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| | From:  DonNJ64 (Original Message) | Sent: 11/5/2005 7:36 PM |
----- Original Message -----
From: calli rose shannon
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 12:55 AM
Subject: column for 04/13
SNIPPETS
By Calli Rose Shannon
"From the brain, and the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, and laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pain, grief, and tears . . . The brain is also the seat of madness and delirium, of the fears and terrors which assail by night or by day . . . -- Hippocrates
She goes to her private place, all filled with billowing clouds, sunny skies, and pastel colors. Here, she finds others just like herself -- or different, but similar -- and she finds solace, comfort, love and understanding she can't find in the "normal" world.
As a child, she went inside herself, where she could find succor (in her mind's eye) beneath a big Oak tree on a hilltop, with green, green grass interspersed with Dandelions. There, while anger raged on in the real world, or when she saw the questions in her parent's eyes, she was able to block out all sounds, all hateful words, all horrified and disappointing stares, and read her favorite Golden Book, "The Little Brown Puppy."
As she grew older, she learned to walk with her head down, avoiding the stares that greeted her because of her difference in dress, in manner; there were always tears just about to be shed, thus the nickname her parents gave to her: "Camille." It wasn't meant to be cruel, but it was true. So, she missed seeing much of the world, but she heard it from classmates. She heard words like "freak," nut," "crazy." Odd, she was, but crazy she was not.
She came wailing out of her mother's womb in 1944, the first child. But, God had played a cruel joke on her parents and had given them a damaged baby. They didn't know what to make of this odd child with lofty goals and opinions.
Teachers scorned her oddities, ignored her talents, and nurtured in her the fact that something was terribly, terribly wrong with her.
She hid in closets or behind dressers to cry where she thought nobody would hear her, or, she sang for her parents, knowing in her heart she would be an opera star one day. Once, she wanted to be Maria Tallchief, a prima ballerina, but her parents laughed, not unkindly, but because she didn't have the grace to become a dancer. She knew it, but in her heart and in her mind, she was Maria Tallchief. So -- eventually -- she became nobody. It was not the fault of her parents, who knew as little as she did about why she was so different from the other children in her family. It was not the fault of her siblings, who loved but didn't understand her. She didn't understand herself.
When she became an adult, she consulted a doctor to see why she was so skewed when everyone else in her family was so beautiful, talented and loved. Special.
She understood -- finally, when she was in her forties -- that she was born with a brain disorder that was not her fault, but was her burden, her cross to bear.
She also learned how easily one falls prey to treachery when one admits to having a brain disorder. People have accused her of starting arguments that really never happened, but they believe she will believe it was all her fault, because -- after all -- she's crazy. Or faking.
A former friend accuses her of hurting the feelings of his secretaries, and making them cry; he has proof. After all, his sister-in-law has the same brain disorder, ergo all brain-disordered persons are the same, aren't they? And, he uses it as ammunition for failing her.
Someone she knows in a store tries to short-change her . . . because he can, he thinks. Others think she's weird; she has no visitors, and she goes nowhere.
A friend who needed a friend counted on her to help with matters of love and loneliness, but when she needed someone to talk to, the friend said "I can't take you any more." What she meant was "I don't need you any more."
So, when things become so overwhelmingly painful for her to bear, she goes to her private place . . . the one with pastels, and billowing clouds; a room she found while surfing the net. She entered it tentatively, wondering what she would find. Almost disappointing, there was only one half of a page, but she screamed through her keyboard "Am I the only bi-polar in the world?"
In little over a month, over 1000 posts and articles have been added to that room, with many more bi-polar people crying out, just as she did.
The very sad thing she has learned, is that the people who share her very private room with her -- strangers and friends, and new "chatters" -- have been kinder to her than anyone else in her 57 years. For a person with a brain disorder, the real world is in that very private room . . . where I go every day, for solace, for courage, for sharing what I know about "me" with others who are just learning they have a brain disorder that was not given to them as punishment. More important, I go there to feel and share the love of people who don't judge me just because someone in their own family shares my disorder or has another; we are all different, with different foibles and different talents.
For those of you who were born "different", or who became "different" at different times in your lives, there is one sanctuary I will be happy to share with you. Come with me to the only haven there is, for "slightly-damaged" persons like us.
I hope I have brought enlightenment -- not sadness or a cry for sympathy -- to this column today. God has a purpose for everything He does, and what He gave to me, in exchange for my slightly-damaged brain, is the gift of story-telling. Am I lucky, or what?
But, I will never give up my very, very private place with the big Oak tree on the hilltop, with green, green grass and Dandelions . . . or "The Little Brown Puppy."
Snippets are written by a sentimental Irish person who likes to weave sentimental, funny or poignant -- often truthful -- tales. Calli Rose Shannon is a contributing columnist with The News-Sun. |
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