The End Of A Boy's Pre-Abuse World
ShortedDiode
Registrant
I started out as a typical little boy full of energy, curiosity, mischief and innocence. Hours laying on the floor watching records play on the turntable was just as important as hearing them. Going for late evening walks with my parents as the sun went down on the hiking trail that passed behind our back yard was thrilling. Christmas and birthdays with grandparents visiting from out of town were something to look forward to with excitement. Watching thunderstorms from my bedroom window in awe. Chasing and playing with the cat. I spent hours playing with my toys lost in my imagination. Playing with friends. Going downtown to visit the big record stores or the market and having a big bacon sandwich on the weekends was always an adventure especially since it meant getting to ride in the front window on the subway. My favourite trains were the city's original red subway cars that were built in England because they were so unique, full of character and completely different from all the generic aluminum boxes on wheels the factory in northern Ontario churned out by the hundred. The world was a great big fun adventure. But things began to change.
The stereo died and it was replaced with a new one with a CD player that I wasn't allowed to touch because it was new and expensive meant listening to music was harder and not as interesting as watching the needle ride in record grooves slowly winding their way from the edge of the disc towards the middle. We moved to a new house and that meant no more walks on the trail. The learning disability report landed when I was seven and that meant no more playing with toys or free time and hardly any time with friends because I had to study at the dining room table under the bright overhead lights turned up all the way because my parents were determined that I somehow overcome the disability. The idea that their first child could be defective was an outrage.
Visits from the grandparents became stressful because I was a source of embarrassment to my family. Thunderstorms became frightening because sudden loud noises usually meant my parents were losing their tempers and another beating, bruises, broken ribs, threats of being thrown out and sent to jail and threats of worse to come. Our cat had to be put to sleep but my parents said they'd rather have had a dog instead of kids anyways since they could've boarded it and travelled, and gone somewhere warm for Christmas instead of having to waste their lives dealing with kids.
I had to change schools to one much further from home because there wasn't any room in the learning centre at the one I was at. Being new and being a special ed student meant I didn't fit in, and it was worse because because I wasn't allowed to participate in any of the normal stuff kids get to do at that age because I had to spend all my time in the dining room being yelled at, threatened with fists pounding on table to study harder. The subway wasn't a way for a family outings to get to and from downtown on weekends anymore but it became a refuge between hell at home and hell at school. It was an easy escape from the bullies at the end of the day to run from the school down to the station and drop a ticket in the box and run through the turnstile and get away from them. It was a good way to have several hours peace between the end of school and dinner time at home exploring the city, watching the miles fly by. School was over and my parents didn't care if I was home horribly late. They just thought I was in yet another detention.
The number of my favourite red trains began to dwindle as they got older and more and more new bland replacement cars came in, and it became harder and harder to find one to ride on. One day I decided to make a point of catching one to take one last ride before they were all gone and I stood on the platform waiting for ages. Finally I asked a train driver if there were any of the old red trains out, and he told me that the last one had been pulled a few weeks earlier, right around my ninth birthday, and that they'd all been cut up for scrap. It was then, when I found out I'd been standing on a subway platform waiting for a train that would never come again, realizing they were gone forever and there'd be no one more ride, that the permanence of change finally sank in.
Standing there thinking about things, I suddenly knew no matter how hard I tried to study at that dining room table, it didn't matter, there was nothing I could do to change the fact that I'd been assessed as learning disabled. The hopes that somehow, some way, if I studied hard enough and tried hard enough that things might go back the way they were before the LD assessment were just as much cut up scrap as that train I was hoping to ride. I went home and faced the wrath again, this time knowing that there was nothing I could do to change it but all I could hope to do was hang on and try to survive. What I didn't know was how the guy next door was watching and planning to use the situation to be able to use me for his own purposes but it wasn't long until I found out what sexual abuse was. When it happened, I was scared and hurt, but also very sad because this time I knew there was no way of ever going back to before.
The stereo died and it was replaced with a new one with a CD player that I wasn't allowed to touch because it was new and expensive meant listening to music was harder and not as interesting as watching the needle ride in record grooves slowly winding their way from the edge of the disc towards the middle. We moved to a new house and that meant no more walks on the trail. The learning disability report landed when I was seven and that meant no more playing with toys or free time and hardly any time with friends because I had to study at the dining room table under the bright overhead lights turned up all the way because my parents were determined that I somehow overcome the disability. The idea that their first child could be defective was an outrage.
Visits from the grandparents became stressful because I was a source of embarrassment to my family. Thunderstorms became frightening because sudden loud noises usually meant my parents were losing their tempers and another beating, bruises, broken ribs, threats of being thrown out and sent to jail and threats of worse to come. Our cat had to be put to sleep but my parents said they'd rather have had a dog instead of kids anyways since they could've boarded it and travelled, and gone somewhere warm for Christmas instead of having to waste their lives dealing with kids.
I had to change schools to one much further from home because there wasn't any room in the learning centre at the one I was at. Being new and being a special ed student meant I didn't fit in, and it was worse because because I wasn't allowed to participate in any of the normal stuff kids get to do at that age because I had to spend all my time in the dining room being yelled at, threatened with fists pounding on table to study harder. The subway wasn't a way for a family outings to get to and from downtown on weekends anymore but it became a refuge between hell at home and hell at school. It was an easy escape from the bullies at the end of the day to run from the school down to the station and drop a ticket in the box and run through the turnstile and get away from them. It was a good way to have several hours peace between the end of school and dinner time at home exploring the city, watching the miles fly by. School was over and my parents didn't care if I was home horribly late. They just thought I was in yet another detention.
The number of my favourite red trains began to dwindle as they got older and more and more new bland replacement cars came in, and it became harder and harder to find one to ride on. One day I decided to make a point of catching one to take one last ride before they were all gone and I stood on the platform waiting for ages. Finally I asked a train driver if there were any of the old red trains out, and he told me that the last one had been pulled a few weeks earlier, right around my ninth birthday, and that they'd all been cut up for scrap. It was then, when I found out I'd been standing on a subway platform waiting for a train that would never come again, realizing they were gone forever and there'd be no one more ride, that the permanence of change finally sank in.
Standing there thinking about things, I suddenly knew no matter how hard I tried to study at that dining room table, it didn't matter, there was nothing I could do to change the fact that I'd been assessed as learning disabled. The hopes that somehow, some way, if I studied hard enough and tried hard enough that things might go back the way they were before the LD assessment were just as much cut up scrap as that train I was hoping to ride. I went home and faced the wrath again, this time knowing that there was nothing I could do to change it but all I could hope to do was hang on and try to survive. What I didn't know was how the guy next door was watching and planning to use the situation to be able to use me for his own purposes but it wasn't long until I found out what sexual abuse was. When it happened, I was scared and hurt, but also very sad because this time I knew there was no way of ever going back to before.
