Memories of Hell

Excerpts from “Becoming Anna: The Autobiography of a 16-Year-Old,” by Anna Michener, published by the University of Chicago Press.

“Crazy Girl was what the other kids who were tougher and more jaded than I was always called me. Though mental health workers always called me more politically correct terms like ‘mentally ill,’ I found this much more insulting. The adults believed that being different from what is expected was wrong. The other kids thought that being different was wonderful. . . . They called me crazy with affection. They wanted me to stay that way.”

“I had seen kissing on television and read about it in books. I had imagined it would be very romantic and dreamy; it was something I had looked forward to. But this was not at all what I had in mind. The damn closet they called a “mop room” was stuffy and it stank and it had one of those awful windows with the built-in bars too. Zach’s fingers bit into my neck hard and he pushed me against a sink that was moldy and wet. . . . I had a dreadful vision of my grandchildren asking me what my first kiss was like, and what would I tell them? It was dirty.”

“I knew already that any human being can be driven mad in a cell. But I had no idea that it began so early. I clenched my fists in an effort to contain my overwhelming desire to scream, to flee, to fling my body against the walls.”

From epilogue, written two years ago:

“Now that I have passed my 18th birthday, I do not have to fear being treated as I was in my childhood. Now that I have sought psychiatric counseling on my own, instead of being brought to it by my parents, my claims of abuse are believed, and the healing process has begun. . . . I have yet to understand, however, why it is that on my 18th birthday, I suddenly had these rights, but on the day before I did not.”