When I first came into this world I had no way of knowing that I was different from any other child anywhere else on the planet. After all, that is the trait of people who live in their own worlds, to assume that everyone else in the world is exactly like them. In that first moment I probably wasn’t so different. I cried when I was hungry, laughed when I was happy, and stared with wonder at everything I saw around me. Very early in my life, however, I sensed something that perhaps some would never realize in an entire lifetime. I realized that my life belonged to me to create for myself. At the age of three this realization pitted me against a world of adults who wanted to impose their narrow perception of the world upon me. I soon realized their assumption of my naivete’ as a child was to my advantage. I learned to crawl between their expectations to find the shortest way to my freedom. By the age of five I had literally become invisible. This I attributed to my anticipations of their attempts to control me. I was always one step ahead of them in order that they lose their need to think about me or even remember that I existed. In my mind I had succeeded in finding an invisible world where I could exist free from the expectations of an incredibly boring adult world. I had crawled through the crack between their misperception of children and my understanding of my own life.

Around the age of five I became fascinated with my sister’s boyfriends. It seemed she had another one every two weeks. I would climb upon their laps and position myself upon their male organs. Of course children are not sexual beings, and any adult who even entertained the idea that they were would never admit it. Once again I had discovered freedom in the assumptions they made about my needs as a child. I would innocently encourage my sister to sit close as I rode the rising tide swelling beneath me. I had the advantage of my world without judgment, so I was only aware that I felt good in these moments. I was aware of which boyfriends were into servicing my needs and which ones were simply unconscious. I enjoyed the unconscious ones the best! At such a young age I understood the power of being able to manipulate someone who was supposedly in the position of manipulating me. Perhaps I was just following in my sister’s footsteps. By the age of nine I understood the advantage of letting men believe they were manipulating me. I was then in full control of my sexual life. That was the year of my first orgasm.

I had crawled into bed with the fifteen year old friend of my brother. He had come to spend the weekend, so I offered my bed and volunteered to sleep on the floor. I climbed into my bed in the middle of the night and gently positioned my hand on his penis. When it was hard in my hand I rolled over and positioned it between my buttocks. He groaned as if dreaming and placed his hand on my genitals. I was never quite sure if he was totally conscious. An onlooker hopefully would have believed we were both having bad dreams as we kept groaning and moving into better positions. When I awakened the following morning he was gone. I had my second fantasy as I stood in the shower that morning. I had chosen to be seen, to let someone consciously into my secret world. I would not choose to be seen by the masses though. I was aware that they would want to destroy me along with my freedom.

At twelve I had become quite a master of manipulation and deception. I had become involved with a twenty-six year old man to whom I had given the impression of being naive and unexperienced. He enjoyed the illusion of protecting me and showing me the facts of life. Even though I was aware that he was my peer emotionally, I enjoyed the excitement and danger of living together in the invisible world we had created. This was the first time I understood what it means to be in love. He was the bridge between the invisible world I created to survive and the other world where I feared to live openly. It was in the context of my relationship with Jerry that I began to understand what a danger I represented to the so called normal world. In order to be with him I was required to take risks I never had to take with others. I was entertaining fear for the first time. When I thought of what might happen if we were caught together, my imagination could never have dreamt anything as horrible as reality eventually offered up.

I was taken to the police station where I was questioned for what seemed an eternity. The neighbor who had called the police was standing in the hallway with my mother when I arrived in "protective custody." I had been jerked out of my invisible world into a completely foreign environment. When I tried to explain from my perspective they translated my words into their own language. They left me alone with a police psychologist who twisted my brain until I was made to say things which were not true. I was forced to betray the man I loved in order that their illusions survive the real truth. They deliberately paraded Jerry before me, handcuffed and humiliated. I was being taught once and for all that a child has no right to decide his own life. I was being taught that a child has no right to even live the life which already belongs to him. Now I was being forced to live in a world of fear and unhappiness. I had understood when I came into this world that it was hostile to my true spirit. Now my spirit was beginning to die as I also wished for myself.

I carried the burden of that horrible experience through every day to the present. Those wonderful adults who had been so concerned about my life and future made sure I was never able to be invisible again. I was forced to play the roles of their world, their expectations to prove my redemption. The paranoia I lived made it impossible to be intimate with anyone else again. It was an irony that they had succeeded in doing to me exactly what they claimed to be protecting me from. It was also convenient for them to blame my mental state on Jerry instead of taking the responsibility for what they themselves had done to me.

Today is my eighteenth birthday and today I will liberate myself from the prison I have been sentenced to for the past six years. Today I will meet with my friend Jerry. We have secretly communicated for the past six years. It was the dream of this day that carried me through the pain of all of those years. The courts were only able to keep us apart physically in order to protect their illusions. They were unable to kill the love we shared though, because real love is eternal. It is only illusion that need fear destruction from truth. They have left their scar however, for if that twelve year old boy walked up to me today, I would turn and walk away. I am sad for all those boys who will never have the chance to live in the invisible world of my childhood.