The Gifted Ones

by Lisa Vaughn

A memoir

Published by Lisa Vaughn on Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Lisa Vaughn

All rights reserved

***********************

~ This book is dedicated to my family ~

~

My Mother and Father

Who I realized, in the end, were not evil at all -

just doing what they thought was best for me

with the limited understanding

they had at the time.

My Sister

For a lifetime of support, through thick and thin,

living her childhood amidst my black shadow.

I hope this book inspires her to deal with her own demons, and to finally be set free.

May we grow old together and live out our

'Golden Girl' fantasy!

My Brother

The one that I never really got to know,

but withstood my sibling abuse and disregards.

Thanks for hanging in there!

And a special thanks to:

~Nelo~

“The Wonder Dog”

For had I not met him,

this book possibly never

would have come to exist,

and I would not be set free.

Thank you, my canine pal!

Introduction

It was as if a freight train had hit me. That's the only feeling I remember. Within a fraction of a second, I felt as if I couldn't breathe, could possibly pass out...or just die.

I was home, killing time upstairs in my room, like your typical teenager. My dad was also home, so it must've been a weekend. My name echoed from the bottom of the stairs, summoning me to the kitchen table. If only I knew then what I would soon come to know, I would've jumped out my bedroom window and never looked back. Caught completely off guard, like a lamb being led to slaughter, totally unaware of the shit storm ahead, I be-bopped down the staircase, as my mom gestured for me to take a seat, which I did voluntarily. Seemingly, out of nowhere, something flew from behind me - over the top of my head, practically grazing my skull. A dull thud diverted my attention as “it” plopped directly in front of me, landing on the kitchen table. Taking a few minutes to focus, I began to digest what I was seeing. I think my heart started pounding a few seconds before my brain told me what I saw.

“It” was my diary. MY fucking diary! My PRIVATE diary! Blood rushed to my head, flushing it beet red, as perspiration instantly broke out from every pore, covering my young, adolescent body. I had never felt this level of fear before in my life - not even while giving an oral report in front of the class. My whole world passed before my eyes, and in a flash, I realized life as I knew it was about to change drastically. If there had ever been a better time to be stricken with a heart-attack and die, it would have been convenient then. I was not that lucky.

The first words spoken were my mother's. “What the hell is this?”, she said sternly, in a low voice I hadn't heard before then. I felt the lump in my throat swell, blocking off my ability to speak. My mind was racing. What was I going to say? Desperation took over. In a lame attempt to get out of this tightening noose, I started to laugh. They looked at me as if I were insane, and frankly, at that moment, I truly believe I was. I opened my mouth and started to explain that this was not MY diary, but writings for a play I had been working on for school. It wasn't a true story, or even about me actually. I was abruptly cut off from my babbling web of deceit. Apparently, Peggy had had enough of my deceiving lies and wanted to know the truth. My immature mind raced as I searched my creative lobes for a more convincing route, but there was nothing more I could say. It was all right there in black-and-white, ratting me out like a two-faced friend. My beautiful writings of my incredible journey, my unbelievable love, sitting there on the family table right before my eyes...and theirs.

Funny, they didn't see it like that at all. The words in my diary held no beauty to them. Instead, my own words, the words that gave me so much comfort when I had no one else to talk to, had turned against me, backing me into a corner. A corner in hell!

All they saw was ugliness. The look on their faces told me right away that I was not winning over this crowd. I sat silently for what seemed like hours. My beautiful, perfect world was closing in around me, and there was nothing I could do. I felt as if I were sinking to the bottom of a pool with a concrete block tied to my ankle. The two people that had raised and nurtured me, who supposedly loved me, had suddenly turned on me. I was now their enemy in a matter of mere minutes. Do you know what that feels like? It feels like everything you ever trusted in your life was suddenly a lie, and always had been, you just happened to be the fool that didn't catch on soon enough. I felt abandoned, I felt stupid, I felt so alone - surrounded by my so-called-family.

And that's when my true, “official” introduction to hell would begin.

Chapter 1

The Beginning

Sympathy, Empathy, Encouragement, and Involvement are all good attributes to possess in ones personality - especially helpful in raising children. Unfortunately, those helpful tools were not known by my parents. Excelling in life and doing the “right” thing was just expected. Luckily, I was smart and did well in school, as failing, or disappointing someone, was not an option for me. I've been told, on more than one occasion, that I am truly my harshest critic. Apparently they never met my mother.

I recall an early episode with my mom, shopping for new school dresses at Sears. I purposely found myself picking out the ugliest, fattest dresses they had on the rack. Which is totally bizarre behavior for me, as being fat, or even appearing fat, has always been my hang-up in life. Why I have this fear is unclear, but I'm guessing it probably stems from having an obese grandmother that weighed in around three-hundred pounds. Although she was our “swinging” grandma, as we called her, the sight of her scared me to death. Would I end up like her? I gasped at the thought, although I couldn't summarize why I felt this way. Body image wasn't the latest buzz phrase in the seventies. I was just a kid in grade school, the root for my fear hadn't even crossed my mind. I think just the mere size of her presence was enough to scare a small child, and I just knew I didn't want to end up like that. I wonder if my mother sensed my fear, standing in the dressing room, as she relentlessly questioned my choices, knowing I usually insisted my clothes fit properly, even tight, as not to give false ideas of extra padding under there. Regardless of what she thought or said, I stuck to my guns and swore I liked the dresses, promising to wear them. They were purchased, bagged up, and brought home. Of course they remained hanging in my closet, unworn, most of the school year.

I called them my “fat dresses” and refused to be seen in them. My mother had a conniption, questioning why I bought dresses that I obviously did not like, and had no intentions of wearing. There was no denying, they really were the ugliest dresses on the planet! The truth was, however, I felt sorry for them. Knowing how ugly they were, and how nobody would ever want or love them. Unable to leave them on the rack, to be passed by and ostracized, I sacrificed my wardrobe to give them a home. My empathy for the clothes was not counter- felt by my mother, however, as that absurd reasoning certainly did not fly with her, which resulted in constant fighting over those stupid clothes. Regardless, I hardly wore them but maybe a few times that year, mainly out of guilt for their feelings, not hers. Empathy, one of the main qualities I had developed early, had made me, at times, an overly sensitive kid - an easy target for ridicule. But not from my peers as you would expect, no, my main source of ridicule would come from my own mother.

I am Lisa. And my life started out in an average white–bread, mid western, bible–belt of a town, called Terre Haute. Smack dab in the middle of the Indiana cornfields, bordering Illinois. Born into your typical all-American family, Peggy and Larry were a young couple starting their family at the ripe old age of twenty for my mom, and twenty-six for my dad. A typical family in 1963, dads worked and moms stayed home to raise the kids. We led a very simple, modest lifestyle. It was an era when ten dollars was a lot of money, and children still respected their elders. My parents were raised by the generation that believed children should be seen but not heard, and they still slightly bought into that mantra while raising us. They weren't exactly their parents, so to speak, but they weren't hippies either - just kind of stuck in the middle, finding their own ways, I guess.

Our average style house was decorated in typical sixties decor, with my mom's prized white leather couch as the centerpiece of our family room. She had it arranged in the middle of the room, a divider of sorts, the sixties version of feng shui. Who knew Peggy was that chic? It was a simple, two bedroom-one bath-no garage kind of place, located within the city limits. We had a big backyard that housed three huge apple trees, allowing plenty of room to play outdoors and have a big dog. The neighborhood was safe - no doors were ever locked - and kids walked to school without worry. Middle-America, with your average caucasian family - a scene straight from The Brady Bunch. Although, there would be nothing Brady about me, or my future ahead.

An early hint of what my parents might be up against occurred around 1968. I can't remember my thought process at the time, as I was only five, but for some reason, I found it acceptable to take a black permanent marker, writing 'LISA THE GREAT' across the back of the white leather couch, seeing no harm in my graffiti/artwork. Where I came up with that catch phrase for myself, is beyond me, as I never envisioned myself as a magician, nor do I think anyone purposely instilled that kind of self-confidence in me. The only other explanation was my own instinctual survival package, conveniently installed from birth, which included a strong will and some self esteem, obviously.

Imagine my surprise when my mom discovered the graffiti, that now adorned her furnishings, and flew into a rage! My first line of defense was to blame it on my baby sister, not realizing she probably wasn't my best alibi at age two. The unlikeliness of her getting out of her playpen, and being capable of writing a sentence, never occurred to me - let alone the question of why she would write that phrase in the first place! She was hardly old enough to be a fan of mine yet. It sure occurred to my mom, though, and that was the kick off to our push-and-pull relationship, as well as the beginning of her famous quips. “Fools' names and fools' faces are always seen in public places”. That would be the first of many I would come to hear in my lifetime.

Raised in the time span of the sixties and seventies, we were certainly taught manners - and we practiced them - not realizing we had a choice to rebel. Undesirable behaviors were remedied with a spanking or a quick pop to the mouth, which thankfully, I became particularly good at dodging. Especially since she had mastered the art of getting her wedding ring to meet my front teeth, practically every time. Perfect form, perfect sync, quite the Zorro of back-handing! She got plenty of practice, as I had quite the smart mouth on me, or so I was told. She eased up on that type of capital punishment the year my braces were installed, finally giving her financial motivation to stay away from my pearly whites...go figure.

Physical punishment wasn't necessary that often with us, especially as my sister and I got older. We were good kids and towed the line - or suffered the consequences. Of course, a little fear mixed in didn't hurt. Fear was their main tool for control over us, and for every other family that maintained control in their household. That's just the way it was. If you didn't fear your parents, there'd be no respect - thus no control. Like I said, it was just the way they did it in that era. If you received a scolding or disappointing glare, it would be the mental punishment of disappointing your parents that hurt longer, soaking in deeper, as if cancer were eating you from the inside out. Nothing holds a candle to that feeling. My early introduction to a little word called respect. My parents made sure we knew it, breathed it, and lived it every day.