LJ Idol - Week 24 "I'm the Usain Bolt of Running From My Problems"
The first time I ran away, I was three.
I do not remember it at all, but it has become part of the family lore, so it must be true.
Apparently, on my birthday afternoon, I took my blanket and went out into the garden, through the little gate on the street and then on the short walk to the playground nearby.
In February, under the snow.
My mother was busy trying to calm down my 3 month old sister who was suffering from a belly ache.
The family’s version of the story always implies that already back then I was a jealous, egoistical little toad, and could not bear with the fact that on my birthday, I did not have the full attention of my mother to myself.
I have no image in me of being angry or sad. What I do remember from my early years is the noise and chaos that entered our house with the birth of the new family member. And the irresistible desire, no, the need, to hide from that, to go somewhere with no loud sounds.
I am quite sure this was what I felt that day too.
The wintry afternoon was so silent, the snow falling so quietly, not a single person outside.
I went to a bench under a tree and sat there, rolled into my blanket, watching the white flakes sailing down, smiling to myself.
And that was how a neighbour found me while he was walking his dog. Apparently, he asked what I was doing outside, but I had no answer, only a shrug. He tried to make me come back with him, but I would not.
So he went to our house, rang the doorbell, and told my mother about me sitting in the park, all alone, in the silent snow.
She had not realised yet I was gone, because my sister was still crying. To her defense, probably not more than half an hour had passed since I had left, and I often spent time quietly looking at a children’s book or out of the window.
She raced out immediately, my sister on her arm, to fetch me. Freely admitting later on that only the presence of the nosy neighbour had saved me from a good walloping right there and then.
The walloping came later, when my dad arrived at home. My family did not really believe in corporal punishment which, back in the 60ies in Germany, was still a normal thing. They were more into the silent treatment, but there were times that called for special measures.
I don’t remember the smacks on my back either which they say I got. Nothing at all.
It must have been a pretty unpleasant birthday in any case, because I did not get the cake my mother had baked in the morning for the occasion. But that too has been long gone from my mind.
Still, I might have learned from this experience that running away from my problems to a physically different place would only create a different kind of trouble.
And so I began to do my running inside myself.
I had started early to read on my own, already around that famous birthday, and soon was able to decipher little stories which offered a departure point for my flights.
When noise and chaos became overwhelming, I simply shut down and travelled into my mind.
Alas, this happy state of things only lasted for a few years. As soon as I had to enter school, I was not allowed to spend my time doing what they called daydreaming or fantasizing any more.
I was supposed to participate, be attentive, follow the rules.
Instead, the more challenging the demands on my attention became, the less I felt like conforming to them.
For a while I simply did not answer, or said the wrong things.
Then, my body, never the quietest part of me even at the best of times, became a veritable fountain of unruly behaviour, expressing clearly my desire to run away.
My teachers did not see any other solution than banning me from the classroom, first for a couple of minutes, then for hours at a time.
I was supposed to sit still on a bench facing the door, but I never did.
Instead, I escaped to the school library, grabbed something to read and hid in a corner.
At first, this drew more punishments, reprimands and scolding.
But when teachers, parents and librarians realised that as soon as I arrived in front of the endless shelves of books, I became the most agreeable and pleasant child, they allowed me to go there whenever I liked, as long as I still kept up on what I was supposed to learn.
Which was perfectly all right with me, as in the books I found everything I needed to be always ahead of the rest of the class.
In high school, I was supposed to grow up and conform, and promptly, I chose to escape again.
My absences became more planned and also, more dangerous. There was police involved and even social services at times. I had no words for what pushed me away, it was inside and had no name.
I grew up in an area of our town, in the 1970ies, where drugs were easily available everywhere.
Running away from your problems into a chemical or herbal world was common, and easy.
For a while, I tried that too, but - to my fortune? - the substances accessible to me actually caused me to feel worse. They made me sick to my stomach, horribly depressed and even more anxious than I already was.
So, I continued to search for new places where to escape, in my mind.
I developed stunning crushes on people long dead and meticulously researched them, living a parallel life in their worlds.
When I was 12, it was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to become the companion of my dreams. His Requiem played endlessly on the old gramophone in my room, and my walls were full of drawings of his profile.
At 13, I discovered Caius Julius Caesar, learning to speak and write fluent Latin, and reciting De Bello Gallico from memory under my breath.
And while people were calling me “weird” all the time, I was inoffensive enough to be left in peace.
Once or twice, when I was 16, I actually developed a crush on people living in my own time. Alas, even when I managed to elicit their interest too, nearly immediately I also overwhelmed them with my intensity and strange reactions.
So, suddenly it was me to become a problem, to run from as fast as they could.
During a school exchange, I discovered Italy. A country full of people who inexplicably seemed to accept my intemperate, unreasonable behaviour, even to like it.
And so, I ran away from Germany, as soon as I finished school. To start a new life, in a different place.
Alas, my problems all moved together with me.
Over and over again, I continued to believe that a new job, a new companion, a new town or a new university would allow me to leave everything behind.
There was so much I felt I had to run from, all the time.
My uncertain gender identity and sexual preference, my inability to complete a single thing, my painful introversion.
Exhausted, at a certain point, I tried to run from life itself.
Not having succeeded, I was put on medication, to stop the desire to escape. I embraced it willingly for a while, wistfully accepting the dampening down of everything I was.
Periodically though, I tried to emerge from the chemically induced stupor again.
And when, inevitably, the problems began to chase me anew, I fled towards new places from them.
Risky and self centered sex, very often. Spending money I did not have, too. Starting new work experiences in a bright cloud of hyperfocus, only to crash and burn very soon.
Then, 13 years ago, during one of my most exaggerated bouts of sexual promiscuity, I happened on a person who seemed to be running from his own, different, problems, too.
And, rather unbelievably, we did not immediately run into opposite directions.
We just paused, in a nearly perfect moment beside each other.
Obviously, not all was easy and well. We were so used to the eternal race and run that for quite some time, it seemed impossible to accept what we had found.
But in the end, we did.
Supporting each other in silent closeness as well as peaceful distance once in a while.
And held firm by that anchor of quiet power in my life, last year I finally discovered a piece of the puzzle that is my own mind.
More than fifty years after that first escape from home, the inexplicable, constant unrest, the lack of direction and focus and the constant desire to leave everything behind, received a name.
And a new medication, which suddenly makes it possible for me to stand still. To look at things with different eyes. Recognising them not as problems to run from, but simply as moments in a normal, daily life.
Sometimes I am tempted to wish that this treatment had been available to me fifty years ago.
It would have saved me from so much pain, so much running, so much waste.
But then, would that different, normal, person have recognised the love of her life? Would she have paused for him, and he for her?
What really matters in the end, is that now I don’t feel the need to run any more.
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If you liked this entry, I would be grateful if you could give it a click in this poll :)
Also, in this round, my destiny is connected to that of my partner,
kittenboo. It would be great if you could read her entry too and vote for it if you like it.
She is a great writer, and we have both gone out of our comfort zone with our subtheme of how our mental health has evolved over the years, each using our assigned topic as a starting point.