Writing about my time at the therapeutic boarding school is something I've really never been able to do. The memories of this experience are all packed tightly away in a locked chest somewhere deep within me. My recollection of them is tantamount of trying to recall a vivid dream I may have had decades ago--shadows, illusions of shadows, flickering images, nothing coherent.
I'll do my best to try to describe what I can. The school (if you can call it that) was located on a communal-type property about thirty miles outside Houston, Texas. There was a double-wide for the girls, a double-wide for the boys, a large community center, and what was once a ranch-style home that had been converted into a schoolhouse. There were maybe 40 girls, 40 boys, all packed in tightly.
The rules were bizarre. We weren't allowed to read any magazines or newspapers or anything that informed us of what was occurring in the outside world. We weren't allowed to listen to any music other than oldies or contemporary christian. We weren't allowed to engage in conversations with fewer than three people involved. We weren't allowed to talk about anything having to do with our lives before coming there. Moreover, we weren't allowed to say anything that was "negative" at all. We were required to be smiling, positive, happy at all times.
Failure to meet any of these requirements was met with severe and unimaginable punishments.
Each day, the two owners of the school--two women who were large, loud, and abrasive--came to the property, called us all into the living room of the schoolhouse for something called "Life Skills." Anyone who'd been reported for violation of any rules was made to stand on their feet, and have these two women scream and shout and swear at them, oftentimes engaging peers to do the same, until they were just broken.
Have you heard of Synanon? It was that, through and through.
And then, yes, the punishments.
If you were punished, you had to wear a red shirt to denote your punishment. This meant that any free time other than school or homework was spent cleaning or doing manual labor. This was never set for an intended period of time, only until the women decided you'd learned your lesson. It could be days, it could be weeks.
Sometimes, this involved working out in a huge garden, as was the case when I'd gotten my first red shirt.
I went into this experience rather optimistically. I loved nature, growing things, being outdoors, why, this was scarcely a punishment at all! What a lovely way to while away a warm Saturday afternoon, weeding out a garden bed and preparing it for Spring planting.
I remember being serene for the first time in the months that I'd been there, closing my eyes and letting the humid breeze blow over me, stomping into the space in my green Doc Martins, reaching down to pull up my first weed, and then, as I was looking down...
I saw something move.
I have always been terrified of spiders. This is my greatest fear, above all others. And right as I pulled up that weed, the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life went skittering over my boot.
I screamed. I burst into tears. I felt like my heart was going to explode. I tried to run away, but I was caught by several adults who began to yell and shout at me and accuse me of trying to escape. I tried my best to explain to them through my sobs how I'd just seen a spider and how frightened of them I was, for them to please let me out.
They laughed at me...the most scornful, mocking laughter I've ever heard.
She's faking it, one of the kids chimed in. She just doesn't want to do any work.
Yeah, another agreed. Lying little bitch.
You get back out there and you pull those weeds and you don't stop, one of the adults growled at me, or we're going to catch those spiders and hold you down and put them on you.
I had no choice. I knew they meant it. So I went back out there. Gingerly, forebodingly, I pulled those weeds. And with every single one, spiders bigger and bigger scrambled and skittered and ran.
And I screamed, I sobbed, to the point that I ended up losing control of my bladder. The adults, the other children, continued to laugh and make fun of me.
This was the first time I went catatonic, experienced dissociation. Every time I've ever shared this, I've slipped back into this state. Even now, as I am finishing this writing, I feel my whole body going numb, my eyes glazing over, staring off into space like my spirit is kind of leaving my body.
This is a sign I need to stop now, and put this memory back into that deeply locked box.
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