The Opposite of Normal, Andrew Boggan [brene brown rising strong .TXT] 📗

up on the ceiling and placed my goodbye letter onto my Dad’s workbench. It read:

I so wanted to be like you. I would see you all come in each morning smiling gleefully with joy and embracing each other’s diversity and backgrounds. You always gave your friends a fair go and no matter what, stood by your mates regardless and showed the true meaning of friendship.

I did everything I could to be like you. I treated you all with decency, dignity, respect and courtesy.

If I breathed I was punished, if I talked I was ridiculed, if I walked I was beaten up and if I even looked at you I was humiliated. Yet you all toke pride in poking fun at me and making me deaf by your piercing evil laugher. Never had I gone out of my way to make your life a misery but you turned mine that. Never had I done anything to you but exist.

You’ve all killed me leaving my physical being to survive without a soul. Your wish has finally been granted. Today I am leaving you all and if any blood spills in this process, my blood will be on your hands today.

It’s too late to change things, you’ve caused the damage and I can no longer return. May god have mercy on your soul.

I stood up on the chair, slowly placed the noose around my neck, smiled and quietly said “It’s finally over”. I then kicked the chair out from underneath me. Immediately struggling to stay conscious I could feel myself fading away into darkness while the rope started to cut into my neck. My body was going through a series of violent jolts whilst I waited for the new life that I longed for to come and take me away. A bright light suddenly appeared out of nowhere and I don’t know if my vision was starting to the feel the effects but the blinding white light seemed to be a beacon of hope and faith and I began to relax. The new world was opening up for me, ready to take me just the way I am.

The white light was as bright as the sun, but it didn’t hurt to look into it. The light was a symbol of hope and faith, ready to take the shattered remnants of my heart and piece it back together. Although I couldn’t see it, I was certain that a group of angels stood behind the light with their arms open wide to accept me just the way I am. That was a far cry compared to the bullies at school that forced me into this situation.

The rope began to cut deeper into my throat cutting off my breathing and blood circulation. Then, much to my surprise, the rope snapped and I collapsed to the ground. My attempt was squashed and I was still alive. Barely moving on the cold concrete below, I could feel my pulse slowly beat away, attempting to move the last bit of life through my veins.

Due to the loud crashing noise that was heard as I fell to the ground, my father came rushing from upstairs to see what all the commotion was about. He was as white as a ghost as he stood at the doorway looking at the broken rope dangling from the wooden bar. He could see the look of desperation in my eyes as I lay on the floor lifeless and not moving. I never had any intention of telling my parents what I had planned to do, but now my secret was out and my planned had been foiled.

I didn’t sleep that night. I just laid in my bed staring up at the ceiling trying not to move my neck from the paid I had recently inflicted. Whatever attempt I had made to try and live a life full of happiness had been squandered and I questioned how much longer I had to live like this. At age 14 my life was just beginning and if this was an example of how life was to be for the rest of adult life, I couldn’t be apart of such a world.

Ω

My father was never one to freely display his emotions. The next day he sat in the kitchen looking at me with tears rolling down his eyes. Tears that I never knew existed in my father eyes until now. I didn’t know it until then, but if I had killed myself then I would have killed my parents. Fate certainly intervened that day, but if it intervened because of me or to save heartache from my parents I will probably never know.

My parents immediately began looking at putting me into counseling. I certainly didn’t refuse. I knew that I needed help and this was probably the one and only time in my life where I just didn’t feel the need to ask, help was just a given. While my parents did the work of looking for counseling, I spent my time reflecting on what happened. I questioned several things: Did I not tie the rope up properly; would my classmates at school felt guilty had it gone through properly, would my parents have been able to survive? Was I saved by some supernatural force I didn’t know about? So many things I wanted to question and not one person on this earth had the answers I needed to know.

I was about to begin a journey of getting better. And over the several weeks of looking for an appropriate counselor, the temptation of repeating my previous actions were difficult to resist. I wasn’t really into the belief of the Christian faith, but I did question if “God” had intervened that day. What if God was actually trying to tell me “Not now, its your not your turn to go”. Certainly this was a possibility but not one that I would have believed at this point in my life.


Chapter 5


“Asperger’s – The Label of Separation”

Jenny Westwood always presented a beautiful smile. Her soothing her voice allowed my mind to open up and discuss the many issues about the recent months of social anxiety, suicide and depression. From when I first started going to see Jenny Westwood, it didn’t take long before I had built a good rapport with my counselor.

The first few sessions were probably the most grueling sessions I had ever had with a counselor. In my primary school days I had visited various school counselors who I didn’t quite connect with, and although I enjoyed talking with all of them, Jenny was probably the most understanding counselor I could talk too. It was such a rare occasion that I could actually talk to somebody and have the other person understand where I was coming from. For once I didn’t feel quite alone.

After my fourth session with Jenny, she was able to answer the constant question I had always asked myself “What’s wrong with me?” Jenny had diagnosed me with Asperger’s Syndrome.

At first I didn’t quite know what to think, and at 14 I had very minimal to no understanding of Autism little lone its spectrum disorders. The word Asperger’s didn’t quite bother me; it was the word Syndrome that I had the issue with. My thought patterns had always associated people with different syndrome’s as physically sick or having acquired a genetic disease, not part of the autism spectrum.

Jenny was very adamant that having Asperger’s Syndrome was nothing to be ashamed of, and that I could still continue living with the condition no matter what. She strongly enforced suggestions about how to cope rather than how to try and cure it.

A new part of my life was unfolding before my eyes, quicker than I could gather the strength to try and stop it.


Chapter 7


“Closing the door to the past”

Those close to me have always whispered in my ear “When one door closes, another opens”. I never really did understand the true meaning behind those words until the morning of November 26 1999. The last day of high school had finally arrived and it was soon to leave those dismal dark days of high school behind. I now had the opportunity to throw the emotionally crippling memories and take forth a new chapter in my life.

Some people always said that saying Goodbye is probably one of the hardest words to say but for me, leaving school on this day, Goodbye was the easiest word to speak. In the final hour of the year 12 farewell ceremony, the school principal played “You say it best when you say nothing at all”. I could hear the tsunami of emotion taking a strong hold on my classmates around me. Whilst they sat and cried at the true meaning behind the lyrics of the song, I perceived the words from that song to be a little different. To me, my classmates always said it best when they said nothing at all. In my eyes that meant if they said nothing to me, I was being shown how distant I was to the rest of my classmates. When they didn’t speak, their actions were truly speaking louder than words. Whist everyone around me reflected on current friendships, I kept waiting for my chance to break into another world and create a whole new me.

At the end of the farewell ceremony, the entire grade 8 class created a guard of honor for the year 12 students as they exited the assembly hall. The majority of the graduating students walked in groups, making the moment of holding onto friendships and providing support to one another as they walked down the guard of honor. I exited the assembly hall alone, and as I looked at each student who walked passed me, they represented each chapter in my life that was finally closing. As I came closer to the end Ms Anderson was standing in the guard of honor holding her hands out in front clapping in support for her students. As I approached her, she looked me straight in the eye and lightly whispered “Keep at it Brendan, the writing will take you somewhere”. Those were the last words whispered in my ear at school. I simply thanked her and quietly walked out of the school grounds.

Whist I quietly walked out of the school grounds, I could see my classmates all in groups taking final photo’s of one another and signing each other’s year books. Nobody asked me to stay around for photo’s that day; I quietly snuck away, exiting through the school gates for the final time, never to look back again. I didn’t even stop to take in a final view of the exterior of the school.

The evil days of school was finally over and I was now standing at an intersection not knowing which way to go. I could either go lock myself in my bedroom for the rest of my adult life to prevent any chance of mental anxiety from reoccurring, or, I could take in a new blood of life and at least try to live a life that I so longed for by making somebody of myself.

I headed into Fortitude Valley a week after school finished. I often enjoyed going into the valley to look around at the market stalls and try and find a bargain. The warm summer night had gotten on and I had to consider about heading to the train station to catch the last train home. As I made my way towards the train station I