(This is all true, and will probably be a good way for my dear friends and readers here to say: “Oh my, she’s even stranger than I thought.” Back slowly away from this blog and send an occasional comment or PM , but secretly feel scared of me. I understand.)

When my parents ran the halfway house for developmentally disabled women - after my father was forced to resign from the church - I was the only child to move with them. My brothers went to a specialized boarding school - the St. Thomas Choir School for boys. They were choristers in a prestigious choir. I was not. I begged to go there, and even, quite rationally, pointed out to the headmaster that, unlike my brothers, my voice would never change. High soprano for life! It didn't sway him. I consider this my first foray into feminism.

So, somehow between being rejected from an all boys choir school and living with retarded women and being bullied at school, I developed a rich fantasy life, and also came up with a premise. The premise was: I was retarded and my parents and everyone else was hiding it from me. They were protecting me from the truth. (Go ahead - put that beverage down and explore the pathology of this mindset.)

I wasn't 100% convinced I was retarded, because I was really kind of advanced at school. But then again, maybe they were in on it. Maybe nobody wanted to hurt my feelings and a vast conspiracy was in action to save me from the truth that I was not very bright at all. The retarded women I lived with were mostly functioning at a third - fourth grade level - my level - so  we were equals. And friends - I loved the women I grew up with, and had strong bonds with many of them.

It was the most brilliant idea ever, of course. I was 8 or 9 years old and came up with a concept that took away any blame from my parents – or really any adult – and placed all the fault right on my skinny little shoulders.  If you can’t trust anyone in your life, why not imagine yourself into a place where it’s your fault and they love you so much that they are making elaborate schemes to hide the fact that you’re a big dummy from you?

(I know how this must sound to anyone who has a developmentally disabled person in their life. Please forgive me. It was the ‘70’s and I was a kid.)

I was friends with the residents. I had eight adult playmates in a way. Each resident was different, but we were all spending time together. Maybe I was better friends with Judy and Bertha. Maybe Barbara was a little bit distant. She was in love with Johnny Gage from the television show “Emergency!” and spent quite a bit of time being agitated about it. She also liked calling 911 in hopes of having Johnny Gage and Roy Desoto come over to rescue her. I kind of wanted them to come over, too. Rescue us!

The house itself was a character in the story. It is a behemoth –a mansion that had seen better days but was pretty intact. Servants quarters. A secret passage. A vault. A carriage house.  It has been converted into apartments now, but it is still there. I’ll post a picture sometime.

Now you can feel all of the gothic elements, I hope. My parents were having a difficult time being together – my father was drinking most of the time and my mother was trying to keep it all together. I had a zillion hiding places, a bunch of big dumb friends, and a sense that I could go into that vault and never emerge alive. The lock was frozen, but the threat still lingered.

The vault was in the basement, accessed by pushing a brick, and then you were in the secret room. A staircase led to a closet on the first floor. The clients – the women – were not allowed downstairs in the basement. I emerged from the closet countless times, wanting to yell: “Surprise!”

One of my favorite friends – Pat K. – walked through the front door or maybe waddled through, all 340 pounds of her. She looked at me, aged nine, holding my cat. She said: “I have a brown suitcase. You have a yellow cat.” Truer words have never been spoken, and we were fast friends after that.

I was a strange little girl who felt such kinship with my big retarded friends. I loved them, and they loved me. I grew up a little and they didn’t, and that was the hardest part. I hated growing up from them. It made me sad so deeply in my soul – the knowledge that I could move on and they couldn’t. Even if we were all retarded.

Maybe I wanted to be with them and make life easier for everyone. They all went to work each day – doing light manufacturing at a factory set up for the disabled. I went to school. We were pretty excited to see each other at the end of the day.

At some point, probably when I was 10 or 11, I figured out that they were retarded and I was smart and we could never be friends again. I outgrew them. They never could outgrow me.  I had been bullied mercilessly about living with retarded people. (Until one kid found out about the secret passage.) Mostly, I was a pariah. I fought boys twice a week just to get home. I was a big girl, and everyone wanted to pick on me. So I fought. I punched boys, I sat on them, I pulled their hair, I throttled them.

I HAD friends, you see. Better friends who probably would have been happy to yell at the bullies, if asked.

And then I grew up and didn’t like the clients much at all and I retreated into a vague darkness and I refused to interact with anyone in the house unless it was demanded. I was pretty sure I wasn’t retarded by then. My parents didn’t concoct a lie to protect my feelings. In fact, they got divorced without really saying anything to their children. I was on my own.