Introduction
My name is Rachael Ann Brown. I’m 33 years old. I don’t know how I ended up at this point in my life. Furthermore, I don’t know how to convey what my problems even are without relating to you my life story.
Early life
I was born in Warren, Ohio, around 9 o’clock on a Saturday evening. Alright – I’ll try and be a little less verbose, but you never know when we’re going to need that. I have no memories of Warren; my parents only lived there a few years for work, and moved away when I was a year old. My father described it as “the armpit of Ohio”; with all due respect to anyone with ties to this place.
My first memories are of growing up in a house my parents rented by White Lake, after we moved to North Carolina. I don’t know how exactly we afforded to live at the lake. Maybe that’s why we only lived there a few years. My memories of this time period seem… pretty gentle. I briefly remember going to daycare for a bit, before I started going to the baptist church in town for preschool.
I often played with Katelyn, a neighbor who went to the same preschool, and her younger sister Cassie. I also had some other playmates who lived further away. This other fellow named Ethan Bennett; not sure what ever happened to him. But it was mostly Katelyn and Cassie, particularly in those early years.
We moved from our house by the lake to a new double-wide trailer closer to town. We had quite a bit more space there, with a pond and a lot more woods to explore out back. I didn’t really have any neighbor kids to play with except for this much older kid named Walt. While this sounds isolating, I don’t remember it being particularly so. I was busy using my imagination in the woods and playing Super Nintendo, and we still invited kids over quite a lot back in those days.
I was enrolled in kindergarten at Bladen Lakes primary. And, I still have mostly fond memories of this age. But, it also might be the earliest age when I started to notice I was different. You see, I quickly became friends with this girl named Courtney. And, everything seemed pretty normal for a while. We played at recess, made long strings of Play-Doh together. I remember our parents arranging at least one play date. She lived in bum-fuck Harrells, though.
Things started to get uncomfortable when the other kids began to ship the two of us. “Ethan and Courtney, sittin’ in a tree” they’d say, teasingly. I became increasingly frustrated by this. I didn’t understand what was so weird about us, and why they weren’t making fun of anyone else like that. Eventually, it was explained to me that the problem was that Courtney was a girl, and I was a boy. The other kids were insinuating that we should date, or marry, or that we were already on the path to doing so. But, I was just trying to make a friend. She’s just the person I happened to first gravitate toward, for whatever reason.
So, I’m reckoning I have to make friends with boys if I want to not be made fun of. And as I look around at all the other boys, all I can think is… ick, really? They’re all just so… wild, and loud, and rambunctious. Perhaps even a bit violent. None of them felt particularly relatable.
Things felt a little awkward initially, when the first group of guys I approached wondered why I wanted to play with them all of a sudden. And, I didn’t exactly stop playing with girls entirely. But, this might’ve been the first time I made a conscious decision to try and act like a normal boy. It marks the point at which I became self-aware. And, it was the beginning of a pattern of behavior that has followed me ever since.
Mid-childhood
After trying on the various hats as one does at that age, it was clear by about first or second grade that I was interested in science, and electronics in particular. Bill Nye and Magic School Bus were among my favorite television programs at that point, and I really liked building the Radio Shack kits my parents had bought me; particularly the shortwave radio receiver. I also really wanted to learn more about computers; which was still a novelty in the 90s, especially out in the country. Bladen Lakes built it’s first computer lab on the other side of the wall from our classroom when I was in kindergarten, which probably makes first or second grade the first point at which they started taking us over there; to play Jump Start nth grade, or to look up silly things on Yahooligans.
Just when I was starting to get jealous of kids who got to have
actual computer time, we bought our first computer. And oh, do I
remember that damn thing. #snipIt was a Compaq Presario with a Cyrix knockoff 586, something like 32MB of EDO memory, and a 1.2GB Quantum Bigfoot, preinstalled with Microsoft Windows 95. It had a serial port, a parallel port, and an internal dial-up modem that was either on-board or, probably more likely, a small form factor card that took up the only expansion slot. At any rate, I don’t remember any PCI or ISA slots available in the thing; and it also lacked USB, which may not have even been around yet.
#snipAnd, I hope I haven’t written about this computer with too much disdain; for as quickly as it was outmoded, it performed its duties quite well for what it was. We got dial-up internet, and I remember my dad bringing home Netscape Communicator on a bunch of floppies. I wanted to make a website, and my dad and I took to making one for our local 4-H group. Not sure what ever happened to that.
Second grade feels like a bit of a turning point in my childhood. We got our aforementioned first computer. I also placed into the gifted program (which we called AIG). Additionally, Josh moved to White Lake from the Fayetteville area that year; he would go on to become a lifelong friend. He was the first friend I made who went to my school and also my church; most kids who went to the Methodist church went to school at Elizabethtown Primary, which was in town and across the river.
When I was in the second or third grade, my father had a heart attack. He was only 39 years old, and was quickly taken to Cape Fear Valley once he was stabilized in Elizabethtown. I went to stay with Josh’s family for a time. My dad survived; he needed a stent if I recall, and it was strongly advised that he stop smoking.
Josh and I quickly became friends. He also placed into AIG, and within a year or two we were helping make a simple website for our 3rd or 4th grade class.
In the mornings before school, I liked to go into my mom’s room and waddle in the bed while she got ready and listened to Bob and Sheri. And, I feel like I need to take a break to talk about how weird it must sound for normal people to hear me refer to “my mom’s room” when speaking of a married couple. But by now, my dad had taken to sleeping in the recliner, while my mom slept in the bed. And now that I’m older, I’m quite certain any spark of romance between these two people had long faded by this point.
But anyway, I liked to lie around in my mom’s bed before school while she was getting ready, and this was when the thought first occurred to me that I really, really wanted to try on one of her bras. And, I was old enough to know that those were for girls. I wondered if it was normal to feel that way, but I didn’t really think much of it at first.
I think I was around nine when my parents decided I was old enough to be left home alone. My dad was spending less and less time at home for work-related reasons, that for all I know may as well have been marital. This was decades ago, but I think it might’ve been at the very first opportunity when it occurred to me: what if I went into my mom’s room and tried on one of her bras? As long as I’m really careful not to disturb anything… who would know, right? So naturally one thing leads to another. And, the first time I probably only did it for a minute or two. I was so scared I’d be caught somehow, or that my mom would come home way ahead of schedule.
This quickly became a habit. When I was left alone, I’d get the family camcorder, an RF modulator box, a pocket-sized television, and a 50’ roll of coax, combining them into a rudimentary CCTV system. Nobody would ever ask what I was doing; playing with electronics was well within my normal range of behavior by this age.
My dad would sometimes jokingly sing that Cheech and Chong number when we were driving around in his truck. While there was certainly never any hurtful intent, this was my first time learning, both that boys sometimes had the sorts of urges I had, and that parents might disown their children if they do certain things. I was very confused why something so seemingly innocent would elicit such an extreme response.
My electronics hobby grew to the point that I had a soldering iron in my room, which for all I know my mom still has clenched butt cheeks over. My dad suggested ham radio as a potential hobby. This rapidly drew my interest, and I got my technician class license just after my tenth birthday. The Morse code requirement had recently been eliminated, though I did have to muddle through learning it for the general class license I’d get in middle school.
My mother’s first stay at the mental hospital happened around the fourth grade. She went voluntarily, and I really only got bits and pieces at that age. I think she might’ve driven the van to the edge of the river and contemplated driving in. I think my dad mentioned she had a traumatic childhood. I do know she had panic attacks, for which she took Klonopin and an antidepressant. My father took care of me during that time.
I had my first emotional meltdown at school when I was in fourth grade. I grew increasingly upset with the librarian during nth period, for some childish reason I don’t remember. I started making a fingergun-like gesture at Mrs. Price; which isn’t like me. I’m not really a gun person. I think she asked me to go to the principal’s office or something, and I sort of just lost it. I don’t remember all that much after that. I remember shouting “I want my mommy!” in the teacher workroom; though in that same moment I had a sinking feeling she wouldn’t be helpful.
I did eventually find myself crying in the principal’s office, where we had this sort of “life is short” talk. I was mostly a good kid, and I didn’t really get in trouble.
My mother quickly determined that I had anger management issues. She took me to see a therapist in Fayetteville a handful of times; this was mostly unproductive, and I certainly didn’t talk about my little habit with the guy.
In fourth grade, I was encouraged to do a science fair project inspired by my new hobby; no, not crossdressing, amateur radio. I had a lot of subsequent science fair projects that were mostly phoned in; but this one was actually alright, and went on to the state level. It basically looked at what effect the sun had on the noise floor and maximum range of radio communications, especially at VHF and above. Not exactly original research, but I was a goddamn fourth grader.
By this point in late elementary school, the girls were starting to wear training bras, and I was starting to have feelings toward them. But, my feelings were mostly just jealousy. Grown-ups started telling me I was getting to the age where I’d start to have feelings for girls. “Is this it?”, I wondered.
The corresponding process began relatively early for me. It was noted in the fourth grade that I had “started puberty”, and I entered middle school with an obvious mustache.
By now, my mother was very keen on bragging about how I had my amateur radio license. I could’ve done without the attention. She seems to have put me in a lot of uncomfortable situations, under the guise of it just being “what moms do”. I’ve needed a lot of hindsight to really see that.
I’m not sure whether it was due to a change in my mother’s behavior, or simply me growing older and more observant. But toward the end of primary school, I increasingly viewed my mother as “emotionally unstable”. My parents fought more often. “Her saddle’s slipping”, my dad said of my mother privately; a statement I was generally inclined to agree with.
I wasn’t really old enough to understand their arguments, so there was always some doubt in my mind as to who was right; but, my mother was very high-strung, anxious, and obsessive, in stark contrast to my carefree and at times lackadaisical father.
By now, the mag-mount on a cookie tin had been replaced with a Cushcraft vertical on the roof; which in turn would soon be on a used 40’ tower we managed to pick up. It was eventually accompanied by a three element beam for HF, and a 14 element beam for 2 meters, along with a flagstaff-style pulley for erecting dipoles.
My dad heard about Linux from somewhere (the paper, perhaps), and suggested I should learn more about it. I was fascinated by the idea of trying a different operating system; although my dad would never let me use the family computer for that, I managed to get a cheap used desktop computer in late elementary school. I chose pre-Novell SuSE 7.something as my first distro; I find this amusing as an adult, considering I lived two hours away from Red Hat world headquarters.
Our church got a new preacher, Tommy. We went through a few others I won’t bother to mention, but Tommy was the preacher through most of my youth. Regardless of where I’ve found myself in life, I still think he’s a cool guy.
My mother and I first met Tommy and his wife at a sort of reception dinner we held for them in the church activity building. We managed to find ourselves at the same table somehow, and it was brought up that Tommy was also born in Warren, Ohio.
The new preacher undoubtedly mingled with other groups; but our table, oddly enough, happened to be the one out of a dozen or so that he gravitated toward. Him, his wife, the Richardsons, the Stewarts, and my mother and I. The festivities died down, and the people began to leave. Our group kept talking as the activity building fell empty. A couple of people from our table left; but the core group remained, and found itself in the much more intimate adjoining preacher’s office.
This was a long time ago, and I’m afraid a lot has happened that may have jumbled my memory. But, I do recall some vague discussion about the Freemasons between the remaining members of our party, save for my mother and I. And, something about Tommy and Jody being from somewhere. I could try and be a little less verbose, but you never know when we’re going to need that.
9/11 happened during math class when I was in 5th grade. A lot of parents came early to pick us up, including mine. Although it was certainly made out to be a big deal, after Columbine and the Oklahoma City bombing, I honestly underestimated the gravity of the situation, and expected it to mostly fade from the news cycle after a period of weeks to months.
#snipI scored an old Thinkpad with the swappable disk drives under the keyboard for a couple hundred bucks not long after I got the desktop. It might’ve been showing its age by the time I sold it in high school, but now that I’m older I do regret getting rid of it so quickly. It was a lot more durable than the Inspiron that replaced it, which needed at least two hinge/lid replacements throughout its lifespan.
My other little hobby had similarly grown, emboldened by the couple of minutes of warning my ad-hoc CCTV system gave me, and my growing familiarity with my mother’s routines and early warning signs. I narrowly avoided being caught after she confronted me about her disheveled underwear drawer; defying a forthcoming explanation for my mother’s query, she volunteered one of her own: that I was looking for a utility knife she had taken from me and hidden in the drawer. It was like I was playing a video game, where the only choice was to press X and take this sort of plea bargain, which didn’t end in any sort of real punishment anyway. It wasn’t like her to take things from me, and she just gave it back eventually.