drewsant's Blog

As I stated in the last blog, my elementary years were pretty uneventful for health issues. I did pretty good until about 5th grade. I had a best friend who was 2 1/2 years older than me--we were inseperable. I remember one summer, I think I was in 3rd grade, and she was in 6th, we wrote, directed, and produced a show we put on for the neighborhood. We actually wrote 2 short plays and had a "gong show" (it was popular at the time--dating myself here!). We made programs, had costumes, and got most of the kids in the neighborhood involved. The entire neighborhood actually came and watched--I think we did a great job considering how young we were!My friend Amy and I did stuff like that all the time. We were always being creative, whether it was making home movies, making up tumbling routines to music, or her trying to teach me how to ride a skateboard down her driveway (I sat on it!), or building club houses. I had a very normal childhood in that respect. My parents bought a pool when i was about 9, and after I got over my sheer terror of the water after about 2 years, I actually really enjoyed swimming. I also had a 3 wheel adult- sized bike that I would ride sometimes 10 miles a day. I also had some "guy" friends that came in handy around 4th grade when people did start to pick on me. There was one girl, Janet, who one week would be my friend, then the next week would be making fun of me, and we'd be screaming at each other from opposite ends of the sidewalk on the school playground. I remember one day when she was doing this, and 3 guys who were a grade ahead of me (one who I had a crush on since kindergarten) told me "you can come play with us on the jungle gym, and if she ever bothers you again, let us know and we'll take care of her". It was a good feeling knowing they had my back! So I kinda started hanging out with guys after that, because for some reason, they seemed to accept me more as I got older. My life was going great until about 4th or 5th grade. I had friends, and didn't really realize I was any different than anyone else. That is until about 5th grade when the proverbial s#!t hit the fan. I hit puberty pretty early-- 11 years old, and started going through the initial changes in 5th grade. I really started feeling like a freak, and since my body was going through obvious changes that most other girls weren't going through yet, I really stood out, and the teasing and ridicule started. It seemed like almost over night I went from being just like everyone else, to being a total freak. That was when I really realized I was different, and was disabled. It was between 5-6th grade that I really hit puberty, and I think that was when the depression started, probably brought on by the hormonal changes, and the way people were beginning to treat me. I suddenly went from not caring whether people noticed me or not, to absolutely wanting to be swallowed by the floor. I started withdrawing inside myself and being really quiet, which only adds fuel to jr high kids fire if they already think you are weird. So I started into this vicious cycle of feeling worthless, and like no one liked me, which kids of course picked up on, and ran with, and it developed a life of it's own, feeding off of myself and the other kids who now were teasing me, making fun of everything about me, and who used to be my friends. The only thing that really got me through it was music. I have always loved music--my earliest memories--besides of being in the hospital--were of music. The first song I remember was "Joy to The World" by Three Dog Night. Backtracking here, I was about 3 years old and had an orange "close and play" record player, and a bunch of 45's. I would sit in my bedroom on my inflatable orange chair, and listen to "Joy To The World". To this day that is probably my favorite song. I had started probably around 8-9 years old to come home every night and listen to my parents old 8-track player. They had all these old 8-tracks--Beatles, Elvis, and a lot of compilations, so I learned to love oldies. I would come home every afternoon from school, put on the 8-tracks and for about an hour or so, I would pretend I was singing or performing these songs. As I got older, and moved up in the world technologically, and got my own stereo, I started buying my own music. Queen, The Knack, Journey, Styx, REO, and oldies. Music became my salvation during jr high and high school. I would just lose myself in the music, and I wouldn't have a care in the world when I was in my room listening to my favorite songs. It didn't matter if I was disabled or not. The music took me to another world. Lukily I was drawn to good, positive music. As I got older, I would need the positive music more than ever. From 6th to 8th grade, I changed from being very outgoing, to being very quiet, and wanting to just blend in with the wallpaper. It must have worked, because by the time I was in High school, people pretty much ignored me. I did have some friends--not really nerds or geeks, but just outcasts, loners, and losers. I did join band, and played flute, and then started playing guitar in 7th grade in the jazz band. I had some band friends, but I still felt like I was an outsider. I'm going to end this part here, the next part will probably skip around a lot. I'll be telling about specific events in high school that really affected me.