My Descent

I’ve always been this way. I just didn’t know it. I was angry when I was a kid. I was always needy and whiny. I could only see the world as it related to me. Me, Me, Me. There was no empathy. I never had the ability to understand from others point of view. Everyone was expected to pay attention to and coddle me when I had a crisis. I said I love you as that was what I was taught. I don’t think I ever grasped the true concept of what love really is.

Looking back at what I can remember, I wasn’t normal. Not with my family and friends and certainly not with myself. Over the course of my life I passed through everyone’s circles always trying to fit in. I never did. Time after time friends distanced themselves from me. I never understood why. I didn’t know how but it was always the fault of others. Nobody ever said a word. It was always time for them to move on, away from me.

Everything I did always had to be my way. Or the highway. Or I got mad and pouted. There were a lot of tears when I was a kid. I cried. I had a low pain tolerance threshold. Now, I don’t know if this irrationality was physical or mental. I hated going to the doctor and getting shots. I screamed and cried. The needles were terrifying. I tried to pull away every time.

Haircuts were the same way. I hated them. I squirmed on the barbers chair. He had his board going across the arms of the chair so little boys would be easier to give crew cuts.

I hated that board. Eventually I learned to sit still. I learned about rewards. If I was good in the barber chair or the doctors office I got a sucker when we were done. I loved candy. If I was good people gave me stuff. After a while I came to expect it.

It was a different world then. It was a little town outside of St. Louis on Route 66. There were no smart phones, automatic dishwashers, or 60 inch flat screen tv’s. It was a much simpler time. The milkman still brought bottles to our back door. We always gave back the empty bottles. Our television set was a huge console with vacuum tubes in back. It was big and heavy but we had color! Our remote control was either myself or my brother running over and turning the knobs. Our tv had two knobs and I loved turning them. It seems that over the course of my life I have had a fascination with buttons and switches. I always had to operate them but that’s for later. I would get mad at my little brother and intimidate him to get my way. I turned the knobs.

Although everything is connected by I-44 these days, this little town was a long way from St. Louis back then. It’s livelihood depended heavily on the iron mine that employed most of the town. My dad worked there. Our chief of police was allegedly the head of the local kkk. It was also a farming town. We had a big farm boy that worked at the feed store and never spoke. He walked everywhere, slow and hunched. He had what I would guess now to be seizures. He would be crossing a road and half way through would stop and freeze mid stride. You never knew how long he would stand there, motionless with one foot still in the air. Then he continued walking like nothing had happened. Nobody ever hit him but I’m sure there were some close calls. There were always rumors that he’d gotten caught doing something really bad when he was young and was punished severely including the removal of a certain body part. It was always a morbid fascination, hoping to see Tony froze up somewhere. He had a strong back. I guess all Tony was good for was throwing hay on train cars and feed sacks in the backs of old trucks at the feed station. It was a much different time.

My first real girlfriend was a cute blond freshman that lived just outside of town. She was a freshman, I was a senior. These days I think that is frowned on. Those days it was normal. We had fun. We were promised. After I graduated and went on to college, we had a long distance relationship. We talked on the phone and she waited for me. Toward the end she was going to give me plastic cowboy boots and a pinky ring for my birthday or Christmas. I don’t remember which. What I do remember is being very vocal about why would I want something like that. ‘Me’ orientation became prevalent. I acted like a complete ass instead of being grateful and trying something new. We didn’t last much longer after that. I kind of kept track of her over the years. I know, it sounds a lot like virtual stalking and to an extent I guess it was. Last I heard many years ago she found someone that was good to her. I hope she has had a good life.

I couldn’t wait to get out of that town. I hated it. It wasn’t the town I hated though, it was me. I was about to run from myself for the first time. I graduated high school in 1979 at age 17. I was one of the youngest two in my class. I was emotionally immature for my age. I was going to college next fall. It was a small liberal arts college in Northeast Missouri. I was going to be a professional musician. I was going to impress everyone with my skill when I arrived. I made it to college and heard the others play. Even though I wouldn’t admit it, I knew I couldn’t do it. My fingers were fast as lightning. I was big man on campus in the music department during high school. The problem was that I had no tone. No inflection of the soul in my music. I could play the notes but could never breathe the music. I couldn’t improvise. I couldn’t make my brain work that way. Solo’s scared me to death. It was different than simple stage fright. I was afraid because I knew I couldn’t do it. Plus, the more I tried to fit in socially, the more I was shunned over time. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted friends there. I wanted people to see me. I’ll come back to that statement in another post. It has a whole new meaning to me today. I drank at the parties. I drank a lot. I thought people were laughing with me. Instead, I was being laughed at. I made a fool of myself over and over while trying to stand out. I lasted two semesters there before I hightailed it home to mom and dad.

So, how did I get in to music? Piano lessons. We went to St. Louis and bought a brand new piano. When it was delivered, it sat in the corner of our living room. I was signed up for piano lessons. A big old farm house just outside of town. There were a lot of family farms back then. This was one of the bigger ones. Dad and kids worked the fields and the livestock. Mom ran the house. She gave piano lessons to youngsters like me to help out. I didn’t like playing the piano. I had to practice every day at home. For a whole hour. I wanted to do other things. Go play baseball and be outside. Not until piano practice was done. I wiggled and I sobbed. I yelled at times. I made dumb jokes instead of playing. I didn’t like it. I had to go out to that creepy farm house every week and take another lesson.

5^th grade came along and it was time to sign up for band. We all got to go in to the band room and see a demonstration. They showed us and played all the instruments. That was the day we chose our instruments. I picked the saxophone. I don’t know that I really liked it but all the guys were picking trumpet or drums. I think I picked it because my dad liked Boots Randolph. He was a famous saxophone player that had a hit called Yakkity Sax. Seems I was always trying to please my dad. I was a very insecure kid. Well, one thing led to another, I liked the saxophone better than the piano and I learned to play. I started on alto then switched to tenor in 7^th grade. I was big enough to handle it. I learned to play and eventually earned 1^st chair. I was good. I was awesome. I was proud of my accomplishment. I continued playing this instrument in to high school. I eventually made first chair there. I signed up for more music classes. I was in jazz band, choir, various ensembles both instrument and vocal. Looking back, music was the reason I made it through high school. I didn’t understand math. English and grammar didn’t make sense. I already spoke english. I did do well in drafting class. I almost became a draftsman as that was what my dad did for a living. The more music classes I signed up for meant the less classes I didn’t understand that I had to take. In music, unless you totally clowned around and didn’t participate you were guaranteed at least a C grade. I got all A’s and B’s. I was good. I was the best. I wanted out of that little town. I became a college musician. Bad decision Scott. To be honest, when I wasn’t drunk I hated being at that college.

These are just a few glimpses of my childhood. Bringing these memories back and writing them out is a very hard thing to do. It is something that must be done if I want to make me better. I need to examine every part of my life as part of my therapy. It’s time for me to learn who and what I really am. I’ve been having cognitive issues for a while now. My memory has been slipping. After my evaluation it was determined that I do not have Alzheimer’s Disease. I have my reasons, but I do not believe the psychologist that tested me. More about that later. What I am coming to grips with is the fact that I may very well be schizophrenic. Quite possibly paranoid schizophrenic. It happens but is said to be uncommon for someone my age to develop this disorder. The more I think about it, the more I think of the probability I have had this disorder since I was very young. It wasn’t nearly as severe as now and I believe I was able to mask it for most of my life. I am seeking help. Hopefully I finally found the correct medical professionals that will help me and find the right specialists for me to see. I will continue writing and publishing as I think this is important. My hope is to not only help myself but maybe another in need. I’m sure that as I proceed things could get very graphic. This is my best and only chance to learn just who and what I am.

I’m going to close for now. It’s time for my first dose of Risperdal which is an anti-psychotic medication used to help suppress auditory hallucinations. By the way, the photographs and digital art you see are my work. Photography seems to be the only thing I enjoy now. Currently, even this is difficult. Thank you for reading about my life. This is the first installment. I hope you come back again!