Growing up I broke my leg at 18 months.\u00a0 My mother told me I was reaching for a book on top of a piece of furniture.\u00a0 I fell.\u00a0 My leg went under the dresser, twisted, and the book came down and broke my leg.\u00a0 Apparently it was a very big book.\u00a0 Years later my mother let it slip the police questioned my father because the break was too clean. I was too young to remember.\u00a0 It was the only time in my life I broke a limb but all I recall is a photo of my father holding me and a cast that went from my chest down to my ankle.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
As I grew older I wanted less and less to do with my parents.\u00a0 They made me feel trapped.\u00a0 And my father scared me.\u00a0 I felt as though books and school were the only places I could get away and find me.\u00a0 My parents seemed to drain my energy.\u00a0 More then that again, my father scared me.<\/p>\n
There were also these mixed messages.\u00a0 I was supposed to be a lawyer, make money, yet somehow never leave from underneath there roof.\u00a0 The constant reminders from my father that everything in my room he could take away.\u00a0 Even when I started working in middle school baby sitting local kids and in high school I worked for Spencer Gifts, I really didn’t earn my own money.\u00a0 He gave me a car and helped pay for it, and could take it away if I did not obey him.\u00a0
\nMy getting good grades in school, never getting into trouble, never dating or having friends over to cause problems didn’t change my father’s attitude.\u00a0 Somehow I was supposed to go make money but never leave home.<\/p>\n
Luckily I had a female friend Dini who pushed me to take chances.\u00a0 We both applied to a summer camp in Connecticut as assistant counselors and got accepted.\u00a0 My father almost did not let me stay.\u00a0 I spent a summer working with autistic kids.\u00a0 It was difficult but rewarding.\u00a0 I came to realize how strong I am.\u00a0 A kid broke my glasses and scratched my eye, yet I did not hit back.\u00a0 One kid bit me, and again I remained calm.\u00a0 Maybe years of dealing with my father’s outbursts of violence made me numb to it, or it was just I rationalized the actions of the children as the actions of an animal uneducated in the ways of civilized men.\u00a0 An autistic child can’t comprehend the effect of their actions.\u00a0 I would later find in law school that knowing the effects of one’s actions is one definition for insanity as a defense,\u00a0 well close to it.\u00a0 By the end of the summer I liked the kids, despite the scratches, bite, broken glasses.\u00a0 They were lives living on a different level or perception of existence.\u00a0\u00a0
\nSometimes I feel like that is how I am now. Living on a different point of view with few comprehending who I am, why I’m in pain, and how their actions are hurting me.\u00a0 Actually sometimes I think they know the pain I’m in, but either don’t care or think I deserve suffering to make up for the bad deal they were given.\u00a0 All I can do is continue to be me.\u00a0 I’m better off when not at my parents home.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Growing up I broke my leg at 18 months.\u00a0 My mother told me I was reaching for a book on top of a piece of furniture.\u00a0 I fell.\u00a0 My leg went under the dresser,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauraanntull.com\/acting\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}