Freak: The True Story of an Insecurity Addict

Soon after the funeral, I started “freezing,” as my mom called it. Something would set me off, like somebody saying Ian’s name or a sermon in church, and I’d freeze up. I don’t remember it, I’m just going on my mom and dad’s descriptions. Apparently I’d go all rigid and just turn into a statue. Nobody could move or even bend me. Once, Mom said I did it in church when I was sitting at the end of the pew, one arm balanced on the armrest. Dad carried me out like a block of wood, my arm still up and bent like it was on the armrest.

He and Mom took me outside to the parking lot and propped me up on the bench in the grotto garden. Then Dad tried to straighten my arm out. Remember, this is a guy with a size fourteen ring and a fifty-seven inch chest, strong as a bull, and I was an eight-year-old, skinny little girl. Mom said he stood up on his toes, pushing with all his might, and couldn’t budge me. It was like I was made of iron.

Apparently, I did a lot of things like that. Mom says when I wasn’t dropping flat on my face in a dead faint, I was freezing up. Any attempt for me to remember a bit of that comes up blank, like she’s talking about somebody else. I still can’t get in there and dig it out of my brain.

My therapist says she thinks there may be something else in there to have such radical memory loss. Who knows, considering my screwy family. Really annoying, amnesia. Drives me crazy. These are my memories. Mine. I want them back. I don’t care if I was butt-fucked by a football team and then shit on. I want to remember. This is my head. It’s like a house with locked doors inside my skull. I want the doors open, and so many are shut tight. No, Rebecca. Not yet. You can’t come in.

I don’t remember much for an entire year after Ian’s death. Love American Style. I remember that. Gilligan chanting in lotus position, trying to impress a girl. Going out of your body and flying around, finding the truth.

My sister Katherine and I watched “Love American Style.” It was a favorite show. Bob Denver was in one episode where he was showing a girl how to meditate and astral project. It was very funny. The next morning, I think it was a Saturday, we went over to the Conway’s house to play with Brenda. Katherine was telling her about the show as we sat outside. I just sat there.

Kat and Brenda crossed their legs into lotus position and started chanting, “Ohm. Ohm. OOOHHMMM.”

There was a lot of giggling among the Ohms, and it irritated me. This was a serious matter. This was a good idea.

I climbed up onto the picnic table, sat cross-legged, closed my eyes and concentrated. None of this Ohm stuff, either. My goal was to see my brother. Mom said he was in heaven. I’d find him there. So I thought, heaven heaven heaven, Ian in heaven heaven heaven.

I did this for a long time, thinking of nothing else. Everything was concentrated on that one thought. To see Ian. Heaven, heaven, heaven. Ian is in heaven.

Then a strange thing happened. I couldn’t hear Katherine and Brenda anymore. Then I couldn’t hear the birds singing. Then I couldn’t feel the picnic table under my butt. The only sensation, the only sound, was my voice in my head chanting heaven, heaven heaven.

Then a snap, mildly painful, like an unwillingly cracked joint, and a great whoosh straight up out of the top of my head. Zoom! Straight up, so fast I didn’t register anything but the speed of it.