Pre Lyme

Pre Lyme- My Troubled Youth and "Not Fitting In"

When I was little I lived in Wauconda, Illinois until about 4th grade, when we moved to Island Lake, Illinois.
That is where most of my memories stem from. I had a totally normal childhood. I had good friends, good parents, a brother and a sister, dogs and cats. A totally normal life up to this point.

We had a nice big house, in a cul de sac. In back of our house was woods, woods with paths that led to a quarry, and another path that led to our school. As kids, we lived on those paths, running around, playing, trying to get to the quarry where there was a lake we could swim in. We even had a two story underground fort in which we hooked up electricity from my neighbors house. Pretty cool stuff. Basic life as a child.

At some point in grade school around 4th grade, I started feeling really insecure about myself. I felt like I didn't fit in. I felt like everyone was "better" then me. I felt ugly. I developed OCD. I had to count everything and make everything "even." I had to somehow make these weird "counting rituals" I had developed blend in so noone  would notice I was doing them. That actually started in grade school. One day I was walking home and another child shouted out, "Don't step on a crack, it will break your mother's back." After that I would take forever to get home from school, trying to avoid every crack in the sidewalk. That was it. Insert OCD for the rest of my life.

The worst part was with my insecurites I became afraid to talk in front of others. I remember having to go to the bathroom so bad in fourth grade, but being afraid to ask the teacher. Then when the bell rang, I'd be too shy to go in the bathroom. So, I would walk home, very slowly, as I coulnd't step on a crack. didn't want to be responsible for breaking my mom's back, afterall. So the combination of not being able to pee at school, and having to take hours to get home from school, would make me pee in my pants almost daily, further isolating me. I had to find ways home where noone would see me. I coulnd't walk by other kids. 

I had a small group of friends I did play with though. Then in fourth grade, we moved a town over. I made some new friends. I was so excited when it was time to go into Junior High. As both towns went to the same Junior High and I would see my old friends as well as my new friends!

But that didn't turn out well. I remember some of my old friends would not talk to me. One in particular, said to me, "You may wonder why I don't talk to you, but I'm a cheerleader now and can only talk to the "cool" kids." I remember feeling very rejected, and again, not worthy. This feeling would never go away for me. To this day, it lingers, that icky rejection, I am not good enough, feeling. Everyone is prettier, smarter, way better then me.

Even in this picture you can see the
way iI tried to make myself stand out and
look different, with my spiked  hair and
"Joan Jett" make up.
I'm the first person on the left
side of the picture.

As the teen years approached, I became a pain in the butt.  I don't know why. I really can't explain why I would do this, but I became what nowadays is known as a cutter. I didn't do a lot of cuts like I see kids do now, but I would do them on my wrists in the same place again and again. I would go to the girl's bathroom in junior high and sit in the stall with a pencil and rub it against my wrist until i had worn away any skin. I hid this with long sleeve shirts and wrist bands. My mom noticed only once that I'm aware of but I played it off as a fall. I'm not sure why I did it, I don't remember any home circumstances being terrible. I don't think I even knew if I wanted to kill myself. I just wanted to release pain I had inside for no reason. I never heard of "cutting" back then, and didn't know of anyone else that ever did it.

Someone told me that if you cut your wrist sideways that it won't cut the vessels right and they would  clot before you could bleed out. Again, OCD kicked in and I started doing the cutting up and down. I had to do it right, the way it is supposed to be done. But why? Did I want to kill myself or not, I still wasn't sure. I didn't kow why I was doing this still.

Then came suicide attempts. One morning I woke up and my mom said, we are going to the mall. I looked down and saw a bottle of Vivaren. For absolutey no reason at all, I picked up that bottle, poured a handful of pills in my hand and swallowed them quickly. We got to Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg and I started getting vertigo. I told my mom I didn't feel good and I ran back to our van. Before I could get in, I threw up all over, all the pills, halfway digested by now. I just laid in the van. No thoughts in my mind about what just happened, I was empty, just blank. My mom came out to check on me eventually and I just told her I had the flu. I can't remember if she saw the pills in the throw up or not. To this day I will never take Viveran again.

 By high school, I was attracted to trouble makers and anyone that seemed different. I was extremely

My cousin, Chrissy and I. 

attracted to the punk rockers of the school, the partiers. I started to do things like smoking pot, drinking and experimenting with drugs. The weird thing was that I didn't like the feeling of ANY of them. They made me feel terrible. I felt out of reality and out of control. I don't like that feeling at all. I started to fear smoking pot or trying drugs, but i did it, to fit in.

One day, at school, one of my friends held out her hand and said take one, her hand was full of different white pills. She said, just pick one, I got them out of my grandma's purse. I took one, fear inside me of not knowing what was about to happen. Nothing happened that day. 

The next day, I went to the mall with my mom and my friend Shauna. (I will change her name until she gives me permission to use it.) My friend and I went to the bathroom and had a cigarette. I smoked Marlboro Reds. I remember feeling really dizzy and just thought it was from having the first cigarette of the day. (Why do I smoke when it makes me sick??? Oh yeah, to be cool. )   We were in a cd store and as usual, I was trying to steal cds by breaking them out of their plastic cases and shoving them up my sleeve. I had several up my sleeve and then picked out one that I would actually purchase. My friend and I made our way to the counter to pay for the one and I started feeling dizzy again. I turned to my friend and said, "I don't feel right."

The next thing I remember is waking up with a paramedic holding a pencil in between my teeth. I tried to sit up and he yelled at me to lay down. He said don't move, but all I could think about was the cds in  my sleeve and I tried to sit up and started saying, I'm ok, I'm ok just let me go. The next thing I remember is waking up in an ambulance on it's way to the hospital. I had had two seizures.

In the hospital they ran blood tests. They asked me what I had eaten that day and I said I had only had a banana. It was weird because they told my parents that I had a seizure because of low potassium. I asked why when my potassium levels were normal and I had actually even eaten a banana that morning. The doctors just said, well it's the only thing we can think of that would cause this, and potassium levels will lower and increase quickly so the blood work may just be wrong. ( I think this was my first experience with doctors being too lazy to figure out what was really wrong.)

In the meanwhile my friend was getting drilled in the waiting room by my parents. They had noticed I was not myself anymore. They suspected drug use. And Shauna told them. She told them I had taken an unidentified pill the day before. My parents and the doctors lectured me and life went on.

The only other medical issues I really had, was finding a lump in my breast. I had surgery at 17 to get it out. It was a benign tumor. The one thing that stands out is when I woke up, the doctors and nurses were standing around me and were all saying, "Thank God! You scared us? We couldn't wake you up and your dad is scared. We gotta go tell him you're awake now."  My first scary reaction to anethesia. I was nauseous for days. 

I went through high school doing the normal things troubled kids do, partying, concerts, boys, and "trying to be cool." I ran away several times. I don't know how many times.Once cops found me in an empty house that my friend's family had just moved out of. Another time I stayed with my friend, who had marrired very young, and her and her husband had turned us in. My friend Mel and I had the goal of making it to Texas, with no money, dyed hair and no car.


That was it, my parents had enough and put me in a psychiatric ward for troubles teens. I met Alex there. My first true love. After I got released after about six weeks, I would help him "break out" of there. And after he got caught, I would help him break out of a foster home too. He was the equal rebel to me. We had some fun adventures. Eventually the cops caught up to him and took him into custody and I never heard from him again.

At that moment something happened. I can't explain it. I questioned myself, why am I this  way? Why do I want to be in trouble all the time? I didn't like always being grounded. I didn't like the feeling of being a burnout or loser. WTF am I doing?

I stopped doing drugs. I still drank here and there socially with friends. But I stopped experimenting with drugs that just made me sick anyways, I stopped smoking pot. My parents sent me to a different school and I met new friends, espeically through my job at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Mundelien, Illinois. 

At this time in 1985 I got pregnant and my life changed forever. For the better. I still made some bad decisions. For example one night my friends and I decided to seel everything we owned, bought an old mail truck (steering wheel on the wrong side) and wouldn't go over 55 MPH. And we headed to Texas. They dropped me and my one year old daughter off at my grandma's. Now even though this was a very irresponsible and  spontaneous thing to do, it was a blessing. I got to spend a lot of time with my grandma. This would be the last time I spent with her before she died after falling down the stairs of the apartment I helped her move into. I loved her and she was my favorite person in the world. I still miss her and talk to her and can smell her perfum like she is still standing next to me.

As time went on I matured, had three kids and got married. (Yes, I did it backwards, the rebel that I am.) I had a perfect life at this point. All my insecurities from the past were starting to fade. I met the most awesome husband someone could ever have. He was a great dad. We travelled alot. We went camping every weekend. My in laws had a cabin up North in Wisconsin that we would go to quite often. We would take the kids and hike up hills, take them swimming in the lake and spend a lot of times outdoor cooking on the fire. Things were great. 

OK so at this point, you are probably asking yourself why I am airing all my dirty laundry? I'm writing this for a couple reason, 

My personal reason: If feels good to get it all out. I want my parents to know that I know I was an asshole, a difficult child. It wasn't their fault. It was something wrong inside of me, not anything they did.

To help other troubled children: I now have met other cutters. I know how  hard it is and how "weird" you feel. I know the unexplained pain you feel inside with no way to express it because you don't understsand it yourself.

Was this my first infection? Part of me wonders when I got infected with Lyme. I'm not one to really blame everything on Lyme. Was I just born with mental/emotional issues or did I get infected with something that started affecting my thinking? Was I infected in 4th grade when my OCD started? I don't think so because even though I know Lyme can cause OCD, I know that others in my family have it so I'm betting on this one being hereditary. Did I get it in junior high when I started feeling insecure and wanting to cut myself for no reason? Maybe, that's when I started playing in the woods. I remember in grade school and in junoir high having massive bites on my legs...before and after the OCD started and the cutting. My mom said they were "spider bites or sting weed rashes."

I'm really not sure if any of this is related to Lyme Disease or not but my life is not ALL Lyme, so I'm choosing to include this part of my life to give you a little background to see why I've become the person I have become. Whether you like, love or dislike or even hate me, this is what made me who I am and why I have gone the route I have in life. This was my childhood, insecure, feeling like never fitting in, feeling "not good enough," feeling ugly and doing anything I could in life to "just fit in."