One of the first memories I have is getting out of a high chair I was locked into when I was about 3. I ran out the front door which was open and into the street.
I remember the feeling of being tiny and free and the thrill of the first x times you run from having just learned to. I remember all their emotions stabbing me, worse than the hands. They were hoping to impress something on me. I don’t remember anything else.
Later on in life, as a solution to me exploring my growing agency, they prescribed some pills to me. Said I was hyperactive, ADHD; I think I was in the 3rd grade at the time. They made me sick. I was throwing up or preparing to on those pills until they wore off.
My dad would force me to take them, most of the time I don’t remember how. The routine, everyday debasement to that horrible man peeled away something irretrievable. Of course I needed two courses a day. I imagine what could have been.
My grades began to fall and by the time I was in 6th grade I was an academic failure. No one could figure out why. No one asked. I just thought shit was like this for everyone. I walked out of the classroom one day to throw up in the garbage can and the teacher followed me out to ask what I was doing. I told her this story.
She took me by the arm, firmly, but caring and delicate. I could tell by the way she took my arm that something good was about to happen. That’s the first time I remember anything kind being done for me, specifically. For my well-being, my personhood. I think I was 11 at the time.
Someone strangled me not long after that. One of my schoolmates. I told an adult. The cops got involved. The VP made me recreate the strangle on her thin neck. It was grotesque.
I don’t feel comfortable sharing the darker things that happened to me. I don’t know why. Maybe I just don’t want to hurt anybody.