I believe a good place to start would be an introduction to my parents, who hated people questioning my gender so much that they solved the problem permanently by piercing my ears at the age of two. That should sum things up.
My parents didn't get along very well. Although they might have been convinced their relationship was healthy, I noticed something was wrong by the age of eight. It took me a few years to realize it, but it's not normal for two parents to sleep in separate beds. I feel like the closer I got to junior high, the worse the arguments got. While riding in the car one day, my father turned to me and said, "The only reason your mom and I are still together is for you". It was in this same car ride I received this bit of wisdom: "In a relationship, there is always one person who cares more about their spouse. Never be that person". I'm not really sure if he knew I understood what he said. I doubt he believed I'd remember it ten years later, but I more than understood - I shouldered the blame.
I might be painting a very negative picture, but mundane memories of happiness don't make for good story telling. My childhood wasn't completely awful. However, I'm realizing that I was born to two parents not totally ready to handle me. I lived in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania where the nearest neighbor my age was three miles away - practically the other side of the earth to a 10-year-old. I had a very lonely childhood, made worse by the fact that my parents often worked strange shifts at their jobs. When I made it home my parents would either be leaving for work or sleeping. Hooray abandonment issues! I was raised by a system of aunts, uncles, cousins and babysitters picking me up and dropping me off at the dozens of lessons and recitals I was involved in: piano, tutoring, three different baton lessons, football games, clubs, and religious education classes.
Add to this the "gifted" label slapped on my forehead in the third grade and you have a nut case brewing. To be labeled a gifted student, you need a 130 IQ minimum and you must be extraordinarily talented in some regard. Being gifted means that you get a pat on the head, a cookie, and you're sent on extra field trips when your teachers don't know what else to do with you. Those are the parts they tell your parents. What they don't tell them about are the struggles your child will face when their mental age exceeds that of their peers.
This was how I entered junior high: without many friends, little-to-no parental support and overloaded with activities. Doesn't this sound like a great plan?
