I didn’t know, until a couple of years later, all the lies my father told on me for them to accept me in Youth House, from there to Bellevue, where they gave me shock treatments. They are not called shock treatments today. Now, they call it shock therapy or electro-convulsion treatments. They want it to sound real nice, but it doesn’t stop you from having violent convulsions while they are applying those electrical impulses to your brain. I would admit at the time my parents took me to Youth House, I was a nervous wreck. But I don’t think I needed shocked treatments.

I would feel much better trying to finish this story if I mentioned right now I’ve been having a strong, unconscious resistance to calling my father a parent. In my mind, a parent is one who cares for and nurtures their offspring or any child for that matter. I think people like my father should be called something else, something that means ‘un-parenting parent.’ Until the completion of this story, I would like the reader to understand, when I say my parents, I mean my mother and my un-parenting father. I’m sure as far the heavens are concerned, my father failed as a parent.

There were four things that had a lasting effect on my mind during my short stay at Bellevue, which was about two months, and they were shock treatments, being isolated in a big empty room, the ice pack they put me in and being put in a strait jacket. My first shock treatment stands out like a sore thumb. If my memory serves me right, it was no more than two weeks after entering Bellevue Hospital; I had turned twelve years old. It was two years after leaving my grandfather; my father had driven me into a state of mental instability. I was pugnacious toward the other children in the hospital, if they as much as looked at me too long. If the hospital attendants asked me to do something, I wouldn’t do it, and I dared them to make me. When they tried to force me, I’d start fighting them. I was totally rebellious. One day, while I was acting up, the hospital attendant threw me in a big empty room. There was nothing in this room but the four walls and me. I screamed, hollered, and banged on the door, but no one answered. I don’t remember how long I stayed in there.

After coming out of isolation, the attendant realized it didn’t improve my attitude. The next time I got out of hand, they put me in a straitjacket for a couple of days. The only time they let me out of the straitjacket was to go the bathroom. After I was finished, they put me right back in the straitjacket. When it was time to eat, someone was designated to feed me. For me, it was a little unpleasant, but it was child’s play in comparison to what my father did to me. They were trying to break my spirit, like you break a horse. What they didn’t know is my father had tried many times. That’s why he hated me so much-because I wouldn’t give in. I wouldn’t let him hit on my mother and show no feeling at all or not to react in some way.

The next thing they tried in the hospital when I started fighting or misbehaving was an ice pack. They forced me to take all my clothes off and wrapped me in ice-cold wet sheets, about five or six of them. They mummified me. Everything was covered but my head and I stayed like that for hours, freezing. My upper and lower teeth vibrating together and the agonizing cold were beyond expression. I’m sure many kids caught pneumonia and perhaps died. But all of the things they did to me in the hospital didn’t calm me down. All they did was made me meaner.

The next thing they had on their agenda was shock treatments. To do that, they needed my parents’ signatures. One day, an attendant told me I had visitors. My parents were there to see me. I refused to see them. I would have gone to see my mother, but my father was with her. I didn’t care if I didn’t see him anymore for the rest of my life. After my father, with his evil self, wouldn’t let anyone come to see me. I didn’t see anyone in my family for the next two and a half years.

A few days after my parents left the hospital, an attendant took me into a small room. After entering the room, I felt something was wrong. I saw a couple of attendants standing around. It was too late for me to try and get out. They had already locked the door. I was scared as hell. I noticed a twin size bed in there with some kind of machinery around it. To me, it looked like some kind of contraption Dr. Frankenstein used in his movies. They told me to get on the bed. I refused. Around three of the attendants forced me on the bed and strapped me down. I tried to get loose, screaming and fighting, but it was no use. They had strapped me down, and I couldn’t move. I thought for sure they were going to make a monster out of me. GOD! GOD! Help me! What are they going to do to me?

They put these wires on my head. The next thing I knew I was shaking violently and that was it. I don’t remember anything else. I found out years later when you shake like that while receiving shock treatments, you are having convulsions. You go into a coma-like state. When I came out of that state, I found myself in a big room with the rest of the children, only I was sitting in a corner, all by myself. I don’t remember how I got there or how long I was sitting there. I don’t really know if it was the same day. My mind was blank, empty as an empty bowl. I don’t remember thinking about anything, only staring into nothingness. I don’t remember how many shock treatments they gave me; I only recall the first one vividly, and I recollect walking around in a daze all the time like I was always on drugs. I was confused my father and the world was against me.