BY JODY PADUMACHITTA GOCH
Copyright is held by the author.
NORMAL. I was afraid I would not be normal.
Afraid that my wild brain would peak out from behind the hawthorn fences.
That my father would send me away like he did my mother — to the A ward in the old hospital, with the leaking pipes and straps, the greying bonds that held my mother to her bed while she dried out, or rather had herself a breakdown.
That my parents would place me in an institution and visit me once a week, then once a month and then never.
That if I couldn’t be normal I would not be allowed to ride ponies — though the ponies liked my crazy.
I was so full of angst that I learned to medicate early, to drink just enough to slow the panic attacks, or my mind, so that in school I wouldn’t answer all the questions vibrating like a Labrador chasing red balls.
Learned to play sports so that my frenzied energy could be put on the first string even though my skill levels were never great.
Learned to fake all those actions the other kids made, cooing over movie posters, when I actually never gave a squat.
I even had a boyfriend or two, shutting off and down when it got too warm for me. I really didn’t like to be touched, not by people. All my boyfriends had dogs, it made the whole thing bearable, almost.
Learned not to ask sideways questions or to intimidate a teacher with all the knowledge I picked up at the libraries I haunted after school.
Though I often got kicked out of classes for calling teachers, “war-mongering running dog capitalists”, this was the late 70s and I got away with it only because of the protests and the adults thinking I had been led astray by some anti-establishment teenager.
Back in the old days with the wooden draws and microfilm, thumbing rides out to the University and sneaking into the science library to read about Schrödinger, I never learned not to be afraid.
In family court neither parent wanted to take a risk on me. My dad took my brothers. My mother begrudgingly split my care with the system. I could at any point be a ward of the court, and so I tried really, really, hard to look normal.
I succeeded mostly. Just a little off. Just a bit not quite socially up to snuff.
The price for looking normal was fear of everyone, but mostly myself.
There are days now, 50 years later, when I am still slightly nervous, even though it’s all just fine in many circles to stand up and say “I’m neurodiverse”, or to say “I don’t think your way”. To be brave and proud of a mind that dresses in colourful fabrics.
I’ve learned that it’s OK to be a little shy of normal, to not answer questions quite straight on, to offer facts to those I love like a bundle of flowers, to not be able to wear rough fabrics because they overwhelm me. But I still do most of this as a hermit.
I like my own space, I am a forest dweller and yet, sometimes I don’t know if that is a habit or a want, if the way I found to live without fear was to live without people.
And yet I will tell you, I am loved. I know this. But it took longer to believe that than it did to release the fear of being myself.
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Jody padumachitta Goch is a Canadian living in the German Black Forest. She writes, chops wood, and rides horses. Jody’s jeans and shirt pockets are full of stories. It’s hell on the washing machine. She enjoys lighting the wood stove and rescuing words from the lint catcher. Jody has stories and or poetry in Wild Word, Com Lit, 50 Word Stories, Does It Have Pockets, NPR Poetically Yours, Co-Op Poetry and a short story in Strasbourg Short Stories 2021.
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