Crumbs.

I had this stupid nightmare the other night about my grandmother. I think I was a little kid in the dream. I was spending the night there, as I often did, especially in the summer when school was out. I was eating cookies in bed, in the middle of the night. My grandmother came in and screamed at me. She told me that I could not be trusted not to destroy things. She actually pulled the bed out of the room and hid it from me, and made me sleep on an uncomfortable cot instead. I appealed to my mother for help, but she agreed with my grandmother. Apparently, getting crumbs on a bed was tantamount to being "destructive," and I deserved to be punished for it. I yelled back at them that it wasn't fair, and that I wasn't doing anything wrong. It upset my grandmother so much that she got sick. The next day, she died. I felt guilty because I had obviously caused my grandmother's death, and screaming back at her hadn't helped.

None of these events actually happened, but I feel that this dream is an allegory for things that did happen to me. When I was a child, it felt like even the smallest transgression was cause for great alarm. They reacted severely to things like my breaking a toy, losing some possession at school, or even leaving something my parents considered valuable on the floor. My mistakes weren't kid stuff. They were seen as carefully calculated acts of rebellion meant to disrespect or hurt my elders.

Sometimes, I did do things out of spite. Or... was it spite? I don't know. I remember breaking the ears off one of my grandmother's little pig figurines, just because I could. I remember hearing my grandmother telling my mother (when she didn't think I could hear) that "there's something wrong with her. She just seems to destroy everything she touches. I don't know what to do with her!"

I didn't do things like that often, but every once in awhile, I would have the urge to break something. Or hurt something. Around the age I was when I broke the figurine, about nine or so, I also delighted in torturing toads. Again, I did not know why I was doing it. I would pinch them and pull their legs to see if they would make some kind of sound of pain. Sometimes I even pulled their toes right off. I would open their mouths and put rocks down their throats to see what would happen. I always released them, eventually, knowing they'd probably die or be caught by something that would eat them. I didn't feel the slightest guilt.

Yeah, there was something wrong there. Why did I want to make things hurt? Why did it give me satisfaction? It was because I was destructive. My parents said so; therefore, it must be true. I grew out of torturing animals, thankfully, when I began to develop a deeper sense of empathy for the life around me. I did not stop destroying things, though. In secret, I would burn things. Just little things, like leaves or paper. Make something into nothing. It was there, and then it wasn't, and I was the cause. Maybe I could even make my father go away, or my mother. It was just a thought, though. It never got any further than that. The implications scared me. I did, however, fantasize about being an orphan. In my nine-year-old mind, starting over in another house with different parents seemed ideal... as long as I could take my cats with me.

I am truly amazed that I did not end up either an arsonist or a serial killer. What stopped me? I mean, I know I'm not neurotypical. I accept that, even embrace it. What kept me from becoming the monster I could have been?

The monster, the predator, the cold and calculated part of me resurfaced a few years ago when a combination of triggers and a bad reaction to medication led me to take the life of my own pet rat. I realise now that the relationship I was in at the time made me feel powerless and inferior, just the way I felt when I was little. Left alone for several days, I regressed. I was watching a cartoon when I killed her. It was just something to do, like I was playing with one of my toys. I even lied at first, to cover up what I'd done, the way I would have as a child. I snapped out of it, though, and checked myself into a mental hospital. The relationship ended shortly after. I didn't realise it then, but that was the best thing that could have happened.

Kids, more than adults, internalise things their parents say about them. It's one thing for dad to be upset that little Billy broke the toy truck that cost three hours of overtime. It's another thing for dad to take it personally, and label little Billy as destructive or "a menace." A kid takes those labels seriously. If your parents say that you are or aren't something, you don't have any reason to believe it isn't true. You take it to heart. You start to become what they say. As a kid, you just don't know any better.

I am lazy.
I am clumsy.
I am a scatterbrain.
I am damaged.
I am strange.
I am destructive.
I am a menace.

That's not to say that my parents didn't compliment me at times. They told me I was gifted. Bright. Intelligent. They couldn't understand why I was such an underachiever, why I chose to disappoint them so much. I remember my father telling my mother, "We better have another kid quick, because there's something wrong with this one." It wasn't a joke. He was referring to something I had said, or written. I don't remember what. I just know that he was serious.

What has kept me from collapsing under the weight of all of these labels and expectations, both negative and positive? What has kept me from continuing the destructive patterns that, in many non-neurotypical individuals, lead to becoming an abuser, an addict, even a murderer? Sheer force of will, perhaps. A need to survive and adapt, and the self-awareness to understand that in order to survive, I could not loose that monster.

Whatever has confounded every factor that might have made me a headline on the evening news, I am thankful for it. I thank my gods, I thank myself. I thank the people in my life who can see the beauty in me, especially those who have glimpsed my darkness and accept me even so, and do not judge me for crumbs in my bedsheets.