When I was about 4, I was swinging on our porch one summer afternoon, and I heard something. I jumped down from the swing, walked out into the yard, got down on my hands and knees by the porch and peered into the darkness. I heard the sound again, and when my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw a kitten, a frightened, lonely, lost little kitten. I reached in and called to this poor creature and he came to me. I picked him up, cuddled him, gently petted and comforted him. The kitten graciously accepted my love and rewarded me a number of times with sweet meows. The moment was magical. It turned out that the kitten belonged to a family up on the hill, and they came and collected him later that evening. I wasn’t allowed to keep the kitten, and that disappointed me, but the magical moment was mine, and I have never forgotten it.

The trouble with opening up and showing your vulnerability is that some will take the opportunity to offer you cheap advice not born of any concern for you, but the idea that the advice givers are more evolved than you. They see your vulnerability, use it to stroke their own egos while pretending to be helpful, and you are supposed to thank them for this.

So a god made us and all of the universe, and this god demands and expects that we do certain things and not do certain things, and if we don’t follow this god’s rules, we’ll be punished mercilessly for eternity, and if we do follow this god’s rules, we’ll be rewarded for eternity. And this god communicated these make or break rules to us by using its ghost or something to inspire human beings to write a huge collection of books that was later collected into one really big anthology which has been interpreted and translated over and over again throughout the centuries. Now here we are in the 21^st century, and we’re expected to find this book, somehow know for certain that this god wrote it via humans, read it, understand it, and follow the instructions exactly, instructions which are said to be simple and clear even though many disagree about what the instructions are, and if we don’t, we deserve to be punished.

I’m not buying it.

I believe that it’s important to acknowledge our limitations, and if there is a god or a spiritual dimension to life, I don’t think we can have absolute and certain understanding or awareness of it, so I reject dogma. I am not a “follower” of any particular faith tradition. That isn’t to say I discount it all and see no value in any of it. I view mythology as a kind of poetry that may reflect greater truths in a symbolic and metaphorical way. But as for solid, concrete answers, I have none, and I’m deeply skeptical of those who claim they do have solid, concrete answers.

Yeah, me, too. But I don't know how to stop. I've hated my body ever since I was a teenager. I'm short, and I was a little soft in the middle, but I believed that I was fat and unattractive. I found it hard to believe that anyone would be interested in me. This made it difficult for me to take care of my body because I didn't value it. In a way, I felt betrayed by it. I was sure I was supposed to look like those slimmer models from Bel Ami. What happened? Some times I don't even want to go outside because I don't want anyone to see me. I feel repulsive most of the time. I know I shouldn't feel this way. I know it's irrational, counter productive, but I can't seem to switch it off.

When I was very young, my father used to whip me for making noise. He used his belt and switches made from tree branches to spank my bare bottom. He used to carry me out of church and spank me in the parking lot if I didn’t sit still.

My mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and she developed a delusional system that involved our preacher, our preacher’s son and me. She thought she was actually married to the preacher, and that the preacher’s son and I were twins. The people in the church decided that she needed to go to some kind of Christian treatment center. My mother wasn’t willing to go on her own, so the preacher and several of the men in our church literally kidnapped my mother and took her to this place. They did this right in front of me. I was four years old. My father let them. He did not try to consol me in any way.

The “pray away the psychosis therapy” didn’t work of course, and my mother was soon sent home. My father didn’t have my mother committed to a real hospital where she received professional and effective care from real doctors until I was a senior in high school. It took him all that time to finally accept that my mother had a real illness and that she wasn’t acting crazy out of spite, and that she wasn’t simply going to snap out of it. It took him all that time to figure out that she was mentally ill and it was up to him to make medical decisions for her because he was her husband. By then, my sister had graduated from high school four years before, and I was about to graduate in a few weeks.

Even though my mother was seriously ill, my father generally left it up to her to take care of my sister and me. He was raised to believe that looking after kids was “women’s work.” He showed very little interest in me as a person, as an individual with specific needs and my own perspective on the world. He never showed much interest in wanting to get to know me. I never noticed his face lighting up when he saw me. And every day he let me know what a bother it was to go to work to support me financially. When I was older, he used to sneer and look down on me for not being the kind of boy he expected. He would actually smirk when he thought I wasn’t being masculine enough.

When I figured out I was gay when I was 11, I felt I had to keep this a secret from everyone around me for my own personal safety. I did not trust anyone with this information, least of all my family, and especially my father. He had given me every indication that he wouldn’t be sympathetic or understanding. He had given me every indication that he wouldn’t even try to be sympathetic or understanding. He wasn’t interested in understanding me, the real me. He only wanted to see what was comfortable for him, which wasn’t much. Those first sexual and romantic feelings are delicate and fragile, and he would have smashed mine given half the chance.

Two years after I graduated from high school, my father had a massive heart attack. He survived, but he never fully recovered. His health became his primary focus for the last twenty-one years of his life. Even when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he was mainly concerned with his own health. After I had surgery to remove the tumor and was sent home, a clear liquid started coming out of my nose. I asked my father to call my doctor to see if this was anything to be concerned about. My father came back and informed me that the doctor had told him that I needed to get to the ER in Morgantown--a three hour’s drive--as quickly as possible. When I was being admitted, I was told that cerebral fluid was coming out of my nose and this was a life threatening situation. I needed emergency surgery to correct it. While I was being admitted, my father scolded me for being too active following my first head surgery. The nurse had to inform him that the situation was not my fault. After surgery, I wasn’t feeling so great, of course. My father stood by my bed and talked about how all the excitement had really gotten to him and he was sure it would cause him to have another heart attack.

I was in therapy throughout most of my twenties. I had to sort out my feelings of disappointment, regret, anger. I had to admit to myself that I had needs. When I was growing up, I needed to be cared for, nurtured and loved. I needed to feel safe and wanted and respected. And because these needs were not fully met, I had every right to be angry and disappointed. After that, I was able to look at the world through my parents’ eyes. They were who they were. I saw them as deeply flawed and limited people who did the best they could. I loved them, and I know they loved me in their crazy, twisted way.

Of course that doesn’t erase what happened. The anger is still there, the disappointment, the regret. And the effects of what happened are still with me--the PTSD, the depression, the mood swings, the social phobia. I’ve become a deeply flawed and limited person myself. But I loved my parents. I miss them every day. And even though life for me isn’t what it could have been or should have been, even though I’m insane and I don’t really fit in anywhere, most of the time I’m glad I survived, glad I’m here.

Earlier today I was trolling for pictures to share and came across a photo of a little boy getting beaten up by some other little boys. I noticed there was writing under the photo so I enlarged it thinking it would be a comment about bullying. It turns out that whoever wrote the comment believed the picture depicted a group of thugs taking away the little boy’s bicycle. The author went on to gripe about how in a republic such as ours, the majority doesn’t get to take away the individuals “things.”

In other words, liberty was reduced to property rights, and taxpayers were being compared to a bullied little boy.

If liberty means living in a country where the few with money are free to exploit those without, a country without a safety net, public education, some guarantee of basic health care, environmental regulations, work safety regulations and the like, then you can have it.

Below is a picture of downtown Pittsburgh taken in the 1940s. The streetlamps used to burn in Pittsburgh all day long because the air was polluted with so much soot. Libertarians may want to live in a hellish environment such as this. I do not. 

 

He said breathlessly, “Gary, I have this fantasy of being taken on top of a counter…like this one. I want to be left disheveled and smelling of Chinese photinia. I want my cheeks to be flushed with the afterglow. I want people to know simply by looking at my face that a man just had his way with me…right here on this counter.”

I said, “Really? Cool fantasy. …hey, where are your other customers?”

“I put the ‘Out To Lunch’ sign on the door.”

“Well then, I’ll let you eat, dear. I can come back another time.”

Ten years later it hits me. I sit bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night when I realize that was a pass and I totally missed it.

　




Last night I dreamed that I was a teenage college boy again and that Tom Selleck seduced me. Even though he’s not exactly my type, I didn’t resist. I let him do whatever he wanted. I then joined his teen college boy harem.

I’ve been remembering my mother tonight. She had the worst psychotic breakdown of her life in 2001. She was in and out of the hospital at least six times that year. So many times I lost count. We would have her committed, they’d give her massive doses of antipsychotic medications, and when they thought she was stabilized, they would release her. But she kept relapsing. Finally her condition deteriorated to the point that she had to be led around by the arm. She was so lost inside her own head that she hardly recognized what was going on around her.

Mother usually fought hospitalization, but this time she was so ill she didn’t even realize we were taking her to the hospital. I sat with her out in the waiting room as Dad filled out all the necessary paperwork and signed all the forms. The two of us had been sitting there about twenty minutes when she finally turned to me and asked, “Where are we?” She hadn’t even realized we had left home.

When they were ready to admit her, I led her onto the ward. It was a locked ward with security guards, long, meandering corridors, and a number of doors that had to be opened for us by an employee with a key. When we got there, a nurse immediately realized how confused she was and pulled up a chair for her beside the nurses’ station. I told her to sit down, and she did just as I asked. Dad spoke to someone behind the counter for a few minutes, and then we told Mother we were leaving and that we’d be back to visit the next day. She didn’t know what we meant. She continued to sit there staring off into space and talking to the people who lived inside her imagination. Mother was completely helpless and at the mercy of others.

When we went back the next day, they wouldn’t allow her to see us in the visiting room. There was too many unfamiliar people in the visiting room, and they wanted to keep her behind all those locked doors, so we had our visit in an office beside the nurses’ station. We were told that she believed that she was visiting her family. She thought some of the nurses were her sisters and sisters-in-law.

After she had been in the hospital a number of times, her doctor told us that it was possible that she wouldn’t pull out of it this time and that we might have to put her in a long term treatment facility. Thankfully by October she started to get well, but the breakdown and the drugs took their toll. She didn’t do much of anything those last two years except sleep and eat. After breakfast, she would lie down on the sofa in the living room, and that’s where she stayed all day. The only time she smiled was when I brought her pill to her in the evening. She could go to bed after she took her pill, and that made her happy.

I have PTSD and social phobia. I have depression issues. Mood swings. Anxiety. I’m a bundle of nerves. I was in therapy for years. I took mountains of prescription drugs. I was in the hospital for depression and suicidal ideation several times. I had electro shock. They considered putting me in a group home.

It’s very hard for me to make friends and I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve never even been out on a real date before. I’m also on disability social security. I had a few jobs when I was younger. I worked at McDonald’s for a while. I worked at Wal-Mart. I worked in a grocery store, a gourmet food store. I had a work-study job at the Dean of Student’s office at WVU. They all ended up driving me crazy because I had to be around people too much.

But I tried very hard to prepare myself for some kind of rewarding career. I tried to be more sociable. I tried to be open to a romantic relationship. I tried. I tried. I tried.

In frustration, I once told my therapist that I felt like one of those frightened old dogs who hides under the porch most of the time. Rather than assuring me that everything would get better, easier, she responded in a way that really helped and really showed that she understood.

She reminded me that people love their old dogs who hide under the porch. Some people understand that life has hurt them, and they don’t expect them to be any different from what they are. In fact they love them all the more because they realize the dog that hides under the porch needs their love, and they relish those good days when the dog manages to come out from under the porch for a few minutes.

Her comment made it easier for me to accept myself the way I am. So what if I’m a broken down old dog who hides under the porch? There are worse things. Far worse things.

Ghosts From The Past

A few minutes ago, I decided to “unfriend” someone I knew when I was in high school. He sent me a friend request over a year ago. I accepted and sent him a private message to tell him that it was great to hear from him. His response was curt, not at all friendly or warm. I suspected that he had a look at my wall and realized I was one of those gays. But I didn’t really know that for sure, so ...I left it alone. He never contacted me again after that, and every time I had a look at his page, I was disturbed. I found comments on his wall that were pretty close to racist. Last summer he made a silly crack about how foolish gay people were for being surprised to learn the CEO of Chick-fil-A is against marriage equality because he’s Christian. As if we were surprised. And as if all Christians are homophobic. How stupid and uninformed can you get? He also posted a number of comments that showed his disdain for poor people and government programs designed to help them. And not long ago, he posted a comment about how it was a bad idea to cut military spending because government military contracts provide jobs. Such blatant hypocrisy.

All of this made me wonder why we were Facebook friends. We were friendly back in middle school and high school. And to be honest, I had a bit of a crush on him. But we weren’t close friends, and it seems we have very little in common now.  (As for the teenage crush… Well, it died when I saw recent photos and discovered he now looks like Gomez Addams with a hangover. He was never much of a looker really. He was just a boy who payed a little bit of attention to me, and I needed a boy to like me.) 

So far only a handful of people from high school have looked me up here on Facebook, and each time it’s been awkward and disappointing. All these encounters seem to do is remind me of how alone and isolated I felt when I was young. It opens up old wounds, and for a few minutes, I become that frightened boy again. I don’t want to ever be that scared or insecure again.