Random musings of a psychopath II: childhood memories
Along the same lines as Part I, but I’ve ditched the freakier elements of the ‘stream of consciousness’ style, which I think was unpopular. Here are some select memories from my childhood (all 5 – 11 years old)
- In primary school I waged war on another kid in my class just because he had the nerve to also be called Jamie (which was my ‘cute little boy*’ name growing up). He became the target of frequent bullying and turned into one of the weird loner kids in high school. At the same time, I insisted my cousin Jamie (who is a good seven years older than me so kind of already had the dibs) be called Jim at all times when I was present. Even nowadays, whenever I encounter other people with the names James or Jamie, I can’t help but feel a certain heightened antipathy toward them just because they are using ‘my name’. Stupid I know.
- My birthday is 5th November, which is a holiday in England commemorating the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament (and the king of the day with it, who incidentally was James I. Come to think of it, it’s the 410th anniversary of the whole shabang this year, reminding us all that England’s democracy is hella old). This means that each year my birthday is marked by fireworks displays and huge community bonfires up and down the land. You can imagine how this fed into the ego of a budding psychopath. I was 10 or 11 before I knowingly met someone with the same birthday, and I reacted in much the same way as with the name thieves. She was a bitch, and she had a stupid name; Ailsa Winter. Now I think of it years later, it’s a pretty name really isn’t it? Quite literary. I wonder if she’s pretty too. Time to look her up on Facebook.
- *By all accounts I was a cute little boy. For the first six years of my life I was blond, hardly ever cried or had tantrums, had good manners and was irrepressibly talkative. I was apparently also very bossy and emotionally manipulative, but that’s by the by. At the age of six I discovered lying and from then until about eight or nine (when the other kids finally caught up) I never understood why nearly all of my classmates would own up to doing ‘bad things’, or dutifully go home and tell their mums they’d been punished. “What idiots,” I would think, “don’t they know they can get away with anything if they just keep their mouths shut or invent a story?”
- The same year, we had a terrible class teacher (who had a nervous breakdown by Christmas and had to leave, not as a result of any of us I might add) followed by a brilliant one (the headmistress of the school). I’m sure we did actual learning too, but my abiding memory is of the headteacher reading us lots of poems by Michael Rosen. They were hilarious for any six year old to listen to, especially when our teacher substituted the characters’ names for kids in the class. If you know any children around that age, make sure they become acquainted with Rosen. If you / they can’t be bothered actually reading something, he performs all his poems on YouTube these days.
- Also at the age of six, I hospitalised my friend due to an experiment whereby I was trying to see how many pebbles from the sandpit would fit inside his ear. Not that many, it turned out.
- There was this boy Cameron who had behavioural problems (looking back, possibly ADHD but I had no clue at the time) and whom I loved winding up, to get him into trouble, but also because ‘Cameron wound up’ was a spectacle to behold. Think tantrums that made the classroom look like a bomb had gone off. I especially liked doing this at lunch, because this really fat no-nonsense lunchtime supervisor would go nuts at him for anything, which would trigger him to lose control and run away in a rage. So I goaded him into hitting me, then went and told Mrs Fatty, which I think was her name. Of course, he ran off, so she would then have to chase him through the corridors, breaking objects and hitting students, catch him and physically restrain him on the floor with her flabby bulk while she waited for the teachers to help her. The memories of these ridiculous scenes still bring a smile to my face.
- There was another boy, Michael, with far more serious problems than Cameron due to a brain defect which made him kind of thick as well as being unable to regulate his emotions at all. Any time a teacher raised her voice to anyone in the class, this would set Michael off crying hysterically. He even cried when his name featured in the Michael Rosen poetry readings. I took him under my wing for several years, treated him as a friend, defended him from any bullying he might have endured, and even comforted him whenever he was in tears (several times a day). He was a curiosity to me, so different, so unfathomable, I was fascinated. But as everyone grew up, Michael sort of didn’t, and by the end of Year 4 (nine years old) he was no longer interesting. The crying was old hat. What’s more, fear and intolerance toward disability (which I didn’t and still don’t share, but it is important to reflect societal norms in your outward behaviour, lest you yourself be an outcast) was turning most of the so-called empathetic children against him, so I let him go.
- Despite being thin and nerdy for quite a few years, I was never the target of bullying. Or to put it more accurately a succession of would-be bullies tried to target me once and never dared to have a second go. I dragged one of them along the ground through a lot of stinging nettles and pushed him head first into a active fox den. He came out all scratched and a bit chewed. Another ‘slipped’ on a patch of ice at the top of some steps. He walked away with a dislocated shoulder and a weird neck.
Amaterasu Solar 16:23 on August 30, 2015 Permalink |
I was one of those kids everyOne picked on. I was nowhere near as assertive and uncaring of what Others think of Me then as I am now. In reading this, My heart went out to the Ones You provoked – a response I suspect You might struggle to identify with… Still, I appreciate Your (apparent) openness about who and what You are. I can also put Myself in Your shoes, as it were.
Very interesting read.
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Anonymous 08:50 on August 31, 2015 Permalink |
Thanks, Amy. I can identity with your reaction, even if I don’t understand it. James.
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Amaterasu Solar 21:59 on September 1, 2015 Permalink |
In truth, one of the most difficult things I battled with is accepting the fact that, no matter how much I want to impart a grasp of compassion to psychopaths, I cannot. Almost paradoxical, it is, for it is My compassion which drives My desire to impart… LOL!
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James 04:06 on September 2, 2015 Permalink |
See reply 😊
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James 04:05 on September 2, 2015 Permalink |
Back as myself. How hard have you tried, Amy? With me, you haven’t done anything to impart a grasp of compassion. Try me.
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Amaterasu Solar 11:00 on September 2, 2015 Permalink |
Dear One, I reach out with My heart – for that is where compassion comes from. It is not in words that I try to impart. If I could touch Your breast, I would give it My best go. But I have tried this before with Others, and They feel nothing of what I give. Still, should any psychopath ask, I will surely try again. But over the web is more of a trick. [smile]
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James 12:03 on September 2, 2015 Permalink |
There’s a bit of a poet in you, isn’t there? Perhaps to prove your point further, compassion comes from the brain, not the heart. Can you find it in your heart / brain to give details on your past experience?
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Amaterasu Solar 08:48 on September 3, 2015 Permalink |
Many have said I am a poet… I feel the compassion in My heart and My mind then contemplates action… Not much to tell – I had a friend who turned out to be a psychopath. I would try to impart the ability to feel compassion, including through direct contact, but He never caught any of it. Others I have tried at distances, though not as fervently. In none of the cases did My efforts amount to a hill of beans.
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James 12:55 on September 3, 2015 Permalink |
Did you manage to maintain that friendship for a while? I disagree that there’s not much to tell, I am very interested to know what exactly you tried to do, how he reacted, whether he showed any sin of understanding what you were trying to do, and much more than I can list here. Please, if you can bear to impart more of your poetic wisdom to me, I am sure it would deepen our friendship (or stop me from bugging you, whichever you prefer 😊)
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Amaterasu Solar 14:48 on September 3, 2015 Permalink |
He was a friend I met up with at a scifi convention years ago. We met at several and He confided to Me His difference. I do not know why He seemingly trusted Me, but He did. I suggested trying some energy workings of sorts. I reached out from My heart. My impressions were that I passed right through Him. I could feel Him there but there was no place to plug into and the energy kept going on.
He seemed minorly disappointed and soon got bored of the experiments. We moved on.
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James 15:13 on September 3, 2015 Permalink |
Trustworthiness; must be your face. I’ve got one too. My frank assessment of your attempts would be that your “energy ” doesn’t really exist 😊 You moved on from each other or you moved on to other things to do together? What scifi are you in to?
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Amaterasu Solar 10:45 on September 4, 2015 Permalink |
Well, interestingly, many non psychopaths I reach out to have showed signs or even said They could feel something, and I don’t get a sense of passing right through, either. But try & convince a psychopath of that… [wink]
We moved to other topics at the time, and I don’t think We saw each Other after that convention.
I was very into the hard-core stuff – Heinlein, Asimov, Ellison, Forward, Silverberg, LeGuin, and so many more. Just now I am more fascinated with the scifi story the psychopaths in control are writing and performing in the world around Me.
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James 11:35 on September 4, 2015 Permalink |
Well I have an open mind, so I accept there is maybe more to it than I understand, though it sounds a good deal like a “healing through prayer” experience or a ‘psychic’ con.
Hmm, that is hard-core, I won’t pretend to know about most of their works in detail. Isn’t the modern-day political story more fantasy than scifi? ☺
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Amaterasu Solar 15:01 on September 4, 2015 Permalink |
It has elements of many a genre… LOL!
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James 15:33 on September 4, 2015 Permalink |
Horror. Action. Slasher fiction. LOL
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