A Life Stifled by Donald

A Life Stifled

By Donald

I was about six months old when my sister and oldest brother had to babysit me. They did not want to, and so stuck me in an opening in the pillar under the Shickshinney Bridge. I still don’t know how long I remained there in that pillar. All I remember is that when I came out of it, I was sitting on a sofa chair and my sister was dangling a pair of baby blue plastic toy baby shoes. I guess she was probably testing me to see if I was conscious. I believe that I must have appeared to be retarded. Later on in my life, I started to understand what was going on and what people were saying. Because of my mental condition, I would misinterpret a lot of things going on around me. I still do, and because of that, my caseworker calls my attention to it.

When I was 39 years old, my wife left me and I had to go to court for a child support hearing to decide how my support payments would be made. I had no idea how to go about making child support payments. I never knew enough to let anyone know about that. To tell you the truth, I am not sure if it would’ve made that much of a difference anyway. They put me in prison for 90 days. It was my first offense, and I should have gotten only 30 days. But I guess that did not make any difference either. While there, I was put into solitary confinement for 24 hours. I could hear another prisoner being raped. I felt totally helpless and sad that there was nothing I could do about it, even though I was not locked in my cell. I can still hear that prisoner scream in my mind. I was scared to death the whole time I was in there, especially when they made me take a shower. Ever since then, I have been scared to death, especially when any man stands too close behind me.