What Does It Mean to Be Broken?
When did this start?
I don’t think there ever was a start unless you want to consider conception my beginning of pain. I showed signs all throughout my childhood yet know one would even consider that it would be me that have such issues. My father found out that he had anxiety just after I started Kindergarten. That was when he began to notice that I my mother may never have been diagnosed and that I may grow up to meet the same fate. I first noticed issues when I almost failed the 8th grade because I just couldn’t care no matter how hard I tried to care.
The first moment I remember freaking out without good reason was in the first grade. My dad and I were driving home one evening after we had finished some pasta, to which I had decided that all that I wanted was butter. Not uncommon for me. Yet I was looking up at the stars quietly letting my mind flow rapidly from topic to topic.
“Did you know something Janie?” My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my father’s voice. “Did you hear about how way out there in space, an asteroid that crashed into the planet Jupiter?” Panic began to rise in my stomach. “It was really cool because it is the first time that scientists were able to see something like that.” Tears began to drip down over my cheeks. I wasn’t the only one that noticed. “Janie-boo? What’s wrong?” A sob escaped my lips as a shiver quaked across my little chest. He looked back concerned. As much as I tried to get the words past my lips I couldn’t. I was unable to express the fear that I felt. The thought that an asteroid would crash into the earth next time was unbearable.
Eventually I was able to tell my father about what I felt and thought. To which he reassured me, that the chances were unimaginably low. But this single incident led to years of night lights that were never needed before. Years of leaving the hall light on. I was 10 before I finally was able to gain control of my mind and rid myself of the brightness to sleep next to. Yet as soon as the sun began to set, I began to panic. If I was out of the house it was worse because I felt so exposed and alone with this huge world. I now relate this feeling to something I like to call the opposite of claustrophobia.
Not knowing at the time that it wasn’t necessarily my fault, I felt that there must be someone to blame. My dad came first. Yet it wasn’t long that I reasoned that he wasn’t the one that held the blame. My mother and step father hit the full force of my hatred. I cried and screamed and begged and threw up all over the floor so I wouldn’t have to leave and face them. They only yelled and locked me in my room to panic at uncontrollable levels until I began to learn to accept my fate and need to die. Yet they were also not to blame. Though they always say what a wonderful, perfect child that I always was.
I may have been 10 years old by the time it ended, but it was never the end to my suffering. There is no start and no finish. There is point in which I will be ‘normal’. So to the parents with the children that are losing their minds, you can only give them love and support. They will have a lifelong of hardship and pain. I do not blame my parents because there was no way that they could have known that I would turn out to be this way. Yet I know the way I am. I know the possibility that my children would have to suffer like me. I think, in my case, it is best to not go for children until I’m sure that it’ll turn out alright. So that I am sure that they will not have to be asked, when will you stop being crazy?
The first moment I remember freaking out without good reason was in the first grade. My dad and I were driving home one evening after we had finished some pasta, to which I had decided that all that I wanted was butter. Not uncommon for me. Yet I was looking up at the stars quietly letting my mind flow rapidly from topic to topic.
“Did you know something Janie?” My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of my father’s voice. “Did you hear about how way out there in space, an asteroid that crashed into the planet Jupiter?” Panic began to rise in my stomach. “It was really cool because it is the first time that scientists were able to see something like that.” Tears began to drip down over my cheeks. I wasn’t the only one that noticed. “Janie-boo? What’s wrong?” A sob escaped my lips as a shiver quaked across my little chest. He looked back concerned. As much as I tried to get the words past my lips I couldn’t. I was unable to express the fear that I felt. The thought that an asteroid would crash into the earth next time was unbearable.
Eventually I was able to tell my father about what I felt and thought. To which he reassured me, that the chances were unimaginably low. But this single incident led to years of night lights that were never needed before. Years of leaving the hall light on. I was 10 before I finally was able to gain control of my mind and rid myself of the brightness to sleep next to. Yet as soon as the sun began to set, I began to panic. If I was out of the house it was worse because I felt so exposed and alone with this huge world. I now relate this feeling to something I like to call the opposite of claustrophobia.
Not knowing at the time that it wasn’t necessarily my fault, I felt that there must be someone to blame. My dad came first. Yet it wasn’t long that I reasoned that he wasn’t the one that held the blame. My mother and step father hit the full force of my hatred. I cried and screamed and begged and threw up all over the floor so I wouldn’t have to leave and face them. They only yelled and locked me in my room to panic at uncontrollable levels until I began to learn to accept my fate and need to die. Yet they were also not to blame. Though they always say what a wonderful, perfect child that I always was.
I may have been 10 years old by the time it ended, but it was never the end to my suffering. There is no start and no finish. There is point in which I will be ‘normal’. So to the parents with the children that are losing their minds, you can only give them love and support. They will have a lifelong of hardship and pain. I do not blame my parents because there was no way that they could have known that I would turn out to be this way. Yet I know the way I am. I know the possibility that my children would have to suffer like me. I think, in my case, it is best to not go for children until I’m sure that it’ll turn out alright. So that I am sure that they will not have to be asked, when will you stop being crazy?