Somebody Somewhere (19 page)

The Millers sat there smiling and talking. “Who the hell are these people?” I asked myself. The thought drifted by like a cloud and slipped through my fingers before I could speak it. “The Millers,” answered my thoughts silently after twenty other things had bombarded me. The triggered words, which I knew matched the visual image in front of me, made no connection and no sense whatsoever. I fell into the Big Black Nothingness.

The Millers were faced with a stunned mullet. I disintegrated into a blubbering mess. “I think it's getting a bit much for her,” said Mr. Miller quietly, as my mind stored the sound sequence it would later recall with meaning.

July 1991

Dr. Marek,

The people in the house where I live are very nice to me and help me in conversations with them (yes…them). They understand
the signs that things are too much or the noise level too high and they adjust by letting me change the subject or they speak slowly or they bring their voices down.

This is the first time I can remember handling speaking
with
more than one person at a time without closing one out
—and
I've been able to follow
their
topics for a good part of the time. I both wouldn't have done this and largely couldn't have done this before, and a large percentage of this is due to my now understanding my situation (in a way I can describe to “the world”) and also to my having been able to help them understand enough to adjust to help me follow them and feel safe that they wouldn't push me too far (when I seem dizzy or overwhelmed, they back off and only keep going to clarify things). Now I know not all people are so patient but it really has helped to find I am capable of this (it has meant I have missed out on a lot before—information, sharing, belonging). It also tells me I will be able to find other people I can exercise this skill with.

I am not just talking to these people but I am following what they say (jumbling some sections and missing a few concepts, but following) and talking
with
them. I think they've been experimenting here a bit (they're into psychology), but I think they have good intentions (I judge this by their going out of their way without wanting anything for it—they have fed me sometimes, too)…

They don't pick on me when I muck things up and they don't laugh too much at the links I make but they have explained there are three parts to conversation—listening, joining, and switching. They said I switch conversations, but I think they'd agree that I am trying to listen more and join when I can…

Anyway, the other thing about conversation is they say I don't seem to get the emotional content of what they say (attachment to a subject or how they felt at a time). They pointed out that I miss this and the relationships between people they speak about (the social business expressed through conversation). They said I only take the information part out (facts). I haven't had much luck with this, I'm afraid. If language comes from experience, maybe this part of conversation won't be so inaccessible to me as life goes on.

Anyway, as you know, I've been trying too hard to be social (not forcing the expression of false emotions like before, but putting
myself in social situations without the safety of the consistency I get speaking to the two people in the house). I shouldn't push myself so indiscriminately. It may be important to passing this course but it is more important to stay in one piece…. Besides, I have had a few fallouts and sad situations because I can't choose who to talk to or trust properly so it may be just as well…

      Donna.

“You don't seem to give a damn about our experiences,” said Mr. Miller in a polite, matter-of-fact way. “Why are you saying this?” I asked. “Part of ‘Donna Training,' ” he replied.

I was allergic to words like “we,” “us,” or “together”—words depicting closeness. I never had conversations that weren't one-to-one situations unless I was simply in front of people and not “with” them. I was phobic about sharing my friends. It was no wonder I didn't know what to do when the Millers introduced a sentence with “my friend's friend” or “her brother's girlfriend.”

I tried to grasp the Millers' efforts. They tried equally hard to come to grips with mine. Somewhere in there, my view that others lacked empathy melted. The Millers were trying. Like me, they were trying without many rewards. They were coming from a foreign place and speaking a foreign language just like I was. I began to see that given how totally different our underlying systems were, it was a miracle that we bothered at all.

I
approached Dr. Marek armed with a list of concepts for which I wanted “the world” definitions. One of these was “friend.”

As a child my definition of “friend” was “someone who would let me copy him or her to the point of becoming that person.” Without focusing directly upon him or her, I would somehow melt into being that person, merging with the other's tone of voice, style, and pace of movements. Friends were vehicles of escape from myself.

In my teens, “friend” came to mean “people who would put up
with me and people who smiled peacefully.” People could do the most atrocious things as long as they smiled peacefully at me. A smile always called for a smile and unintentionally I not only let them get away with murdering Carol again and again but my innocent smile seemed to tell them it was okay.

Later, I came to understand that “friends” were “people who touched you and used you.”

“Are you my friend?” asked seventeen-year-old Carol. “Yes, of course I am your friend,” said the man to whom she was a domestic prostitute. “Why do you want to touch me?” she asked. “Because I love you,” came the answer. Carol turned away, only a whisper escaping—“If you loved me, you wouldn't touch me.”

Either the wrong messages had been sent out or people were as deaf and blind to my ways as I was to theirs. I finally came to understand that some of them probably chose to be ignorant.

“B
reak into groups,” said the lecturer in the drama class. People chose their friends and I sought out Craig. Craig seemed a gentle giant and a humanitarian. He was in a group with three others and I asked to join. Joe, who had been warring with me all year, joined the group.

We had been asked to create a performance. I came up with an idea that everyone liked except Joe.

“If I ever have to be in a group, I'm going to make sure you're not in it in the future,” he snarled, flashing his Cheshire Cat grin at the others as if seeking approval.

I felt like I was going to explode. I left the room hardly able to breathe. Joe pursued me and found me with my back to the wall, snot and tears running down my face. “You just want to be different all the time,” he scoffed.

The drama lecturer came out. “Leave her alone,” she told Joe. “I'm just talking to her,” he said smiling. “Are you okay?” asked the
lecturer. “Yeah, I'm fine,” I said, and made my way toward the toilets.

It was so much easier before. It was so much easier when what they said couldn't hurt because there was no self to hurt. It was so much easier to retaliate before, when the verbal weaponry was a stored-up, memorized arsenal collected from the persecutors themselves. I looked now for weapons that would come from myself. Nothing came out. My own feelings just didn't form any retaliation. I guess I was moving forward. At least I didn't smile.

I went to a friend's house. I told her what had happened. “Put two questions to yourself,” she said. “Ask yourself: a., whether you know the person well; and b., whether you respect their opinions and comments.”

I thought about this. Whenever things went wrong I had always double-checked myself. I assumed that everybody's reactions were caused by me, and I took responsibility for every crap experience that came my way without question. At the same time, the thought that people acted out of their own difficulties and insecurities existed only as a theoretical concept. Neither understanding could cancel out the other so both remained compartmentalized and separate, unable to be reconciled, and no conclusion able to be reached.

I really didn't know if I knew someone well. Friends always remained strangers and acquaintances were, in effect, no different from friends. I was close to everyone and no one.

My definition for “respect” was “to be in awe of someone.” But I couldn't feel safe with someone I was in awe of.

“Trust” was an empty concept. I trusted everyone and no one. I couldn't use trust to work out if someone was a friend or not.

The rewards for friendship seemed a sick joke: closeness, attachment, belonging. Closeness made earthquakes go off inside of me and compelled me to run. Attachment reminded me painfully of my own vulnerability and inadequacy and was a threat to security. Belonging was with things and nature, not with people.