Foreword: I subtitle this as a "Forensics Tourney
Version" of a post previously uploaded. This version came about due to my
new acquaintance with a High School girl in one of the classes I was teaching a
year ago. She was/is a leading member of her school's Forensics Squad; one of
the most remarkable students I have known. When she learned of my involvement
with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Health), she wanted to share with me the
script of her National Tourney piece. It had to conform to a strict 7 minute time
limit. A few weeks we had her present to our local NAMI Affiliate, and the
response was outstanding. Then I was asked to present my story at the next
meeting. I already had written "I CAN NEVER AGAIN CALL" about a year
previously, but I decided that if my young protege could confine to 7 minutes,
then so could I. This is the shortened version. The full version was perhaps
twice as long.
An Exercise in Self-Stigma
"Forensics
Tourney Version" of
I CAN NEVER AGAIN CALL
I was in my brother’s town, and I couldn’t call to say, “Hi,
Ron! We’re here.” He had died 5 days earlier, and his funeral was the next
morning. That was a final line of sorts on my own story of self-stigma, and
serves as my jump-off point for a general discussion on stigma.
I
am an Adult A.D.D. That’s not an illness; not even a “disorder” as “Attention
Deficit Disorder” implies. Neither is it deficient attention. It’s
more like I’m over attentive to all stimuli, and it’s genetic. We ADD people
are hard-wired that way. Perhaps the “deficit” for us lies in how our
“condition” is handled by others. Until recently, we were seen as flawed. Many
people, including therapists, sometimes believe that we need to be “fixed.”
That
cannot happen. For me, meds never worked, and early-on most professionals
categorically denied that ADD could exist in adults; if it existed at all.
I
started Kindergarten in 1949 when the “Humane Mental Health Movement” was
barely underway, and I graduated High School in 1962. Back then few
professionals knew of ADD and it wasn’t until the late ’60’s that teachers and
principals knew much of it. What we now accept as ADD was boiled down to
behavior; good kids, bad kids and those who wouldn’t apply themselves. They
knew “mental retardation,” but I was a bright kid with a volatile temper, so I
was in trouble a lot.
Before
I proceed, I want to state clearly that I do not blame others for what happened
as result of being ADD I don’t want anyone to feel badly because of what I am
about to say. I simply want to acknowledge it and use it as a teaching point.
The past is done, and mostly I am reconciled with it.
At
school I fought a lot; such that a black eye on campus was mine, or I had given
it. I was shunned and/or goaded into more fights. I felt unaccepted and on the
outside of everything to the point that a few years ago a past classmate
commented, “I’m afraid we didn’t treat you very nicely in school.”
With
very notable exceptions I even stood alone with teachers.
Ultimately,
even now as an adult I expect “the other shoe to drop” every time I leave home.
As
a teenager, I protected myself by pulling so far away that at my 50-Year High
School Reunion, one of my classmates commented, “Jack, I remember you as a quiet
boy.” Little did he know that
despite being quite talkative I had no one to talk to.
I
responded, “The only reason I kept quiet was that if I didn’t, someone would be
there to knock me down.”
Even
in my family of origin, I seldom felt secure. From childhood I remember little
beyond conflict. If it wasn’t my dad getting into it with me or an older
brother, it was two older brothers fighting. It matters little where the onus
for that may have lain. That is just how I experienced life.
Despite
the fact that as a toddler I was doted on by my older brothers and sisters, I
just didn’t feel unconditionally loved, and I pulled away even from them. I
decided that some of my family really didn’t like me; especially Ron.
I
saw “signs that proved” my belief. Despite the fact that when we were little,
Ron and I were nearly inseparable, in time I came to avoid him. If I was traveling
on business, passing literally within two miles of his house, I made a point
not to disturb him. It hurt badly at first, but since I reasoned that was the
way he wanted things, I began to “reconcile” myself to what I thought was
reality. I would pass by; in tears at first. Besides, he was a busy physician.
Well,
wouldn’t you know it? Just when I think I’ve got it down pat, my machinations
start to break down.
When
our school in Oklahoma held a 100 year celebration a few years ago I avoided
checking to see if Ron was going even though we would travel the same highway.
I was reconciled to my old classmates, so I thought it didn’t matter if he were
there not. When someone said they saw him, I struggled with my response. Should
I maintain my status quo and not “bother him?”
To
my surprise, before I could decide, he looked me up in the crowd and gave me a
warm, loving hug; the warmest family hug I had known for many years.
My
inner response? “I didn’t know!”
From
that time, I began to reconcile to Ron, and would make special effort to stop
for lunch with him as I drove past. I hoped that without fanfare, in time I
would be able to put things such as I’ve written here into the distant past.
Then,
a couple of weeks before Ron died I had a phone visit with Glen, Ron’s best
friend, whom we consider a part of our family. Glen told me of when he and Ron first
met in the Eighth Grade.
“Jack,
I don’t know if you know this, but when Ron and I became friends he knew you
were treated badly at school. He made a point to say, ‘We’re going to be
friends, but you need to know that Jack’s a part of the package, and that’s the
way it will stay.’”
Glen
said he had seen many times when someone treated me badly and Ron followed up
later, confronting the offender and telling him to stop. Ron was a “big man on
campus,” and most people listened to him.
Glenn
finished, “You may not know it, Jack, but Ron always had your back.”
I never knew, and that’s “the rest of the story.”
I
began planning a stop at Junction City on May 2, a planned visit to the State
Capitol for the annual NAMIWalks, Kansas. I wanted to find a way to say, “Thank
you for looking out for me even though I never understood.”
BUT,
the cruel turn of fate was that my self-stigma became the final line of our
relationship.
I
can never again stop to have lunch with my brother. I can never again call him,
visit him or write him.
I
can never tell him, “Thanks, Ron.”
