Note to Readers: Some names in this story have been changed, others omitted.

This story is an actual account of a traumatic event that twisted my sixth grade year, stole my childhood, and shaped me into the person I am today. It is not a pity party nor is it an attempt to angst about how “bad” my life is. I consider myself to be very lucky that I have come this far.

***

Post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a long name for a mental illness commonly found among war veterans and rape survivors. A strange and twisted turn of events shaped my particular case, while at the same time changing my life—forever.

Flash back to 2001. I was in sixth grade, going through a turbulent year at Böblingen Elementary School in Stuttgart, Germany. At the beginning of the year, my life had started improving despite continuous abuse from my peers. My teacher had been excellent, and I had become closer to some of my friends after surviving a serious case of appendicitis. My parents and I had another four years left stationed overseas as a military family, and we were functioning well in German society.

The only problems I was facing going into sixth grade as an undersized and submissive 11-year-old were the social ones bound to carry over from the classroom battles that had been raging for two years—over things such as jealousy, friend triangles, unacceptable quirks, and other childish conflicts. I hadn’t changed much physically—still the same plain and concealing clothing I was given a hard time for wearing, still the same short stature, same hair, same everything.

Our first few days as the “big kids” in school were laid back while we enjoyed our substitute, a lady we all knew from certain school events. The usual teacher, Ms. F, had just moved from the United States and was too busy moving into her new home to work with us just yet. During our social activities, I became instant friends with a new girl. Dark-haired and shy, Leone was new to the American school scene. Her mother, a German national, had divorced her husband and was remarried to an American man—an Air Force soldier. This resulted in Leone’s accented but fluent English and her registration as a Böblingen student. Having a new best friend was everything to me. My closest friend from fifth grade had transferred to another school, so without Leone I was left in the dark.

It was supposed to be a promising school year. The way it was set up, our sixth year was our last year of elementary school, and then we would jump right into seventh grade—high school. There was no middle school or any other kind of transition involved. Growing up over a three-month summer vacation thrilled me because I had no idea what it entailed.

Ms. F’s arrival marked the beginning of the downward spiral. No word except “cruel” could really sum her up effectively. She seemed to acquire a very specific kind of pleasure for upsetting a select few of us. Her prey radar was frighteningly accurate, and now that I look back on it, very cowardly. She only gave the bullying victims a hard time. In fact, the bullies themselves became her class pets, which only reinforced their aggression. It was grossly unfair to watch them receive good character awards and gold stars while the three or four of us struggled to keep our heads above water. The staff swooned over these kids, not knowing or not wanting to know what kind of hell they put us through on the playground.

With the new teacher came a new principal. Her name alone made us weak at the knees. She was Ms. Deatherage, and even the majority of staff disliked her. She was gray, unfriendly, and cold. If you broke the rules, you paid for a crime far worse than the one you committed. She discarded the friendly student functions, tossed away creativity, and beat us down hard with curriculum beyond our capability. She accused us of being anarchists, and treated us like herd animals.

The bullies shared her hostile mindset and quickly had themselves wrapped around her finger. This served one of my particular tormenters well. She and I had been great friends right around the time between late fifth grade, early sixth grade, and of course, as many best friends do, we shared secrets with each other. Things fell through, and our differences proved to be too much for our short-lived friendship. When October rolled around, her new crowd’s bad attitude had rubbed off on her and she and I were nemeses.

The darkest secret I had shared with her during our friendship was one that came up between us when we had been discussing boys. I mentioned I had a deep-set fear of them because of a sexual attack I had suffered at the age of four. I hadn’t even gone into many specifics, just that he had touched me in bad places and made me do things I didn’t want to do, all the while telling me that it was a harmless, but strictly secret, “game”.

She remembered this, and when we were in the middle of one of our on-again, off-again fights, she went to the principal and told her that I had described the incident (in graphic detail) to the kindergarteners who rode our bus.

Ms. Deatherage confronted me on the playground and marched me into her bland office, demanding an explanation.

Of course I denied it, not only because I would have never talked about such a thing to kindergarteners, but also because I figured it wasn’t her business to know that I had been molested. My parents knew, and the guilty had been put to justice, but they didn’t need to be faced with it again after we had buried it and moved on with our lives.

Because of the girl’s friendly relationship with the principal, she didn’t believe me and threatened to have me expelled from the bus, in addition to forcing me into school-sponsored psychological treatment. She called me “sneaky” and phoned my mother while I sobbed into an armchair.

My enemy was delighted with what happened, and as I boarded the bus that afternoon (I was not expelled), she foul-mouthed me until I ran off the bus in tears, her group of friends laughing.

I had to call my mother to come and pick me up, which again involved the cold-blooded principal, who berated me for “using my mother to satisfy my selfish needs” and for being “an overly-sensitive crybaby”.

I started falling downhill even before I was faced with the real climax. On a daily basis, I was called “stupid”, “worthless”, “idiot”, “geek”, “loser”, “failure”, and other nasty names multiple times. Plus I would get another three or four bruises added to my collection, as the physical abuse from my peers escalated dramatically. Leone and I bonded even more as this continued, prompting a new series of insults and accusations (from twelve-year-old kids!) of homosexuality. Our close friendship was made uncomfortable to share in public because people would call us lesbians to our faces. I was very unfamiliar with the term, and it hurt because they spoke about it as if it were a bad thing. We did love each other, and very much, but never romantically and certainly not sexually.

I became more and more attached to my artwork, but even this had its drawbacks. I would be relentlessly chastised and punished for doodling in class, even though I did make it clear that I was paying attention. But facing verbal abuse from the school staff and my classmates couldn’t even compare to what was about to happen. It would mark the beginning of 2002, and the beginning of a struggle against post-traumatic stress disorder.

Wednesday, January 10th, 2002. Morning. My mother and I were stressed as we rushed out of the house with our little white dog and met a fierce German wind, jeweled with icy rain. The gray sky pressed down on us, and I felt suffocated by the graphite-colored clouds. It was on these mornings that I had difficulty getting out of bed, because I didn’t want to have to deal with what I called a “wall-to-wall gray sky”.

So we were late on our way to the bus stop, which was sheltered by oak trees in a park on the other side of town. My mother really let me have it when we were about a fourth of the way there. “You’re always late getting ready. It stresses me out—you know it stresses me out—are you trying to make me crazy?”

The blood rushed to my rain-freckled face. “I get it, okay? Stop yelling at me!” My biggest fear at the moment was having some of the neighbors hear her shouting.

Suddenly, she snatched me by the wrists and shook me furiously. “I don’t like your tone! Do not talk to me like that!” she snapped, the wind whipping her hair across her face. She let me go and I stumbled backward, surprised into tears.

I let her march onward, our dog running alongside her, getting splashed by the gray rainwater collecting in the dips of the uneven street. My mom rarely showed her temper, and I felt a sting of heat stroke my spine as I silently walked, still quickly, about ten paces behind her. I continued to sniffle, hoping my eyes weren’t going to be too noticeably red to my classmates who rode the bus with me. It would be a prime reason for them to target me for their daily teasing.

We weren’t as late as we thought we were going to be. In fact, we waited, in calm, with the other children, standing sullenly in the silver rain that was light enough to be mist. I tried to even my breathing so I wouldn’t sob, and concentrated on my little white dog as he sniffed at the mossy tree trunks. The traffic was heavy on the three roads that surrounded our peninsula of a bus stop. Morning commuters leaving the bakery, going to work, balancing a cup of coffee in one hand and trying to drive with the other.

The bus arrived, spitting water from the tires onto my white tennis shoes. It was not like the yellow American school buses. It was a “Schulbus” by day, a city bus by night. I neglected to bid my mother a “good-bye”; I felt she didn’t deserve it. I kissed my puppy’s rain-soaked head and let him lick my hands before I boarded. Thank god for that sweet animal.

I picked a seat in the very front so I didn’t have to walk through the group of bullies who dominated the middle rows. I snuggled into the hood of my purple and black jacket and stretched across the red and brown checkered seat, falling asleep against my backpack, still crying lightly.

Vague dreams without color greeted me in my sleep as the hour-and-a-half commute passed us by in a blur. We pulled up to the front of the school, and head hung low, I exited first, shoving my way through the red-bordered Plexiglas doors and joining my few friends in the sixth-grade line. Leone was waiting for me with a smile, but as soon as she saw my upset face, her blue eyes turned to steel behind her glasses. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“Not here,” I responded in a whisper. Breaking the rules and flying low under the Nazi principal’s radar, we made for the kindergarten bathrooms. At the tiny sinks which barely reached my waist, I blurted out that my mother had yelled at me that morning. “It’s just not what she usually does,” I confessed, wiping the rain off of my forehead with my sleeve. “I hardly ever see her that mad, and I didn’t really do anything anyway.”

Leone nodded sympathetically and squeezed my hand. “What else happened?”

“She kind of grabbed me a little—it was scary, I don’t know.” I inhaled. “It didn’t hurt. I think she just did it to get my attention.”

“She was having a bad day,” Leone offered.

“It is a bad day, though. The weather is yuck, the cold is yuck, everything is—”

“—yuck?” Leone finished, a grin playing on her lips.

“Yuck,” I agreed. I rubbed at the dark sleep circles under my eyes, checking one last time in the spotted mirror. The lighting made every shadow harsh. “Can you tell I’ve been crying?” I said.

“No. Not by looking at you.”

The bell rang, one, two, three times, and after one last hug we raced up the three flights of stairs to our classroom, careful not to slip on the wet, gray floors. We did not welcome the fluorescent lighting and cinderblock walls of our classroom with enthusiasm. Ms. F was at her desk, scowling as usual, and straightening papers. I could smell her very floral perfume from the other side of the rectangular room.

My seat was at the back, facing the chalkboard directly, and backed by six heavily barred windows. The bars, they said, were there because the school had previously been used as either a prison or a bomb shelter in WWII—I don’t remember which. In any case, they were always unsettling to look at, especially when the school days were long and run by an insane, self-absorbed, and very mean-tempered teacher.

The late bell sounded, and in the silence immediately following it the sixth grade’s meanest predator entered. Stacy, an older girl with a pale, unfriendly face and equally unfriendly demeanor, didn’t even bother to rip off her belted black rain coat, just strolled up to where the teacher was sitting and handed her a folded note.

I looked back to my workbook and began drawing small pictures of dogs in the corner. Everyone said I was a good artist, but that was the one and only compliment they gave, and only when I didn’t tell on them for beating me up in the corner of the playground behind the cafeteria. I felt sick every time I even thought about Stacy—she had been the biggest influence on my friend turned enemy, who was probably out thirsting for the blood of her fifth grade classmates on this cold winter morning.

The classroom’s lighting was horrible—everything a sick yellow glow from those irritating humming lights. I licked my lips and still tasted my rushed breakfast of cinnamon toast. If the teacher didn’t decide to rob us of our lunch break, which she frequently did when we were “bad”, I wouldn’t be hungry for hours.

“Becky,” she called from her desk, “come here.”

I glanced up. What had I done now? I swiftly flipped through my thoughts of the past two days: I had turned in all of my work, I hadn’t argued with anyone, I hadn’t fallen asleep… the uncertainty was the most painful part.

“I said to come here,” she growled.

My heart clenched. There I go again, not listening. The teacher motioned for me to follow her out of the classroom, her bright red fingernails like claws. A degrading “ooooohhh!” swept around the wooden desks as the spiteful kids watched, in sadistic pleasure, as I was escorted away.

It was the hallway, dark in certain sections because of burnt-out lights. Ms. F, looking especially threatening with blood-red lipstick, thick layers of eyeliner, and wildly razored bleach-blonde hair, backed me up against the wall. I tried not to squash the art projects hanging behind me, but she didn’t give me the chance to be careful.

I trembled and half-closed my eyes as she took me by the shoulders and pressed herself very close to my face. “Sweetie,” she whispered, sounding a great deal less poisonous than she usually did, “it has been brought to my attention that there’s something going on at your home.”

I was silent, taken aback, and trying to search my mind for something that might have happened back at our old-fashioned duplex. Did she suddenly get word that my mom, who didn’t work, had been injured at the house? Panic bubbled up in my throat. “Wha— I don’t—”

She severed my sentence, speaking louder. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

Speechless, I tried to refrain from running away from her. I really had no idea what she was talking about—did she have me confused with someone else? Was I supposed to know something?

Her nails dug into my shirt. I felt very pinned and helpless, overpowered by her sternness and floral stench. With an ice-cold voice that contained unusual concern, she told me, staring straight into my eyes, “I have been informed that you are being abused.”

A million thoughts exploded through my head as I tried desperately to think of one occasion where I might have been punished to the point of it possibly being abuse. None came to mind. “Are you kidding?” I shrieked, a bit too defensively. “Who told you that? Who’s making up stories about me?” I could feel my pulse savagely pounding in my head, squeezing my temples, pushing tears into my eyes.

She shook her head. “Don’t get worked up. Just tell me the truth.”

I looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m not being abused,” I said firmly, my voice wavering slightly. I couldn’t feel my hands or feet, and my ears were starting to ring. My warm heartbeat was still gripping the sides of my head, pulse, pulse, pulse.

“I’m obligated to report this,” she said.

I started digging at the skin around my fingernails. The feeling of terror was growing much more intense. The floor shook and moved away from my feet, the wall behind me felt ice cold, and the ceiling lurched toward my head. I closed my eyes and swallowed a large rush of nausea. “What? Who are you telling? There’s nothing… nothing’s happened!”

“If nothing’s happened, why did a student come to me and tell me that your mom hits you?”

The breath left my lungs as if I had fallen roughly on my chest. “Wha—? T-t-they—they’re making up stories—what did they say? Where did they come up with this?” I gasped weakly. The world was spinning.

“Come on, we’re going to take care of you.”

Ms. F had to physically take my arm and pull me down to the opposite end of the hall. I could tell that she didn’t want her grip to hurt me, but she also didn’t want me to go anywhere. We turned to an alcove and she knocked on the door to the right, labeled, “Counselor.” I couldn’t see much through the narrow, vertical window plated with chicken-wire safety glass.

The door opened, and a woman dressed in a shiny maroon pantsuit and ridiculously large jewelry met us—Ms. F with her urgent, wild ideas, and me with my petrified, confused face. Before she could say anything, Ms. F blurted, “We have a suspected abuse case here.”

The woman’s dark eyes jumped back and forth between us, and I furiously shook my head. “No! No abuse!” was all I could manage to say. I could already feel sweat creeping like insects between my shoulder blades.

“Wait here,” the counselor, named Ms. K, instructed me. “Don’t move, don’t go anywhere. Your teacher and I are going to have a talk.”

The door shut in my face.

I sank to the floor, my stomach writhing and little shocks of pain stabbing at my chest, back, and shins. I wished I hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning. The hallway was deathly quiet. The window near me revealed that nothing had changed when it came to the weather. I shivered violently, and pulled my arms, right and then left, into my short-sleeved shirt, hugging my torso.

It seemed like hours before the door finally opened and the two adults emerged, appearing ridiculously tall from my place on the floor, where I tried to be as small as possible. “Becky,” Ms. F said, the lines on her forehead deep with worry, “I am going to go back to the class. I want you to go talk with Ms. K now.”

“But—!”

She held up her hand. “No. You have to. This is very serious, and I’m disappointed that you don’t seem to understand that.”

I miserably entered the room, which was white and plain. Ms. K indicated that I should sit across from her at her wooden desk. “Okay,” she said steadily. She had a deep voice for a woman. “I want you to tell me about what’s going on at home.”

I decided that this time, I would not look at her face. “Nothing. Nothing is going on at home. My parents love me and would never hurt me. I don’t know who lied to you, but they were lying.” I was in a lot of pain, like I had food poisoning.

“You’re saying that your parents do not hit you?”

“Yes,” I said flatly, “that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

She made a note on a small piece of paper. “Students do not just make up lies like that,” she said. “That would be silly. Don’t you think it would be silly to make up a story about being abused?”

“Maybe they’re trying to get me in trouble. Or maybe they don’t like my family, I really don’t know. But that’s made up.” I felt tears pricking at my eyes and my throat was starting to tighten. “I’m not being abused, really, I’m not.” Was I speaking a different language? Why did no one believe me?

“Your parents are threatening you, aren’t they,” she said softly. “They scared you into not telling us about it. But there’s nothing wrong with telling.” She reached for my sweaty hand, but I jerked it back so fiercely I almost fell back in the chair.

“NO!” I yelled. The outline of my sticky hand faded from the surface of the table. My stomach was attacking me with full force and it was all I could do to keep from screaming.

Her eyes widened with shock. “We’re worried about you. We just want to help you,” she said, reaching for the large beige-pink phone on the windowsill.

“Are you calling the police?” My hands went to my face.

“No, honey, the MPs don’t need to be notified just yet.” She hesitated, her hand still on the receiver. “You’re very distressed. Go on back to class, sweetheart. Don’t want to make your day any harder than it’s been.”

I stumbled out of the room as quickly as I could, and once in the hallway, I shoved myself into a wall and silently screamed, a whisper-scream which sounded like a hiss. I clawed at the wall, dislodging some sharp-edged paint chips that cut the skin under my fingernails, and slowly returned to the classroom in this distressed fashion, running the left side of my body along the wall.

Everyone stared at me when I entered, face puffy and red from crying, hair tousled down my shoulders. The teacher stopped her lesson momentarily, to ask me if I was feeling okay. I did not respond, and sat at my desk with my head buried in my arms. I wanted to crawl into a dark, quiet space to have a moment where I could take care of myself. But I was forced to breathe in my own exhalations and slicken the desk with tears. For once, Ms. F did not shout at me for not paying attention.

At lunch I was barely able to explain to Leone what had happened. She held my hand and told me they were going to forget about it. A group of nasty kids from class passed us and, snickering, called us lesbians. We pulled our hands away and stared at our shoes. Leone ate steadily and I watched the children around me as they laughed at jokes, talked about homework, and made lists of the best-looking kids in school—their crushes and romantic flings. The girls babbled over their new gel pens and other things that used to be important to me. Now everything seemed so colorless and trivial.

Afternoon lessons were blurry. I did not raise my hand or write anything down. Every so often I would relax, only to tense up again as a new wave of anxiety overcame my blood. I was surprised at how smoothly the day was running. The world should have collapsed in on itself, dragging all of its people in with it.

The final bell rang at three, however, and I started to assume that Leone was right. Surely they would have done something else by now, called in the S.W.A.T. team or at least the military police. The building had not crumbled, my heart was still beating, and people were still smiling. My mood lifted hesitantly, and Leone gave me one final hug before running to catch her ride home.

I was staying behind because my mother was attending a parent-teacher meeting in the room across from Ms. F’s. Figuring no one was going to bother me about the abuse situation anymore, I settled down on the floor outside of the meeting room, backpack by my side and book in my hand. Ms. F was in the classroom, rustling papers and preparing to attend a conference, thankfully leaving me alone.

I had about fifteen minutes of uninterrupted peace.

Then I heard the footsteps.

“Are you Rebecca? Rebecca _____?”

I incriminated myself by confirming that I was who I was. When the woman discovered that she had successfully located me, she showed a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

I shivered.

“Well, hi, Rebecca! I’d like you to come with me, sweetheart.”

The forced cheerfulness in her voice chilled me to the bone. I rapidly gathered my book, jacket, and bag, stood, and made sure my back was to the wall. “Where am I going?” I asked fearfully. “Who are you?”

The woman straightened the thin gold crucifix at her throat. “My name’s Maureen Sullivan,” she chirped. “I’m a social worker.” I noticed the leather bag she held at her side. My eyes fearfully drifted over her long black hair, prominent laugh lines, and ridiculous grin.

From the nearby stairwell, the school counselor appeared, looking triumphant. “Good,” she said to the woman, “I’m glad you found her… the office said she was staying after today.”

“How convenient!” laughed the stranger.

I clenched my hands into the tightest fists possible, and felt the fingernails break skin. Looking back over my shoulder, I wished my mom would come out and protect me. She had no idea what was going on; I hadn’t spoken to her since that morning.

Someone touched me on the arm, and I leapt back. “STOP!” I wanted to have that feeling of a membrane separating me from the rest of the individuals in the hallway. I needed immunity. I didn’t want them to contaminate me.

The woman named Maureen held up her hands. “Okay, okay, just relax. We’re just going to help you. You’re completely safe.”

My throat tightened and I felt my eyes dilate. “If I was safe, I wouldn’t feel this scared.”

Both Ms. K and the stranger exchanged looks of unease. There was a moment of piercing silence where I had the opportunity to bolt. My mind flirted with the idea of running down the stairs, breaking through the back doors, and hiding under the orange and red plastic volcano structure in the vacant playground. Then I could run to Leone’s and stay there until they gave up looking. It was amazing how desperate I was to cling to my impossible childhood fantasies.

“Go with Ms. Sullivan,” the counselor instructed. “She wants to ask you a few questions.”

I reluctantly followed the woman down the three flights of stairs, and we stopped outside of a closed door next to the main office. It was gray and windowless, and labeled, “Conference Room”. She tested the handle and the door opened, revealing a narrow rectangular room with one window at the far end, blinds preventing the weak, winter light from entering. Only one fluorescent light worked, the one closest to the door. There was a long wooden table, surrounded on the two longer sides by mismatched chairs. Maureen settled herself on the end near the door, and I chose to sit on the opposite side of the table. Only about two and a half feet separated us, and I hugged my backpack to my chest as she pulled a notepad, papers, and a black ballpoint pen from her pocketbook.

“I’m from the Social Work Services office, located just across the street,” she said, uncapping the pen and writing something across the top of the first yellow lined page. “Ms. K called me today and asked me to come talk to you.”

“I don’t have a lot to say,” I challenged.

She stared at me for a moment. Thought darkened her shiny eyes. They were brown and deep. I looked away, heart beginning to race again. “Why don’t you at least tell me what’s going on?” she said.

I gripped my backpack even tighter. “Nothing’s going on. This is a really big mistake and I’m sorry you were called here when you didn’t need to come.”

“You think it’s a mistake? How so?”

I began picking at my cuticles again, peeling the skin off in thin ribbons, savoring the stinging. “My mom did not hurt me. No one is hurting me. This is just a big mistake.”

I heard the scratching of pen on paper. She had written a lot already, in loopy but intelligible black cursive. “I don’t think so. School staff is usually pretty accurate when it comes to abuse. I think your counselor did a very good job, calling me. You want to do the right thing, too. Tell me the truth. Do your parents hurt you?”

“I told you they don’t.” I felt my voice start to crack. “Why can’t you believe me?” I clawed relentlessly at my poor fingers, peeling them raw.

“I can see this is very difficult for you,” she said softly. “How old are you?”

“Eleven.” I concentrated on the wood grain of the table’s surface.

More writing sounds. “What’s your favorite subject?”

“When we go to Art on Tuesday mornings.”

She tapped her pen restlessly on the edge of the table, quickly becoming impatient with the simple talk. “Okay. What happened today?”

I sighed. Watch what you say. “My mom and I got into a minor argument on the way to the bus stop,” I said truthfully. “I got to school and my best friend saw I was upset, so I told her what had happened. I think someone overheard, because after I got to class Ms. F called me into the hallway and brought up abuse. Then she made me see the counselor about it.”

“How does your dad treat you?”

I made sure I didn’t look at her eyes, because every time I did, my heart started racing uncontrollably. I fixed my gaze on a bicycle safety poster behind her right shoulder. It was the only thing tacked onto the large corkboard. I counted the letters. “He’s fine. I get along with him just fine.”

She continued to tap her pen. I wanted to rip it from her and throw it across the room. I glanced at her and saw her bite her lip. “Does he hit you?”

“No,” I frowned. “Of course not.”

She did not look convinced, but sighed and wrote something down anyway. “How to your parents act with each other?”

“They’re nice to each other.”

“Really?” I decided to peek at her again. She looked incredulous. A stray fleck of brown dotted the white sclera of her left eye. “Is this their first marriage?”

“Yes.” I peeled another shred of skin from my cuticle, ripping it in one long stroke to the finger joint. Blood welled in the small cut, and it was oddly comforting.

“How is their sex life?”

I gaped at her. “What?” How could she ask me something like that? It was such a personal question that I didn’t know the answer to it. I didn’t even want to imagine it. My stomach sank further downwards.

“Do they cheat on each other?”

“No! Stop it!” I slid my chair backward, and my backpack fell to the floor. I hung on to the cold metal armrests for dear life. My knuckles whitened instantly.

She smiled to herself, knowing she had hit a nerve. “Does your dad touch you or make you take your clothes off?”

I froze. “NO, NEVER! STOP IT NOW!” I choked on a lump in my throat and started gasping for air. “I love my daddy!” I couldn’t picture anything so vile or wrong. In fact, he was not affectionate with me at all. He had rarely hugged or kissed me growing up, and when he did, it was the love a father is supposed to show his offspring.

She was writing furiously now. “He doesn’t make you look at dirty pictures or videos?”

I was bawling. “Leave me alone! Stop!” I could hardly speak through furious sobs. I dug my nails into my legs. “Stop, stop, stop! He doesn’t do that! He doesn’t! I’m not abused, I’m not!” He had never harmed me sexually… never. The thought had never crossed my mind, so why was she putting these thoughts into my head, trying to make me admit something that had never happened? Her job description required she protect me from harm! She was the one who was abusing me! There had to be some legal clause somewhere that would prevent this. My arms and legs felt like they were bound together… I was the most powerless being on the planet at that moment.

She didn’t blink at my distress. “You must share a home computer with your parents. Do you ever find naughty pictures of naked people, pictures you can’t explain?”

I was immensely disgusted, but above all confused. It felt like she was ripping at the inner lining of my head with her perfectly polished fingernails. She was not being professional, and as a haze built up around me, all I could do was whisper weakly, “No, no, no!”

“I think I need to talk to my boss about this,” she said. “You act too frightened for nothing to be going on.”

“That’s because you’re asking me really horrible questions, and you’re scaring me!” I started to shake violently. My stomach dipped again, and I swallowed back a surge of sickness. What would happen if I vomited? Or fainted? Or maybe I could just… run?

“Aw, sweetie, I’m just here to help you.”

“STOP! I DON’T NEED ANY HELP FROM YOU!” I couldn’t believe this was happening. My ears were starting to ring again as terror consumed my chest, making it very difficult to breathe. I shivered as if I were cold, but I felt quite hot. A fright-induced sweat was making a slick down my back and on my palms. Why would she ask me such terrible things? She seemed to enjoy watching me panic.

She leaned over the table, her arms crossed and resting on her writing-covered notepad. “I think it would be best if you spent the rest of the week in a foster home.”

I pulled my legs up onto the chair with me and hugged them tightly to my chest. I pictured a scary gray orphanage with rows of beds and tall, barred windows. She explained that it would be a normal couple living in a normal house, and I would live with them as if I were their child. They might even be a German couple, she said, and they would take very good care of me. We would “sing songs” and “bake cookies”. All of this I heard through a curtain of roaring in my ears. A beast was screaming somewhere, and it was very possible that it was me.

“No! I want to go home! With my parents!”

She stood. “I’m going to see what my boss wants me to do, because I’m not feeling very comfortable about this situation.”

She was uncomfortable. I felt like I was going to die.

Maureen found a black, wall-mounted telephone at the far end of the room by the window. She picked up the receiver and punched in some numbers. After a few seconds, she asked to speak to someone named Cheryl. I was tempted to cover my ears so I wouldn’t have to listen to her fake and sickening-sweet voice anymore. But curiosity got the better of me and I listened while focusing on destroying my cuticles instead.

“Hey, I’m here at the elementary school with Rebecca,” she said in an urgent tone. “She’s very upset right now. I’m concerned with the way she’s responding to my routine questions.” Pause. “I told her that, but she became even more agitated. She says she wants to go home but I think she’s trying to defend her parents.” Another pause. “I agree, okay, that’ll work. Bye.” She hung up the phone with a click, and approached my side. “Stand up,” she said, no longer sounding so sweet.

I did with a great deal of apprehension and difficulty. As my face burned and another surge of electrical rushing noise filled my head, she examined both of my arms, made me roll up my leggings so she could feel the bones and look over the skin, and glanced in my mouth for broken teeth. She demanded that I lift my shirt, but I retreated back to the chair, whimpering, and crossed my arms over my middle so she could not touch me again. Another wave of crying took hold of me and I hid my face, worrying about the multiple layered bruises she had seen, all resulting either from clumsiness or my role as sixth grade punching bag.

By now I had curled into a ball, scrunched up with gripping stomach pain.

“What’s going on? You’re very white,” she said, eyebrows pressed together in a thin line.

“My stomach hurts really bad,” I moaned. Sweat covered my face, and I was still trembling to the point of my teeth chattering. I was reminded of my bout of appendicitis the previous year. But this was different. This wasn’t the result of an infection, and no surgery would cure it. Something among my insides moved. The terrifying ordeal was making me physically ill.

“It’s stress,” Maureen sympathized. “Oh you poor thing, just take some deep breaths and try to relax. You’ll be just fine.”

It was ironic how her attempts to calm me down were making me even more distressed. Images raced through my head as I tried to cling to yesterday, when my life had still been normal. In that precise second, with the blood pounding in my head like a hammer, my ruined fingers screaming in pain, and my heart ready to explode, I realized that my life would never be the same.

My mom was looking for me. Her meeting had ended during my moment of horror. Upon questioning the main office, she found out I was with the woman from across the street. Maureen heard the commotion in the hallway outside, and quickly left me alone so she could explain—using her biased words, not my honest ones.

The leather chair was sticking to my damp skin. I coughed violently, worried I would vomit. Every time I clenched my hands, blood would bubble from the cracks next to my fingernails. The door swung open again, and I saw my mother standing in front of the office, pale and angry, in her green jacket.

I rolled off of the chair, scrambled with my backpack and coat as best as I could in my state of panic, and lunged in her direction. To my confusion, she jerked back. “Get away from me,” she snarled, looking at me with an unfamiliar and heart-stopping glimmer in her eyes.

“What? Mama, I love you! You know I love you!” I slid far away from Maureen, who was zipping up her bag.

My mother glared daggers at me. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t make up stories about me hitting you! How could you do this to me? Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am?”

I was stunned out of my crying. My legs were tingling and the corridor was starting to sway. I needed her support more than anything. I needed to hold onto her and have her tell me that she would make this sick woman stop frightening me. I needed parental reassurance. She thought I had reported her? I had never even heard of a social worker until that afternoon! I turned to the perpetrator, too shaken to make eye contact. “What did you tell her?” I demanded in a shaky voice.

Maureen ignored my question and handed me my backpack. “We’re going to go to my office. It’s right across the street.”

We walked in silence under the darkening sky. I was surprised I could walk, especially since the driveway in front of Social Work Services was made of cobblestone. I looked around at my surroundings, wondering if it was all real. I suddenly saw the world in grayscale, the blackness of the bare trees lacing the graphite anger of the sky. My breath stained the dark landscape in white. No color found me at that moment.

The building was low, a one-story with only two horizontal slit windows on the left side of the Plexiglas door, which was shielded by a triangular overhang. “2996” was stamped on the far right, in dark gray military ink. The streetlights sprouting from the colorless grass by the parking lot hadn’t lit up yet, and Maureen had trouble seeing enough to fit her key into the lock. “Our clients usually use the main entrance by the vet clinic,” she explained, “but this is closer. You’ll find it isn’t very crowded, since it’s past our normal office hours.”

She flicked on a light and introduced us to a narrow hallway with white and gray linoleum flooring, pale gray walls, and rows of tightly shut doors. We took a sharp left, and she unlocked a door identical to the one through which we came. She pulled it open using a long red door handle, and I followed her and my mother through to the other side.

The lobby was a large rectangle, lined with door after door, all gray, all shut, and all labeled with large yellow signs that said, “Please Knock”. Strange cylindrical lights were mounted above each one of these doors, with three colors, red, orange, and green, layered in the glass—perhaps signaling outsiders to a room’s occupancy.

The ceiling dipped upward, all four corners leading toward the highest point in the middle. The lighting was dim and indirect, fluorescent, no doubt, but coming from some hidden lip in the ceiling. I sniffed and smelled paint, and something sweet like a scented candle.

My mother was directed toward a reception desk littered with parenting pamphlets and fake flowers, and handed a mountain of paperwork. Maureen made me enter a small office. The woman inside the cramped space greeted me and said her name was Angel. Her hair was long and a pale blonde. One bookshelf pressed up against the right wall was crammed with pictures of absurdly happy kids, all gleaming with fake joy and silver orthodontic appliances. They were her children, presumably. Children with undercover identity crises and bibles in their backpacks.

“Leave your bag and your jacket,” Maureen said, pointing to a chair. When I did, she motioned for me to follow her.

We crossed the lobby area and she chose a middle door on the right. She didn’t have to unlock it, and we went inside. The lights, square sets of nine fluorescent compartments, were already on. The room was slightly bigger than Angel’s office, and substantially brighter. The first thing I noticed was the gleaming porcelain sink on the left. A single bottle of orange Dial soap sat to the right of the silver tap. I leaned in for a closer look, wondering why on earth there was a sink at all, and caught sight of myself in the mirror. I shivered.

“Make yourself comfortable,” the social worker said. To the right of the door, the three walls were lined with green chairs with plastic cushions and black armrests. In each of the two corners there were small tables, upon which were plenty of jumbo-sized tissue boxes, more fake flowers, and gardening magazines. “Lovely Lilacs!” shouted one.

I felt closed in, as there were no windows and the walls were all painted a pale green-gray. In the corner to the right of the sink was a tall pine Schrank (German closet), topped with a folded purple blanket and some stuffed toys. A feeling chart adorned the wall between the sink and Schrank, while a gold-framed painting of families in a park screamed bright colors from the opposite side.

I scrunched myself into a chair in the far right corner, and Maureen smiled at me and told me someone else would ask me some questions shortly.

Time seemed to traipse on forever as I waited. I tried to stop my hands from shaking so much by holding on to the armrests, but had no success. Who would this next person be? I feared it would be a police officer.

It was worse.

The middle-aged woman with short brown hair and a hooked nose introduced herself as Cheryl Zook. I realized she was the person Maureen had spoken with over the phone. She was dressed in black and white with a glass beaded Italian necklace, and the grin across her face was of the familiar, sappy kind. “Hi there,” she said. “How are you today?”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“Why don’t you tell me what brings you here today?” She spoke to me like I was here by choice.

And it began again. The questions, the trembling, the physical examination, and the tears. Interrogation at its worst. I wanted to badly to just run through the door and vanish into the night, sleeping in a trash can if necessary, but she sat in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to reach the door handle. I was at a point in my mind that if I had the opportunity to run off the edge of the earth and disappear forever, I gladly would.

A short rap at the door made me jump, but Cheryl opened it a crack. I caught a glimpse of black hair and red fabric. Maureen. I shut my eyes and tried not to throw up. Cheryl stood and excused herself.

I heard muffled voices on the other side of the gray door. I wanted to hear exactly what they were saying, but I was too frightened to move. My hands were sweating so much I was leaving handprints on my shaking thighs.

Cheryl opened the door and told me to follow her.

“Where are we going?” I asked, a surge of anxiety charging my heart to start racing again.

“Just to another room, sweetheart,” she said, that horrible smile still grafted to her face.

The other room was only a couple of doors down from the green one with the sink, on the same side of the lobby. This door was necessary to unlock, and as Cheryl’s assorted bronze keys jangled, my eyes darted around the lobby, wondering where my mother was. The air was still but felt like it would shatter into a million pieces.

Maureen touched my shoulder and pointed into the room Cheryl had opened. I peered around her and saw white, lots of white: no sink, no chairs, no Schrank, and no feeling chart. Gripping the wall for support, now shivering so furiously that my teeth were chattering, I entered.

Directly opposite the door was the biggest mirror I had ever seen in my life, not framed, but slightly sunken into the wall. The lighting was painfully bright in contrast to the dusky lobby, causing my temples to throb. I saw my reflection instantly, the social workers standing behind me. I turned around to ask them what this room was about.

“I need your shoes,” Cheryl said, holding out her hand.

“WHAT!?”

“Your shoes,” she said again, her smile now long gone.

I dropped to the thinly carpeted floor and ripped them off. “Can I have them back?” I asked, holding them out to her.

“That really depends,” she said, handing them off to Maureen. “Why did you forget to tell us that you’re suicidal?”

Suicidal? “I’m not suicidal,” I said, puzzled, not even exactly sure as to what the word meant. “What’s going on?”

The adults looked at each other. “Your mom said that you want to kill yourself, that this is all a cry for help,” Maureen said.

My stomach twisted and I dug my fingernails into the floor, afraid I would lose the ability to sit up. “T-That’s not t-true! I don’t want to kill myself! I don’t! I’m not suicidal… this is just a really bad mistake and if you let us go you’d know that!”

Maureen turned away from Cheryl and disappeared into the faded gray of the lobby. Cheryl stepped inside and closed the door. “Your mother knows you better than anyone else. If you want to kill yourself, we have to protect you.”

“I know myself better than anyone else, and I don’t want to kill myself!” I snarled furiously. “I don’t need help, I don’t need protection, and I don’t need to be here!” I was choking on a building rock low in my throat.

Cheryl stared at a spot on the floor. “This is too serious a situation to be taken lightly. We are going to have to put you somewhere where they can keep you safe for a longer term.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” I shouted, now pulling at the ends of my long and tangled hair. “I refuse!”

“Do you want to go to a mental hospital?” she asked. It was a question I would ponder in the years to come. I never understood what she was hoping to gain by asking this of an eleven-year-old. I hadn’t known what social workers and foster homes were all about, so being faced with another unfamiliar trick from these people, I automatically assumed it was something immensely terrible.

“Of course I don’t, and I’m not!” I snapped. “Just stop, okay? Just STOP IT! You’re scaring me; you’re only making everything worse!” I burst out crying again, and hunkered down as close to the floor as I could. “I’m not going anywhere! I’m not!”

“That isn’t your choice to make,” she said. “We’re going to help you. It may not be easy for you to accept—”

“—Go!” I screamed between my arms. “Just go away! Leave me alone!”

The door clicked shut and the horrible sound of a key in a lock made me scream some more, feeding my smoldering frustration to each fiber in the square inches of carpet beneath my soggy, dripping face. I stayed like this for a while, curled with my head hidden under me, sobbing and choking as the world spun, my arms damp with tears and red from hanging on to my skin with my teeth. I cried so hard there were a couple of times when I tried to inhale and couldn’t, because another wave of moans and gasps would overpower me. Then the hyperventilating started, and I shook helplessly as I panted myself into seeing purple squares and forgetting which way was up and which was down. I couldn’t remember ever being this upset in my entire life. The emotional agony that sat heavily on my chest and was forcing me to claw at the carpet and gulp for air was a thousand more times painful than any injury or illness I had ever had, even my recent appendectomy. It felt like someone had reached inside of me and hollowed me out with rusty implements.

I had been raised in a lax Christian environment, but I chose this moment to give God every feeling of spirituality I had. I wanted some powerful force to reach down with arms and cradle me. I prayed so hard every hair-thin fiber and droplet of fluid in my body coursed with immense faith and determination. “Please, God! I’ll do anything, please help me and my family! I need you so much right now!” I pounded the floor with my fists with enough force to bruise. I howled like an animal for the one thing I wanted most: the ultimate Creator, Jesus Christ and the Holy Father, the Savior for whom so many had love and trust. “Don’t abandon me, Jesus, please! I’ll do anything, just please, please help!” The answer I was looking for never arrived, not in any way, shape, or form. No ethereal breath in my ear, no voice telling me I could be rescued. I was aware, even in my moment of tremendous need, of how selfish my sudden requests were. But to be met by stone silence when I was hanging by a thread was enough to convince me I could no longer have any faith in the God I’d been crying for.

The fit stopped as suddenly and violently as it had come. Prickling a road down the nape of my neck, the fine hairs stood straight on end. I spun around, swaying from dizziness, my blurred vision red and hazy, the ceiling above me bucking and swimming. I saw myself in the mirror once more, noticing with a skip of my heart that I had never seen myself as looking this defeated or terrified before. My eyes were almost swollen shut, and very red, with sharp stains of scarlet making shiny splotches all over the rest of my white face and collecting at my nose.

My breathing slowed to normal, but my heart once again started pounding in my head when I heard voices outside of the door. I dropped to the floor and slithered over to listen. What little I made out sounded like this:

“She’s checking with insurance, but we gave her the paperwork….”

“…Stuttgart might take her, but that hospital in Freiburg has more beds…”

“They’re not going to send an ambulance down from four hours away, and none here will go that far…”

“…Her sponsor’s willing to sign the commitment papers….”

I tore myself away and flattened myself up against the wall. So they had made up their minds. They were going to lock me up in a nuthouse and chain me down and force-feed me drugs! I bawled again. This was so unfair! How could it have escalated so quickly and viciously? All because my mother and I were arguing about being late for the bus. It was ridiculous!

I cried myself into a stupor yet again, and after what felt like days, I sat up and retched. I gagged again, leaning over my knees with a sharp pain in my throat and a hot stroke down my back, knowing I was going to throw up.

The keys jangled in the lock again, and Cheryl burst through the door, trying to pull me into a sitting position. “Relax, Rebecca,” she whispered, “relax and take some deep breaths. Tense all of your muscles and then relax them. You have to calm down. You’re making yourself sick.”

I shrieked and pulled away from her. “You’re the one who’s making me sick!” I retched again.

She reached behind her, her arm disappearing around the door, mumbling to someone I couldn’t see. She produced the purple blanket I recognized from the other room. “You have to relax, now, okay? You’re going to relax. You’re going to calm down.” She shook the folds from the blanket, spread it wide, and then threw it over me, blacking out my world.

I went dead silent. Not relaxed, just surprised. I could see her through the small gaps between the stitches in the vividly purple fabric. She stood, nodded once, and then left me alone after making sure that the door was securely locked.

I remained like that for the longest time, smelling my breath and the scents of potpourri and young children, crayons and cheerios. The fabric was coarse and unpleasant, but I focused on knotting the fringes, tighter and tighter, while keeping all parts of my body hidden. A feeling of defeat washed over me, and, clenching my jaw, I accepted the fact that ending my life might be the best way out. I had never considered suicide until that moment, and it almost excited me. I shivered, jittery. They might take me to an asylum, but that asylum would have to release me eventually. And when it did, I was free to control the ending to my own life. I would extinguish it. No one would miss me. I was already draped in darkness.

Our insurance company ended up refusing to pay for residential treatment in a crisis unit unless it was at an American military facility. The nearest one that admitted children under 17 was over six hours away. My father had the financial resources to send me to a hospital without insurance as an aide, but he felt it wasn’t worth it. I decided that despite being so relentless about going into a nuthouse, it would have been best for me. If they had drugged or shocked out the demons the social workers had downloaded into my head, I would be free to live the rest of my life in a cloud of “ignorance is bliss”.

Because the evidence was insufficient enough to warrant abuse, I was released to my parents that night, with orders to attend a mandatory psychiatric evaluation and twice-weekly counseling at social work services. Going back to my parents, I soon discovered, was probably a mistake. Because they were so wrapped up in the idea that I had been the one to report them for crimes they had never committed, they didn’t want me anymore. I was dead to them.

I reached a desperate point in my life where I lost the ability to care. I rarely spoke, I had terrible nightmares, I was constantly sick, and I stopped bathing. Brushing my teeth and changing my clothes seemed like daunting tasks, and my best friend Leone grew anxious as she watched me wilt. When I did attend school, I refused to talk to anyone except her and as a result my grades began slipping. Within the span of a couple of weeks, my appearance changed dramatically. My vision, which had been poor for about a year, resulted in dorky glasses my classmates loved to steal—and break. My hair, as a result of poor hygiene and lack of nutrition, grew stringy and greasy, then eventually started to fall out. Because food did not taste good anymore and because I was vomiting almost constantly, the pounds melted off of me. My bones stood out sharply, my eyes sank into my skull, and I could effortlessly count my ribs; I could even see them through my chest without sucking in.

I remember waking up from yet another nightmare about that hellish night, vomit streaming from my mouth and nose, me gasping and coughing through what was now mostly water and stomach acid. It was a school day, and my mother came into my room right as I was struggling to breathe through my own sick. She was so angry with me not only for the incident, but because I was missing an average of two days of school a week, and so she accused me of being sick to get attention. It was all I could do to stay home, where I lied in bed, vomited, screamed, clawed at my arms, rolled around in feverish sleep, and contemplated suicide. I was the monster that lived upstairs.

Only a few weeks after that episode, I was hospitalized for severe upper stomach pain and vomiting bile. The doctors were alarmed at how dehydrated I was, and I was put on intravenous fluids just to keep my kidneys functioning. At eleven years old, I weighed barely fifty pounds. One specialist ordered an endoscopy and stomach biopsy, which was more than miserable. They held me down on a gurney, sedated me through an intravenous line, and ran a black tube down my throat and into my stomach. When I came to, I vaguely remember trying to follow my mother out the door to my room I shared with two other girls, although I was too dizzy and drugged to stand. I was so persistent the nurses actually had to tie my wrists and ankles down to the bed.

When I was released from the hospital a week after my trip to the emergency room, I resumed a conflicted and reclusive life at home, where I lived in an almost catatonic state. When my parents were out, I would go into their bathroom and read the warning labels on the cleaning agents, fantasizing about poisoning myself but worrying about the death being too slow and painful. This alternated between me banging my head against hard surfaces and pacing back and forth on the highest balcony, which was right above our outside stairs, made of stone.

No one really knew that I wanted to kill myself, or if they did know, they never indicated it. I found it ironic how the idea stuck in my head after the social workers interrogated me about it. Going to their sessions twice weekly was insanely difficult. I practically had to be dragged inside, trembling and sweaty. But it was mandatory. Thankfully they didn’t put me in that horrible room with the two-way mirror again. I decided that if they tried, I would resist with every ounce of strength I had, even if it meant becoming physically violent. I was ready to shed their blood, fight tooth and nail even though I was lacking all strength and nerve.

The psychiatric evaluation was just as bad as going to social work services. My mother had to drive me up north to a hospital in Heidelberg, a trip that seemed to take forever. I was so distraught about going, I cried and hyperventilated the entire way, sick and shivering, tempted to open the car door and drop out onto the highway. At the facility, the psychiatrist, a fierce Italian woman dressed in military fatigues, met with me in a room the size of a large walk-in closet and made me draw pictures. I balked at first until she showed intense fury that I would dare question her commands. It was the first time I had ever not wanted to draw something. I felt she was exploiting my artistic ability, using it as a curse to make me incriminate myself. She was very hostile and accused me of being attention-seeking, immature, and cruel, even though the sketches only consisted of dinnerware, the front of my house, and my friend’s guinea pig. Then she told my mother that I was suffering from psychotic depression and should be hospitalized, or at least strongly medicated. Again, the insurance problems were brought up.

To top off feeling like a laboratory experiment, I had to see a general practitioner for a full body examination. It was a man, and although he was extremely gentle, I was very fearful and upset. He made me take off my clothes and he ran his hands down my back and legs, feeling the protruding bones. He asked me why I was so skinny and I told him that I was having stomach problems. I was terrified that he would accuse my parents of starving me. He remarked on the bruises I sported on my legs, the ones which now resulted from anemia instead of playground punishment. Then, he made me lie back on a cold table, and he explored my body, inside and out with lights and assorted metal instruments, for evidence of sexual trauma. It was painful physically, and even more so emotionally. Tears ran from the outer corners of my eyes and ran down into my hair. I clenched the sides of the table until he was done.

Thankfully, the doctor’s report to social work services did not hint at physical or sexual abuse. As January turned into February, and then into March and April, I began skipping my twice-weekly sessions. Once I went on a walk all around the army base instead of going to SWS, and Maureen happened to be driving by. She pulled over her car and asked me why I wasn’t with Cheryl at the center. I refused to say anything and kept walking as if I didn’t know her. Why should I give her that attention? I was not the same Rebecca I had been on January 9th. I never would be, and she needed to understand that.

That summer I went to Miami, Florida on a solo trans-Atlantic trip to visit my grandparents. They were stunned to see me in such bad shape. But my grandmother especially was unsympathetic and was deaf to my insistence that I had not reported my mother.

“That isn’t what she told us,” she scowled. “I know my own daughter. She said that you made her life a living hell, that you did it for attention. Why, Becky? Why would you do something so terrible? I thought you were a good kid.”

I erupted into sobs, feeling that my entire family had turned its back on me. I tried explaining exactly what had happened. “How was I supposed to know what social services is?” I cried, hysterical. “Why would I choose to put my family through something like that? I need support more than ever, but you’re all turning me away because you’re accusing me of something I didn’t do!” I showed her my ribs, the stomach acid sores decorating the inside of my mouth. “You think I chose this life? You think I like throwing up all the time, not being able to sleep, not remembering what it’s like to be happy? How can I trust you if you don’t believe me?”

I allowed my relatives to see me in this severely damaged condition. Who the hell cared? Not them, apparently. I was the disturbed member of the family, now a scapegoat and an outcast. It gave me even more incentive to take my own life. The world was black and white and overcast to me now. If I died, I wouldn’t have to face shame and disdain, be treated like a criminal when I was the victim. I wouldn’t have to throw up what little I did eat and drink, and the doctors wouldn’t have to stamp “Nutritional Risk” in my medical records every time I came to see them.

I survived the summer in a state of suspension… not declining (was it even possible for me to become worse?) and certainly not improving. Leone and I started seventh grade at Patch American High School. The on-the-go lifestyle had weeded out some of the worst of the bullies, and I felt one small spark of hope that at this new school, I could start over.

And I tried. Rebuilding my life at eleven years old was like trying to crawl my way out of a deep, dark hole with slippery sides encrusted with glass shards. Every sign of progress had to be destroyed by another suicidal thought, another poor grade, another punch in the mouth in the school courtyard.

When people I didn’t know looked at me, I knew they saw not Rebecca, but a shell of someone who could have been something amazing. If they had an ounce of heart, they probably pitied the plum circles beneath my sad eyes, the tiny wrists poking from my sleeves, the worried girl hovering at my side without a clue as to how to help me get better. I didn’t want pity, but it was better than the mockery and hatred some of humanity’s worst dished out.

Still, that spark of hope shone on. My father’s tour in Europe was going to end at the close of the school year—much earlier than expected given our new and unwelcome circumstances—and I would be set free in the United States, where no one knew me.

With the process of assembling a new life, and of attempting recovery, came new challenges. But what met me in November of that same year would be an unbelievable setback, an insult to injury, and an instigator to a depression words could not begin to describe.

Note to Readers: This new setback will be described in a later submission. Keep checking for it—it is a crucial puzzle piece in this chaos.