Lindsey Altom
Bio
For me, writing runs in the blood. I've written songs, poems and short stories ever since I was a little girl. I mostly like to write about my life experiences mixed with a little fiction or just things that come off the top of my head!
Stories (65/0)
The Train to Nowhere...
Lenora sipped her steaming hot coffee as she looked out the window of the train. She'd bought this ticket on a whim and wasn't sure where she was going as she'd blindly chosen where to go by pointing on a map. There was the most beautiful mountains in the distance and then suddenly she could see up ahead the tracks just seemed to stop...there was simply nothing there as far as the eye could see. Lenora didn't panic though as most would she just sat back and relaxed. After all, this was her "I'm just gonna catch a train day."
By Lindsey Altomabout a year ago in Fiction
Judging Eyes
The world was spinning...things did not make sense anymore. My head was a complete blur, my emotions a train wreck, I couldn't sort out what was up and what was down. I remember very little about being on these ADHD medications other than I did not feel like myself and I always felt trapped inside my own body, my own mind. Performing daily tasks that were expected of me like schoolwork and my household chores were excruciating because I could barely stay awake. All my brain wanted to do was shut down... I was overwhelmed and my brain was overloaded. My mother would later say that it was like looking at a zombie and at one point when she looked at me I just busted out crying for no particular reason at all. That's when she said she knew we needed to go to another doctor for yet another diagnoses. I suppose that was a good thing in the end because at least it meant I got off those dreadful ADHD medications they kept trying me on and each one making me more depressed than the one before it. So, we went to another doctor and I couldn't tell you his name only that he stared at me as he sat across from me while he spoke to my mother who sat to the left of me and they discussed me as if I were some science experiment to be examined and not a little girl sitting in the room with them. Oh sure, occasionally Dr. Whateverhisnamewas would ask me a question but the majority of his questions were directed towards my mother as if she knew more about me than me. However, I will say this by this point I was none too fond of speaking to doctors so perhaps this was for the best as well. However, I'll never forget his final diagnoses and how he came to this conclusion or at least one way he did. He glanced down his nose at me and peered through his glasses and since I felt as if I were a science experiment I, of course looked away and then he told my mother, "Look, see how she won't look at me directly in the eyes and she avoids eye contact? She most assuredly has Asperger syndrome." My head snapped up and I challenged that by looking at him directly however he did not seem to notice. I was put on a new medication that day for being mildly autistic. I felt intense shame, I thought something was wrong with me for having this what I viewed as a disease. For years, I would hide it and not tell a soul except those I got so close to in highschool that I viewed as family. I thought my ADHD and Asperger's syndrome were defects and it was not really explained to me that they are strengths instead. It was more of a here is our answer to what is wrong with you. This is why you struggle in school and why your pretty well too dumb to figure things out on your own so I put on a cloak of shame and pretended to be what my mother wanted me to be. I took her drugs she wanted me to take, I did the very best I could in school even though it still wasn't enough, I cleaned the whole house every week top to bottom because that is what was expected of me but she still came in every Thursday and informed me that I did not do things properly. I was told every Thursday that she would now have to redo the whole house because I couldn't just do things the right way the first time! Never an encouraging word did I get, never did she show me where I did things right but this is what I could do improve here... I could never please her. The times were different though right? It was the 90's. Critically judging your kids was just good parenting as it was what their parents did and their parents before them right? Well, why not guide and direct and give encouraging feedback where its deserved? When I was eleven my first sister came into this world and that began a whole new journey that I was not prepared for...
By Lindsey Altomabout a year ago in Families
Little White Lies...
I suppose we should start this story out with some backstory for texture so let's get to it shall we? There once was a young girl with long dark brown hair and sad brown eyes and a young man with long blond hair and forest green eyes that showed both pain and wonder for the world. They were both so young, so pure, so innocent and so immature in many ways. However, they were young, ignorant of the ways of world and in love so who really cared? To them, all that mattered was each other. They had met at a Christian school were they had both attended since grammar school. It was one of those K-12th grade type of schools. They had only ever really thought of each other as friends but about 8th grade for her and what would have been 9th or 10th for him things started changing between them. What with hormones and testosterone rushing throughout their bodies they began to see each other in a whole new light...and pretty soon they couldn't stand to be away from each other. Any chance they got, any chance they were afforded they wanted to be together. They would stay on the phone all night long, they wrote letters in school and begged the teachers who liked them to pass the notes for them(it was a small school) and when that didn't work they would make creative paper airplanes and fly them to each others cubicle desks. At first, the families were in agreeance that they were a cute couple and at first because the young girl was hesitate her mother had said "Oh, Give him a chance. You might be surprised." and surprised she was. They stayed together for years and he was her first...her first love, her first sexual experience, he made her feel things she'd never felt before and helped her believe things about herself that she didn't know was possible. They were even wed in a little church just inside the city limits of her home town. It all seemed like a match made in Heaven right? Well, the trouble was these two weren't aligned very well when it comes to what they wanted and/or expected out of life. Her family found him to be very lazy, selfish and rude at times and his family found her to be spoiled, coddled and too outspoken. They sure did try to make it work though. They wanted so badly to prove everyone wrong but the truth was that some of what their families said was true. Now, I don't want you thinking that people can't change because they most certainly can if they so wish to do so and people can mature and grow and blend together with their dreams and goals but...that is not what happened here. They began to listen to the outside influences and not listen to each other. They also began to doubt themselves and neither truly knew how to love themselves. You see, they got together in a time when they both were pretty broken and although one person can certainly not heal another they did what they could. They did all they knew to do but in the end the young man did have a tendency to be quite lazy and he hopped from job to job never really sufficiently financially supporting his family. He was the Master of Excuses and always had a good lie for why he couldn't do something or why he'd lost yet another job. He didn't support her financially, emotionally or physically in the marriage and although they had many happy times more often than not she was left feeling alone. He had a few shining moments and then the light in him would go out again and he'd go back to the shadows, believing he was useless and a failure. Depression....it's a mean beast if I ever did see one. He failed her because he couldn't get over his own traumas and he couldn't find his way to the light. She couldn't take it anymore and she had some healing and trauma work she needed to do herself. One day she thought, "If I'm going to feel alone all the time in a marriage I might as well be alone." So, in one defining moment in his truck when he drove her to work one morning she got up the courage, thought to herself, "Say it, just like they do in the movies..."I want a divorce." and then she said it. She couldn't believe she'd said it. She had a six year old little boy with this man and a little girl on the way but she just didn't know what to do anymore. He just nodded his consent. A few months later...she was talking to him after the divorce over the phone and she told him that she'd decided to name their daughter Aliza Rayne. The Aliza part was after her grandmother's grandmother whose name was Eliza but the Rayne part he immediately asked if it was for him because he'd always wanted to change his name to Rain and they'd always talked about that. In truth, it was but it was also because her great grandmother's family name was Rainey but the main reason she'd chosen Rayne...him. But she lied and quickly said "No, it was my great grandmother's family name." He responded with a small "Oh."
By Lindsey Altomabout a year ago in Confessions
She's Autistic...
"She's autistic...she has adhd too." They whisper behind her back as if she isn't standing but a foot away and as if autism somehow makes her deaf as well. She takes a deep breath and keeps walking. It would do no good to confront them. Their small ignorant minds couldn't handle the truth anyway. But still...she carries their words with her. Like a backpack that has too much weight to bear it's just one more thing she adds to her pack of things that float around in her head and that's just the tip of the iceburg. Most people don't know she has these what they call learning disabilities because she doesn't want people to know. Her mother made a large enough deal out of it by taking her to all those doctors. She knows that her mother just wanted to find out why she couldn't understand her studies the way she did when she was young. Why she was so stupid? Oh she'd never say that out loud...her mother didn't have to. That much was implied. Smart people didn't make C's, D's and F's like she did. On top of that she saw the way people looked at her since the diagnoses. These pills didn't help either. And that doctor literally told her mother that he could tell she had asperger's because she wouldn't make eye contact with him. After that, she was sure to look at him directly in his eye the duration of the visit. Idiot...as if just by not looking at a person you can identify what "disabilities" one may or may not have. "What's wrong with you?" That was a good one too. She'd heard that one on more than one occasion. "I'm not sure. What is wrong with me?" She'd think. "Is my brain broken and unfixable?" So she took to hiding it. She wouldn't tell a soul about her dual diagnoses unless she was forced to. That way she would appear "normal". She could blend in and at least out in a public of her peers be seen as just one of them. That was what she hoped for at least but she was different...in several ways. She did show signs of social awkwardness just because the "normal" ways of doing things in this world of social hierarchy made no sense at all to her. Humans are fascinating creatures but they were viewed as more of a science experiment to her rather than something to truly want to fit in with...of course she wanted friends and had a sense of not wanting to be alone but the general way people carried out life was baffling to her. It made no sense. So therefore she stood out. She had certain sensitivities that others did not. And the anxiety and depression was a real beast. She also as previously mentioned did not learn the way others did. Her brain was most certainly unique in many ways but unfortunately she saw it as a curse. Eventually, a nice young man taught her that her mind was stronger than she knew and that she could overcome her own faults and not need her medication and so she stopped. Throwing that medication down the drain was so very satisfying. For the first time she was doing something on her own and taking control and no one was any wiser. Things were hard though, harder still...her brain was a relentless bucking bull that she had to learn how to tame. The verbal assaults from everyone around her minus a scarce few were not easy to take either. Words were constantly thrown about like stones as if they didn't matter. Once she was told, "Do you think since you took all that medication as a kid that that could be what's wrong with you?" "No, no, I don't think that has anything to do with it at all." was all she managed to say after incredulously staring at this man she thought loved her for a full minute before responding. Now, I'm proudly proclaiming to have Asperger's and ADHD and am a stronger person because of it. Today, however, I was told my beautiful, perfect baby girl needs to be tested for a possible learning disability and my heart sank. I'm not going to lie...I cried. I worry for her, no mother wants their child to go through what they did and I like many of us have went through Hell. However, she is not me and she will be taught to be loud and proud of who she is no matter the outcome. Children and life can be harsh but she will and we will outshine them all!!!
By Lindsey Altomabout a year ago in Humans
The Day She Flew...
Running, that's all she's ever known. There's something or someone that is chasing her and she is trying to get away; she must reach freedom. She cannot let the bad get her, it cannot reach her or it will consume her. So she's running and all of a sudden she takes flight and she's flying around this room in this dark, danky warehouse. She's flying as hard and as high as she can but it's just not high enough or far enough and soon the gnarled, twisted hand will reach her and grab her. She'll be smothered out, her light eternally put into darkness. She's getting tired and can't go on much further so she frantically searches for an open door or window somewhere. A crack big enough for her to fit through, something anything so she can escape. She's hitting her head and bumping her wings on the ceiling and on the low hanging lights that are in the warehouse, about to give up even though she knows she can't but what is she to do? When suddenly there is a broken window she hasn't spotted before and even though the bad is grabbing at her, gnashing it's teeth at her she darts towards her only chance at freedom. She makes it but just barely. She's suddenly blasted with a light so bright she momentarily cannot see but she keeps flying. The bad is right on her tail and it's going to get her she can feel it. She can almost see it's face so she flys faster and harder hoping to get away. She tries to fly higher but she just can't seem to fly any higher than it's grasp. She fly's through the trees at an angle and zooms over pools of water. Suddenly, she starts to notice more and more the beauty that surrounds her and suddenly she realizes that the bad thing is gone. It has vanished beneath her. Suddenly, with a burst of energy she soars ever higher towards the big blue sky with the white puffy clouds. She's always wanted to explore the sky so up, up, up she goes. It's so very blue the further up you go. Everything down below just appears as a speck; a small nothing if you will as if all that bad that loomed over her just moments before wasn't all that terrifying after all. It was as it turned out just a bit of nothing. It turns out that your troubles may all be about perspective. The closer you are they seem quite large and looming but the further away you get they seem small and not so troublesome. Even the mountains seemed but a speck from this height. She decided after a time to swoop in a little closer though and there she saw the white snowy caps on the mountains high. The deer, squirrels and other woodland creatures rooming about in the forest going about their day. She saw a mama wolf stopping by a creek with her pups for some fresh mountain creek water. There was so much more beauty really than all the bad that had been chasing her all her life. As it turned out all she had to do was look at things from a different perspective and by spending a day in the sky above she had realized this was true. She found that she particularly liked the forest and so it was there that she decided to find her respite. She found an old tree that had clearly been around for some years and there was already a hollowed out hole in the old tree so she quickly gathered some twigs and things for her nest and settled in for the night. She was so tired. What would tomorrow bring? Would she still be able to take flight? If so, where oh where should she go?
By Lindsey Altomabout a year ago in Fiction
Judging Eyes...
Chapter 1: From the day I was born almost before I've been judged. My mother was sixteen when she had me and somehow in some people's eyes that was my fault. My parents conceived me out of holy wedlock and that was my fault too I suppose. As if I asked for this life. The doctor asked my mother when she learned of my conception if she'd like to abort me after all she was only fifteen at the time. Thankfully, she said no and left that doctor's office. I often wonder if she has ever regretted that decision. Not that she'd ever admit to that. So, my untimely birth occurred and by the time I was three my parents had grown apart so to speak and had fought their way to a divorce. If you ask my mother she'd say she outgrew him even though she was younger than him and that they just weren't a good match which that much is true. If you ask my father he'd say she likely cheated on him and nowadays has realized she's likely a narcissist. I honestly can't say either statement to be untrue. In kindergarten I was judged by my teacher because my parents were sinners. I was always in trouble because of various reasons. I wouldn't be still during naptime, I wiggled too much on the rug during story time, I talked too much...etc. Any little thing and I got sent to the storage closet with the door shut. I'm told my mother did go up there to fight for me on my behalf. Shortly thereafter my step dad came into the picture and he became both my savior and the instigator to my mother's insanity. My life living with my mother was pure Hell and there is really no other way to describe it. Until I was eleven years old which is when my first half sister was born I was the only thing she focused on it seemed to me. I had to have the perfect outfit, the perfect hair but the main things that I remember to be troubling is the fact that I was not as good in school as she was and she simply could not understand why. And for the life of me, I could not live up to her expectations. She wanted A's and maybe a few B's; I brought home an occasional B but mostly C's and sometimes D's. That was simply not good enough. There must be something amiss! She would exclaim. For some reason your brain doesn't understand. So...my brain was...is....broken? Her judgments of what a daughter, her daughter should look like failed her. I had brown hair and brown eyes like my father and I've always thought I reminded her too much of her own sins. Of the judgments she received from everyone because I wasn't blond hair and hazel eyes like her and I looked more so like my father and his side of the family her sins were harder to hide. She couldn't take the eyes on the back of her head in the pew at church or the whispers in the grocery store coming from the other aisle. Did you hear...? People always whisper and look at you as if you aren't even there. I received those stares and whispers too. Then, to make matters worse I was not as smart as her in school and struggled quite a bit. I was socially awkward too and although I did have a handful of friends making them was clearly not my strong point. I was not much like her at all and that was distressing I suppose. We fought a lot...mostly about school at first. I'm told when I was very young she and I actually somewhat got along but when school started and it was made apparent I was not the child she asked God for, she'd been cheated somehow the fights began. Or maybe it's that she never really wanted me to begin with seeing as she was so young and then I was so...different... and she so young and she didn't know what to do with me or how to be my mother. Maybe it's both...either way things did not go as they should have. She, under the guise of helping me, started taking me to doctor after doctor to sort out what was wrong with me and why couldn't I understand my school work? Why did she and I stay up until midnight almost nightly trying to get my homework done? Why was every session of homework a screaming match? Why when I didn't get my spelling words right could she not make me understand? Why was math so hard for me that I had taken to cheating just to please her? Just so she would think I understood. This was back in the 90's and diagnosing everyone with ADD was quite popular so finally that is the diagnoses we got and so began my journey with Ritalin, Adderall, etc. And oh what a fun journey that was....
By Lindsey Altomabout a year ago in Families