I had a very normal childhood growing up…I had a mother and father who loved me, a younger sister I couldn’t tolerate and fought with most of the time, lived in a three-bedroom two-bathroom house located in a quiet cul-de-sac, and went to a public middle school. I was different from the other kids in that I was short, wore glasses, and carried a heavy backpack in the hallways. I was bullied and made fun of on a daily basis which I became accustomed to for awhile. Then one night after an intense study session, I fell asleep on my desk without realizing it.
My mother will never forget when she tried to wake me up the following morning. She said that she walked in my room and couldn’t believe how I was constantly able to drift away with the desk lamp on near my head and my face planted in a textbook while breathing through the opening between the two pages. She was used to simply resting her hand on my shoulder, whispering my name, and I would immediately rise. Assuming that this was no different than any other morning, she continued this ritual. This particular morning, however, I responded by jumping out of my chair, grabbing her by the shoulders, and screaming at her while saliva poured out of my mouth and into her face. I had never seen that look of fear in my mother’s eyes before. I did not understand what had caused me to react that way. As I regained my composure, she pulled herself out of my grasp and ran away as though she was trying to escape from a mugger. I couldn’t believe how I reacted and was unaware what prompted the behavior. Later on that day, Mom had forgotten about what had happened earlier and we both agreed that it was probably due to a nightmare I was having. I assured her it was single event due to stress and the burden of my advanced classes. She also made me promise that I would make more of an effort to actually sleep in that soft and horizontally-long piece of furniture in my room instead of on my desk. I wish I could say that with those remedies that violent reactions such as my outburst would never happen again, but unfortunately, it wasn’t.
The next few weeks were uneventful. I set a curfew for myself, slept in my bed every night, woke up fully rested the next day, and went to school. I assumed everything was okay and had almost forgotten what had happened. Then one Friday afternoon after school, some of my friends and I decided to go and see a matinee. We usually didn’t go to the theater unless they had a new science-fiction movie and we always wanted to be the first ones to see it so we could brag about it to everyone on Monday. We especially enjoyed anything with humans battling humanoid or creature-like aliens who were attempting to destroy humanity and take over the Earth. We didn’t care whether or not there were computer-generated special effects or actors in cheap costumes on cardboard sets. We liked seeing the action, explosions, fighting, spaceships, and dialogue.
To be continued…