Mother was in the kitchen ironing, the smell of Niagara starch strong in the air. The smell of the starch, the back-and-forth of the iron, and the warmth of the kitchen were comforting.
I was playing under the kitchen chair with my toy piano. At 5, I had no impulse control. I took the piano wires out of the piano and started punching holes in the vinyl kitchen chairs because it sounded cool.
When Mother realized what was happening, she screamed, and everything happened quickly. She used a tablecloth to tie me to a chair and folded a pillowcase to cover my mouth.
Then she ironed like a demon, fast-jabbing motions, going on and on about how my father thought I was such a good girl and that he would see I was rotten when he got home. Frankly, I never heard him say I was good at anything. But she went on and on like that. I cried a lot. I went from fear to rage at being trapped. I just had to sit there and wait. The rest faded to black for me. It is possibly the first time I disassociated.
This is where I started to learn to endure, go deep in my mind, and control myself. Little by little, I got very good at it. I can be in a room and make myself very small. I call it pulling my aura back in.
