Journey of Discovery by
Becky
Part 1: Beginnings
Sometimes
when I look back over my early life, I wonder how I missed them:
gaps of time as long as nine hours, bumps and
bruises, odd dreams and ideas. All of them idly wondered about,
but never considered for any length of time. They never struck
me as abnormal, since they had been going on from my earliest
memories. This was simply just how life was and I learned to
adapt to it.
As a young
child, I knew there were “monsters” that visited my room at
night. I didn’t like them and I developed a fear of the
dark. When I would try to tell my parents about the “monsters,”
they would ridicule me and tell everyone what an “overactive
imagination” I had. Embarrassed, I learned not to talk about
the events that were happening to me. Around the age of 10, the
fear of the dark grew to the point where I begged for a
nightlight. Even with it on, I would lie awake terrified that
someone was in my room. Eventually, I very carefully began
asking classmates about their own nights, expecting to hear
similar stories. I found that most slept peacefully, which
surprised me. I don’t think I realized until that point that
some people just don’t have these odd occurrences in their
lives.
It was during
this time that my mother decided I was a sleepwalker, even
though no one had ever observed me actually sleepwalking. She
would wake in the night and find me in odd places, such as
downstairs or in the cellar. Since she was an extremely light
sleeper, she could not understand how I could pass in front of
her room without waking her. At first, I was always in trouble
for this kind of behavior because she felt I was being
“sneaky”. The sleepwalker “diagnosis” was a relief in a way,
because it excused some of the behavior I had been punished for
in the past. However, it was not something that she relied on
consistently and she would continue to punish me on and off
until I was in my late teens.
At the age of
12, I woke up in the front yard with the doors to the house
locked up tight. I can remember the feeling of hopelessness as
I realized I had no explanation for my situation and that this
would be a major transgression in my parent’s eyes. I sat for
at least a half an hour against the tree in the yard crying and
not having any idea of what I should do. Finally, I had to ring
the doorbell and face the consequences. Needless to say, my
father was shocked to see me when he answered the door and never
quite accepted my story of sleepwalking. As I recall, I was
grounded for weeks, amongst other things. Still, I didn’t
wonder or think too much about these incidents. They happened
time and again, and in very many ways, it was just a part of
life. I can’t think of any period of time when events like this
did not happen to me. Why question something that has been
going on your entire life?
Part 1 |
Part 2 | Part 3
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