Tonight, we are taking another deep dive into the issue of my un-dissolvable identity in order to figure out just why the I am so goddamned determined to be self-determined.

First off, a timeline. As far as I can tell,I have always been that way. But put a small question mark next to that statement, because I am not totally sure that I was that was before school happened to me.

From what little I remember about my preschool life, it doesn’t seem like I was stubborn and willful back then. Not in the same way or to the same degree, anyway.

I do remember once incident. When I was a little one, I developed a quite alarming abcess in the upper right portion of my mouth. The thing eventually grew to being around three inches long and took up most of that part of my mouth, which made speaking and eating difficult.

So I was slated for a combination surgical removal of the damned thing and an exploratory surgery to find out what the fuck caused it.

That meant I had to get a bunch of medical tests done beforehand. When you are operating on a three year old, you want to make damned sure you know what you are doing.I approve.

But the manner in which they were done was less than ideal.

My first blood test,  some nurse at the medical center got my blood by stabbing me in the finger with a hooked needle.

I am not making that up. Back in 1976,  the standard way to get blood from a baby or very small child was to stab them in the fingertip and collect blood from the wound.

So when it came time for ANOTHER blood test, I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let THAT happen again. They tried it, I fought back with every inch of my body, and so they decided to try it the normal way, with a needle in a vein.

Boffo. But it was my mother who took me to get it done, and that turned out to be a bad thing because my mother is deathly afraid of needles and therefore so was I.

The laws of nature say that if Mama is afraid of it, so is the child. This makes a lot of sense in the wild,and it’s how a child learned what to fear and avoid.

So when the time came to actually draw the blood, I freaked out. Being the cunning runt that I was, I asked to go to the bathroom that was part of the lab.

And then I locked myself in and refused to come out until they promised me that I would not have to face the needle.

And eventually they did. It was a lie, of course. This was a medically necessary test and there was no way they would ever skip it just becuase I was being (very) stubborn.

And by the time I opened that door and let them grab me and take the blood, I was tired and bored and starting to feel ashamed of myself for causing such a fuss and so I was resigned to my fate and didn’t struggle at all.

Even at that young age, I grasped that this was not a uwinnable fight.

I tell this story not just because it is funny and SO me, but because it showswhat an odd child I was.

Most kids would never even dream of locking themselves in the bathroom to avoid a needle. They might struggle and cry,, true, but that’s as far as it would go.

And alot of kids would have just gone through with it because that’s what their parents wanted them to do.

Somehow. I was different. I had my signature combination of stubborness, intelligence, and temper even then. And that made me kind of hard to handle.

Bet that young lady doctor still remembers the incident. Heh heh heh.

And this was before I was raped. So clearly this is my basic temperament,.the kind that never changes for the rest of your life.

My school records prove that.

It’s not that I was an angry kid with a problem with authourity  who was always looking for a way to strike back.

Most of the time, I was a fairly placid and agreeable kid. That’s what made me such a handful.My teachers never knew when the other side of my personality would emerge.

If we are talking full on tiny tower of righteous anger mode,. it was usually when I was scared or upset.  But that was not something anyone would have been able to predict, least of all me.

I was just too weird a kid. Nobody knew how to deal with a kid like me,.

It can suck to be unique.

Oh right. I was going to talk about the identity thing.

That’s the problem I have with ever, ever, EVER letting my identity being subsumed in any sort of group identity. It’s why I am such a non-joiner. I won’t join teams, sides, armies, political parties, bowling leagues, or online fan forums

This is not a choice on my part. I would rather be at least somewhat of a joiner. Being part of something bigger than me could do me a lot of good. It’s not normal or healthy to be this extreme.

But I can’t help it. Just the thought of my individuality being reduced to that as one interchangable part of a whole makes cold sweat break out on the back of my neck and fills me with the dangerous kind of fear, the scared animal kind of fear, the fear that could turn into rage or other insanity at any second.

It’s cornered rat fear.

The bottom line is that I absolutely must be myself and only myself at all times. It’s who I am and who I need to be.

I’m like a wild animal who might well come around your back yard if fed and might behave in a friendly way towards you and who might even let you pet him as long as you are alone and he can see what your other hand is doing.

But you will never, ever, ever get him to come inside.

And if you try to catch him, you will never see him again.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.