Bio - 10 in My Bio

When I returned home after graduating from Valleyhead, I wasn’t thrilled to face the double whammy of living with both Mom and Tammy. It was horrible—absolutely miserable. Between the two of them cutting me down and trying to mold me into something I wasn’t, I felt completely trapped, degraded, and like a puppet on a string. But this was my reality for the next sixteen months.

Tammy, who had spent nearly a decade in Texas, had returned to our parents’ house after a difficult divorce. She brought her daughter, Lisa, who was barely a year old.

Tammy had always been the type who couldn’t stand being alone—she had to have a man in her life. As soon as she’d divorce one, she’d marry another.

Her first marriage was to a pilot named Dick, which is how she ended up in Texas. Barely out of high school, she ran off with him to escape our unhappy home. She later admitted she had acted out of desperation.

We visited her in San Antonio the summer I was twelve. I was left alone with her while Dick was away flying. It was anything but fun with her barking orders at me like a drill sergeant, constantly belittling me, and mistreating a small dog that was kept in the attached garage at times. I never actually saw it, but I could hear her shouting at it and it wailing miserably.

Next came Joe, a Mexican man with whom she had Lisa. He wasn’t happy about becoming a father and even kicked Tammy in the stomach while she was pregnant to show his displeasure. So, shortly after Lisa was born, Tammy returned to Mom and Dad’s house with her. They were already living there when I returned from Valleyhead.

I’m not sure which was worse: living with Tammy and my mother or being at Valleyhead. My sister was so emotional, moody, and just a flat-out bitch. With no job or friends, she was always home. In fact, I don’t recall her ever having any long-term friends.

My brother and his wife, Sandy, had a son and a daughter, Larry and Jennifer. My parents were initially unhappy about their grandson being named Larry, citing some dumbass rule in the Jewish religion. It was just a name, as far as I was concerned, and as a result, Larry didn’t want any contact with them at that time.

I liked Sandy—she was a compassionate person—but I felt bad for her. My parents initially rejected her because she was Catholic, making her feel inadequate. Also, Larry did nothing but stray and bury himself in work to avoid dealing with life.

A few months after I’d been home, I sent Mary a letter at Valleyhead and called her a few times as well. She said she was going to write back, but that turned out to be just talk. As I was quickly learning, people often make promises they never intend to keep, or they say one thing while meaning another. I know she knew I liked her. It just would’ve been nice if she’d bluntly told me the feeling wasn’t mutual.

Lisa took the room that Nana Bella had used, and Tammy took my room. I lived in the cellar, and although I was glad to be two floors away from the others, it didn’t mean much since we all still had to live in the same house.

After leaving Valleyhead, I was enrolled in the Key Program. As far as my mother was concerned, I just had to be in some sort of program. I never understood her obsession with having a so-called “mental case” for a daughter. I guess she felt it brought her the attention she loved to revel in.

The Key Program mostly meant that I was assigned someone who would visit me at the house from time to time. Sometimes they took me for rides, and one even showed me how to use the public buses. I’m not sure how long I dealt with these people, but I know I was done with them by the time I moved out on my own for good.

At the time, I was on Navane, which I was put on when I was around sixteen or seventeen. The only side effect I noticed back then was a dry mouth. Sometimes you have to be on a medication for a while before you experience its full impact, and doctors don’t always warn you about what could happen. To this day, I have no idea why I was put on this particular medication in the first place. Navane is an antipsychotic typically used for schizophrenia, and I have never in my life heard voices or been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I do have one theory, however, as to why I may have been prescribed this medication, but that’s a whole other story for another time.

By the time I returned home, all my grandparents were gone, my grandfathers having died of heart attacks, and my grandmothers had strokes. At least three of them had dementia before dying.