Freaks Like Me

Prologue

I can’t split myself into a million pieces! Don’t you get that? I can’t please everyone!

With that, I’m quiet, and I put my head down. I’ve upset her, and that’s the last thing I wanted to do. There is silence in my mind. Just for a moment.

Wow…we’ve hit a new level of pathetic just now! You’re so stupid and selfish. You’ll never learn, will you? I knew the voice would return. It always does.

I run upstairs to my bedroom, to escape from the situation, but really, I’m trying to hide from the unrecognisable person I’ve become.

My back leans against the wall and then, my body falls until I’m seated on the floor. I’m shaking. My head is spinning and my heart is thumping faster and heavier…

I know it’s coming, but I don’t know at the same time. It’s difficult to explain, because at some point, unknown to me, my mind just blanks out.

Stop it! Stop pulling at your hands right now! somebody yells. They hold my hands together in a grip they have made with their own.

Slowly, I am returning.

I know what happened before, because the feelings are still there. Anxiety still rushes through my veins as I try to catch my breath.

That’s it, in and out, they say, showing me how to breathe, showing me how to come back.

I don’t know what I did, I say to my mum, crying now, or what I said.

She strokes the baby hairs back from my red, sweaty face and says, I’ll tell you later.

Afterwards, I lie on my bed in the quiet of my bedroom, waiting for ‘later’ to arrive, fearing all of the possibilities. How can I just lose time like that? How can I not know what I’ve said, or done, or what other people have said to me?

Because you’re pathetic, the voice tells me, not that I need to be reminded, and I cry again.

That was one of my many panic attacks, each as destructive as the one before.

Usually, it didn’t take much to set me off. This was just something my sister said. Basically, I wanted us to spend more time together. I felt like she was becoming more distant from me with every passing day, but because she was so busy and felt like everybody wanted something from her, she snapped. She’s only human.

My sister wasn’t mean to me, but I was hypersensitive. Everything that could have been taken as a negative opinion of me, or a criticism, a rejection or a disagreement, and I’d just break.

It could have been a very obvious joke, and sometimes, it didn’t even have to be words: it could have been a funny look, real or imagined, but I’d feel devastated and disliked, fearing what other people could see when they looked at me.

Could they see the damage? Could they see the pain behind my eyes?

But I knew the answer – no. And it was ‘no’ because I’d developed a really good system of pretence. I wasn’t the image of depression or anxiety. In public, I didn’t fit any stigma of mental illness.

But in private, I wanted to die…

Part One

Before

Chapter One

One thing that is for certain about me? I was intentional. I am intentional.

My mother had a miscarriage before me, and it devastated her. She wanted another baby, so she was ecstatic when she found out she was pregnant again. Eight months, thirteen days, eleven hours and forty-five minutes later, I was here. I am here, and I like to think I’m here for a reason.

I love the fact that I was planned and purposefully brought into the world, and born into a family I love with all of my heart. I was named after my great-grandmother, a formidable matriarch, and she had thirteen children. Thirteen! Between them, my nan and granddad had seventeen siblings, fifteen of whom were girls. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, my family is gigantic. The stories I’ve heard about the generations of Peterson’s that came before me are legendary, not always for the right reasons, but legendary all the same.

We are a pretty happy, supportive family, but of course, there are some broken connections, a few issues that may never be resolved, and everybody ends up closer to some than they are to others. But we all love each other. We’re all there, and whilst we have found our own ways in life, and followed our own paths, our family – the importance of family – is the foundation.

My mum’s pregnancy was plain-sailing (her words, not mine!), but from the moment she held me, she was scared that something was going to happen to me. She has never been able to explain it; she just says she felt an overwhelming sense of fear. I was a clingy baby, and I don’t know if that was an accidental effect of her fear, or if it’s just the way I was. I was very affectionate too. They say I’ve ‘always loved a good hug!’

I am a summer baby and I always feel much happier when the sun comes out. We even used to joke that I had a terrible case of S.A.D (seasonal affective disorder) because when the weather was horrid, I genuinely did feel sad. Considering I live in England, with its accurate rainy reputation, I’m sure I’d always be feeling down and dreary if I really did suffer with S.A.D. My nursery nurse used to call me ‘Miss Sunshine’ because I was always smiling once I’d settled in. She said I reminded her of the sunshine baby from the Teletubbies!

Something else that made me happy was stories. I was obsessed and always wanted multiple bedtime stories. As far back as my family can remember, I nearly always had a book in my hand. As a little toddler, I already knew the alphabet inside out, both ways. The nursery nurses were pretty impressed with that!

Chapter Two

As a young woman, my mum was a residential social worker. She worked with disabled children, neglected children and underprivileged children, and it was everything she’d ever wanted from her career. She continued for a while after she’d had her first daughter, my sister Ellie, but for a few days every week, she had to leave her baby with our grandparents, and in the end, she decided to move back home permanently, settling for a standard 9 to 5 nearby.

I know I’m biased, but she is one of the most incredible women I have ever known. She has the biggest, kindest heart, and even in the most difficult situations, she never once wavered from being a great mum. My goals and aspirations have changed many times, but one dream has always remained the same: I want to be a mother. That’s not because I feel some kind of pressure, or because there is an age-old expectation of motherhood due to the fact that I was born female. It’s because I have spent my entire life watching this woman standing on her own two feet, working tirelessly, raising her children and being brilliant at it.

So someday, when I’m ready, I know I’ll have the best role model to show me the way.

As a child, my sister was a bit of a spoilt brat. Ellie had always been the centre of attention, never having to share the spotlight, and she loved it that way. I think it’s safe to say she wasn’t exactly thrilled when I came along and crashed that party. (Of course, it worked out pretty well for me!) Ellie would have her friends over and they would pretend they were the Spice Girls, singing into their hairbrushes and dancing around like they were starring in music videos. I always got to be Baby Spice. I love my memories with ‘the big girls’. I really admired one of her lifelong best friends. She was crazy, outgoing and awesome, and I wanted to be like her when I grew up. But deep down, I never looked up to anybody more than I looked up to my big sister.

I just loved being with her, even though it drove Ellie crazy sometimes. I’d find out which boys she fancied and tease her about it, and I’d ‘borrow’ her lipsticks and gel pens and CDs, but she pushed me down the stairs on a space hopper once, so I think we’re even! Ellie will forever argue that I fell, or that my fear signals hadn’t fully developed yet. There is an endless debate about it, but I’m convinced: she definitely pushed me!

A few years later, I got to be a big sister too. Our mum gave birth to another daughter, another sister, and I have suffered from ‘middle child syndrome’ ever since. When my mum told me that she had a baby growing inside her tummy, or however pregnancy is explained to a five-year-old, I decided that I really wanted a baby brother. But when Mia came along, I soon got over it. She was just too cute with her honey-coloured curls and her deep-brown eyes.

As I got older and had my own friends around, I realised that Ellie had a point: having a younger sister can definitely be annoying sometimes! Think about it – you’re an anxious kid anyway, trying to be cool with your friends, but your little sister just keeps showing up, acting weird, demanding their attention, and it didn’t help that they actually liked her! My friends would say she was adorable and I’d smile, secretly contemplating all the things that made her the total opposite. Mia wanted to be part of everything I did when I had my friends over, even though she barely had the time of day for me when