There was a time in my childhood when my parents (my mother, really) occasionally placed me in environments with developmentally disabled children.

I am not retarded, though.  I never have been.  I might be considered somewhat socially awkward and I am definitely an introvert, but those aren’t disabilities.  I always knew I wasn’t supposed to be there.  I would write stories about hating those places.

Even when I was an adult, my mother would occasionally take me along with her to these environments.  Did my mom have a fetish for them?  Did she think I belonged there?  Was this part of her work?  She never seemed to be an employee of these places, however.

It’s all part of my fragmented, occasionally neglectful, but routinely abusive childhood.  I’m not saying living and working with mentally challenged individuals is abusive, wrong, or depressing.  I’m saying I never made the choice to do that.  My mother made that choice for me and I never really questioned her about it.

Weird.