~I don't know what

I can't concentrate... can't get there...

Interesting, I'm stuck at the same exact point in therapy. I think that it's sometime mid '84... maybe earlier though. There was a lot going on with me. Abuse and past trauma aside, the sex, gender, and sexuality stuff was becoming more and more of an issue. It was all confused in my head, and there was no one there to help me figure it all out... and no one to defend me.

I was a normal 14 year old BOY that came from an abusive, traumatic background. It didn't matter what was or was not in my pants, under my shirt, in my gut, or in my blood. I was normal. That was the whole problem though... to them... I was an "I don't know what". That's what she said... the night before I left, right after telling me that I wasn't allowed to do music anymore... word for word, "I have a son, and a daughter, and an I don't know what!"

I remember how the words cut into me... it was like being hit in the head... no... the heart with a bat.

Steel shutters slammed down around me... I nodded... and agreed to everything they'd just told me I was to do. Then, I went upstairs and replaced the books in my bag with clothing, and talked with my sister. She cried and cried. I explained that it was either this or "jumping out the window", the metaphor for killing myself.

In the morning I played it cool... accepted my bus token money, and left for "school". I remember walking down the driveway, turning around, looking up at the house and saying, out loud, "...and I ain't never coming back."

...and it began. My life. My real life. The path of undoing 15 years of damage... of un-brainwashing myself... of educating myself... of surviving.