When the Children Cry..

http://caringbridge.org/visit/tylerhibingerTyler was 3yrs old when he was diagnosed with an extremely rare brain tumor. This story has touched me and my friends and we want to help his family.Please visit The Caring Bridge website to read Tyler's story, see pictures and to read his families daily journal of this ordeal.The local fundraiser will be

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Never Normal

Fast forward about twenty two years and I am now sitting in a psychiatrist's office, wondering why I cant seem to manage my life. I was eleven at the time of the "stick-up" incident, and here I am 33 years old and realizing this memory is surfacing from the deep dark under-belly of my mind. It was not only this memory, but the many instances of bullying and abuse I received at home and at school. This is why at 33 I always felt bullied, by everyone. Constructive criticism was bullying to me. Disagreeing with my opinion was bullying. I was the constant victim in life. It was the world against me. I had a problem with everyone and everything. No matter where I went in life, someone was sure to be talking about me. Leaving a room full of people was torture. I just knew they were laughing at me. I also developed an obsession with colognes and perfumes. Obviously it did not take a Ph.D to explain to me where this obsession stemmed from. As an adult, no one would ever laugh at me again for having some sort of odor. 33 was the year of change. I no longer wanted to be held captive by the chains of abuse and bullying. My father, those fuckin kids, no one was going to keep me down any longer. BAM! The psychiatrist says, "you have post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from your childhood and your upbringing and you suffer from Bi-Polar Disorder." What the hell? Will I ever be friggin normal?

A Wish For Death

Walking home from school this day was frightening. Typically, kids were behind me picking on me half way home and I often times fought back with my words which only made things worse. This is something I still do to this day! Anyways, this day, I zoned them all out. I had that stick-up in my book bag and truthfully I wanted to smash it right in their faces. However, they were doing their typical bully bullshit and I heard nothing. I was silent. When a parent tells you to ignore the bully and they will go away, they do not know what they are talking about. This did not work. They kept up a relentless pace of shit but I was so defeated by the stick up under my desk that all I could see was my death. I wanted to die. And not the type of death where your embarrassed and you say, "oh my God, I just wanted to die!" I WANTED death. No one seemed to love or care for me and it was beginning to burden my heart and soul. One person can only take so much and I realized that day that I still had several years of schooling left, so how could I possibly survive? How could I manage to escape this? My mind raced with, "let them all find me dead. Let my dad find me, I will leave a note exclaiming everything he did and all the kids names too." What the fuck was I thinking? I could hang from the church bell and no one would give a shit.

The stick-up

So, I have explained that school was no more enjoyable a place for me than was my home. Looking back now, it's hard to discern what did more damage to my soul, the words of hate or the fists of hate. Both ripped my heart from my chest and broke my spirit like a wild mare being ridden for the first time.
Eighth grade was no different from any other year. However, one day seemed diffferent. All the kids were staring at me and laughing, when normally they would just say things and laugh. All day they were looking at me and even pointing at my desk. I kept looking at my little Catholic school uniform, oh yes, did I forget to mention it was a catholic school? Evil little bastards, but I digress. There was nothing on my uniform, nothing on my face, nothing on my shoes. What? What the fuck are you looking at? Jesus, just say something about me already and get it over with! It was not until ten minutes before school let out that I realized what was going on. I dropped my pencil on the floor, I bent over to pick it up and there it was. Underneath my desk, stuck right in the middle of it, was a stick-up. A fucking air freshner. I don't think Crayola makes the color of red my face turned at that moment. My heart sunk into my stomach and the tears began to well up. I slowly slid my hand under my desk and ripped off the damn thing. They have sticky tape on the back, so it didn't come off quietly might I add. All heads turned and they all got in one last laugh. This was the beginning of a realization that death was an option, kids are not happy little people, where was God for me, and who the fuck did I piss off in a former life to live in this filth?

Fake Family

To be honest with you, two things saved my life in childhood. As I told you already, music was one of the components. The other, sports. I excelled in softball and basketball and I would have given my right eye to play. Softball was my sport of choice and I am not too proud to say I was damn good. It was sometime in the mid eighties, and I had the highest batting average in the entire city, including all men's, boy's and women's leagues. I still have that trophy, name plaque all worn and tarnished, just as my memories of childhood. When I was on the court or the field, I mattered. I was part of something larger than myself and my crumbling existence. Every bead of sweat meant that I was contributing to my "team," my fake family. I call them fake because the only time these people were nice to me or wanted anything to do with me, was when we were in the heat of competition. I got all the high fives, back slaps, way to go's you could ever imagine during my games. Yet, when the final score displayed, I was nothing again. This is an area of human behavior I have never been able to wrap my mind around. How do you treat people like this? How do you pretend, if only for a moment? Truly, nobody cared. These kids' parent's loved me, yet they had no idea what little fuckers their kids were. By fuckers, I mean devious, satan worshipping little maggots. Remind me to tell you about the "the stick-up."

Music

I guess I can say at this time I learned of the dark recesses in a person's mind. It's quite frightening as a child especially. Your mind takes you to a dark place where everything is black. There are no trees, no sunshine, no laughter. A place where you can visualize your body and mind a mangled wreck. What happened in my life in about the sixth grade was that I realized my mind had not taken me anywhere. This was my life. I would recoil like a snake into my room and hide inside my stereo, and let Bonnie Tyler and Spandau Ballet spill my guts out onto my pink carpet. My battered heart and soul was liquefied and slowly seeped out each pore of my speakers and gave me a momentary release. Music was my first true love, and I fell deep and hard. I wrapped my every emotion into it, and no matter what I was doing, I could think of a song to identify the moment. To this day, music has been my solace. My dad was especially bad during my sixth, seventh and eighth grade years. The beatings were relentless and I told no one. The verbal abuse was just as potent from him. I could only be called fat so many times before the tears soaked my pillow. My dad had a very sick sense of humor as well, and made jokes about me regarding feminine issues as well. I hated him. I literally saw myself killing that bastard. It was at this time that "My name is Luka," was released on the airwaves. A touching song about child abuse that wrenched people's hearts and stirred up anger in many parents. I just laughed. I was Luka. I was Luka at home and school. All their anger was for show. I was right there. I was right in front of their eyes. No one saw me. Everyone looked right through me.

Reality

Realizing at this time in my life that I was neither wanted at home nor at school became a huge dose of reality for me. Although school was like a second prison to me, I refused to miss a day. Anything was better than being at home with my dad. My outlet in school was learning everything I could and daydreaming about my favorite teacher adopting me. I also dreamt of Bob Zaremba taking me home too, but that was a little different! I had no friends, and was picked on constantly. School was an extension of my home life, yet sometimes felt even more brutal. The bruises my father inflicted on me would fade, but the kids' verbal bashing remained in my head. Truth be told, it remains to this day. It never goes away. The memory may dissipate, but once it's refreshed in your mind, it pierces just as bad as the first time it happened. I can instantly be transported back to fifth grade in one fleeting thought. I hated every single one of these fuckers. When I hear about these kids on the news going into schools and shooting the place up because they were bullied, I feel sick. Sick for two reasons. One, the loss of children's lives. Two, and probably the source of my feeling ill, I understand why they do it. I do not condone this by any means, but my inner being feels a compassion for these people that others may not be able to. This is a difficult cross to carry. It is but one more scar the little pieces of filth left on my battered heart and mind.