CHAPTER 12

Life as an ANONY-MISS

   In order to reinforce the cover I fabricated to keep outsiders from entering my home based reality, I assumed the persona of a mild mannered unnoticeable Anony-Miss whenever I tripped into the regular world.

   My neutrality was motivated by my awareness that I'd never be granted citizenship under Ashley's Momarchy, and I was not going to risk total exile from status woe during the years I still needed legal cover.

   I dared not ever putting myself in a position where I had to voice a thought or feeling that might have caused me to be personally noticed; that might have promoted others wanting to know me; or that might have encouraged closeness.

   I never spoke out, even when I felt an undeniable hurt, injustice or nastiness was targeted against me by anyone, from my mother, agent, or teachers. Not even if from the grocery store clerk.

   As an antidote for the pressure that might have cooked to the explosion point within my spirit, I consciously worked at not taking others' negative opinions personally, and kids can get very well versed in opinion tossing.

   Though my silence may have caused others to think I was in agreement with all I heard, my insides stressed and strengthened. I vowed never to let exterior views or judgments, when they felt wrong to my GUT, automatically dictate my private silent choices, no matter how widely the opposite view was promoted. Another passage that showed me how every seeming dis-ease can serve a healthy elixir, if we thirst for one.

   Superficially I acquiesced. Spiritually I never swayed. I still struggle a bit with that one, though I still often waiver when I get an angry E-Mail, having to remember others are allowed to be curt and techie. My job is to be me and not take it on.

   I believe in God, in my ability to create, perceive, and, one day, succeed. I just wasn't too sure of the capricious nature of the human specie. I am still not sure of others.

   I heard of too many wars, when one should have been enough to show the world they're too costly a way to settle dissimilarities in viewpoints.

   I saw too many people being openly rude and heartless to each other. In Manhattan, homeless bag people wandered the streets while members of their own specie looked the other way.

   One Christmas, I saw a man standing on an apartment ledge ready to kill himself, while a group in the street laughed as they yelled: "Jump! Jump! Jump!"

   Possibly it was just the competitive nature of Show Business, but I loathed hearing kids gossip and degrade the other kids who were succeeding in their careers.

   I recall when Laurie Peters was up for a Tony for her performance in Broadway's "The Sound of Music." The buzz in the girls' room was essentially soaked with smug giggles that she didn't win even though Laurie was extremely nice and very talented.

   Later, when Laurie came to class, the same kids rushed to her side with: "How awful you lost. We all rooted for you."

   Oh, hell, another Masquerade Party.

   This may seem like I was maturing into a low profile cynic. Not so. I traveled under the illusion that everyone held a loving heart yearning to surface. I just didn't believe in my ability to locate the genuinely nice havens amidst the Carnivals of Camouflage that seemed to hold more players than audience.

   To avoid a mistake in wrongful trusting, I never played the Bonding Game. If I strayed onto the playing field, I curtsied and bowed out, adopting the survival style of a chameleon in the hopes of melding in with the background.

   I'm not saying the world was unilaterally cruel to me. It wasn't. It was simply a vast unknown issue that I didn't feel prepared to challenge single heartedly... then.

   I numbed the need to express my thoughts to others.

   Externally, I avoided stirring any pot that might have caused me to be burned or noticed; that might have encouraged others to rate me as nonessential to life as Ashley inferred; that might have incited any outside comeback... cute or catty.

   By striving to be invisible when not paid to perform, while still believing I was an unwelcome guest at this global party, I became proficient at not letting me be me.

   Though I wasn't thrilled at having landed in this planetary production, I couldn't see any available alternative. So, I lived in fear of being beheld and bounced, if only as a wallflower.

   Heck! Since my own mom was so unquestionably blunt in her vote that I was unnecessary to her party of one, what offered the promise of others voting differently?

   Paradoxically, I was a very vocal champion of any cause bigger than me. Unfortunately, I never knew that the very situation of abuse that prompted my masquerade was indeed a cause that spread far beyond my personal territory. I was equally unaware it would ultimately become the cause I would focus my future upon.

   Amazingly, if someone else was spitefully trampled or a heavy social and moral issue was on the line, I turned into Chatty Cathy. Two kidhood examples still flash through me.

   I attended the same private school as the son of Gypsy Rose Lee, now known as Eric Lee Preminger. One day, the kids started playing hardball malice about his mom stripping for money. What riled me into materializing as a non-hush puppy was that they attacked when Gypsy was not there to respond.

   My first thought was: So? What's the big deal about how she earns a living? Why are they acting like mini-gods?

   Then suddenly from somewhere deep within my gut, a mighty missive spewed forth regarding their Salem-antics, town crying as if they knew for sure who was naughty or nice? Adding:

   "At least she works for a living compared to our moms who just hang out and get fat on commissary snacks while we're in the studios acting for our keep."

   Having roared my line, I shrunk beneath my invisible mouse mask and moseyed off. Though I felt better, I never knew if what I said made a dent in their armor as there was no reaction, other than dead silence.

   Maybe they were just shocked to hear I could actually talk above the high speed mumble that had become my delivery rhythm in daily life, though not when performing, which probably explains why acting was such a beneficial vocal outlet.

   Come to think of it, whenever I spoke on a personal or school level, I raced against an imaginary stopwatch, assuming some unknown someone was ever ready to arbitrarily yell "Time's up!" before I could finish.

   But performing was different. There I had a script with someone else's words approved by scores of executives. Words in productions the public would be paying to hear. With my lines validated, I could sorta be me via an imaginary character.

   The other public outcry centered on the time I took my History teacher to the principal's office for not disciplining nor teaching us kids as if he cared that we learned anything.

   I justified that I, but NOT my teacher, could be whimpy. After all, as with the other kids in our school, I worked to pay for our tuition. We deserved better. Or so I reasoned.

   Looking back and forgetting my aversion to if-only-ing, I wish I better handled his lack of vitality for us. He too might have been a product of a kidhood where he was never rated as having anything worthwhile to give others. Or so I now wonder.

   Then again, something positive must have resulted as he slowly began re-energizing his classes. Interacting with us more. Not being so intimidated by us, his kid clients, his paying students. Maybe that jolt shocked him into realizing he had more cards to deal than he was showing.

   Perhaps life also set him up to be my mirror.

   Unfortunately, I never stopped to look for ME in HE.

   Meanwhile, my homework could be stolen, auditions sabotaged by classmates or stage moms swiping my music sheets, whatever. I never stood my private ground no matter how much my ground begged to be stood up for. The wall I built around my feelings was rising taller and stronger. Nothing could be said or done to me that seemed critical enough to champion.

   I glued on my mask of unhurtability, painted it with neutral colors and hoped it would cover my Ashley and me. True, I wasn't Christina Crawford carrying the weight of a famous mother to cover for as with her “Mommy Dearest”.

   However, my mother was the main star on my lifal stage. So, I struggled to keep her persona, as well as our non-relationship, a secret.

   Sometimes the agreeability guise backfired, causing me to let a lot of people get away with a lot of exploitation. As with Ashley's occasional boy friends who often forced friendships on me way beyond the point of Uncle Scam.

   I worked so hard to live the role of what I thought to be a Good Girl Anony-Miss, struggling never to impose myself on any level, that I often lost touch with my joy of being alive. Moment to moment survival was exhausting enough.

   At times, I let the guff fly so often over my head that eventually enough stuck on the down draft. It began weighing on me subconsciously.

   Many a night, I begged God to give me a clue as to WHO I was, WHY I existed and, WHY I was sent to this plant. I knew there was a reason. I just felt my faith earned me the right to be let in on the cosmic secret.

   Not to say I didn't advocate the Be Nice philosophy. But, I warped it so far out of proportion, like over-worked taffy, that I lost sight of the Be Nice cutoff point in sticky stretches. The point where Be Nice turns into Be A Sap.

Don't Make Waves became (Again)
Take My Life... Please!

   I was eager to ring up zero on the clash register if confronted by an outside scorekeeper, whether I felt they were accurate or not. Assuming Life's a jungle, I groomed myself into walking prey. "Take advantage. Use me." became my fating calls.

   Not the healthiest mode to have when entering the teen dating whirl, which probably explains why I didn't.

   Which may explain why my first spin on the marriage-go-round was far too premature. Which may also explain why I leaped blindly into my second Marriage Pit as soon as the first one caved in. And why I leaped without checking the quality of the landing pad.

   Still, no matter how intense the outer Horror-thon grew, inside I remained a strong, joy-loving lady seeking permission to come out of the bored-room I locked myself into. It took many years, but I finally figured:

   A major clue for discovering if a past abuser still holds a tight grip on our growth, is when we begin listening not only to what we do say, but to what we don't say.

   When we realize we hold in more thoughts, viewpoints, and expressions of true feelings and desires than we voice, it may be time to ask ourselves:

    Case on point:

   Jill, a pre-teen I knew, displayed a radically different personality when I heard her interact with her mom and dad. Yet with me she was full of observations, confident and very articulate.

   With her parents, she lapsed into a lisp and near baby lingo. No depth. No Jill. A 180 flip on her usual personality.

   I asked her why she changed so noticeably?

   At first, she said she didn't know what I was talking about. In time, she confessed she was afraid to be herself with her parents. Afraid to let the mom know she's growing up. Wow. I understood that.

   I asked: "What's the worst that could happen if they got to know the real life side of you?"

   After a long pause, I heard: "They won't approve."

   Since growing up heightened Jill's anxiety, I guess playing "the baby" became her masquerade to gain the notice, and non-notice, she wanted.

   But, when Jill grew into a full teen, and still used her baby voice, as an observer, I realized her motive was deeper, as it was her control mode for blinding her authority figures to her truly wild lifestyle.

   As I hid wanting to be a cuddled kid, Jill hid being a dominating vamp who wanted no parental interference unless, as I learned, she wanted something that advantaged her power drive. Interestingly, Jill showed me how popular the use of masquerades still are, and how diverse the motivations may be.

   Heck, the Baby Bluff may even have been the centurial launching pad for the scores of Bimbos-In-Training.

   Women who feel the baby brine is the safest non-threatening and non-revealing bin to age within.

   Then again, many of us buy the need to wear masks, to play image deception, struggling to be what we imagine others want us to be. It's a tempting game. Problem is: it backfires. Even if we "win" we lose.

   When we gain love for who and what we are not, we compound our confusion, resentment and emptiness.

   It took me many years and heart scars to figure:

Copyright © 2004 by Krystiahn