The feirce dawn

Many people complain everyday about the littlest things. I've seen people break down into tears simply becuase "they're bored." Others stress themselves out because they could not get the special donut they wanted, or if it's a humid day. I don't complain about anything so trivial for one good reason: Life is too short to worry about such menial things.

I've led a hard life for a 16 year old male. It began when i was two, i was diagnosed with Type 1 juvenile diabetes. For those who don't know what this is, it means your pancreas does not produce a hormone called insulin, which breaks down carbohydrates. I also had to get stuck with needles multiple times a day. Thus, from a very early age, i could not eat many foods and i had to suffer through large needles to eat. If i did not recieve the medication, i could become very sick. I can be overcome with crippling pain, dissiness, vomiting, migranes, even fall into a coma and die. (Also, consider an inch long needle being stuck into a toddler's arm at least three times a day.)

As time wore on, I became accoustomed to the needles, doctor's visits, and getting blood drawn every few months, but this did not change the way I felt about having it. Every day I'd be set apart by my disease. If I went out to eat, I would have to be injected in public, in front of countless prying eyes. When a pump came out, I didn't have to go through that anymore- now I just had to insert an inch long needle into myself, and walk around with a tube connecting my stomach to one of my pockets. Almost every day, when getting changed for gym, someone had to turn and ask what it was. My peers made me feel like an outcast- especially in fifth grade, when my only 'friend' told the whole class not to talk to me, because they'd catch Diabetes. This, of course, is impossible. Every day, for as long as I can remember, I've had to stick myself with needles, and look at food in terms of mathmatical equations and biological factors. For me, Spaggetti and Meatballs is "twelve units over an hour and a half due to 80 carbohydrates and protien delay."

If you think that would be hard enough, that wasn't all I had to deal with in terms of food alone. To make matters worse, I was diagnosed with Celiac disease a year later. Now i could eat much, much less. Almost all the cereals, snacks and foods i knew were now toxic to my body, because i could not ingest Wheat, Barly or Malt. I cannot eat pizza, pasteries, pasta, bread, fajitas, ice cream, fried chicken, fast food... well, i cannot count all the things i cannot eat. I also will never be able to drink any form of alcohol- except for wine- if that helps you to understand my predicament better.

Consider your life if you could not eat fast food, or many resturant foods, and almost all canned or pre-packaged foods. No McDonalds, no Dominoes, no progresso soup... Almost all of my foods had to be made by hand, and this was extra time, effort, and money for my parents. I felt like a constant burden all throughout my life. I also cannot eat school lunches, so I have to bring my own lunch- a tradition which is usually mocked. With many other meals, I am put apart from everyone else by the need to have specially prepared foods- even my own family forgets sometimes, and I am left with no dinner in front of company. The feeling of your own family forgetting about you is such a feeling of neglect and betrayal, that the only words worthy of conveying that pain are heart break.

Also, when I was a toddler, I suffered an injury due solely to my father's stupidity. I had awoken from a nap and heard him in his shower. Being young, I wanted to see him. I climbed up the stairs, only to find a kiddie gate blocking the TOP of the stairs instead of the bottom. I couldn't walk securely yet, and as i tried to turn around, i fell. I toppled backwards down the stairs like a rag doll, and as my head hit the landing, the crack resonated through the house.
This is because the landing was made of stone. I laid there, crying, for almost ten minutes before he finally realized what had happened and rushed to my aid. I suffered a fractured skull, and undoubtedly, a severe concussion as well as untold brain damage. I am fortunate enough to be highly intelligent despite this catastrophy, but I wanted to illustrate the type of man my father tended to be before i continued; he is a self-centered and often heartless man.

My parents had a bitter divorce when i was four. Their first significant fight occured when i was 3, however, and it began with my mother putting me in my crib- which i was soon to transfer from anyway- and shutting the door. However, she had forgotten to put my nightlight on. (Yes i still used one, I know I seem a little old but oh well.) As I stood there, confused and aprehensive about the dark, I heard them getting louder and angrier. The cacophony reached a terrifying cresendo, and I began to cry. I was alone, in the dark, and all I knew was that my parents sounded furious, even violent. Their screams echoed through the house and drowned out my crying until they stopped about half an hour later. To this day, I suffer from panic attacks if i find myself alone in a dark room, because that was how traumatizing it was. (In fact, just the other day I was with my girlfriend and her mom and uncle began screaming at each other. As we stepped outside to get away from it, I collapsed into tears on her shoulders. The only way the fight was related to me was simply the fact that I was in the room to hear it)

To point out the stress of their divorce, and the hate they bore for one another, here is a lovely little story about my father. One day, I was on the phone with my mother. Dad had been acting very strangly and it was scaring me, and I wanted to go home to my Mom, but he was looming over my shoulder during my phone call. I politely said, "Dad, may I have a minute of privacy?" He looked suprised and left. What I didn't know was that he had picked up the other reciever and was listening as i asked to leave. I heard him say, "Hang up the phone." I did so, trembling as i heard him bellowing at my mother, with such horrifying fury that I believe Satan would've pissed himself, had he heard my father that day. He flew up the stairs and roared like a madman, his face a dark red as he screamed, seemingly endlessly, me.

Almost every time one parent ever came up in conversation with the other, they would take the time to badmouth and disrespect the other. My father constantly reffered to my mother as a lazy, childish woman with no sense of how to raise a child. Meanwhile, my father was called an insensitive and worthless man who was far too caught up in himself to care for others. So in short, I was expected to love both parents equally despite the constant insults and fights. I felt divided between them, and felt guilty whenever I would have to pick sides, or support one of their rants about the other. I was depressed and bitter because of this, but always hid my pain, preferring to keep it inside then to voice it and give them a reason to decide I wasn't worth raising.

That may sound dramatic, but until I was about 11, I suffered from a crippling fear of abondonement. I constantly felt that one day I wouldn't have a mother to hug when I returned from a visit to my father's house. I spent many nights crying myself to sleep, having vivid nightmares that my mother would leave me. I was also convinced it would be my fault, and I would seem all the worse for having driven her away.

My father's behavior did not help. He was an overbearing tyrant who often forced me to do things against my will. He drilled me for hours a day with Hooked on Phonics and math flash cards, and if I complained about being tired or having a headache, he would scream at me and leave me crying. He wouldn't speak to me until I continued. This started at age 3 or 4. Also, I am ambidexterous. The only reason I cannot use my left hand to write is because everytime I tried, he would yell at me that I "wasn't supposed to write with the left hand." Apparently, he felt it was God's wish that no one would be left handed.

Speaking of God... My father was always a heavily religious Christian. If I said so much as the word damn, I would be punished for my language. I was forced to sit through church every sunday, and later I would have to attend CCD, which was more homework, and ruined my Wednesday afternoons. However, I did not feel 'saved by God's grace' but 'damned by God's childish insubordination.' Every pastor, priest and servant of God raves about how merciful He is, and how He blesses all of us. I was a kid with multiple organs that do function properly, parents who suffered through a brutal divorce, and was constantly changing homes and school districts. I was never given peace of mind because I was so torn between all the factors of my life. I cursed myself, and cursed God for having done such a thing to me. I felt as though I was never given a chance; I felt unholy, and felt that I was horrible if I deserved such pain, because 'God does not punish the holy.'

By the way, anyone who is even vaguely aware of Christian rituals knows that all the followers recieve 'Conformation.' For those who don't know, it is when all the followers eat a piece of flatbread that is supposedly the body of Christ, and that we are better for having eaten it. I'm sure you can guess where my problem with this was. Instead of eating it, I was forced to partakein recieving red wine in a tiny chalice, drawing the stares, glares, sneers and comments of everyone in the church. On more then one occasion, I was openly called a sinner for refusing the body of Christ. This reenforced my belief in having been born unholy. Later, I simply believed a Demon had been infused with my soul, redering my life thus. It would help to explain why I'm a good fighter and why I love violence/horror movies and books so much.

My father would also force me to help clean and cook for hours on end to prepare for parties. I would not be permitted to see my friends or even sit down until he had decided I was done. If I complaned, I recieved more chores to do and he would refuse to speak to me. I was forced to serve food and help cook at the parties, not being allowed to socialize until I was through, even if he was just talking with the guests himself.

My father also routinely yelled at me over my weight. I've always been heavy, and he's always hated it. He forced me to take a variety of activities. This includes a swim team; I was last for every race. He also forced me to take a gymnastics class one year, but this ended abruptly when someone's foot connected with my mouth, destroying the condition of one of my front teeth. It is still in my mouth, but died many years ago, and is still visibly lower then the others. After that, he simply forced me to attend a gym with him, so I could still get the exercise I 'needed so badly.' This obviously made me very over-concious about my figure.

My mother tried her best to help, but often only made things worse. Since she was always either working, or stressed out from having worked, she never had much time for decent interaction. When I tried to tell her how horrible my father was, she'd respond with something like, "I know," or 'there's nothing i can do" When I was little she would wake me before 5 AM had even rolled around. Have you ever woken at such an hour? I always felt so alone, so lost and confused, and every day I would be greeted by the black sky. By the way, for those of you who don't know, that hour has a particular wind that blasts straight through you, like an icicle in your heart. When that wind blows around me now, I still feel like crying, as if I'm back in that hopeless situation again.

Since I cannot illustrate every aspect of my life in great detail, I'm going to skip ahead to my teenage years, summarizing what I've skipped. My visitation schedual was thus: Dad's on mondays, Mom's on tuesdays, Dad's on wednesday, Mom's until saturday, and they traded every other weekend at 1 or 2 p.m. All the while i dealt with them speaking horribly about each other. I moved 10 times and changed to 7 different schools, loosing more friends then i can count. Eventually I figured it wasn't worth making more then one or two friends. However, my parents finally settled on a school system. My dad lived 45 minutes away, unfortunately, and i had to suffer that drive almost every day. I was lonely, I was angry, I was depressed, and I stayed silent. After all, complaining only got me yelled at and punished, so why dig my hole any deeper? Of course, my wonderful father never managed to understand why sleeping in a different bed almost every night was so difficult on an adolescent boy. Especially when it came to school- as my classes got tougher, I had more books and homework. I began to loose schoolwork between the houses, my grades slipping becuase I did not, and could not, haul several textbooks around with me at all times. I was simply punished further for "not trying"- he felt I was simply being lazy.

(By the way, anyone who has taken Psychology knows that in order to feel happy with our lives, we need security, food, water, shelter, and a feeling of safety. In a constantly shifting world, where I rarely slept in the same bed three nights in a row, and was constantly feeling impure and diseased, I was never given any of these. I will describe just how bad this becomes later on, but I will say that to recieve order and safety, I had to fight for it.)

I settled down in a certain school system- one that I will not name here, simply to maintain my privacy- and I did not make any friends for several years. I felt such an action was pointless. I was almost positive that I would have my home and school system changed again. But by seventh grade, I felt diffferently. I became more social, joined the drama club, and even attended some parties. I made a large number of friends and was somewhat happy when I was with them in the drama club- I found I really enjoyed acting and that I was good at it. I had alot of fun acting, and even became a Vice President. I spent almost every afternoon in the auditorium, where I could be found rehearsing, building, painting, cleaning, and generally doing anything needed for the production. I even skipped out of a large number of classes to go do these things- and my teachers did not mind because I had straight A's at the time, and they saw it put a smile on my face. I've always been a kind and charasmatic person, so that must've helped a little as well.

My comfort in my current district soon was to be ripped from beneath me. My dad, in eight grade, began forcing me to apply and go to one of the esteemed vocational high schools, claiming my current one wasn't good enough for me. I begged him not to make me, but he was adamant. I was forced to go to Biotechnology High School. Around this time, my stepfather left my mother- again. It was both a welcome relief and a devastating loss, because though he was a raging alcoholic (and still is) he was a part of my life, and now I was loosing both family and friends. I began to become very unstable, my emotions spiraling wildly out of control. I was most likely Bi-polar at the time, and i also became Anorexic. Between the lack of female interest, supportive friends, and with my fathers comments, I felt like a disgusting and unnatractive slob. I wouldn't eat for days at a time. I would also exercise in long and hard bursts, working furiously to burn off calories that I had not injested. I lost at least 15 pounds in several weeks, and more then once, nearly lost conciousness from not having eaten.

My emotions, as I said, were far beyond 'normal puberty emotions.' I could be laughing with my friends, and seconds later have to leave the conversation as i sank into miserable tears. I was a roller coaster of emotions on a rusted track, sparks of emotion agony cascading down on those who dared to stay near to me. I would become so angry, for so little reasons, that i began to terrify my family. I also began to work out heavily, both to loose weight and to feel the painful burn of over-exertion, so I became noticably stronger. This didn't help. When school began, and I was forced into the school, I had a complete psychotic episode. I had vivid, disturbing nightmares all the time. I had conversations that I swore had happened, but those involved had never said any of what I remembered. I was kept awake into the early hours of the morning because I would see and hear all my old friends in my room with me, and the worst part was, sometimes i caught myself talking back. (I later found out that Bi-polar disorder runs in my family... my mom knew this the whole time and refused to take me to a psychiatrist. Two of my cousins currently display strong signs of this problem, but I no longer do.)

It was only a month into this school year at the 'honorable vocational school' that I attempted suicide. I had just recieved my interim report- my highest grade was 53, and that was because I knew the teacher's daughter and she pitied my poor performance. My father had been yelling at me all the previous afternoon over it, and my mother was disgusted. On this particular evening, we had company over. However, no one had considered me while making it, and there was nothing that I could eat. I was forced to attend this dinner anyway, 'to be social.' I walked up to my room later, in tears. I told one of my close friends what I was about to do, and as the person begged me not to, I slashed my wrists open.

Here's where my faith comes into play- no, I'm not religious, not after all I went through, but I have a strong belief in fate and balance, and I believe my purpose was not yet served, so I was not permitted to die, so to speak. Despite how deep I cut, or the amount of cuts I placed, I would not bleed. I tried submerging my hand in water, but my blood did not spill forth. I barely bled at all. I was regardless taken to the emergency room, and later to psychologists, but I was removed from my educational prison in the end. I had begun my masochistic behavior some time before this, and my legs were covered with scars and blood, but my wrists were dry that night. I still fall back on self-destructive behavior if I feel stressed and depressed to the point of needing the bitter sweet kiss of steel against my flesh

My counselers and psychologists tried to help with my visitation schedual, but the man I was seeing in the end did not help. He did exactly what I begged him not to do, and I got exactly the result I expected. The man told my father that I no longer wanted to see him on wednesdays- just four less days for an extra ounce of normalcy in my life. Unfortunately for my emotional well being, I was to go to my father's that day. He did not speak a word to me, and moped around with a forelorne expression. The next morning he woke me at 5 (yes, the winds of despair were there waiting for me) and put me on the bus for me to go to the vocational school. It was one of the last days I'd be going. My father suddenly burst into tears. For anyone who has seen a parent cry, it is depressing no matter how you feel about the parent. It is often enough to make you cry without the guilt my father laced into it with phrases like, "My own son doesn't want to be with me."

I continued living with my father for several months after- about 8. In the meantime, I began dating a wonderful, kind and beautiful back in my home district who I had always had a crush on. She helped me stand up to my father, and I left his home one day, and never returned. I didn't even answer the phone when he called for several months. These days, I help him with lawnwork to earn money in our shattering economy, but I still have to deal with the emotionally abusive comments about my figure or my mother.

But this is not why I told you SOME of the trials and horrors of my life. I told you these because my message is this: I'm happy. I could've had things much worse. I might never have been able to transfer back from the other high school, or I could've become brain damaged in my fall. Moreover, ever tribulation of mine has left me with new skills and wisdom. From my tyrannical father, I learned about home decoration, cooking, and carpentry. Dealing with his heartless comments and behavior has made me strong, both in body and mind. I have never lost a verbal or physical confrontation, because I know how to handle myself and pinpoint someone's weaknesses and strengths. I also learned the value of promisses and honesty. My mother taught my gardening, dedication, how to write, and how to be charasmatic. Her wisdom helps me use mine in a way to end fights and help others with their problems. Every friend I've lost also made me stronger, both of heart and of body. They taught me not to be naive, how to play sports, how to have fun, and how to live like nobody is watching. I can walk through the halls of my school with a smile because I am strong, wise, intelligent, and charasmatic. I am not popular, but I have the knowledge to realize popularity is superficial, and I have the strength of character not to care about popularity or rumors. Despite all my hardships, each had allowed me to become a better person, and I would not change one thing about my life, because who I am today is the person I want to be. The strength one gains from every hardship is an invaulable tool to get where you want to be, and a weapon to thwart those who would do you harm.

I am so much more of a person due to what I've gone through. Peer pressure and popularity mean nothing, as I know what is important in life. I have the strength to do what I want, regardless of who doesn't like it. I'm a guy, but my hair is longer then my girlfriend's hair! The best part? I've come from the darkness of my childhood with such inner (and outer) strength, that not one person can criticize me. So please, always remember that no matter what kind of darkness is written into your life, no matter what pain you suffer through, there is always a light found withing it. From adversity comes strength, and with a good attitude, even the darkest of nights proves to rise with a brilliant and glorious dawn.