Coconut's Autobiography (up to 16 years, so it might be... Part 1?)

Everyone tells me my laugh is contagious and that my smile could light a thousand rooms (okay, the smile's an exaggeration...). I'm supposed to be the calm-headed and compassionate one. People call me a lecher (pervert) and a sick-minded, twisted little freak... though I'm FAR from little

I was born on January 5th, 1989, at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington during a blizzard (no, really... just ask my mother, smileywinks). My mother was all of seventeen years old, and she almost didn't make it. Complications arose and she wouldn't dilate any farther, so she pushed and nearly lost all her blood doing so. She needed to have a blood transfer or she could have lost her life. They had to do it twice, because they gave her the wrong blood-type (the package was mislabeled). She had already decided to name me Sheryl Anne, after her mother that wasn't really there when she was growing up, and her aunt Judy Ann, who was more like a mother to her than anything, really.

So, on that cold winter day in January, I, Sheryl Anne, came into the world.

When I was six weeks old, my step-father, Myron (now called Dad), came into the picture. I'm told that I would grab the carpet with my hands and literally drag (scoot) myself across the floor to his feet, where he'd pick me up (he was never really one to give in to cuteness ). Eventually, I was given the nickname Scooter, which stuck long after I learned to crawl.

During the time when I was considered a toddler, I learned about something everyone called books. If I wasn't looking at the pictures to one of my Winnie-the-Pooh or Barney books, I was taking them up to all of my mom's friends, saying "'ead me!", which was translated to mean "Read me!"... I'm told that's how I indicated that I wanted someone to read me a story.

I'm not really sure what normal is, but I think that my early childhood was as normal as anyone else's. I went to Snohomish County Head Start, my mom was in the PTA, and I had friends. Yep, everything was awesome. I loved my teachers, my parents, my cat named Tazmo... I was extremely happy with the way my life was. Then the best news of my life came.... I was going to be a big sister.

When I first heard about that, I'd brag to all my friends about getting a baby brother (though the word "brother" was left out at times). I don't remember about the bragging, but I do remember the day my brother was born...

It was a... well... I don't remember what the weather was like, but I know it was early morning in November. The most vivid part of what I call my memory was when my mom's friend, Crystal (also known as Auntie at the time), was taking me into the delivery room to see my mom. Instantly, my mom screamed, "Get her out! Get her out!". I remember crying the minute the door closed and heard my mom screaming. My Aunt Crystal put her arms around me and comforted me, saying she was okay. Not long after, she had to drive me to school (I was still in head start, and only four years old at that point).

That day at school, I bragged up a storm (or so I'm told, for I don't remember that, either). I told everyone that my mom was screaming, and my brother was on his way. Sure enough, my mom brought him by later so I could see him. Upon entering our classroom during free time, she was bombarded with questions like, "did it hurt?" and "did my mom scream when she had me?". On questions similar to the second, I'm sure my mom didn't really know if other parents screamed, so she just told them that she thought so, but they should ask their parents if they really wanted to know.

I didn't know it at the time, but my mom had cervical cancer during the pregnancy (she'd had it several times, prior, too), and it was highly recommended that she have an abortion. Personally, I'm very happy she didn't, because then I wouldn't have my baby brother.

I had my mom, my dad, and my baby brother. Nothing could've been more perfect.

Tazmo was forced to leave when we moved to Mountlake Terrace, Washington, because the house my parents decided to rent was one that didn't allow pets. Anyways, we moved there either before kindergarten or first grade (one of the two). For that year or two, I remember little, but I still loved school, even if I didn't have as many friends as before. I had a great teacher in first grade named Mrs. Sellers, who went on to become my second grade teacher.

During the second grade, things took a turn for the worse, but no one in my family (myself included) would realize it for a little over a year. My mom's good friend, Rick moved in with his birds. He had lived in a trailer park, and my mom put her foot down on it.

I went downhill at that point, worrying my teachers and parents. My hearing became worse and worse and wouldn't get better, and I began cutting at my clothes with scissors during class. I was taken out of school and questioned a lot, but none of my answers satisfied their questions.

I started becoming a loner inside school. I would isolate myself on a hill overlooking the playground and imagine myself as someone else in a place far, far, away. I had few friends in my class, and the friends that were in my class never visited, unless they were neighbors.

After school, I began neglecting my homework, which was something I loved to do. Rick would often take me on bike rides out to Lake Ballinger and other places, or we would take a bus ride to downtown Seattle, which was possibly one of my favorite things to do at that time. I don't remember what we did on the majority of those trips, but one of them at Christmas stands out in my mind. We went Christmas shopping, and he tricked me into picking out my own gift without realizing it.

Things went on as they were at the time, but I started having nightmares that got worse and worse as time progressed. Finally, my mom made something that I called a Dream Purifier (a dream catcher made with thin wire and glass beads). The nightmares didn't stop completely, but they did subside, somewhat.

By the time the end of second grade rolled around, I was in a horrible state. I had gained weight, my underwear were disappearing from the dirty clothes, my nightmares were worse, my parents were worried, and the only people who were equally or more worried than my parents were their close friends (like our neighbor across the street we all called Zette).

The beginning of the third grade came and went in the same way the second grade had ended. I was still unhappy, everyone was still worried, and my mother was just discovering why I everything was the way it was.

One day while my brother and I were at school, my dad was at work, and Rick went to visit his mother, my mom decided to tidy up Rick's room by cleaning the bird cages, putting his clothes away, and changing his sheets. What she found that day horrified her and brought back horrible memories of what she hoped I would NEVER ever have to endure.

Under his bed and behind the dresser we gave him were a bunch of one and two liter soda bottles full of urine. Needless to say, that sickened my mother in itself, but that wasn't the end of her nightmare. She removed his bed and opened the top drawer to his dresser to find my underwear that had gone missing, still dirty and unwashed. Many pairs seemed to be covered in what my mom would later learn to be seamen.

Panicking, my mom called the only person she felt she could turn to at the time... her mother-like friend, Zette. All she told Zette was that she needed her to come over to our house that very minute. Auntie Zette obliged and walked through our house to find my mother huddled against the washer in a fetal position. When my mom saw that her friend had come, she pointed into Rick's room. Zette immediately saw what my mom was so afraid of and called the police. They came and went within that very afternoon without anyone knowing, except my dad.

They had told my parents and Zette to act as though nothing happened while they looked into what legal action should be taken. They did; however, tell my mother to make sure I was NOT left alone with Rick. They also said that asking me if anything was wrong might be good, too, but to not pressure me about anything.

So, they followed the orders they were given, even though I didn't know what they were getting at during that time. All my mom did was say, "Are you sure you're okay?" and "you know you can tell me anything, right?" About a week after that, I was taken to the doctor for all sorts of testing, Rick's room was searched, and all the evidence was taken for analyzing. I still had no idea what was going on.

Not long after Rick left, I was told what was going on after I told my mom that Rick had "touched me", as I put it when telling her. My mom started dragging me to counselors. Counselor after counselor, they couldn't find anyone I trusted. Finally, we settled on one that I would talk to named Lori (not sure if that's her real name, but that's what I remember).

While everything with the counselors and the police coming to our house constantly was taking place, my mother finally told me what was going on. She told me that the "touching" I had mentioned was called molestation or "sexual abuse". I learned that it was NOT okay for Rick to touch me like that, and she told me that I would be open with the counselor about it, though she wouldn't force me.

My dad usually sat with me during my counseling sessions, since I didn't want my mom there, at first. After awhile, I was comfortable with both of them there, or both of them out of the room. I told the counselor things I won't EVER put into print, unless asked for purposes of helping preventing such things from happening to other people. Anyways, everything started clearing up with the problem. Rick finally admitted to having molested me, and plead guilty. Not long after, Rick was sent to jail, and we had various restraining orders put out against him, finally replaced with a permanent one.

Before all this happened, Rick had told me his wife and daughter had died. Turns out, like everything else he ever said, was a lie. My mother had spoken to his ex-wife, who refused to appear in court. She said she divorced him for molesting their daughter. We didn't question her any further, but this proved to my mother that Rick was a sick man.

I finished the third grade a great deal happier than I was and all of my teachers were glad. I even wrote my first poem a month or two after Rick left. It was called "The Garden" and I dedicated it to my mother, since she loves gardening. I think it has a deeper meaning than it lets on, now, but I'll just not ramble about that.

I went on from third grade to fourth grade, and in the fourth grade, I reunited with a friend (Becky) I had in first grade and made friends with a new student (Naomi). Our friendship went on through the fourth grade and into the fifth grade. We did everything and anything together.

When the fifth grade ended, my parents decided that staying in Mountlake Terrace wasn't the best thing for me. I was still having nightmares, and I wasn't as happy as I was before Rick had come and gone. My mom decided that we were to move to Idaho (where my dad's from). I really didn't want to, but my parents had the final say, so off we went.

I was to go to Shoshone Elementary School, but the I was transferred to Gooding Middle School before I could look both ways. I was eleven years old, and shoved straight into middle school without expecting it. Other students at least had orientation in the fifth grade, but I was still expecting to be in elementary school at the time. I didn't adapt to middle school so well, and my grades were slipping. By the end of the year, I had just barely managed to pass.

Life went on like that for two more years in middle school, but we moved again during the process. Since my dad had to drive so far to work, and my brother and I were often staying at a relatives house to get to school, we moved into town. I had lost contact with Becky and Naomi (they never wrote back much after I moved, then stopped completely), and made two new best friends named Sara and Jeanine. We never spent much time together out of school, but our schedules involved us having at least two classes together each day. In February of that year Sara moved to New York, and hasn't bothered writing to me (I had Jeanine give her all my contact information), and Jeanine said she'd changed a lot. So that just left me and Jeanine and Ash (hellangel at AP), who came into the picture as the sister I never had. She brought along her boyfriend, Bryan (Noodle at AP), in our Freshman year of high school, and he turned out to be the older brother I never had

Anyways, I made it through middle school (barely), and went on to ninth grade as a Freshman. I was still unhappy, and I had gained even more weight (see my picture from eighth grade at www.freewebs.com/evilcoconut it's there somewhere). At one point, my mom took me into the local doctor (one of them) to look at my leg (one was too long and the other was too short) to see if I'd need surgery at all. He said it should even out (it did), but he had prescribed me on my very first pill (Effexor XR... I was afraid to swallow them before that time). He said it was to help give me energy, so I'd be able to lose weight (my weight is threatening my health, apparently)... turns out he was diagnosing me with Clinical Depression, and probably should have said so right away. My mom thinks that I've had it since before Rick left, and it was never diagnosed.

I'm still on Effexor XR a year or two later, and I feel that it doesn't work sometimes, but I feel completely unstoppable when I drink coffee with it. I went back into counseling recently, and am currently taking a break from that (I fear I shall need to go back soon... I question my sanity and a lot has been going on). I don't remember much about my childhood before and during being molested, but I can remember some of the really and exceptionally good things (like my brother's birth). I realize that I sound crazy when I say I don't regret being molest and that I'm kinda glad it happened, but i think it's made me all the better. I wouldn't be this wacky, nutty, strange, odd, (sometimes) compassionate, sensitive, and interesting big tub of lard I am today. My hearing is fully restored thanks to having a second set of tubes put in when I was about ten. And my adenoids have grown back three times after being removed (twice).

I probably sound full of myself, but I think I'm a great and interesting person. Some say I'm to smart and facetious for my own good Edit: I have to mention this... I have two pet rats named Iggy and Tsume

Note for my mom or a family friend: please read this at my funeral if something happens to me!