Over active imagination

I'm sitting here watching the 2007 adaptation of SYBIL and it's bringing back these intensely visual memories of my first experience with the story when it was originally aired on TV in 1976. I was 7 years old and so of course I wasn't permitted to stay up and watch it.

This must have angered me as I recall I refused to go to sleep. I played possum until my mother was convinced I was asleep and then spent the next two nights listening intently to the drama play out on our 13 inch black and white.

Because I couldn't see the movie, I created the characters in my imagination and because I couldn't see what was happening, I created events to match what I thought I understood the audio to be describing. How interesting it would be to play that movie as my little 7 year old mind understood it.

I don't recall the entire story that I made up in my mind, but I recall I didn't sleep for several days after that. I was disturbed by the sounds of Chopin and Beethoven and glass breaking.

It was many years before I actually saw the movie. I remember being more disturbed by my version, though, so I was a little disappointed in the real version. Except for the rape by button hook. I'm quite certain I had no idea what that was. I was appalled to find out what that was!

What a difference a few decades make. Now I'm sitting here just hating the community she grew up in and the father that was so absent any compassion.

I wonder if Ms. Peabody would think that it was Hattie's prerogative to beat her child any way she saw fit?

Thank God for child advocacy...