When survival means splitting in two — Part two
Surveillance state, child edition
I was eleven. Maybe twelve. First year of secondary school. And already, someone had decided I was their enemy.
She was supposed to be helping me. She was my assistant, my aide, my support person. Instead, she became my interrogator. The first few months were tense but quiet—we disliked each other, sure, but it was mutual and mostly unspoken. No open hostility. No acts of war. Just mutual disdain and trying not to make it worse.
Then one day she accused me of recording her.
She suspected I’d secretly captured her with my Victor Reader Stream—you know, that digital book player often used by blind students. I hadn’t. But that didn’t matter.
She forced me to connect it to the school computer. She stood over me, hands pressed into my shoulders, pinning me down like I might bolt. I had no way out.
She made me play every recording on the device. Every single one.
There was no way to skip. No way to delete. No quick format. Her hands on my shoulders were like shackles. Her eyes on the screen, a hawk circling its prey.
Some recordings were just me playing with my toys. Others were Mike and I talking. Some had my family in them. A few were of me in the bath, talking to the bubbles like kids do. I was twelve—technically too old for it, but emotionally? That’s where I was. That’s where we were.
She could’ve just asked to listen to the latest file. That would've been enough to prove I hadn’t recorded her that day. But she didn’t. She wanted everything. She wanted to expose me.
And maybe you’re thinking—why didn’t I just lie? Say no, refuse, fight back, delete the files on the sly? Because when you’re twelve, and you’re cornered by someone in power, someone who's meant to be your safe person, and they threaten to drag you to the principal’s office if you don’t comply—your brain goes offline. You freeze. You obey. You feel shame, because maybe they’ve convinced you you deserve it.
It wasn’t enough for her.
After the interrogation, I was left to eat lunch. I couldn’t taste a thing. My mouth moved. My hands moved. But I was gone. Hollowed out. Scraped raw.
One of my only friends noticed. She saw the damage. And she dragged me—yes, literally—to the deputy principal's office.
The deputy principal seemed kind. She listened. She offered candy. She said what happened was wrong. Promised she'd look into it. I believed her.
Then my helper walked in.
Ten minutes. That’s all it took. Whatever my abuser said to that woman in ten minutes was enough to flip the narrative entirely. Suddenly I was the liar. I was the manipulator. I was the problem. The accusations flew so fast I can’t even remember them clearly. Or maybe I can, but Mike took the blow for me and buried them somewhere deep.
From that day on, every recording had to be played for her. Every day. Top to bottom. Like a security sweep. Like I was a criminal under surveillance. No skipping. No pausing. Just hours of me re-listening to pieces of my own life that weren’t meant for anyone else. Pieces that were mine. Until they weren’t.
It wore me down.
Then came her obsession with my eyes. I wasn’t looking at her when she spoke to me. She took that personally. She wanted me to look in her direction when she gave instructions. Not at her—because I couldn’t. But toward her. Like a visual acknowledgment of her existence.
I wasn’t good at it. I forgot.
So she talked to the wall instead.
She’d pat the wall gently, cooing at it. “You’re such a good listener,” she’d say. “You look at me when I speak. You’re a good friend.”
She was mocking me. No one needed to explain it. I felt it like a dagger.
That abuse went on for months.
Every day, I went to school physically, but mentally I was a ghost. I came home and collapsed into bed. I couldn’t do my homework. I didn’t speak. I just laid there while my father raged at me over math, still thinking it was my fault that numbers didn’t work in my head the way they should.
Mike held me.
In my internal world, the trauma bled out of me in black oil. It formed monsters. Weeping angels stalked us from the corners. The monsters were made of my memories. Mike fought them off as best as they could, but they were everywhere. And we were so, so tired.
I made a plan.
One day, after school, my parents and sister would go to the theatre. I’d be alone.
I’d fill the bathtub. I’d strip down. I’d lie in the warm water for a few minutes, then pick up the steak knife I had hidden nearby. One deep stab to the neck. Then side to side.
I knew it would hurt. I wanted it to hurt. Pain was better than this.
And then, fate intervened.
That morning, I was pulled aside. My helper wouldn’t be coming anymore. Breast cancer, they said. She was gone.
They introduced me to my new helper: Stéphane.
I already knew him. He had worked with other students before. I knew he was kind. I knew he wouldn’t do what she had done.
And I cried.
Everyone thought I was crying because I was scared for her. Because she was sick. Because I would miss her.
I was crying because I was finally free.
She didn’t win. I lived..