I remember back when I was young, 2nd or third grade or so. My friend John used to make fun of the way I spoke because it was so girly, and my friend Eric told me I shifted my hips when I walked. It was somewhere around this time that I started watching myself, worried about how I would come off to other people. Afraid if I seemed too effeminate that people would continue to make fun of me.
They did, of course. In sixth grade I was terrorized daily by Burgess Brooks, Josh Gill, and Kyle Gallagher. I still remember their names, their faces, their voices. Moving to California half way through sixth grade, as hard as it was to leave my family in Michigan, was the only thing that saved me from their daily attacks. Still, moving took its toll. My uncle George died 6 months after we moved, and he was more or less like a grandfather to me. And Sito, who helped raise me, had already started to suffer dementia. Uncle Victor had died a few years prior..
I don’t know. I lost so many people so young, and I don’t think I ever really got over it. Now that Frank died, my step-dad on paper but real dad in every other sense, I just can’t handle this any more. He died in July and I haven’t been right since. If I see anything that reminds me of him I break out crying. I wake up in the middle of the night crying. I’m crying right now. I miss you and I want to go home.
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I think it was during that early point in my life, when my friends were making fun of me, that my anxiety began. I definitely know I had an anxious attachment to my mother for as long as I can remember. I used to have nightmares every single night about being kidnapped, or her being arrested and taken to jail forever by the cops.
I never felt much anxiety beyond my anxious attachment to my mother until my friends started pointing out all that stuff about me. It was then that I started… watching myself. How I spoke, how I moved, etc. I don’tknow. Maybe it isn’t. Fuck. I can’t think for shit.
A Lion's Roar 