I was only a freak at school. Only a freak when I remembered or when other younger kids at banks hid behind their parent’s paint leg from my red hued Nystagmus eyes. I don’t blame them. This condition seems like something out of a low budget 70’s horror film. Pained by sunlight, I prefer night. I’m bone white and red eyed.
At home I was treated equally. I could forget more often what I am, but not at school. I wasn’t allowed to retrieve anything, or participate in feeding the class hamster like other students where. Though I tried to be understanding, little things like not being picked to read in class hurt more than any of the special treatment, much of which I was mocked for.
It’s the divide and conquer mentality. Make someone feel like an outsider, lesser than, a freak. Whitey, Polar Bear, cracker, floating cloths. All those words combined didn’t do as much damage as picking up their treys and moving to a further seat. I feel bad for that girl, but I guess the last thing she needed was more pity. She got her Pokémon cards stolen, and her parents very mad. They didn’t know they had to beat her with branches and juvenile feet for them.
All my friends would either move, or buy into the social rank system. I made my first friend in 6th grade. She started the abusive cycle by slapping me over 5 dollars. I would later speak out about her random violent outbursts, but she was just as good as I at being a victim.
I spent my middle school years trying to find myself. My place, not so much a category than the person I am. So that I could be in the place I want, with the people I like. I tested dangerous waters, but none really stuck. By the summer of my 8th grade year, I felt fucked, for what seemed like, no reason. I had been dealing with an underlying depression for years, but now I felt like I was drowning. A chaser to teachers who had never dealt with the burden of a visually impaired student of my degree, and my abusive chemical friendship, I also experienced a rollercoaster home life with a troubled father in the center of it. But he had left, and for the first time there seemed to be peace at home. I was leaving to an academy school to study to be a vet. Away from that bitch and to more mature, hopefully understanding peers. Hey, maybe I could find someone to build a healthy relationship with. I took tests from independent groups who evaluated my vision, and gave me the go ahead to move on with my career plans. Then why now were my four walls closing in on me? The last few months played out in bad quality, blurred from self prescribed pills, but still no sleep, CSI walls, and bad attendance.
July… August… September… She said “it’s not just a little disability… it’s a big one” I have amazing foresight. She apologized, shook my hand, and just like that I was useless again. Nothing going for me, and stuck in a school that reminded me daily of my short comings. It all hit me hard, and all at once. Incapable, that’s what I was suffering with. Incapable of reading without assistance, ordering from the behind the counter menu, of driving, of being the person I wanted to be so badly. This lone factor in my life felt like the biggest peg in my coffin. I have never been the type to contemplate suicide, but at that point I had no identity other than the tag society stapled on my ear, and I held tight to it.
Over the years I had developed an anxiety disorder that manifested itself as a feeling of not-all-there. When this happened, I drifted away and put on my headphones. Nothing made me feel more alive than music. Those where the true moments of clarity. Some people look for religion. I look for artists. Some look to the Bible, I look for lyrics. The venue is my church, and my musical idles are my preachers. I learned about none violence and freedom. Most of all, I found myself. Somewhere amongst a crowd of thousands. I clawed my way out and learned to live. I began to play music, my main outlet when I can’t breathe through my words. I am capable. Capable of creating and learning. Capable of moving and inspiring, having instant reaction. Even making friends through what I do that understand, and even forget, just like my family does.
Maybe, and this is just a thought, but perhaps I was always capable. I just never allowed myself to take the chances. Maybe the most detrimental to my own stability is not what others believe I am but my own habit of considering their opinion. Maybe if you measure the usefulness of your own existence but what you can’t do, then you’ll never be happy. I’m not as fucked as I think I am.
Albinism is a genetic disorder that affects the melanin pigment levels in the skin, hair, and eyes, and in rare cases, just the eyes. It’s a recessive gene; someone who the gene is active in cannot have offspring with the active gene. Meaning albinos don’t have albino babies. A common misunderstanding is that people and animals that are albinoistic have red eyes, but really what you are seeing is the true portal to their inner colors. From a lack of pigmentation, the blood vessels are visible through the eyes. That lack of protective melanin also make us sensitive to sunlight, and albinos generally deal with vision problems. Another comment misconception is that albinos go blind after a certa8in age, also not true. The way that I see (and other albinos would agree) is NOT blurry. If you where looking at the finer details of a painting, you would probably squint, and turn the painting closer. That is the way I see. Like everything is a fine detail, too far to see.
In the media, people with albinism are usually the butt of the joke, or the ‘bad guy’. For example, “Me, Myself, and Irene”. The albino characters name is “Whitey” and “Casper”, which is offensive right off the bat. The movie mocks the character, and how he uses a bioptic (a telescopic lens mounted on glasses) a device that I even used for a period of time.
There is a deeper underlying problem, deeper than slap-stick comedy. It’s how we treat others. It took me a while to realize that all those attacks weren’t personal, or about who I am as a person, but rather the mentality our culture has adopted. Making someone an outsider, in order to boost their own ego, or their own standing in the social machine.
I don’t expect to have all the answers at 16, but I think I am successful at learning how to function almost at the level I will need to be able to move out of my mother’s house, which is more than most can say. But more so, I am successful at finding ways that will keep me afloat.
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