I Beat the Odds_ From Homelessness, to the Blind Side, and Beyond - Michael Oher [24]
So while they were concentrating all their efforts on trying to get to the bottom of my anger, I was trying to figure out how to make it through each day without breaking down in tears. I wasn't mad, I was sad. I was a heartbroken little kid who was hurt and confused about everything that was going on around me and affected me so much but that I didn't get any say in at all. I wanted to cry all the time, but I held it in and just shook my head when they tried to talk to me. I didn't know how to tell them how much those supervised visits, when we were all together again, hurt so much afterward. I just kept thinking, "If we're good together and we love each other, why are they going to take us away again?" Each time we said good-bye, it felt like the day they'd first taken the little ones away. I felt like maybe I had somehow failed to find a way to keep everyone together.
But I was afraid if I told them all of that, they'd stop letting me go to the visits.
I know I used to get worked up sometimes, but it was more out of frustration than anger. Some expert might say that these emotions were the same, but to me they felt very different. I never wanted to lash out; I just felt a build-up of intense sadness that I didn't know how to express. I never felt like an angry kid, but I did feel upset because the situation seemed so hopeless, so I think that is what they were observing.
Whatever the case, Carlos was always good at calming me down. We shared a tight bond and I felt like he understood the confusion and sadness I was feeling. He was always a polite kid--when I talked to Velma recently, that was something she brought up: "You were both very well behaved and never got into any trouble." It was true. We really were good kids who weren't rude and didn't back-talk to adults like a lot of other kids at school. Ms. Spivey remarked on that, too. She said we were a pretty polite family, especially given the circumstances.
But the caseworkers seemed to worry that all that politeness was hiding something else within me. They thought that it was coming out in a physical way even if I wasn't putting the anger into words. I used to bump into things and pound my fists a lot, which the people at DCS felt was a sure sign of anger that I didn't know how to express. I can see how they could think that, but I don't think it was anger at all--I'm pretty sure it had to do with having man-sized hands as an eight-year-old. I had a huge body that was growing way too fast for me to figure out how to move with it. I wasn't hitting things because I was letting out rage; I was running into things because I wasn't sure yet how to handle my size. I was an elementary school kid trapped in a middle schooler's frame.
Because of their concern about my emotional situation, when I was ten I was moved to St. Joseph's Hospital on Danny Thomas Boulevard, near the famous St. Jude's Children's Hospital. At the time, I thought I was just being kept in a ward for kids who didn't have anywhere else to go. It wasn't until much later that I realized I had been placed there to be observed and treated for anger issues.
It's funny, now that I know better what all is there in Memphis, to realize how close we were to St. Jude's, one of the best places in the country for sick children to receive top-notch care. But our hospital was just the opposite; at least on our floor, it was filled with kids who no one seemed to care about at all. I also learned later that St. Joseph's was the hospital where Martin Luther King, Jr., was declared dead after he was shot. But I didn't know that at the time, and I don't think it would have mattered anyway. I wasn't impressed with historical stuff; I just wanted out.
The adolescent