you'll suffer unto me

I was a four-year-old fatherless pageant baby when Mother found the listing for Challenger. For weeks she complained about the California public school system. Said I wasn't fit for it, wasn't right for it. "We live in a shithole. Public school systems rely on money and the income in this area sucks. They're all hoodlums here. You'll get raped, mugged, killed, murdered and then what? All the I'm sorries in the world won't bring you back. I'm not letting that happen to you. You're getting a better foundation than I did at your age."

Mother always wanted the best for me, didn't care about the cost. She scoured the Yellow Pages for private schools, called them up, visited them with me in tow, dressed in pink and bouncing brown curls. Harker was the better, more expensive school, the rival to Challenger. Uppity kids wearing blouses, sweaters and in-fashion light-up shoes roamed both places. We settled on Challenger in the end. Mother didn't like the whole "boarding school" atmosphere at Harker, nor its high-class snobbery. I hated them both. Challenger was more down-to-earth than Harker, but it was like putting a tiger in lion's clothes: same family, different look.

Though Mother insisted on my comfort, saying I shouldn't be at a school if I didn't feel okay, her words didn't sink in. All I thought about was the money. I wasn't a stupid child. I heard the conversations and arguments Mother and Grandpa had over the mortgage, the bills, the loans. I knew my mother handled everything by herself. My grandparents were essentially my second parents, but Mother was La Madre to me: two jobs, two kids, no husband, full-time re-admitted Berkeley student, 4.0 GPA. I didn't want to disappoint her nor discomfort her, especially with the money. So when I said yes to Challenger and saw the relief on her face, I knew I had to stay and suffer.

I psyched myself out, pushed myself forward. This was for the best, I thought. It's a great school. I'll learn a lot and end up at a great university in the end. I'm doing this for my Mom. I'm doing this for me. I'll be okay.

Academically, I excelled. Socially, I failed. Quarter after quarter, the report cards came in, all the same: high grades in all classes, low marks in participation. "Does your daughter have a disability?" they asked. "She doesn't talk at all in the classroom, nor does she really interact with the students. She also talks to herself a lot. Is there a history of mental illness? Have you sought outside help?" Mother batted them away with her fangs and her claws, cursed them out, damned them to hell, threatened them with lawsuits and cries of discrimination. She was determined not to make me a basket case, a weirdo, singled-out because of some social defect. While I understood even then as a child, Mother was doing this for my well-being, I took it the wrong way. I thought she was doing this because I was going to end up like her stupid dead husband, my stupid dead father.

Grandma liked to pull low-blows on me sometimes when we argued, and they always centered on the side of the family I never knew: my father's side. "You keep acting this way, you'll end up dead, just like your stupid father," she sneered, wrinkled finger pointing at me, as if cursing and damning my existence. "You're insane like him. You'll never amount to anything like him. Stop acting like this in school. Don't you see what your Mother goes through?" Since the age of five the words haunted me, floated around in my head as I went from class to class. I had to suffer in school, do my very best, for my mom, my family. So I wouldn't end up like that father of mine and become a disgrace.

I ended up leaving Challenger after third grade when we lost the house at Tuscarora and became homeless. Like gypsies we went from motel to motel, too proud to sleep in the car or live in a shelter. Once we found a home, I went to another private school and suffered again, endured the same problems, heard the same complaints. "She's a brilliant student but she never talks in class," the teachers said. "She talks to herself a lot on the playground. It's frightening the students. Does she have a mental defect? Is there a history of mental illness?" From fourth to sixth, the report cards seemed Xeroxed. The same yellow slips of paper, all with high marks and concerned comments. Mother encouraged me to be more outspoken, but I didn't listen. All I could think of was my father and how I'm screwed up like him, just like Grandma said I was.

Around this time, I began to take pride in my weirdness, my 'mental defect.' So what if I'm weird? So what if I talk to myself? Who gives a shit if I walk around the playground cutting up plants, picking the flowers, singing songs, telling stories, writing things down and not participating in class unless the teacher forces me to? Screw you all then. I'm a weirdo and I'm proud of it. Besides, I don't need you 'real life' people. I have the internet, where there are other kids like me, also weirdos, who actually enjoy the same things I do. I don't care about you people. Do whatever you want, say whatever you want. If I'm a weirdo like my father, so be it. Like father, like daughter.

When we moved again, Mother challenged me like she always does, except this went beyond great grades for a great high school to ensure a great college in the future. "There's a Challenger not far from here," she said. "You should finish what you started. Take the test to be re-admitted and graduate from there." Childhood memories of loneliness, weird looks and isolation weren't enough to deter me from Mother's enthusiasm. I wanted to make her proud. If she wanted me to return to Challenger, fine. I can do it. It's just two years and I'm done.

I was re-admitted on a fluke. The principal gave me the wrong test to take: sixth grade level instead of seventh. I aced the test easily. The sad part is that Challenger's rigorous education system instilled the seventh grade level into the sixth. Always the one-step up. So when I walked into classes halfway through mid-semester of seventh grade, I was in eighth grade instead. Not only was I not prepared for the education backlash, but I still didn't know how to speak up.

I lied through my teeth to my teachers. They asked me, "Do you know Algebra I? Do you know the basics? Have you read Huckleberry Finn? Have you read Poetics by Aristotle? Do you know a good amount of American history, especially the Civil War and Reconstruction period? Or how about biology and chemistry?" I faked a smile and said yes to all the questions. I didn't tell them I was taking pre-algebra and excelling, learning the basics of earth science, just started on the American Revolution in my old school. I didn't want to be knocked down a grade. I wanted to graduate on time. I didn't want my family disappointed in me. I lied to fit in. I lied and suffered for it.

Challenger kids based one part of their social atmosphere around grades. A "B" was a "C" or a "D," depending on a student. A "C" was failure; a "D" was inexcusable and unthinkable. Anyone who received C's and D's was considered a moron, stupid, a retard, an idiot. That's who I became when I started receiving back those grades and my classmates snooped over my shoulder to see what score I got. The class idiot.

Mother didn't understand why I was failing. Neither did my teachers. I didn't say a word to them, to anyone. My grades initially fell because my vision worsened. I suffered for three months without glasses, because I didn't want to be made fun of. Because I was tall, the teachers put me in the back, but I couldn't read the front of the board where the test questions were. I squinted as hard as I could but it didn't work. When I finally told Mother I couldn't read far away anymore, I found myself in the Berkeley optometry clinic with wire glasses perched on top of my nose. Like I expected, my grades improved slightly, and the ridicule started.

Since real life provided no help, I turned to the internet. Online I became the quintessential emotional pre-teen with a Livejournal, crying about my life to random strangers, where I received the one to two anonymous comments telling me to grow up and get over myself. Of course that hurt me a lot, partially because I was an emotional teenager, and partially because deep down, I knew that person was right. One of my online friends told me to do the same. "You're too sensitive," she snapped. "Grow up and get over yourself." Her words haunted me, like my Grandmother's. I was weak. An emo kid. I didn't deserve to cry, to hurt, to feel this way. I deserved to suffer. I had to suffer, so I could succeed.

Middle school worsened when bigotry came into play. I noticed it from certain people in the class. At first I thought it was normal bullying. Trying to get a rile out of the sensitive person in class, for kicks, for laughs. Then I noticed the small things. Making fun of my last name-- a Jewish last name. Comments about my curly hair. My nose. What I eat. How I smell. It became obvious when they asked what my religion was. "I was raised Catholic," I answered. They laughed. "A Catholic Jew?! I thought that'd never work!" I said nothing. Silence, by this point, became my best friend.

The physical abuse started around late seventh grade and continued all the way through eighth. They cut my hair, shoved me into walls, punched me when they could, scissored up my uniform skirt, ripped my blouse, tore up my sweaters month by month, put tape in my hair, placed dead bloody fish in my locker one day after Biology, kicked me, tripped me, found my homework assignments and threw them away-- all on accident. I didn't mind the physical abuse. It's the verbal abuse that hurt the worse.

The racial slurs: "Why is your mother dark skinned?" and I said, "She's Hispanic, like I am" and the slurs worsened, including not just Jew jokes but dumb Mexican ones. The comments about my overweight body: "What do you wear for a swimsuit?" they asked and I felt awkward saying one-piece since they were talking two-pieces, so I said "two-piece" to fit in and they laughed hysterically. The remarks about my intelligence: "Did you finally get an A?" they asked, and I shoved my paper into my desk, sweaty palm smearing the red F under my skin, tears rolling down my fat cheeks as I bit my lips and blocked out as hard as I could their laughter.

I couldn't report anything to anyone. I was a half-breed Jewish-Hispanic girl in a school where 95% of the students were South Asian/Middle Eastern descent. I felt no one would believe me. Grandma accused me of being a reckless fool in school, since I never told her why I came home with dirty clothes or marks on my skin. I didn't say a word to my mother, ever. Online wasn't enough for me either. I wanted a hug from someone, anyone, who gave a damn about me, who wasn't all the way in another state, or another country. That's all I wanted. One friend to call my own. Someone who didn't say I was a retard, a social defect, a half-breed, a mentally disturbed person, a repeat of my father, a mistake, an idiot. I wanted someone to like me for me.

At night, I abused myself. I read up online how girls would cut themselves to feel good. I could never do it. I was afraid of bleeding. But I did the next best thing. I started punching myself in the head until I knocked myself out. I grabbed books and beated myself silly. I scratched my skin, I clawed at my hair, I pulled chunks out from the scalp, I punched walls, I punched my stomach, I slapped a hairbrush on my thighs until they were red. I almost clawed my eyes out one day and had to go to sleep with leather gloves on, so I wouldn't have the urge any longer. All of this I kept to myself, away from my family. They suffered enough. I deserved this, I thought, because I couldn't speak. If I just opened my mouth, all of this wouldn't have happened. I would have good grades, the teachers would like me more, and maybe I'd have a friend in school. Because I didn't know how to speak, I deserved to suffer. And to suffer meant success.

On the day of September 11th, I received the biggest blow, verbally. I came in late, as I had watched as much as the news as I could before my heart couldn't take it anymore-- especially when the two towers collapsed. No television sets were on when I arrived. No one was allowed to watch anything. Everyone sat in silence. When our homeroom teacher left, I told my fellow classmates about the fourth plane crash in Pennsylvania. They called me a liar. They said I was full of it. They didn't believe me when I said the Twin Towers collapsed. I ran to the only friend I thought I had, my history teacher who was a Marine, and begged him to save me. When he got the story out of me as to why I was crying, he went against protocol, stormed into the eighth grade room with one of the television sets, turned it on and proved me right. He apparently said some sort of speech to them, but I don't know what. Later he came to me later and said, "Don't listen to them. You were in the right. They shouldn't have done that to you." I didn't care at that point anymore. When he left for Afghanistan to serve the country, I was alone again.

Eighth grade was a continuous hell. The abuse never stopped verbally. Physically it backed down, probably because my history teacher said something in that speech of his before he left. I quietly suffered, grades slipping, self-abuse rising. Then graduation came. I was so relieved. I suffered and survived. I didn't succeed though. Because of my poor performance in my eighth grade year, and the shitty letters of recommendation I received from teachers, I wasn't accepted to the two high schools I wanted to attend. I wasn't rejected, but a wait-list was rejection enough. Mother worked her magic though, and I somehow ended up in a private high school later that fall, without even sending in an application during regular admission time.

On the day of my eighth grade graduation, we all went to Carrows to eat. The grandparents and sister were in another car and were arriving late to the restaurant. I decided there and then to unload onto Mother what I went through. When I finished, Mother broke down sobbing. "Why didn't you tell me?" she begged. "I could've done something. You didn't have to suffer." And I told her what I had as my mantra: "I had to suffer mama, because you suffered enough. I had to succeed. So I had to suffer."

I'm twenty-one-years-old now and I still suffer from the same thoughts I did in my early years. I don't believe I deserve to speak. I don't feel like I'm wanted. I fight the urges of suicide, fight the want to abuse myself, because I know I am hard on myself. I am not my worst enemy; I am the biased judge and the demeaning executioner within the courtroom of my mind. I still feel that I deserve everything I get. A life sentence of suffering like Sisyphus is perfect; death penalty is too kind.

I did obtain good friends, best friends, like I always dreamed. Friends who love me for me, mostly online, but in real life too. They care about me. But because I put so much emphasis on friends, I have been hurt the worst by them, especially in recent months. The hurt caused by this downfall has spiraled me back into these teenager thoughts of self-abuse and hurt. Deserving to be punished. Deserving to suffer.

I did attend a good university, after excelling and beating back Silence in high school. Mother's desire of building a strong educational foundation for me proved fruitful. But the demons are there, embedded in the fabric of who I am. Demons circling and centered around Silence, my hero and my villain. Demons telling me, "Shut up, you're too loud, don't talk, don't say what you feel, get over yourself, grow up, you loser, you idiot, you dumbass." Demons voiced by the ex-friends of my past, people I can't let go because I feel I deserve to suffer.

I'm not asking for pity or sympathy. I'm not trying to create an emotional response in readers in order to receive emotional feedback in return. I don't want to be seen as melodramatic, an emo kid, a stupid teenager. I tell my story so I can possibly find peace. So I can truly forgive myself-- because that's all this relies on. Forgiving yourself. I have crucified myself on a cross long enough, but only I can take the nails from my skin and bring myself down from wood to earth. The problem is I don't know how. I hope this was a step in the right direction.  That this was enough to ease the pain of a lonely little girl who talked to herself and sang little songs, walking in the empty acre fields of playgrounds, dreaming of a best friend, a successful life and no more suffering. Hoping to never end up like her father. Hoping to never end up dead like him.