My Story

Kimberly Kuspa

Western Illinois University

Little Miss Sunshine

I was happy. Everyone always told me how happy I was, how much I was a joy to be around. I

was what some may consider a normal kid. I was the youngest of four siblings and my mom’s

Sunshine. Nothing was abnormal with me and school came fairly easy. But my brother cried a lot. He

would sit at the kitchen table and do homework and out of nowhere start to cry. I did not understand.

What was so bad about middle school english class that would inflicted so much pain upon him? I

mean second grade had its problems but I did not think that school would get that much harder or did

it?

I had a hard time with numbers and adding big ones in my head was almost impossible but

reading was sort of fun. At least once a week I got taken out of class and got to hang out with a lady

that let me read the books that I liked to read. Every once in a while she would give me a big long list

of words to read and she would time me and make the ones that I didn't get right. I also got taken out

of class sometimes and spent time with another lady that gave me math problems to solve. Lets just

say I didn't like her very much. But I still didn't know why my brother cried so much and I did not

understand but that was okay, I was the baby of the family after all.

Why You Cry

I did not understand, well not completely but all the tears that I witnessed hit the kitchen table

made a bit more sense now. I was in fifth grade and I still went to the reading specialist and the math

specialist once a week. I still like the reading specialist but did not like the math specialist. I went to

them because reading and math was hard for me, harder than it should be at my age, but I found the

world that was Judy Moody and I was hooked. I still got nervous and embarrassed when I had to read

out loud but my teacher never called on me very much. I knew I was different than my classmates but I

had friends and I was happy.

My brother has a hard time reading too but for him it was different. The wires in his brain are

not connected the way other peoples are and words and numbers get all mixed up in his head and he

gets confused sometimes. In Fact, all my siblings have the same brain wiring but I don't. So does that
make me the weird one? Middle school was no walk in the park but it was not tears on the kitchen table

worthy. I had a hard time reading too but due to the knowledge of my siblings learning disability, my

mom sent me and my brother to a reading program for several years. My mom claims that my early

intervention and encouragement to read was the reason my brain does not work like my siblings brains’

did. Dyslexia is what it was called but calling it “different brain wiring” made for since to me. My

siblings were not dumb though, they could not possibly be. They were the smartest people I knew but

sometimes I heard whispers about other people who have dyslexia and they are called dumb a lot but I

do not think that about my siblings.

Still Happy… I Think

Middle school kinda sorta was the worst place to wait until you were old enough to go to high

school. I was awkward and weird and I tried to keep my head up but it was hard. In eighth grade,

when looking to the excitement of high school, I along with all of my classmates were asked by my

english teacher to take a spelling proficiency quiz to help her give an adequate understanding as to

what class we should be placed in our freshman year. We took the quiz and we had a partner grade it

for us as she read the answers out loud. Out of 50 questions, my partner got 5 words wrong. Out of 50

questions, I got 30 words wrong. My teacher made a comment to the whole class about my poor score

and I don’t think I ever turned a brighter shade of red. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I didn't want

to be the dumb one and there I was being shunned for not knowing how to spell correctly. There was a

pit in my stomach that wouldn't go away and I didn’t understand. Is this why my brother cried so much?

Were people mean like this to him too? I wasn't happy but I wasn't sad either. I was confused but I did

my best to be happy so I didn't upset anyone else around me.

Its Okay To Laugh

My siblings and I are all five years apart meaning that my oldest sister is 15 years older than me

so growing up, we did not have a lot in common. I was blonde blue eyed and always had a book in my

hand and they were all brunettes with brown eyes with a learning disability but by the time I made it to

college their Dyslexia had become the running family joke. When ever they read something incorrectly
or misspoke they would always say, “sorry its the dyslexia talking.” I know that their disability made

many challenges for them in life but they never missed a chance to laugh at their mishaps. Humor was

how we solve most problems in our family and this one was no exception. In front of people, no matter

how we really felt, making a joke of the situation was always the best solution to any problem.

The First Time

The first time it happened I was scared. I felt this overwhelming urge to cry even though no

harm was being done to me. My chest got tight like a one hundred pound brick was lying on top of it. It

felt as though all the air in the world had disappeared and there was no sight of it returning any time

soon. My heart raced so fast I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. I was shaking and I was

scared. I was at badminton practice my sophomore year of high school. My badminton coach was

yelling at us again probably because we weren't working hard enough and all of a sudden it hit. I ran

out of practice but thankfully no one noticed and I spent the next half an hours hyperventilating and

trying to figure out if I was dying or just being dramatic. I did not know it at the time but I was having a

panic attack. I collected myself and went back to practice like nothing happened. I did not tell anyone

about it, not even my mom. I felt ashamed that I could not control my emotions like everyone around

me could.

The next time it happened I was in badminton practice but as a Junior in high school. This time

I was in the bathroom longer and eventually someone came looking for me. It was a Sophomore

named Amy. I liked Amy but she had never seen nor experienced a panic attack and she just stood

there and watched. That was an even worse feeling then the feeling that I was losing my mind which is

what I thought the first time I had a panic attack. I had a witness so it was no longer a secret.

When I got home I told my mom about it. I remember sitting on the kitchen counter while she

was making dinner, which was not uncommon, and told her. She gave me a hug and said “Are you

okay? Do not ever scare me like that again.” I know my mom meant well but I did not want to be a

burden on her like my sibling had been. On top of the dyslexia all of them had taken some form of

medication for their anxiety and I did not want that to be me. I wanted to be the happy girl that she
loved and depended on to be happy, so then I was. I was just happy and with other people, I tried to be

nothing else but that. No matter how scared I was or how often I cried. To the world I was the happy

girl that everyone counted on to be just that; happy.

January

The funny thing about cancer is that it doesn't give a shit about who you are or what wonderful

things you have done in your life. All it cares about is death and destruction. It was the Holiday Break

during my Sophomore year of college. We had just had a great christmas and everyone was packing

up to leave. My grandma had been fighting cancer for ten years at this point and the holiday season

made it clear that she wasn't going to last much longer. The day after Christmas my parents had made

the decision for my grandmother to be put on hospice care and we moved her into our our spare

bedroom.

Since I was on holiday break, I was the only one around during the day to make sure that she

was still taking her medicine. When someone is on hospice care, they are usually in a lot of pain so

they are given morphine and in the end that is really what kills them. Imagine being the one who gives

the medicine that stops their heart. But for the most part, she just slept and I would sometimes sit by

her bed and just listen to her breathing.

On January 6th, I woke up to men taking my grandmother’s body out of the house on a stretcher

and to the funeral home. I didn't move though, I couldn't. Not until my oldest sister Amy, who had

decided to spend the night at our house, came into my room and said “I think grandma passed last

night.” All I could think to say was, “I know.” I felt numb but at peace. I did not cry that day, I didn't cry

until the funeral when the priest came to give his blessing. I loved my grandma and missing her hurt

me but I understood this kind of hurt. I could see it and touch it and even name it so this hurt did not

even hurt that bad. She was at peace and with her husband and all of her siblings and I was at peace

knowing that.

I was the Joke

 Even though I have never been diagnosed with dyslexia, words were still hard for me

sometimes. Even with the early intervention and my passion for reading, words and numbers were still

hard for me to organize in my head. Because of it, I got made fun of sometimes by my friends. I know

that they mean well but I can't help it or control it so I never really found the jokes all that funny. Even

though I am not dyslexic, or so I have been told all my life reading became increasingly more difficult as

the words got bigger and the sentence got longer. I was good at hiding it though, as long as I didn't

have to read outloud. In college, my friends didn't know my siblings and they didn't know that dyslexia

ran in my family, they just didn't understand something that they never struggled with themselves. One

day I was sitting in the chapter room of my sorority house working on homework. I was writing a paper

and words were especially difficult for me that day. I asked how to spell “whether” because that and the

alternate spelling “weather” were never clear to me. The response I got was less than what I needed. I

needed to for someone to spell the word and what I got was judgment and fingers pointed in my

direction. Maybe to them it was not that big of a deal but to me it was upsetting. I laughed along and

moved the conversation along but on the inside I was hurt.

When I became the joke, all I could think about was how did my siblings handle this? They

were labeled dumb or unintelligent all their lives. My oldest sister was told that she would never

amount to anything and so she should stop trying. They were the butt of almost every joke but they

were strong and resilient. I didn't think I could be like that tho, things just always bothered me more

then they probably should.

Broken Heart, Shattered Mind

A silly thing anxiety is, you can never possibly explain it to someone who has never had it and it

comes out of fucking nowhere. During my Junior year at Eastern Illinois University, I feel in love. At

this point my anxiety had been almost non existent. I was stressed of course but it was nowhere near

as bad as it had been the first time.

I was dating a boy named Luke Young from Mattoon, Illinois. He was tall and athletic with

ocean blue eyes and a Sophomore Business major. He was everything I thought I wanted in life. He
was kind to me and he held my hand sometimes when we walked across campus. We meet when we

we were both Orientation Leaders the summer before and started dating in July.

It was around Valentine's Day when my anxiety started to become very obvious. Before then I

never felt the need to tell him about it mainly because I was afraid of the inevitable; he would not

understand. But I had to tell him because anxious and panic were about the only two emotions my

body knew how to express. What I feared the most had happened, he did not understand and I ended

up having to hide those tainted pieces of myself.

The Sunday after Spring Break had ended, I was officially single again. I was broken. I was

crushed. It came out of nowhere and I did not understand. He told me he did not love me anymore but

he thought I was still a good person, whatever that means. I was not worth loving is what ran through

my mind a million times. They say your first breakup is the hardest and they were right. I cried for a

week straight. I was still in love with him but he had already moved on. I kept asking myself “how

could I have let this happen?” and “how could I have fixed it?” There was no way to fix it though. It was

over and I had to move on. At first I tried to be his friend because I thought that maybe he would see

what he had done and take me back but he did not. I did not see the light at the end of the tunnel and I

was scared that that pit in my stomach I got every time I saw him would never go away.

Smile, It Looks Good On You

Senior year came and it did not get better. I went to the doctor with my mom because at this

point I did not know what to do. After talking to the doctor for approximately five minutes, she willingly

handed over a square white sheet of paper with a prescription on it for a take as needed anxiety

medication. I got the prescription filled. I carried that bottle around every day but I never took one. I

never even opened the bottle to see what the pills looked like. I couldn't do it. I could not get myself to

take it even when I was at my worst. It might have been because of my need for self preservation or

maybe just because I still had the fear of being a burden on my mother and everyone else around me

so I tucked my problems away. Whatever the reason, the result was the same.
 I still smiled big and make sure everyone else around me is comfortable and happy. No one

wants to be around someone who was upset all the time. When I was feeling a panic attack coming on,

I would calmly excuse myself and get to the nearest bathroom and hid in a stall until I composed

myself. I didn't want to dump my problems on anyone and most of the time I didn't even know what my

problem was so I smiled. When I was noticallby upset, I was always asked what was wrong with me

and those are the hard questions to answer. I was at work one day and one of my co-workers noticed

that something was wrong. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that I was okay, just tired.

She looked at me and said, “Well then you should smile, you always look better when you smile,” and

so I did and that was that.