stuck in it, to begin with. It's less impressive if you can walk before and after you sit down. I still get judged daily by people who supposedly know me better than I know myself. They think they know my problems and can work them out better than I do. In the end, they're human beings too. I can see their mistakes just as clearly as they see mine. It works better for me not to turn over control of my life to someone else. A soul's mistakes should come from the soul responsible for them and not outside influence.