A Child Of Fear

If I were a young child today, I suspect that I might be somewhere on the Asperger's spectrum. In the 1960s there was no such thing, or at least, I never heard of it. Children were "normal" or diagnosed as "mentally retarded," and placed in special education. Those stuck somewhere in the middle were simply considered goofy or awkward. I fell into the middle crowd, and was miserable. I knew I was different but kept trying to hide it and pretend I was "normal." Loud sounds terrified me, even on television.

I ran from the room whenever the TV show Dragnet ended, because I could not watch that hand with the gavel or the sound it made when it went down. I also did not like to look at Alfred Hitchcock walk into his shadow and say, "Good evening." It sent chills down my spine. I also would run and cry if a balloon hit the ground and popped. The one thing that really terrified me was the clock that sat on the shelf in the home of a much older cousin.

Each time I was in that house and the clock chimed, I ran out the door, crying down the hill to my home. It got to a point that if my great granny was visiting, and I saw the hand on the clock was near the hour, I would run home without her. Even in between the chimes, my cousin's clock would have a loud tic toc, tick toc. If the television was not on and no one talking, the sound of the clock was maddening to me.

The other day, I watched an old episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Show and laughed. Mr. Hitchcock was not the large overbearing man with the booming voice I had imagined. He actually spoke softly, like an English gentleman, and I considered him a bit on the short side. His "Good evening" was now, to me, nothing more than a simple greeting to the audience. I would have assumed that I was just a frightened child, but two of my three children work with students who are on the Asperger's spectrum, and I find I have so much in common with them.

I was a finicky eater as a child, and I was terrified of the elementary school lunch cart. My elementary school did not have a cafeteria. Someone would push a cart on wheels from one classroom to the other. I could hear the sound of the wheels on the cart as it got closer to my classroom. My stomach would become tied up in knots, and I would sweat because I did not eat like normal kids. The sight of peas and mashed potatoes, which I ate at home, made me ill when I saw them on that cart. I would slide my hotdog and bun into my desk to be discarded later.

I cried and prayed and asked God why was I so much different than everyone else. Perhaps now, I may have an answer. As an adult I eat a lot better and I'm no longer afraid of loud sounds. Perhaps it was all simply childhood hiccups that I have outgrown. There is one thing, however, that never did change. That was the aversion I had to my cousin's clock. The sound of that clock ticking and chiming get under my skin, even as an adult. Last summer, I spoke to an older cousin who said she found the house and the clock to be creepy, so perhaps there was something otherworldly going on in that one situation.