Shutting Down...... Part I

Shutting Down……

Part I

The beginning:

I am a product of the 1960’s; good, bad, or indifferent, it’s the way it is. On the surface I had a great childhood, wonderful parents, younger brother, a dog named Beau, traditional extended family, great friends, 4 definitive seasons, all in a very small village in the center of New York State, about an hour south of the Adirondack Park in a snowbelt.

That’s where the normalcy ends.

On the inside, the love for animals was overwhelming, dogs, cats, horses, cows, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, fox, opossum, you get the picture. When I was 3, we were at Rider Crest, the family farm, my mom told me to stay away from the bull. What does a 3-year-old know about a bull? It looked like a cow and to me they were all the same. And guess where I ended up, in the bull pen! I don’t think I ever heard my mother shriek like that, before that time!

I begged my Dad to let me have a horse, we lived in the center of the village and it wasn’t an option, even though we had, what I thought was plenty of room. I befriended the neighborhood cats and squirrels and would talk to them out the windows in the winter. I would go to every parade I could just so I could see the horses at the end, I loved them so. And all this was happening before I knew Dr. Doolittle existed. I can do that, I AM doing that. How? I don’t know, it just happens. There was a small bit of solace with the animals and when I was with Beau, the voices seemed to lessen. I was devastated when he passed. My protector, the little bit of my sanity, was gone.

All the time there was chatter in my head, I never understood. Nothing I heard made one bit of sense. It all, to me, was gibberish. I would sing at the top of my lungs to make the voices stop. It would for a while but would continue later. There was no one to talk to, no one to tell me this was or wasn’t normal. I did have the “imaginary” friends, and more than one. But even they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me about the voices. Who were they? Why can’t I see them? What are they saying? WHY ME?

I never understood the reason why, but my Grandmother convinced my Mother to take me to a Psychiatrist.

I remember him showing me the traditional dot cards and asking me about the sun. In the end all I could figure out was that I was supposed to keep my room clean. Still all the time, the voices remained in my head, but my room was clean.

Sightings in the Dark

When I was 8 or 9 years old, one evening in January or February, my best friend Janet, was already down at the ice-skating rink, her younger brother and I were walking down a little later. As we were walking on the sidewalk, on the bridge that crossed over the crick, I looked over the rail and down on the bank, there was a man all dressed in black, he seemed very tall, running down the bank, towards the water. I asked Kevin, “did you see that?” He said, “I didn’t see nothing.”

When I looked back, he was gone. That night on the way home, when we started to cross the bridge, I walked in the middle of the street – never again to be near those railings in the dark.

A few months later, I was walking into our kitchen from the back door and as you walked in, the cellar door was on the right-hand side. The door was open and I glanced down the stairs and in the dark, I saw the man in black walk right through the wall at the bottom of the stairs! I screamed! My dad came running, I told him I saw someone down in the cellar and that they walked through the wall. He went down, check the whole cellar out, even in coal room. Mom came in and asked what was going on? Dad told her that I thought I had seen someone in the cellar but there’s no one there. “I know that! He walked right through the wall!!”

 They both looked at each other. Dad promised me I’d be safe and both went back to what they were doing before their crazy daughter screamed. And I went and took a nap. Sleep seemed to shut off all the crap going on inside my head. That cellar door was never left open again and I never opened it without turning the light on first.

At that point I shut everything down, the voices, the visions, everything! I refuse to live in fear and everyone was starting to think I was nuts!

Things were quiet for a few years, then later I started feeding a stray cat, she’d disappear in an instant almost out of thin air and then show up again, day after day so we kept her. Then things started coming back, ever so slightly, I didn’t even realize it at the time. We had gotten a couple more cats, I was getting older, driving, job, boyfriend, and on and on, including graduation.

I still Keep the “knowing” but no voices yet and no sightings. Then Apache happened. My first German Shepherd puppy. He was amazing, smart, and we were a great team. And then the animal communication started again. It too started slowly, silently, a little at a time, things were clicking, coming back stronger, the bond with Apache was amazing, (I know now, that he was the gateway), then a second dog, which I rescued; Prin. And I wanted more.

It was time to move out of the house…… too many jobs, dogs, responsibilities, and boyfriends. Anything and everything to keep the voices at bay. Yes, they were back full time.  

I hadn’t had a day off in months. I moved into a 1&1/2 story house, had my 3 boys, Apache, Sammy, and Blue. I had left Prin with my mom. Started showing and teaching dog obedience, working in Schutzhund & tracking with a county sheriff, before police K9’s were popular and branched out on my own as well starting my own obedience school.  It was a few years of living on caffeine, alcohol, too many jobs, and not enough sleep, to keep the voices quiet. I truly don’t know how I made it through that time in my life – late teens to late thirty’s were kind of a blur – just to hide the part of me that I couldn’t share with anyone.

Until……

My mother got sick……

6 months later she passed……

The door I shut, locked, & threw away the key to, just blew wide open.

Now only one voice was in my head, MOM!

When she was diagnosed terminal, I took time out of work on FMLA. Once she passed I took a couple extra weeks to attempt to get my head screwed back on again. I went back to work and tried to get back to a normal routine. The grief was horrendous. It was actually the first time I had to go through a death of a major family member. The whole experience brought terrible feelings up & out including depression, anxiety, and a sadness that I had never felt before that time. And again, no one to talk to who understood. One day it was so bad, I sat on the kitchen floor with a knife in my hand, tears streaming, all of a sudden, I heard my mothers voice; “DON’T YOU DARE DO THAT TO YOUR BROTHER!” I stopped long enough to drop the knife, curl up in the fetal position, beg for help, and cry myself to sleep. I woke up abruptly at 5:00 PM and realized that I had an hour to get dinner on the table.

Hold that thought, part II is coming soon.

In love & light, Lisa