I've told anecdotes, but never really explained me: who am I, what's my context, what's my damage? So here's my whole goddamn life story. I've broken it into four parts, about 1,500 words each, for ease of reading and referencing. Part 1: ages 0-13. (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)
I was born in San Francisco in December 1982. My early life was spent in Marin, doing Marin things. My little brother was born in 1986. I went to Hebrew school for kindergarten and first grade, which was alright I guess. One good thing my mom did was introduce me to the Carl Sagan Cosmos series. I watched the whole thing intently, then rented it on video to watch it again. I was hooked. When people asked me in kindergarten what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said an astrophysicist.
I was pampered. Vacations to Hawai'i every year, skiing every winter, no material wants ever, essentially my own computer in 1988 at age 5. Advantages of being upper middle class. I was also active. First swimming and soccer, then competitive equestrian jumping and skiing. (Could I get any more white and rich?)
For second grade, my parents moved us down to the SF peninsula, halfway to Silicon Valley. Another Hebrew school, one that wasn't so alright. I was bullied there, by kids who were above discipline. I got suspended if I fought back, I got suspended if I didn't fight back, it didn't matter. The kindergarten teacher wanted to hold my brother back from first grade because he asked, of god, "how do we know we're not just praying to atoms and molecules?" It was a shithole. I got into a gifted math program through Stanford University, though, so at least I was able to learn a lot on my own time. This gave me my first internet access in 1991.
I also made friends at that school. One, let's call them "Nick" (not their real name), I was really close with for a while. We hung out a lot. Remember Nick, 'cause they're going to show up again.
I was an "impossible" kid. This was my parents' excuse for force-feeding me Ritalin, something that turned me into a hallucinating anorexic from age 5 to 12. It was also my dad's excuse to pin me to the floor, straddle me, and beat me in the face with my own hands while taunting "why are you hitting yourself!?" I've woken up screaming from nightmares of that and I've had flashbacks to it.
I was injury and illness prone as a kid. By 3rd grade, I'd broken my hand, needed reconstructive surgery on the other hand, woken up in the hospital with a shot of adrenaline in me after a bee sting, had 3 ear surgerys, sprained my ACL, tore my hamstring, had 9 different viruses at the same time (including 4 strains of influenza), and was weened in the ICU. One time my fingers slipped while plugging in a night light and next thing I knew I was waking up halfway across the room with the taste of copper in my mouth. I also had a metric buttload of allergies: wheat, corn, milk (not lactose intolerance), eggs, etc.
When I was 8, a question popped into my head: what if I'd been born a girl? I can still remember exactly where this happened, it's that vivid. I thought about it. I imagined girl-me in great detail. She wore dresses, but she still got dirty. Her friends were mostly girls. She was still a nerd. She had long hair, but kept it tied up. She was gentle and cheerful and nice to people. I liked girl-me. But what if I was born a girl? Was that even a meaningful hypothetical? I decided it was not. I could only be me. She was someone else, so I couldn't be her - I wouldn't be "I". That made me sad.
In fifth grade, my parents moved me to a secular private school for the gifted. You had to take an IQ test to get in. I scored in the top 0.003% of the population, proof positive that these tests are worthless. I made new friends and forgot about the old ones.
One day I was sitting in English class (again, I can point out the exact classroom) and we read a kids' horror story. Something from it stuck with me. Thoughts came into my head of graphic violence, and I was transfixed by them. I couldn't shake them, no matter how hard I tried. After that day, I was different. These thoughts would return, they'd ebb and flow and I was powerless over them. When they were there, I started to obsessively daydream about them. I'd imagine faces being sliced off, body parts filling dressers like clothes, skinning, gutting. Though there were occasionally men very early on, they quickly disappeared and women were always both the victims and perpetrators.
Mom and Dad divorced when I was 12. It was messy. Mom was an alcoholic nutcase flagrantly cheating on Dad. Dad was a physically abusive asshole. They fought tooth and nail over material assets and custody. My brother and I were simply bargaining chips to them, and they manipulated and used us accordingly.
The visual hallucinations I'd been getting from the Ritalin (e.g., faces popping out of walls), which neither parents nor doctors cared about, turned auditory. Then they got worried. They tried me on Cylert instead, but that made me paranoid schizophrenic, sidestepping around corners in my own house, terrified there was someone waiting to do horrible things to me.
I had my Bar Mitzvah and it was embarrassing. It was done with little input from me and was really just an exercise in my dad flaunting his wealth. I sure as hell got nothing out of the religious side of it, either. But I got a lot of savings bonds and a night with booze and porn out of it.
I hit puberty and the intrusive thoughts became sexual in nature. They got me off. I always imagined myself as one of the women, one of the victims. Even when I was free of these thoughts, I could only fantasize about being a woman. Being a man grossed me out. I imagined my penis was a vagina and the stroking sensation was penetration. I also discovered some of the really sick shit on the internet, gurochan and Dolcett and the like (please don't look up either of those without opening an incognito window first). I'd obsess over it, and compulsively masturbate to it.
To be continued...
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