Who Am I? : Living in Hell

Life had descended into hell for me.

At school, I was teased and picked on rather brutally. My clothes were ill fitting and frumpy and teenage girls can’t resist picking on a fashion disaster. I kept to myself and usually had a book with me. Another unpopular thing was to be caught reading. Only nerds brought books to read for pleasure from home. Also I went from being this skinny child to being over weight. I no longer went outside and got the exercise I used to get. I gained a great deal of weight, so that was another strike against me. What few friends I did have in school were also social outcasts.

This was the way of things until I hit high school. Somewhere along the line the majority of people gave up trying to pick on me. This happened for two reasons. I no longer reacted to the taunts. I finally figured out that it was them who had the problem and not me. I was happy to be who I was. The second got me respect. People needed help with homework or projects and stuff for classes. I wasn’t willing to do the work for them, but I was willing to help them. This gained me some respect. Now, this didn’t work for everyone, but it was nice to no longer be the number one target.

Despite being mostly invisible at school, which was what I strove for, it was the safest place for me. I would often get a ride to school with a friend. This meant I got there early and could participate in some of the clubs. I also tried to stay late. However joining activities after school seemed to get me more hell, than not.

I was on scholastic scrimmage. Since this was right after school, this meant my mother picked me up. This was a good thing. I was apart of the colorguard (bandfront) {marching band: I was the one with the 6-foot flagpole; and yes, I knew how to wield it}. It was fun. It was also exercise. I lost weight, which was good, however this meant being picked up from my dad because it wasn’t right after school. Those five minutes drives were hell.

See my father would drop me off ten minutes, sometimes 15 minutes or more late. He did this for everywhere I needed to be. He would then expect me to be waiting for him on time. It was ok for him to pick me up ten or 15 minutes late, but heaven forbid I was kept 5 minutes late at a practice. I got reamed at the entire way home. There worse things than being reamed at in that car.

In the end, I stopped going to school activities that involved my father picking me up. It was better to be completely locked at home than to endure what happened if I tried to spend any time out of it.

The only place I was free was the library. There I hid in the shelves. For the first three or four years, I worked as a shelver. It was my job to put books back on the shelf in the proper place. I was happy to hide in adult fiction or in YA (young adult) sections. I would find books to take home and read.

Reading was the safest activity for me. Of course, nothing was safe for me when my mother or father was screaming for me to do something. Yet, it was something I could easily go back. I also spent a great deal of time writing on an old beat up laptop my father pieced together so I wouldn’t be using my mother’s computer. It had Microsoft Works on it. That was all I needed. In fact, I still have that laptop. It no longer works, but it is currently sitting in my closet. It was my one true and constant companion. When that laptop died, my father pieced together another laptop from parts for me. That one still runs, but has a broken screen. So long as I NEVER EVER close the screen, the laptop will work.

Making sure I had a working laptop was the most decent thing my parents, actually my father did for me. In fact the laptop I use now was a birthday present two and half years ago. The other laptop wasn’t going to be able serve much longer. All I wanted for my birthday was a working laptop with wireless internet. It was one of those must have for college.

I surprised when they actually got it for me. Of course, there were people for my parents to impress by showing how much my parents loved me and took care of me. It was a rather insulting birthday. My mother went out of her way with gifts for me because others were watching. I got what I needed and wanted. I would have been happy with just that. Of course this was the only birthday that my parents even tried. Since my birthday falls so close to Christmas, I got a few things, enough to say they got me something for my birthday. I also lost out at Christmas because I was the oldest and “grew out of it”. However, they kept chugging away with the Christmas gifts for my two sisters long after the age they stopped doing decent Christmas loot.

Oh, nothing is worst than shooing your sisters to bed, then to wrap their gifts, stick them under the tree, that you put up and decorated, drink disgusting warm milk, so that it looked like Santa Claus came, nothing there was hardly anything there for you, doing this all while you are sick and running a fever, to finally collapse into bed, and then not be woken up Christmas morning, but then to be sent into the kitchen to make Christmas dinner. Yup, sucks to be me. Personally, I hate Christmas. I have hated it for years. Frankly, Jesus isn’t the reason for the season. Look at how the children act at Christmas: “Santa will you bring me this” or “Santa, can you bring me that”. It has become about presents and out decorating your neighbors. If it were out Jesus and his birth, there wouldn’t be presents or decoration trees, which, mind you, is a pagan aspect of Solstice.

There were too many Christmases where I did all the work and got absolutely nothing. I didn’t even get to see my sisters happy with the gifts they received. Heck, I picked them out and wrapped them. My mom pretended that she was the one who did the stuff. She helped minimally with wrapping. Every holiday that ever hit my house was hell.

I like Chanukah. I set up my menorah and light my candles. I recite the bracha beside it. True the holiday is rabbinic and to commemorate the 8 days the oil lasted, but it means a little more. By lighting the candles each night, I recognize the miracles that Gd gives to us. It reminds me that Gd listens and sees us. We are Gd candles here on earth. We try very, very hard to do good and sometimes we fail, but we keep trying to serve him. In that we hold a light, a little candle. I might be weird in thinking that, but by doing mitzvahs, we bring light to others and to ourselves in the name of HaShem.


Stress relief in the pit of hell was playing RPG video games. It was the only place I got to kill things. I enjoy killing things. I could do it all in the guise of saving the world. True, I liked watching the story on unfold and go on missions, but killing mean, nasty monsters was good therapy for me since I couldn’t destroy the mean, nasty monsters that plagued my life.

I was once told by a friend that she would understand if I had become an ax murder and killed my parents and ungrateful sisters. Yeah, that is a doozie of a comment. I didn’t become an ax murder despite it all. I prefer swords. Yes, I collect. No, I don’t kill people. Well, I did keep a sword by the bed in case someone broke in. I like being able to defend myself. I no longer keep a sword by my bed.

Anyway, I lived in Hell for years and years. After graduating high school, my father was trying to move us to Delaware. Our house was given up before we had a permanent place to stay and before my father actually got the job he was supposed to get. This meant bouncing around motels and hotels until a permanent place could be found. Living in one room with your family and pets, sucks. There is no privacy and no space for yourself.

I was forced to leave school half way through the semester and leave the job that I loved. I gave up everything to take care of the family. Essentially, I gave up all the good in my life to go live in a blacker, deeper pit of hell. My college dreams were shattered by the endless need of my mother to have me there to take care of her and my two sisters.

It became evident that I would need to work if we were going to eat. I got a job at 5.75 an hour. At the time minimum wage was 5.15. Not bad and I after 90 days I got a raise and I got a promotion several months after that. It was a job that I could get to no matter where we were living. I worked long hours schlepping heavy stuff around. It killed my back further.

So for four years my life is basically as follows. I can remember the rough lines of what happened and very few actual detailed memories. I became a rather nasty bitch.

I fought with my parents to get my youngest sister back in school. They didn’t want to get her in a school only to move her. I had someone call Children and Youth on my mother, because if I called, I probably would not have lived to type this up. Children and Youth only helped the situation minimally, but it got my sister back in school.

I fought with my parents to get permanent housing. Living in a motel for 4 years sucked royally. My mother ran the TV 24 hours a day and the lights were never completely turned out. Try learning to sleep like that night after night after working sometimes 10-hour shifts doing a job you pretty much hate.

Money was tight. I had to fight to make sure there was enough food to cover the bill at the place we were staying, put gas in the car so I could get to work and put food on the table. My mother didn’t seem to be too interested in making sacrifices. She still needed the expensive treats and cakes she had when we weren’t living in temporary quarters. It came down to fights.

It was the first time in my life that I learned how to make and expletive an expletive. I was didn’t know I could curse with meaning behind it. I am not proud of that. It did get my parents attention. I had gained power with age. I stood up to my parents when they were unable to retaliate. I might not have been so brave if I knew they could retaliate. See, I had lost everything at this point. I had no contact with friends my age. I lost both school and work.

I went to work, did errands, came home, did chores and collapsed into sleep. When not doing chores at home, I was on call. I sat at my laptop writing with headphones on my head. A quarter of the time I played music. The headphones were for show. With them on, I was not bothered as much, only when I was really needed.

I had no life. I prayed every night before I went to bed. I prayed in the car when I was alone. When things got to be too much, I cried in the car. It was the only place that I was ever alone. I wasn’t even alone in the bathroom. I often had to remove the door so my mother’s wheelchair could get in. A curtain got hung across the door. So, yeah, I didn’t have the shower to myself. Think about that evasion of privacy.

I did everything. I got nothing but heartache. I was more servant or slave than an actual member of the family.

I know Hell exists. I lived there. I now only occasionally vacation there.

Fallen Angel