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So I was sent a writing challenge to write 500-1000 words. The only stipulation was that I had to use the quote: "That's when it occurred to me. More clearly than anything else had ever been."
I wrote this pretty quickly and as it actually happened, I couldn't believe how it felt so recent. Bizarre, really.
Here's to writing more in 2006...
I sat in my bedroom and listened, just like I had more than a hundred times before. My parents were doing that thing they did. Arguing. About how much money my mother spent. About how much my father worked. About how neither listened to the other and ostensibly, never had. It was difficult to study and write papers cohabiting with such people. But then, that was my problem. I needed to maintain my part in the facade. Get the grades. Wear the clothes. Smile. Participate in the extracurriculars. Be presentable. Concentrate. Don't let anyone know that you just want to sit on the floor of your closet and scream until you've completely shredded your vocal cords. Scream at an octave that causes the clothes to fall off the hangars and shelves and cover you. Preferably burying you until you suffocate. Because that would be appropriate. To be killed by the weight of all the trappings of affluenza. Suffocated and found amongst Bass shoes, tennis racquets, books and clothing from J.Crew and Ralph.
I was never suicidal mind you. I just wanted autonomy from my parents. They displayed a complete inability to conduct themselves like rational, sane individuals, but they were in charge of me. Right. Great idea.
I gave up on the homework and turned up my television. The effort to drown them out was moot. Words didn't need to be heard with distinction. Pitch and tone were more than enough. I'd used to think the house was too big for three people. While there were times it had given me the impression that privacy, quiet and calm were assured, it was now claustrophobic and nerve fraying. Even in silence the tension bled through the walls. A constant reminder of what had happened and taunting me for about would surely happen again.
I laid back on my bed, staring at the television, but not comprehending anything the actors were saying and not really caring. Screw them. I had my own problems and no one solved anything in less than an hour. They didn't even care to. I looked away in annoyance and around my bedroom. Recently redecorated, it was more like a magazine layout. Bright and airy, blond wood furniture, bookshelves crammed tightly with books, peach colored walls and Laura Ashley linens and window treatments. The desk with the Mac and the board above with papers, certificates and ribbons displaying my achievements. For whom? Supposedly for myself, but in a way (most likely the most important way) for my parents. One had to stay true to the family honor. No slackers. No under-achievers. No whiners.
My stomach hurt. I didn't know, nor did I care, if it was from actually being hungry or if it was my ulcer. The ulcer was either as a result of my practice of anorexia as a religion or the stress of school and my parents. Either way, it served to remind me that I was still abiding in a sort of hell. Enduring and biding my time until my parents either shut the hell up or dropped me off for my first semester of college. Even with a year and a half to go, my money was on the latter.
They were still going full on rant and I was sick of it. My parents were hypocrites and I'd been their accomplice. They were so caught up in their own thing, they couldn't care to notice its toll on me. Daddy only wanted status reports on grades and Mother's only response to my increasingly shrinking frame had been, "Anissa, you look fabulous! Keep it up!". This was usually followed by: "You know, your (insert one of the following: a) hair, b) outfit or c) makeup) would be nicer if you..." or something equally trite. I wanted to kill her every time. It was like she had some mental tic that prevented her from giving a compliment without and equal amount of tearing down.
They were both mad and had been driving me mad, yet they were the only ones afforded the catharsis of screaming?! Like hell! I jumped up and tore out of my room with almost blind urgency. Down the hall and down the stairs! I saw them engaged in their rant and I too was caught up in the veil of psychosis. I screamed. I yelled. I cried. Uncontrollably. Incoherently. Loudly. I told them everything that I could. That they were killing me. That I felt surely I was going mad. That I could no longer stand it. That all of it was just too much. That they'd made my existence in the house a torturous agony.
They hadn't even realized I was there at first, but after a little, I realized that I was the only one screaming. They stared at me. They were quiet and I was hoarse from screaming and practically blind from the tears streaming out of my eyes. I stopped and they apologized. I was exhausted and my father escorted me back to my bedroom and tucked me in. He hadn't done that in forever. I slipped off to sleep thinking that maybe things would be better. Maybe they'd talk. Maybe they'd realize that the course they'd been following was toxic. Maybe they'd act like the rational people they were when they were in public.
The next afternoon I was sitting in a therapist's office. That's when it occurred to me. More clearly than anything else ever had been. People with means weren't happier. We had better and accessories and diversions. It was the luxury of distraction that money afforded. The horror of delusion was that it was entered into knowingly. The ability to make real the fallacy and live inside contently was the highest form of the art of lying. Who was I to decide to be honest?
My error wasn't that I had problems. It was that I'd had such a passionate display of emotion that was so uncontrolled. The horror on my parents faces hadn't been because of my pain. It was from the knowledge that I could have just as easily had my breakdown publicly. I was a threat to the maintenance of the status quo and therefore needed to have my head examined. They got to feel better about themselves for "getting me help".
I never should have said anything to them. They hadn't asked for my input. Besides, I wasn't a stupid girl. I knew that even when people ask how you are... they don't really want to know. And who are you to impose and really tell the truth? The balance of platitudes and pleasantries is tenuous and a slip up and injection of honesty upsets the whole system. And that, is unforgiveable.
I wrote this pretty quickly and as it actually happened, I couldn't believe how it felt so recent. Bizarre, really.
Here's to writing more in 2006...
I sat in my bedroom and listened, just like I had more than a hundred times before. My parents were doing that thing they did. Arguing. About how much money my mother spent. About how much my father worked. About how neither listened to the other and ostensibly, never had. It was difficult to study and write papers cohabiting with such people. But then, that was my problem. I needed to maintain my part in the facade. Get the grades. Wear the clothes. Smile. Participate in the extracurriculars. Be presentable. Concentrate. Don't let anyone know that you just want to sit on the floor of your closet and scream until you've completely shredded your vocal cords. Scream at an octave that causes the clothes to fall off the hangars and shelves and cover you. Preferably burying you until you suffocate. Because that would be appropriate. To be killed by the weight of all the trappings of affluenza. Suffocated and found amongst Bass shoes, tennis racquets, books and clothing from J.Crew and Ralph.
I was never suicidal mind you. I just wanted autonomy from my parents. They displayed a complete inability to conduct themselves like rational, sane individuals, but they were in charge of me. Right. Great idea.
I gave up on the homework and turned up my television. The effort to drown them out was moot. Words didn't need to be heard with distinction. Pitch and tone were more than enough. I'd used to think the house was too big for three people. While there were times it had given me the impression that privacy, quiet and calm were assured, it was now claustrophobic and nerve fraying. Even in silence the tension bled through the walls. A constant reminder of what had happened and taunting me for about would surely happen again.
I laid back on my bed, staring at the television, but not comprehending anything the actors were saying and not really caring. Screw them. I had my own problems and no one solved anything in less than an hour. They didn't even care to. I looked away in annoyance and around my bedroom. Recently redecorated, it was more like a magazine layout. Bright and airy, blond wood furniture, bookshelves crammed tightly with books, peach colored walls and Laura Ashley linens and window treatments. The desk with the Mac and the board above with papers, certificates and ribbons displaying my achievements. For whom? Supposedly for myself, but in a way (most likely the most important way) for my parents. One had to stay true to the family honor. No slackers. No under-achievers. No whiners.
My stomach hurt. I didn't know, nor did I care, if it was from actually being hungry or if it was my ulcer. The ulcer was either as a result of my practice of anorexia as a religion or the stress of school and my parents. Either way, it served to remind me that I was still abiding in a sort of hell. Enduring and biding my time until my parents either shut the hell up or dropped me off for my first semester of college. Even with a year and a half to go, my money was on the latter.
They were still going full on rant and I was sick of it. My parents were hypocrites and I'd been their accomplice. They were so caught up in their own thing, they couldn't care to notice its toll on me. Daddy only wanted status reports on grades and Mother's only response to my increasingly shrinking frame had been, "Anissa, you look fabulous! Keep it up!". This was usually followed by: "You know, your (insert one of the following: a) hair, b) outfit or c) makeup) would be nicer if you..." or something equally trite. I wanted to kill her every time. It was like she had some mental tic that prevented her from giving a compliment without and equal amount of tearing down.
They were both mad and had been driving me mad, yet they were the only ones afforded the catharsis of screaming?! Like hell! I jumped up and tore out of my room with almost blind urgency. Down the hall and down the stairs! I saw them engaged in their rant and I too was caught up in the veil of psychosis. I screamed. I yelled. I cried. Uncontrollably. Incoherently. Loudly. I told them everything that I could. That they were killing me. That I felt surely I was going mad. That I could no longer stand it. That all of it was just too much. That they'd made my existence in the house a torturous agony.
They hadn't even realized I was there at first, but after a little, I realized that I was the only one screaming. They stared at me. They were quiet and I was hoarse from screaming and practically blind from the tears streaming out of my eyes. I stopped and they apologized. I was exhausted and my father escorted me back to my bedroom and tucked me in. He hadn't done that in forever. I slipped off to sleep thinking that maybe things would be better. Maybe they'd talk. Maybe they'd realize that the course they'd been following was toxic. Maybe they'd act like the rational people they were when they were in public.
The next afternoon I was sitting in a therapist's office. That's when it occurred to me. More clearly than anything else ever had been. People with means weren't happier. We had better and accessories and diversions. It was the luxury of distraction that money afforded. The horror of delusion was that it was entered into knowingly. The ability to make real the fallacy and live inside contently was the highest form of the art of lying. Who was I to decide to be honest?
My error wasn't that I had problems. It was that I'd had such a passionate display of emotion that was so uncontrolled. The horror on my parents faces hadn't been because of my pain. It was from the knowledge that I could have just as easily had my breakdown publicly. I was a threat to the maintenance of the status quo and therefore needed to have my head examined. They got to feel better about themselves for "getting me help".
I never should have said anything to them. They hadn't asked for my input. Besides, I wasn't a stupid girl. I knew that even when people ask how you are... they don't really want to know. And who are you to impose and really tell the truth? The balance of platitudes and pleasantries is tenuous and a slip up and injection of honesty upsets the whole system. And that, is unforgiveable.
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