![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 16 of 16. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by trouble on March 8, 2002, at 20:43:07
I'm going into a bad area here for the first try and w/out drinking. Let's see how honest it all comes out.
OK just going by what the grown-ups said it seems I was a slow child. I frustrated every adult I came into contact w/, it was always
That kid doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain, she's out in left field, ass backwards, kids gotta hole in her head etc.
It started out normal enough, I was just dumb, next to my playmates, we'd play those games "I'll show you my butt if you'll show me yours", "I'll cut off my pigtail if you'll cut off yours." Needless to say how that shit turned out.But I graduated from being the stock neighborhood patsy to bastard child of the Elephant Man, they'd invite me to picnics and slumber parties that didn't exist and then hide, watching me knock on the door w/my pajamas in a bag, laughing at me for having believed them. Trying to talk me into drinking a glass of urine, saying it was lemonade. I didn't think anything strange I just said no and went home.
In second grade my friend Rachel invited me over to her house to listen to the new Beatles record and we were sitting in the rec room downstairs listening when the closet door opened and Nancy Quinn, well known bully stepped out and beat me up while Rachel watched.
A few days later Rachel asked me if I wanted to come over to her house and listen to records and I said ok. The same thing took place as what went on before.
The 3rd time it happened they poured gasoline on me and then I woke up. No, really, I don't remember. There was another time but it turned out better I remember them being gentle and kind, the two of them sitting on the bunk bed across from me, telling me I should have said no, should have realized it would happen again, they gave me a caramel apple and I played w/ the remote, yadda yadda.In retrospect is when it's distressing. Years later. Now. It was a PATTERN, things were happening over and over that I wasn't assimilating. Forget my mind "protecting" me and all that cheap sentiment. I was crazy. No thoughts, an automoton, ask any psychiatrist, I was crazy, I'd like to know, though what was going on, the dx, does it sound like schizophrenia? My gramma and big brother had schizophrenia, why wouldn't I? Can I get a consensus? Can kids even GET schisophrenia?
I'm making up here, for all those missing thoughts!They came to me all in one day, my thoughts, thanks to my fourth grade teacher, my only childhood advocate and, character-wise least likely to intervene, but she stood up when push came to shove when I showed up late and all the kids in class were wearing yellow strips of tape on their hands. If you go shopping you may notice some stores use staples but Target uses strips of skinny yellow tape to keep the bag closed and that's what the kids were wearing. All except John Haas who sat behind me and smelled like pee, no one ever spoke to him, myself included.
But I turned around in my seat that day and said looks like me and you are the only ones w/out a yellow sticker. Tell me who's passing them out and I'll go get us one. "I don't want a sticker." he says, staring at a spot on his desk.
"How come" I go, "what's wrong w/ them?"
This was the only converstation I ever had w/ John Haas. "Because," he said "Not wearing a yellow sticker means... the person... likes you.Likes me? I don't get it.
Eventually I understand it's bad then get up from my desk and walk out of the room, slamming the door behind me as hard as I could. I was pissed. Stuck an unlit cigarette in my mouth and started running through the halls. I still run like that when something gets to me. No thoughts, just running.
When I return, standing outside the door I hear my classmates yelling
"She comes in late everyday! She sleeps during class! She eats off of other peoples lunchtrays! She wears her mom's nylons! To school! Her last name keeps changing! She never combs her hair!"That was how I learned that other people could see me as good as I saw them. I didn't realize people saw me eating off of abandoned lunchtrays, I didn't know they knew I wore my mom's nylons, even though they fell in bunches around my ankles, I didn't know I was the only one sleeping in class. No wonder John Haas sat behind me in class, we were the same and he smells like pee-
This was the first time I ever felt my knees give out, like they were going to collapse, from what, exposure? Can they do that? My shrink says I am a drama queen, and true to form I took each new revelation like it was a bomb going off.
The next thing I hear is Mrs. Kesti's voice: I don't give a tinker's DAMN how trouble conduts herself in this classroom, and I AM THE TEACHER, do I make myself clear? You know nothing ABOUT troubles homelife, if you had half that child's problems you'd be ashamed to hear yourselves speak--
WHAT?! Problems in my homelife, there are problems in my homelife, what problems, why wasn't I told about this what is she TALKING about... these were my thoughts, in that moment, and that was mild-mannered Mrs. Kesti giving me my first brush w/ reality, better late than never, she'd be pleased to know I haven't stopped thinking since.This wasn't so bad. In the old days I'd pass out before finishing, spill the bottle all over my journal, but this was nothing, I got it all figured out now and I feel fine, hope that's not a bad sign.
As usual thanks for reading,
trouble
Posted by IsoM on March 9, 2002, at 2:45:23
In reply to pretty vacant, posted by trouble on March 8, 2002, at 20:43:07
Trouble, do you have an e-mail address you're willing to share? I remember you posted it before & I warned you it might not be a good idea.
I had nowhere near as horrible a childhood as you did. My mother loved me unconditionally - but there was still pain, especially from my father & older brother. We were also at the bottom of the social & financial ladder. I wasn't the outcast you were but got the short shaft of many things. Partly the reason why I'm not competitive AT ALL & hate competition with a passion. There's so much more to share but unlike you, I don't wish to make it public. I don't feel overly troubled by it now as I know many have had far, far worst a life than me, but I know it's shaped who I've become. It's also added depth that so many people seem to lack.
E-mail me, if you want. I can add more about your question concerning health foods as I used to manage one but I'm sure my somwhat cynical (I consider it realistic) view may meet with arguments from many. I also heartily dislike pointless conflict so won't bother posting an answer on PB.
isomorphix@hotmail.com
Posted by ST on March 9, 2002, at 2:53:32
In reply to pretty vacant, posted by trouble on March 8, 2002, at 20:43:07
<<It was a PATTERN, things were happening over and over that I wasn't assimilating.>>
trouble,
I just think you were in a world beyond the trivialities of your peers. You were probably an adult when you were still a child. Your mind didn't work in the same small way as theirs. AND you had a lot going on at home. You were in survival mode. I don't know - maybe you are schizophrenic. But I don't think all of those events and your handling of them means you are.
I used to get invited to slumber parties just so that I could be the one they picked on all night for entertainment.
Sarah
Posted by Phil on March 9, 2002, at 6:07:20
In reply to Re: pretty vacant, posted by ST on March 9, 2002, at 2:53:32
Your classmates were some evil little shits. Wonder where they are now?
How do you do that to another child? Little heathens...
Posted by trouble on March 9, 2002, at 13:49:43
In reply to Re: pretty vacant, posted by ST on March 9, 2002, at 2:53:32
Hey,
What did you think at the time about your playmates picking on you?
Bruno Bettelheim said if you want to know if a child is mentally ill just look at the children around her, they'll let you know by the way theyu maltreat her, kids always know about other kids.Do you think your having been targeted for abuse had anything to do w/your growing up to be an artist? It's the kind of thing that can make you vow to yourself to be famous someday so they can see you bantering w/late night talk show hosts while they're saddled w/ shitty marriages and a houseful of kids just like themselves.
I don't recall ever making a decision like this, but that doesn't mean it wasn't part of what made me decide center stage is the place for me.trouble
Posted by Gracie2 on March 9, 2002, at 19:31:48
In reply to Sarah, other picked on kids, posted by trouble on March 9, 2002, at 13:49:43
Trouble-
Don't go down my path. When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Here I am drinking one of the two beers that I'm permitted to have. At least they're longnecks.
I'm taking a drug called Naltrexone, it's supposed to eliminate cravings for alcohol. So far it's been as effective as baby aspirin.A couple of weeks ago, about 3:00 in the morning, I drank a bottle of wine, ate about 20 Xanax and sat down on the couch to watch TV. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in ICU. It was pretty close - the doctor had warned my husband that I might have to be put on a respirator.
I don't remember why I did such a terrible thing, but I imagine that I was feeling a lot of pain, like you. The psychiatrist said (after concluding that I wasn't a hopeless fruitcake) that such a thing didn't just happen, that there had to be events leading up to the suicide attempt, maybe something traumatic. No flies on that doctor.
I told him about my brother's death and how it had ripped a hole in my heart. I told him about nursing my aunt, whom I loved dearly, while she was dying of cancer at home, and how I used to sit in the bathroom with a washcloth in my mouth so she couldn't hear me crying. I told him about the death of Ralph, my son's best friend, who spent so much time at our house that he called me "Mom". Ralph aspirated on alcohol and Ativan.So the doctor latched onto that. He said that my son was probably very angry with me - first his
best friend died of an overdose, and then his mother tries to do the same thing. He said that no child (he's 20) should have to watch his mother have her stomach pumped. He just kept hammering on this point until I was crying. I said, please let me out of here so I can make it up to him. He said, "No. You're too dangerous."
I told him I would never hurt anyone else, but he said that when I hurt myself, I hurt other people.There has to be a point where you close the door on all the hurt. I don't understand psychotherapy, dredging all that muck out of the sewer...once it's out in the open does it just evaporate like morning dew? Doubt it. Your own childhood memories are alive and well and they don't seem to be doing you any good.
But since you have to deal with them, I suggest you look at yourself as someone special. Kids hate anyone different then themselves, and a lot of us creative/imaginative types were labeled as nerds. I imagine that Bill Gates was considered a nerd. (Once I told my husband, jokingly, that I had been a cheerleader in high school, and he snorted and said, "For who, the Cripps?")
Andy Warhol said, "You have to do stuff that average people don't understand, because those are the only good things." Damn right. I bet those kids that tortured you are living out their average little lives - normal, common as dirt,
untouched by the fire.I would rather be like us, even if we feel compelled to look into the abyss.
-Gracie
Posted by Zo on March 9, 2002, at 23:40:40
In reply to Trouble, draw back, posted by Gracie2 on March 9, 2002, at 19:31:48
> I would rather be like us, even if we feel compelled to look into the abyss.
> -Gracie
Dear Cheerleader,
See, I don't think it's "compelled." I think it's because of the talent, I think that's what a gift is. Okay, it's a hell of a curse, for a gift, but it is a gift. To be able to look into the abyss that exists for every damn person alive and to rehash its contents into something funny and interesting so other people can bear it. You know what I mean?
Zo
Posted by ST on March 10, 2002, at 0:43:45
In reply to Sarah, other picked on kids, posted by trouble on March 9, 2002, at 13:49:43
>>It's the kind of thing that can make you vow to yourself to be famous someday so they can see you bantering w/late night talk show hosts while they're saddled w/ shitty marriages and a houseful of kids just like themselves.>>
So funny! Yes, for a while, those were my thoughts. (Then I grew up and actually realized what it means to be an actor in the real world...)It disturbed me that I was taunted and teased so much. And it really was because I was so different. I talked to myself (imaginary characters around me) during playtime. A few "freaks" would join me during recess. We'd play "farm" and I would get down on all fours and pretend I was a horse and actually eat grass (how "method" of me...)My peers thought I was truly nuts.
I remember coming across some boys on recess. They were playing some sort of game where whoever got tagged "liked Sarah". Then all the other boys would run away and hide while the unfortunate boy "who liked Sarah" had to find them and tag the next boy....I found them playing this and picking me as their "monster" not for my benefit - like to get a rise out of me, let's say - but simply because they thought about it and came to the conclusion that I was the weirdest, strangest, most repulsive girl in school. Sounds so trivial and stupid now. Boo hoo. Oh, poor me. But at the time, it was inescapable torture. At some point people heard me sing and learned I could act or thought I was "funny" instead of just "weird" and then wanted to be my friend. (?) This didn't happen till high school. One really mean, mean, nasty girl who seduced my beloved, yet cheating, boyfriend (unbeknownst to me at the time!) was asked why she was always so nice to me given the circumstances with my boyfriend and all. Her reply: "Well, Sarah's going to be a successful actor and I don't want to burn any bridges."So I guess there's no winning. I'm still a big freak. And I don't make my sole living off of acting. ("successful"???) But I think she is now on her second marriage and about 60 pounds overweight.
I wouldn't trade my being born manic-depressive - or "different" - for the world. My mother can't believe it when I've said that, but it's true. I have some sort of thing inside me that makes me tick as an artist and I love being different.
Sarah
PS: Anyone out there grow up in Gilroy during the 80s? Put up your dukes!!!
Posted by christophrejmc on March 10, 2002, at 0:50:48
In reply to pretty vacant, posted by trouble on March 8, 2002, at 20:43:07
This thread has brought forth a lot of not-so-pleasant childhood memories long since repressed. I don't know if I'm ready to deal with all of these feelings, but just reading about similar experiences has been very helpful. I always thought that I would have the last laugh -- that they would end up leading boring, meaningless lives, working 9-5 in some stale cubicle while I would be smart and successful. Unfortunately, I watched these people get accepted to some of the better institutions of higher learning while I remained sad and lonely, losing my smarts and without much of a future save for a cap shaped like a burger.
I was at a museum recently and I saw a young kid... His entire grade was on a field trip. I watched him try to engage in conversation with some of the other kids, usually being ignored or insulted. He spent most of his time by himself, sometimes eyeing the other students. He seemed quite depressed, and he reminded me of myself at that age. I really wanted to say something to him, something that might cheer him up or give him the courage to stand up for himself. But what could I have said? Would words make any difference at all?
I hope this isn't way off-topic and makes atleast SOME sense.
-christophre
Posted by ST on March 10, 2002, at 5:09:01
In reply to children do the darndest things, posted by christophrejmc on March 10, 2002, at 0:50:48
>>I really wanted to say something to him, something that might cheer him up or give him the courage to stand up for himself. But what could I have said? Would words make any difference at all?>>
I would have wanted to say something as well. I don't know if he would have understood. Probably not at that moment in time...but later, he'd look back on it and think you were pretty cool.
Posted by trouble on March 10, 2002, at 14:08:03
In reply to Trouble, draw back, posted by Gracie2 on March 9, 2002, at 19:31:48
Posted by Shar on March 10, 2002, at 14:08:34
In reply to Trouble, draw back, posted by Gracie2 on March 9, 2002, at 19:31:48
Thanks, Gracie, for talking about your experience. I have suicidal ideation out the wazoo, almost continuously, since I was a little child. My feelings no longer seem like a big deal to me, but just like something that's gonna happen at some point.
I wonder, are you pleased that they revived you? Or do you wish you had succeeded?
xoxo
Shar/Rosebud
> Trouble-
> Don't go down my path. When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
> Here I am drinking one of the two beers that I'm permitted to have. At least they're longnecks.
> I'm taking a drug called Naltrexone, it's supposed to eliminate cravings for alcohol. So far it's been as effective as baby aspirin.
>
> A couple of weeks ago, about 3:00 in the morning, I drank a bottle of wine, ate about 20 Xanax and sat down on the couch to watch TV. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in ICU. It was pretty close - the doctor had warned my husband that I might have to be put on a respirator.
>
> I don't remember why I did such a terrible thing, but I imagine that I was feeling a lot of pain, like you. The psychiatrist said (after concluding that I wasn't a hopeless fruitcake) that such a thing didn't just happen, that there had to be events leading up to the suicide attempt, maybe something traumatic. No flies on that doctor.
> I told him about my brother's death and how it had ripped a hole in my heart. I told him about nursing my aunt, whom I loved dearly, while she was dying of cancer at home, and how I used to sit in the bathroom with a washcloth in my mouth so she couldn't hear me crying. I told him about the death of Ralph, my son's best friend, who spent so much time at our house that he called me "Mom". Ralph aspirated on alcohol and Ativan.
>
> So the doctor latched onto that. He said that my son was probably very angry with me - first his
> best friend died of an overdose, and then his mother tries to do the same thing. He said that no child (he's 20) should have to watch his mother have her stomach pumped. He just kept hammering on this point until I was crying. I said, please let me out of here so I can make it up to him. He said, "No. You're too dangerous."
> I told him I would never hurt anyone else, but he said that when I hurt myself, I hurt other people.
>
> There has to be a point where you close the door on all the hurt. I don't understand psychotherapy, dredging all that muck out of the sewer...once it's out in the open does it just evaporate like morning dew? Doubt it. Your own childhood memories are alive and well and they don't seem to be doing you any good.
>
> But since you have to deal with them, I suggest you look at yourself as someone special. Kids hate anyone different then themselves, and a lot of us creative/imaginative types were labeled as nerds. I imagine that Bill Gates was considered a nerd. (Once I told my husband, jokingly, that I had been a cheerleader in high school, and he snorted and said, "For who, the Cripps?")
>
> Andy Warhol said, "You have to do stuff that average people don't understand, because those are the only good things." Damn right. I bet those kids that tortured you are living out their average little lives - normal, common as dirt,
> untouched by the fire.
>
> I would rather be like us, even if we feel compelled to look into the abyss.
> -Gracie
Posted by jay on March 11, 2002, at 7:12:03
In reply to Re: Trouble, draw back » Gracie2, posted by Zo on March 9, 2002, at 23:40:40
> > I would rather be like us, even if we feel compelled to look into the abyss.
> > -Gracie
> Dear Cheerleader,
> See, I don't think it's "compelled." I think it's because of the talent, I think that's what a gift is. Okay, it's a hell of a curse, for a gift, but it is a gift. To be able to look into the abyss that exists for every damn person alive and to rehash its contents into something funny and interesting so other people can bear it. You know what I mean?
> ZoThanks for the post, and for the point of light, Zo. Maybe therapy isn't for everyone, but even sitting, reflecting, lighting a candle, talking to a friend, that to me is all kinda like therapy. I know that catharsis has both good and bad points, and has to be used the right way, but I don't want to wait until I am on a table (IF that is where I AM!..touch wood, I guess..heh), dying, making last minute apologies for a ZILLION things, when so much could have been done so long ago.
Anyhow..just my .02 cents.
Jay
Posted by Gracie2 on March 11, 2002, at 9:32:33
In reply to Trouble, draw back---thanks for your post, Gracie, posted by Shar on March 10, 2002, at 14:08:34
I'm greatful that I did not succeed. I was being selfish, I couldn't have been thinking about my son and my husband, who have been through so much because of me. You can't make up for such a thing but I've been trying. Yesterday I was cleaning the charcoal off my husband's shoes - I don't remember having my stomach pumped but I know it's not pleasant to watch - and I just kept thinking OH my God, I almost did it. I could be in the ground right now!I don't know what I was thinking. Not only do I not remember that night, I don't remember anything from the previous two days. I thought I missed work but they told me no, you went to work. Spooky.
After a few days in the mental ward I began to feel lucky. My husband and son (I didn't tell anyone else I was there) visited me often and brought me anything I needed - not that we were allowed to have much, not even chocolate (the unfeeling bastards). There were so many patients who never had a visitor or a phone call, my heart really went out to them.
I figure there must be a reason that I'm still here, that it's not my time to go. I will never attempt such a thing again. The hospital food was really bad.
So I'm taking my Seroquel and Naltrexone, which isn't working so I limit myself to two glasses if I do have a drink. This is difficult for me because I do love good red wine, but it scares the bejesus out of the family when I drink so it's no fun. I guess I deserve that.
As for what I feel about myself, it's hard to explain but this pretty much covers it: I tore an advertisement from a magazine and stuck it on the fridge. It's one of those milk-mustache ads - this one has Elton John, standing at the piano wearing one of his normally tasteful suits (polka dots), and the caption says, I'M STILL STANDING.
That's me too, I'm still standing.
-Gracie
Posted by Lini on March 11, 2002, at 10:33:32
In reply to pretty vacant, posted by trouble on March 8, 2002, at 20:43:07
I have to comment on this cause I was not a picked on kid in school, and as the only african-american girl in a small, extremely white town in Vermont, I am pretty sure this was due to a huge and costly effort on my part to assimilate.
ANYWAY, my point is that the popular kids don't have it all figured out either, they just know what to wear. I was the smartest girl in my class and can remember looking around and realizing that smart wasn't in style, so I decided to be popular instead and set about the process with great success, an added benefit being that i became invisable. It didn't change the shitty things that happened to me or the bouts with depression or suicide attempts. Instead, I got trapped in the hairspray of it all, and became a shadow of who I was really meant to be - upon graduating realizing that all my friends were idiots. I can remember the kids that were picked on...and I can remember half hearted attempts to stick up for people - not wanting to get too close to the line where popularity ended, confused by people's meanness. naively wonderng why those kids didn't just comb their hair, and hide like the rest of us?
anyway, this is just a shout out to the kids that shopped at the GAP, but went home and wrestled their fathers off their mothers, stuck their fingers down their throats to lose five more pounds, slept with guys for sport and tried to kill themselves when they got an 85 in Geometry.
Looking back, the kids that were the meannest were some of the most fucked up kids in the world.
Posted by trouble on March 11, 2002, at 13:18:01
In reply to Re: pretty vacant, posted by Lini on March 11, 2002, at 10:33:32
Hey Lini,
That was a cool post there. You've a disciplined wit I've noticed, do you write prose and stories too?
Anyway it took a lot of character for you to critique the in-crowd once you were accepted into it. Hanging on to your own perceptions when everyone else conforms theirs to the groups is pretty unusual. It's a story that need st be told, thanks for sharing yours.trouble
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Social | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.