Expressing my true feelings have never been easy for me. As a child, I was SO very quite that in today's standards I would be evaluated by doctors and school officials and sent to doctor after doctor after psychiatrists. I would more than likely come out with a diagnosis of some type of "condition". Whatever the flavor of the decade may have been, It may have been Autism, Bipolar, Social Anxiety, Schizophrenic? and some type of medication and therapy would have been forced on me. Not saying that would be a bad thing but I can't imagine who I would be now if I had had treatment that early.
I am not making light of these serious mental disorders at all. I am just saying that in that day and time, people just didn't take the time to figure out what was going on in a child's mind. They just dealt with what they had and if it was very bad or disturbing they just denied it all together.
My parents, for example, did not have the time to deal with their youngest child that wasn't even born until they were already in their 40's and they were way too exhausted to be bothered. They were farmers and raised tobacco. They worked very hard all day and if I could at all, I would help them. If I couldn't, if it was a job too hard or if I was just too puny or sick, I was at least expected to be quite so they could get their work done.
I spent many days playing in the dirt and climbing the trees beside the tobacco fields that they labored in.
I was so introverted or shy and just plain scared of my parents, that once while I was quietly playing in a tree in our backyard, I fell from the tree and was hanging upside down, saved from certain death or at least several stitches, only by one shoe that had gotten tangled up in a rope. If I fell, my head would have been busted by several huge rocks about 10 ft below me.
As the years went by and I was finally able to talk about the incident. I laughingly told it as me falling, my arms and legs flailing around and me screaming my lungs out for help. The only answer I got was my mama saying "git down here right now and help me set the table for work hands!"
The actual truth was that she was probably yelling for me to come help her but I was so terrified of speaking, let alone screaming.. that I opened my mouth, as I was hanging there, but no sound came from my throat. At least, I think I opened my mouth? But I know for sure that no sound came out.
I was way more terrified of mama's wrath of fussing at me and maybe even getting a switching than I was from busting my head open on a few rocks. Plus nobody would have ever wanted to stop their working or cooking to take me to the emergency room for stitches or a concussion. I guess if it would have killed me, then they would have had a few days to get their work done before they had to have me a funeral.
So being that I was very skinny and weighed all of 50 lbs but very strong from climbing trees and playing around in barn lofts, that I finally struggled and slowly pulled myself back up the tree, got my foot untied from the rope and went home to set the table, just like nothing had ever happened.
This is not meant to say that my parents were cold and uncaring. That is far from the truth. We were very poor but we were loved. I had a warm house and 3 meals a day. They were just strict and very busy trying to raise 6 kids. I always felt like my being quiet, staying out of the way and not asking for anything was my way of helping them.
I spent the better part of my adolescent and teenage years not talking..ever! The more people would make fun of me for not taking, the more I didn't talk. I felt like it had gotten to the point that if I said one word, people would be in such shock that they would all look at me and point and laugh "Well it can talk, can't it?" Every word would be analyzed and my face would turn beet red, then redder than red. And the redder my face got, the more I was embarrassed and so I would shut down and get even quieter. Whether I was asked a question or even if I was in danger, I never, ever talked..or screamed.
Nothing I had to say was worth all that.
