Self-Reliance and Hurt

I was thinking about my earlier post, about how I felt I couldn't turn to my parents when I needed help or advice and kept everything back. Keeping everything in brought on panic attacks. I'm remembering now that I did try for quite a while to gain their support, outward showing of love and help or guidance but each time I failed, it hurt a little more.

I remember first off running outside to get reassurance from my mother. I think I was about 8 years old and someone on TV mentioned "college". I realized all of a sudden that I might go to college someday and become separated from my parents! Even more than that, some day my parents would get old and die! The thought freaked me out and I ran to my mother saying, "I don't want to ever leave you!" She was watering the garden and pushed me away saying, what are you talking about? Why are you being so silly? Can't you see I'm busy?

Oops, I did it again.

If I shared these anxieties with my grandmother, she had a much different reaction. I don't remember that she ever pushed me away, told me I was being silly or that I was bothering her. I think that's what was so devastating when we moved to Maryland when I was 10. I lost my grandmother and up until then, she was the one I could turn to when all else failed.

One day, I was walking with my brother and some friends when some drunken teenagers showed up. One of the girls yelled at me, "What are you looking at?" I didn't think I was looking at her and was terrified. She came over and hit me, knocking me down. My friends and I ran in to tell my parents who were playing cards with all their friends. I tried to get my parents to pay attention, to believe me but they just shrugged me off. My brother ran back outside and yelled threats at the departing teenagers and my eyes stung with tears. The only one defending me was an 8 year old boy.

I had a high fever one night. I don't remember how old I was, maybe 13 or 14. It had never been so high and I was scared. It was up around 104, almost 105. It was my parents' bowling night and I begged my mother in tears to please stay with me. "Oh, you'll be all right," she assured me. "Your brother is going to stay home tonight. If I stay home it'll ruin my average." So she left and my brother resentfully asked me if I needed anything and I said no. What if my fever went so high I passed out? What would he be able to do for me? He couldn't call my parents. He wouldn't know what to do. I told him to go ahead and go out with his friends.

By now, the hurts had accumulated to the point where I think I stopped asking for anything. When I did feel compelled to ask, it always seemed like an important enough issue that they should listen or sympathize and when it didn't happen, it would hurt. I think this is why I always put everyone's needs ahead of my own. I don't feel worthy of having needs.

So I don't remember if I asked my parents to stay home with me in the aftermath of what happened at my school. A janitor went berserk and stabbed a security guard with a machete. He took a 10th grader hostage and held her in the closet next to my classroom. What I remember: we had to lie down on the floor and it was so cold (December 13) I saw my fingernails turn blue. I remember how the girl screamed and prayed to God that the man would get the knife away from her neck. I remember the demonic way the man would answer back, "There is no God and I'm gonna kill you." Well, he didn't. He let her go and then the SWAT team blew him to pieces.

All that time I was okay except for the blue fingernails. I didn't cry and kept calm, just as the teacher kept advising us to do. She whispered that we should pray for the man and for the girl but to keep our voices down. If we could hear them, they surely could hear us. After it was over, though, my body trembled in spasms from head to toe and I went home. Half the school left that day and went home. As I was nearing my house, I saw my brother walking toward me. He broke into a run. He'd heard what had happened on the radio and had left his school to come home and see if anyone had heard from me.

That was a bowling night. I didn't want to ask my parents to stay home. The news was full of stories about what had happened and my parents watched a little of it but since they are deaf, they couldn't understand everything the reporters were saying. I didn't enlighten them. I watched them leave for bowling, a cold piece of ice stuck in my heart. I told myself I didn't care. I was fine. I wasn't the one who'd been held hostage.

My brother was running with a gang by then. He'd usually go out as soon as it was dark and come in at all hours of the night. That night, though, he said to me, "Do you want me to stay with you?"

Once again, I was close to crying. I wanted to say yes, thank you thank you! so badly but I didn't. "Nah," I said. I didn't cry. "I'm fine."

I had become very self reliant.