Читать книгу Brain Drops - Jeannie Tyrrell - Страница 7

Chapter One

Disregard Complex

Many moons ago, I would exchange notebooks. They were filled with such beautiful ideas and plans for characters and stories. I shared them with two out of the four friends that I had in school. I do know the sharp teeth of escapism began to sink in when I was in elementary school. But I can’t really remember that far back. We moved around way too many times during those years, and parts of those memories are completely lost to me. The memories that still have some traction in my head are from high school and onward.

I was present for my friends and very present with the world through the characters that I created in those notebooks. I was a million times more expressive and honest when I wrote something down. My friends were equally expressive. We all seemed to indulge in this great escape.

Outside the escape, I see now that I had no real personality. Was I being myself? It seemed like I was locked up in a coma. None of those thoughts occurred to me until I was physically hit in the back of the head. That was the first moment in my life when I noticed that I was not present.

I was bullied constantly throughout elementary school and high school. Every single day I went to school, I had a fellow human comment on the shoes that I wore, my unplucked eyebrows, my weight, or my unorthodox mother. Then, when I least expected it, one of the punk kids at my school beamed me right in the back of the head with a rock.

The lights went out, and my journey into escapism began. It was a long and treacherous road out. I needed the fantasy because it was seriously a break from all the torment. On one side of the spectrum, I was told that I had birthing hips, or I was way too fat to do pull-ups. On the other side of life, my mother was in and out of the hospital, and my stepfather was on his merry way to prison. I witnessed and dealt with extreme domestic abuse when I was at home, and I also had to deal with severe mental abuse when I attended school.

So I had built up a very tight-knit and comfortable world of amazing escapism just to keep me going. Fantasy land was the only place for me to truly escape. It was my only joy in the world because the people, the comments, and all the cruel questions were literally everywhere. None of it was going to go away.

So how did I get out? Before I hit you with some logic, just hear me out. I believe when a child grows up in an abusive household, they enter a protective bubble. They are not truly present. My siblings and I have been here in the world with you. But our conscious state was lifted upward when we were very young. That is never going to change.

We will be there until our time on this planet runs out. It had to be that way so we could watch over ourselves and protect one another from above. Social programs, educators, and protective systems failed us from the start.

As far as I know, we only had each other, and we only had ourselves. But we didn’t know it. So, at times, we really hurt one another. We weren’t really there for one another. I love my siblings, and I never intentionally meant to hurt any of them. Some things haunt me to this day, and I’m sorry. I will only share one memory. I coerced my younger brother to take the blame for a foolish prank that I committed. He was reprimanded in the cruelest of ways, right in front of me. He was so young, and I’ve never forgiven myself for it.

I escaped that guilt with the help of fantasy. All was forgotten when an entertaining animated film about some stolen cats was put on for the hundred millionth time. I danced to the songs, laughed, and basically pranced around the living room like a blissful idiot.

My behavior when I was a child can be defined in a much fancier way. According to the book This Virtual Life: Escapism and Simulation in Our Media World, Andrew Evans explained a vast mixture of escapism types. There is the type called avoiding, where you run away from reality and the difficulties that you face in real life.

He also explained passive escapism, where you listen to music or binge-watch Netflix. This type of behavior is on the rise. It has become a very popular cultural pastime. Then you have active, which can range from fishing all day long to that pesky video game addiction. Finally, you have extreme escapism. The extreme type is actually considered dangerous. Traits associated with that are drug addictions, alcohol abuse, or dangerous activities that harm the body (like jumping off roofs).

There are positive and negative ways to escape, but right now, in our society, I believe the problem is widespread, acknowledged, and heavily exploited. A vast majority of the world’s population is deeply submersed in big box office films, online streaming content, RPGs (role-playing games), and strategically addictive mobile games and apps.

Society is deeply addicted to the escape, and we are not taking care of ourselves or each other. The attention is centered on going to Mars or celebrities and clothing brands. It’s not centered on what actually affects our daily lives. A deep disregard complex is in existence as I write these words, and the world needs to figure it out and wake up.

The question is, How? I didn’t start asking that question for a very long time. The impact of the rock hitting the back of my head allowed the teeth of escapism to sink in deep.

After that incident, the jaws really locked up tight. I remember going to the hospital, but I did not want to return to school. I spent most of my time avoiding other students. I’d hide around campus, the library, or sit outside the science building with one or two of my friends when I wasn’t in class.

Unfortunately, we stopped moving around during that time as well.

My mother finally managed to secure a home, and I remained in the same town. That means I actually remained in the same school for four total years. It was a nightmare, and I wasn’t prepared. I did try to participate in extroverted activities. I was part of the cheerleading squad, and I tried to make it on the volleyball team. Those attempts were just carrots on a stick, and it was the only way to get my mom off my back.

Cheerleading and volleyball opened the floor up for additional comments about my weight, my lack of athletic capabilities, or one of my stupid friends. Nope. My only real solace was in the notebooks.

Reading and writing was where I felt safe, content, and powerful.

Also, growing up completely broke actually did me a huge favor. It disconnected me from the need for constant consumption that you see today. We had a computer in our home for a small amount of time. It’s life was cut short because we were charged long-distance for dial-up internet, and the bill was catastrophic. My mother freaked out, and the ability to have the World Wide Web in the house was pitched far off the nearest cliff.

That was all fine and dandy for me while I was in school. I had my notebooks to exchange. I also had the ability to talk with my siblings or friends about the latest movie or anime that we watched. Once high school was over, my intense attachment to my written escapism needed to transform.

My characters had no air to breathe, and that eccentric persona did not exist outside the notebook exchange that I had created. I realize now that the new escape just shifted into a college major. It animorphed in a sense into these things called “goals.” But those goals weren’t planned out before graduation with my high school counselor, or anyone of the sort. I don’t remember ever seeing a school counselor. I can’t give you a single name to any faculty member of my school that worked in the counseling department.

I was always sent to the “responsibility center” because of my behavior. But that was it. I decided to go to college on my own because I was bored working at Blockbuster video. I could never stock the sodas correctly, and my bruised brain was not stimulated with the work. I knew that the bigger school was a half-hour drive away from where I lived, and I needed to get moving.

I had been in one place for far too long, so I started to plan my escape. Attending school was my excuse, and I started to slowly cut my ties. I had no car, no license, and I was living off Blockbuster wages. Luckily for me, our landlord offered to rent me a room for a hundred dollars a month. I took the deal and left that small town in my dust, and I was on the road toward my scholastic escapism journey.

Details are fuzzy, but I learned the bus system and made it work. I didn’t need a car or a license. I had arrived. I remember looking through the college booklet, and I skimmed it for classes. My heart centered on journalism. I took one of the media classes in high school, and the class description in the booklet resonated with me. I did not want to be a news anchor and report the news as it’s portrayed on television. I write.

I’m constantly documenting and journaling. That’s why the class on journalism felt right. Decisions were made, and I chose my classes. My heart truly raced when I located the classroom where I would get to write.

I look back now and realize that I was just this filthy unpresent alien entering the workspace of humans that were somewhat established. I was intimidated immediately by some of my classmates. I think they intimidated me because I had no idea what I was doing. It immediately felt like I wasn’t cut from some cloth of excellence.

My journalism instructor was the absolute definition of a poised and professional human being. She was stunning, didn’t have crumbs or stains on her clothing like me, and she was very well-spoken.

Everyone introduced themselves. I don’t remember what I told them. I do know that I went with the flow, introduced myself, and eventually, I started to write. I didn’t realize the freedom that I had achieved, and I didn’t understand that I was never actually present with them in the room.

I only pitched story ideas that related to music. Music reviews are easy, and I was pretending like I had some form of a basic education. The truth was, my social skills didn’t exist. I had no idea what half of them were talking about. I had to educate myself in secret.

At the same time, I finally had internet access. While I researched things that were actually common knowledge, I started to look into music and all the amazing content that interested me. It was right at my fingertips. Having constant internet access opened up a giant rabbit hole. Those notebooks I once escaped to transformed again. The notebooks became discussion forums. Discussion forums expanded into RPGs. Role-playing games became my new escape and any chance that I had of embracing reality disappeared.

I turned the World Wide Web into my own personal confessional. I created new personas, and I engaged in role-playing realities with people that I began to cherish more than family. The other individuals I interacted with became my “friends,” and everyone that was physically in the room with me didn’t exist.

What I failed to understand was that internet wasn’t my internet. It was provided to me by the school. It was also monitored by the school, and that was awkward. I technically had to steal Wi-Fi to get my fix, and it was the first time I truly split myself in two.

There is a “massive multiplayer online role-playing game” (MMORPG) out there called Second Life. I’ve never personally played that game, but I think the title fits very well with the information I am sharing with you. To sum all of it up, I was wasting my time, and I wasn’t being myself. I also wasn’t writing anything for myself either. I only tuned into the world right before my story or assignment was due.

I learned the bookwork of journalism, but the actual application of what I was learning was just horrible. I didn’t give any story that I wrote the proper time or attention that it deserved. I managed to interview and speak to some intelligent and heartwarming people, but I feel like I wasn’t present with anyone. My grades dropped dramatically. I spun around, took class after class, and basically wasted everyone’s time.

One day, I was asked a specific question by someone with a voice that I will never forget. She said, “Jeannie…what are you doing?”

Her voice made me stop and think. The only answer I had was that I didn’t know. What was there to even know? In my mind, I was just doing what you are supposed to do when you graduate high school. I had no reason to be there or step into any classroom. You’re told to graduate, and then you go to college. I was only following the epic system that had been sprinkled along my path like delicate powder sugar.

I wasn’t being picked on or humiliated in college. People barely paid attention to me, and it was awesome. Two cute boys did manage to catch my eye. They paralleled one another in such a strange way. They were like night and day. I liked them both, and I wanted to get to know them. But I wasn’t ready for that. Fantasy land was much better for me, and I was very happy in school.

As far as I knew, I didn’t have any issues. I was actually able to walk around the campus without feeling constantly tormented. Everything was good, and I did whatever I wanted. Doing whatever I wanted meant some (relatively) tame experimentation. I had my fantasy world, but there were moments when I was present.

I knew that crazy things were going on with my siblings back home, but the disregard complex was officially kicked into gear. I didn’t intend to look back, and I also didn’t feel like I needed to answer that question. I wanted the person that asked me the question to kindly get off my back.