Ritalin Boy.......

                                                                 

  
   As far back as I can remember, I was told there was alot wrong with me.   I was naturally a hyper active boy, and by time I reached the age of 6 my parents had apparently had enough. 

    My pediatric Doctor named Sedat Shaban, was the first to summons the wrong chart and began furiously writing about how thin I was, how wild I was and how I wasnt growing fast enough. I couldnt sit still.   At once without any hesitation or question from Mom & Dad, Psychological testing was in order.   In the early 80's this was a hit...

     I struggled with school right from the get go. First in Kindergarten for a short few months, then to Pre School, then to Kindergarten again, my pattern was set. One step forward, two steps back, life for me was in motion, which way however, was really never known........

     I spent the better part of my childhood in various Psychologists offices in and around Waterbury, some of these people who claimed to be professionals were more likely nothing more than pill pushing Robots.   I can remember fondly the Rorschach tests, ink blots for those who are not familiar....I was always convinced they were broken pens leaking, but that wasnt the answer the Docs wanted to hear.

   I was imaginative as a youngin, fantasizing constantly, and creating mayhem at school, and coming home to regular mayhem there. My parents, both drunks, were both very hard workers, My father being a machinist at Century Brass, and my Mother being a retail sales lady at Reeds department store....After work, My mother would come home and cook, and do errands....My Father on the other hand was usually belly up at Kellys Oak Tree Inn, and/or at some strange fat womans house bangin her. After a long days work, what good was a wife anyway?  

     I spent a fair amount of time outside...exploring, digging holes and making a mess of the yard, it was already littered with trailer trash anyway.  A childs dreamland if you ask me....  

    There was regular and persistent chaos in my home, a decrepit house to begin with, a mortgage usually underpaid, and alcohol, blood, violence, state Police, beatings, arrests, and the like.   Intermingled in all of this, my Father every once in a while took me fishing, and Ice Fishing,rock hunting, deer hunting.  I hated the thunder come traveling along the ice with a huge crack!    My Father loved me, I could tell.I was his boy, for I had 3 sisters by then. It didnt last very long as his own life problems and alcoholism developed in him as strong as bull. We dint go do much together after I was 10 or so... 

    As both my Parents began living a more drunkard lifestyle, my behavior in the household was getting worse and worse, so distracted......My Mother really began to resent the fact I was born.  And soon, after some of the testing I mentioned was complete, Ritalin was prescribed along with severe counseling and testing, constant blood draws, questions by the hundreds, pictures drawn and interpreted,  filed and it was fact...There was something wrong with me. 

    So for the next 9 years it was business as usual, regular emergency room visits because I had a severe bleeding problem as a child, and some beatings from my Mother that were always glossed over as me being clumsy.....I'll never forget the time she beat my skull so deeply with a shoe, I had to get stitches, but of course really what happened was I fell down the stairs....rriiiiggghhhttt......Having to report to the nurses office at school for my lunchtime dose....It was their one day a nurse had asked me about a bruise....And I told her the truth, begging for her not to tell anyone.....She did, she called the cops.   Not a good idea.   I went home and believe me, I never told again.

    I will never know if Ritalin had done any good, I failed miserably in all my schooling for years to come.   I stayed back in 10th grade, never took SATs and managed to get through High School.  I began as a teenager to have regular visits and stays at institutions like Waterbury Hospital, where my Mother had taken me after I had run away from her......She had said it a million times before" Im gonna kill you when I get home from work" And this time I believed it, and instinct kicked in....to get the hell out.   I was 15 by then. Still on Ritalin.      9 years had passed since I ate that first tablet.   After I had escaped my Mother I never ate one again, and I, over time began to find my way....

    Its hard for me to describe what Ritalins effect was, I was so young when I started it, we had already tried a sugar free diet, controlled behavior modification. Why no one ever saw the obvious is beyond me...But then again it was the 80's when child abuse was still taboo, too touchy a subject to speak about. Confronting a parent back then was like blackballing yourself.

    Alcohol has caused such damage in my story, right from the get go....It causes false realities, and it clings....   Soon others believe in an Alcoholics delusion, that their son was a terror......Doctors and other so called professionals weren't too keen on seeing past a story an Alcoholic could tell....

    To this day, I do not trust Doctors. I have a Doctor.   He is good to me, however when I visit him, I mostly control everything, and that can be harmful......I am always sure Im dying....Hes not. 

    I am so glad I live in a world, a time of better understanding, and reality.   I do not have children, Im not likely to. But my hunch is that if I did, Id be a pretty good Father.