PROLOGUE: LABYRINTH
I've always known I was different from the other kids my age. Sure I had friends. What kid doesn't? The problem is, I had some difficulty making new friends. I always clung to the old ones. It made sense to me. Why throw away a perfectly good friend in exchange for another that might not be worth it? That kind of reasoning has helped me avoid the "normal" high school drama. Normality is just a concept, an idea formed by the majority.
My parents and teachers saw my differences right from the start. I was reading by age two. In fact, I was able to comprehend Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by the time I started elementary school.
I was always the well-behaved kid, the quiet one with almost all the answers. I stuck to my few close friends or went off by myself. I stuck to a pattern. The pattern of my life. I and my classmates were still young enough not to fully realize my differences. After all, to a young kid, you were normal as long as you could have fun with everyone else. But I had another side to my personality.
At reading time, I'd sit off to the side, apart from the others, and listen to the story, my mind creating incredible visions of what was happening. I was always more than slightly awkward around the other kids. My closest friend was a girl bythe name of Victoria. She couldn't talk, but by the time I moved away, she would whisper in my ear, no one else's. She trusted me fully to be able to do that.
When it came to the actual work, there were even more problems. I knew the material, as my grades testified. But I couldn't focus on it. There was always some thought in my mind, sound, or movement in the classroom that warranted my immediate attention. I was too curious for my own good.
My parents took me to the doctor to see if they knew anything. The doctor took one look at my report card.
"What are you talking about? There's nothing wrong here," was all he said. And that was the end of it.
Te same thing happened when my parents talked to the child study team. One look at my most recent report card was all they needed to confirm that there was nothing wrong. My parents let the matter drop for a few years. Most likely, it was to see if they could sort me out on their own. But as I got older, things got worse. SOMETHING had to be done, but it wasn't untill my junior year of high school that action was taaken.
I've always known I was different from the other kids my age. Sure I had friends. What kid doesn't? The problem is, I had some difficulty making new friends. I always clung to the old ones. It made sense to me. Why throw away a perfectly good friend in exchange for another that might not be worth it? That kind of reasoning has helped me avoid the "normal" high school drama. Normality is just a concept, an idea formed by the majority.
My parents and teachers saw my differences right from the start. I was reading by age two. In fact, I was able to comprehend Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by the time I started elementary school.
I was always the well-behaved kid, the quiet one with almost all the answers. I stuck to my few close friends or went off by myself. I stuck to a pattern. The pattern of my life. I and my classmates were still young enough not to fully realize my differences. After all, to a young kid, you were normal as long as you could have fun with everyone else. But I had another side to my personality.
At reading time, I'd sit off to the side, apart from the others, and listen to the story, my mind creating incredible visions of what was happening. I was always more than slightly awkward around the other kids. My closest friend was a girl bythe name of Victoria. She couldn't talk, but by the time I moved away, she would whisper in my ear, no one else's. She trusted me fully to be able to do that.
When it came to the actual work, there were even more problems. I knew the material, as my grades testified. But I couldn't focus on it. There was always some thought in my mind, sound, or movement in the classroom that warranted my immediate attention. I was too curious for my own good.
My parents took me to the doctor to see if they knew anything. The doctor took one look at my report card.
"What are you talking about? There's nothing wrong here," was all he said. And that was the end of it.
Te same thing happened when my parents talked to the child study team. One look at my most recent report card was all they needed to confirm that there was nothing wrong. My parents let the matter drop for a few years. Most likely, it was to see if they could sort me out on their own. But as I got older, things got worse. SOMETHING had to be done, but it wasn't untill my junior year of high school that action was taaken.