The Fog of Oblivion – Through Elementary School

I feel like my current level of awareness, which is still not fully developed, began about two years ago. I started out life in a dream world aided and abetted by my pacifier. My parents let me use a pacifier almost as much as I wanted even though they are relatively demanding and don’t let us get away with a great deal of self indulgence. They realized there was some problem in my development when I was about three months old. My mother tells the story that my right hand wasn’t opening and closing like my left. She had some experience in how a baby develops because my older brother is just 18months older than me. The pediatrician said she was just a hysterical American and should relax, I’d be fine. She returned two months later to show the doctor that I had more folds of skin on my right leg than my left and that might be from using it less, moving it less than the right. He finally agreed there might be something wrong and suggested she see a neurologist.

The very kind hearted brain doctor didn’t say I had CP. He just said I had physical limitations that were sourced in my brain. He explained that a vein in the left hemisphere of my brain either never opened to feed blood to that section or it exploded. Either way it happened during the pregnancy. But because they felt my challenges were vast, my parents let me use the pacifier until they had to take away my younger sister’s pacifier. The dentist told them that my sister’s teeth were in the shape of a rainbow because of the pacifier. She was two and a half. I was 5 ½. They realized my teeth had also suffered. So they threw away both our pacifiers at the same time.

But until that day, I don’t have any memory of those years. I was in a dream world of things that made me smile. I don’t know what they were then but my family says I did a lot of laughing and smiling and very little paying attention.

Even without the pacifier, I was able to or maybe my brain took me into a series of dreams that kept me entertained but distanced me from the reality of everyone else. People thought I was weird because I would cock my head to the side, stare and sometimes break out into peels of laughter. On occasion, people would start laughing with me but mostly they were really uncomfortable. They’d ask me what I was laughing at and usually I wouldn’t’ say because I was embarrassed about the whole ordeal.

This behavioral pattern made grammar school a real problem. My mother spoke to my teachers about trying to help me snap out of the dreams and pay attention in class. She was in school a few times a week trying to find a way for me to learn. When I was in 3rd grade my mother discovered that the school was supposed to be supplying special support – a person who would spend a few hours a day at school with me, helping me pay attention and also helping me physically to deal with my school bag and writing and papers that I had to arrange with one hand. When I was in grammar school, I hadn’t yet mastered life with one hand.

I have very little memory of that period because my brain just didn’t let me focus. I do remember that in 5th grade, I had corrective surgery on my right foot. Other than that I have some bad memories of kids being pretty horrible to me. I had no friends and when I tried to make friends I usually got hurt – both emotionally and physically. I didn’t understand social cues. I didn’t understand what the kids where talking about amongst themselves. I just didn’t get anything at all. All this lack of understanding seemed to make me look naïve so the kids took advantage of the opportunity to make fun of me. Why? Because that’s what kids do. They sense weakness and use it to make themselves feel stronger or just for their own amusement.

So I learned to go into my own world even more and to spend time with only myself when I wasn’t at home.

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