Origins

I have been trying to figure out when I realized there was something wrong with me, chemically, as they say. I have been flipping through the catalog of my childhood memories and there are a few moments that stick out from the rest, but really one in particular. I have this memory from when I was about five years old and I was in kindergarten. I went to a Catholic elementary school, which was the first of five elementary schools I went to as a child. For various reasons I switched and we moved a lot. High school was the longest I'd ever stayed in one place. That might be why I get stir-crazy when I live someplace for too long. I get restless when I've worn out a place. I'm at this Catholic elementary school and in cliche form, I have a nun as a teacher. But she wasn't one of those horrifyingly terrifying nuns you see in movies rapping the knuckles of children with metre sticks. She didn't pull us by our ears or shove us in closets or make us clap chalk board brushes. Instead, she was the nicest and kindest woman on the face of the planet - a mother Theresa teaching five year-old's. Truly. Or at least, this is how I remember her.

My class was on our weekly trip to the library to get some books to bring home.
I used to love library days or doing anything that related to books. Before I even knew how to read I would look at picture books and pretend that I knew the words to the story. I would make up the story to match the pictures in the books - not really caring that I didn't know the words. It didn't matter. My story was just as good as anybody else's. I remember the librarian telling me once that she could read the story to me and I said: "No thank you, I can read." She laughed at me and shook her head, but I really liked my own stories much more than the ones the words contained. So we're in the library and before we are set off to get our books, we sit on these grey, carpeted steps. It was that industrial type of carpeting that would give you rug burn just by brushing your hand against it. I used to hate it - it used to leave my legs itchy all day. So the Sister reminds us of the rules for the library - primarily being very quiet and use our "inside voices." Telling twenty or so five and six-year old's to be quiet is futile - although I was always silent. I was insufferably shy, to the point that I almost never spoke. I think that's why I liked books so much - I could be quiet and make up my little story in my head allowing me to be comfortably inside my own head. After reminding us to be quiet the Sister sets us out to get books and I don't move. Or, I feel compelled to not move. I can't move. I must have consciously decided it, so I sit on the prickly carpet immobile. I assume I had a moment of reasoning in my head. "Yes, now I should get up and get a book. But, I really don't want to. Why not? I don't know. Should I cry? Why would I cry? Because it seems like the right thing to do. Well, alright then. I won't move and I will cry instead." As I'm going through this in my head, the tears start to well up and I don't really know why. Why do most five-year old's cry? Usually because of nothing. Maybe falling down. But, I hadn't fallen down. I was just sitting there minding my own business when my legs decided they didn't want to move and I felt like crying. Through my tears I see the Sister approach me. She says, "Why aren't you going to get your book?" and I respond, "Because I don't want to. I can't," as the tears stream down my cheeks and land in little puddles on my clenched fists, which somehow showed my determination to not move. The Sister asks me, "Well, why don't you want to get a book? You usually like library time." And, as if it made the most logical sense in the world, I say: "Because I am mad at myself." Just like that. "I am mad at myself." I don't remember anything else from this memory, but this moment in the library explaining that my immobility was due to being angry with myself. There was this precise understanding that there is something wrong with me and I'm not sure what, but it makes me mad at myself. My life continues in this cycle of utter hatred for myself, my life, and everything that is included in this. I hate my body. I hate that I'm socially awkward. I hate that I am a perfectionist. I hate that I talk too much about myself. I hate that I am not a natural at anything. I hate that I have a mental illness. I hate all the medication. I hate that I'm a fuck up - a freak - a failure.

So this memory sticks out for me. Somehow, as a child, I knew that there was something not right. That I had the sensitivity to be aware that I was angry with myself. Mad enough that I couldn't move. Immobile and angry - not wanting to get a book - not wanting to do the thing I loved most in the world. This memory is irrevocably the origin of my mental illness and has stayed with me through all of the treatment and therapy. Questions by psychiatrists and therapists leading back to these same answers to different questions. Questions not about getting a book, but questions about the way I feel. Questions about why I think the way I do. Because, I don't want to, I can't move, and I am mad at myself.