Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner Cindy Turpen listens to her 14-year-old son, Drew, who sings one of his original songs last week at their Longview home. Drew's songs deal with his anxiety and teasing at school. Cindy teared up: 'It's a struggle. Part of me is so proud listening to the music and then part is listening to the lyrics, and I'm heartbroken.' |
Longview teen faces anxieties on trip to Las Vegas talent competition
Friday, June 30, 2006 9:49 AM PDT
By Hope Anderson
Printable version
E-mail this articleFear is Drew Turpen's constant companion:
Flying.
Heights.
Various animals.
Vomiting.
Drew's terror paralyzed him. He refused to board a plane. He wouldn't leave town. He couldn't go through the school day without phoning his mother to get comforted. He'd sometimes land in the emergency room, where doctors and medications soothed away the panic.
But this weekend, the 14-year-old is confronting his fears.
Drew buckled himself Thursday into an airplane seat for the first time. Saturday, the Longview resident will perform an original song at the larger-than-life MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas for a nationwide music competition.
It's fitting: His music -- a refuge and therapy for his fear -- helped bring him there.
My loneliness is what keeps me occupied
My angriness makes me cry when I'm terrified
The lump in my throat is a nest for my anxiety
And yet, I am all alone
-- From "Hollow," written by Drew Turpen
Struggle with fear
Along with more than 25 million Americans, Drew suffers from generalized anxiety, considered the most common emotional affliction. For Drew, it's compounded by an obsessive-compulsive disorder that prompts him to rehash his fears over and over and over again.
"He's walking on eggshells all the time. Very rarely does he let go of those shoulders -- and relaxes," said his mom, Cindy Turpen, a community resource officer with the Longview Police Department. Anxiety, which health experts say may be genetic, also plagues Cindy, although not to the same degree as Drew.
Drew, who is slim with a wide smile and brown hair draping to his shoulders, is the only child for Cindy, and the second for his father, Lonny, who has a 26-year-old daughter.
Even from the beginning, Cindy noticed her son lived his own way. Lonny, a husky man who works as a manager for a telecommunications company in Renton, brought home hefty Tonka trucks for Drew to zoom around the room.
Drew preferred plugging in a Disney video, twirling and singing along with the peppy songs.
He also brooded.
When Cindy's niece told him to stay away from a dead bird in the yard, the boy worried. And worried. And worried. Did his toe touch the bird? Did he touch his pant leg with a fingertip? What if he touched his mouth? Would he get sick?
"He took everything so literal," said Cindy, 46. Concerned about Drew's fears, she brought the 5-year-old to the first of what would become more than a dozen doctors.
In kindergarten at Carrolls Elementary School, tucked in the hills of Kelso, Drew became a magnet for the jabs of his classmates. He didn't fit the mold, shunning bouncing a basketball during recess for chitchatting with the girls.
"He talked like a little adult, and the boys would look and him and go, 'huh?' And the little girls would want to talk to him," Cindy said.
School held a dark side for Drew: "I came home every day crying because people teased me," he said. "I've been called a fag since kindergarten. I didn't even know what it was."
For a family vacation, the Turpens traveled to Bend, Ore., to a posh hotel. When they arrived, Drew was convinced he had food poisoning. He threw up in the lobby, in the bathroom, on the floor.
The memory has plagued him ever since.
"No one likes to throw up, but I have such a fear. ... It's like clouds block up my (throat); it feels like I can't breathe," Drew said. "And then the thing is, where am I going to throw up at?"
Now, at age 14, it's been six years since Drew has vomited.
"I never throw up, that's the thing."
I struggle in order to keep alive
I'm strangled, not able to be revived
Anxiety, I hate you most of all
I'm in the asylum ...
-- From "This pain," written by Drew Turpen
'Kicked up a notch'
When Drew entered fourth grade, the family moved to Longview, where Drew attended Mint Valley Elementary. After the move, his anxiety "kicked up a notch," Cindy said.
"I would drop him off at school, and he would say 'Nothing is going to make me sick today, right? Promise?' 'Promise.' 'Swear to God?' 'Swear to God,' " Cindy said. "We had to say it every day."
Drew took to scrubbing his hands, again and again and again. Cindy purchased bottles of antibacterial gel that he could pack along to school.
On a daily basis, especially near recess time, Drew called his mother. Once, when Cindy hustled to Mint Valley and took Drew outside, he threw his hands in the air: "I don't want to live anymore. I can't do this anymore," Cindy recalled him saying.
Depression -- which health experts say often stems from anxiety -- had arrived.
Suicide often treads on Drew's thoughts.
It crops up in his writing, which he uses to wrestle his feelings to paper. He writes "historical fiction on my life." One of his stories relates through fictional diary entries the plight of a girl crippled by anxiety. She practices self-mutilation, cuts her vein too deeply and bleeds to death.
Little things can set off Drew's panic button. Last week, in a fast food restaurant drive-through, a panic attack seized him after he continued fretting about food poisoning.
To escape the feeling, he wanted to hurl himself through the windshield of the car, Drew said later.
Last year, when a panic attack gripped Drew, he remembers thudding his head against a door. Over and over again to make the anger go away.
"It feels like I'm going to lose it," said Drew, who takes medication for anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. "It feels like you're trapped, and you're having a seizure. The only thing I can really explain it, is like being a quadriplegic and being in a bathtub, and the water keeps filling up and the ventilator pops off."
This pain, this grudge
It will never go away
I suffer, I linger
In the middle of death's way
This pain will never, ever go away
This pain, it's killing me
I'm dying inside
-- From "This pain," written by Drew Turpen
Music as 'my remedies'
In fifth grade, Drew decided to forego Christmas gifts so his parents would buy him an upright piano. He tried lessons, but he didn't want structure. He wanted a release.
He sang in the choir at Monticello Middle School and he taught himself to play -- mostly by ear. Drew wrote songs, typing out his lyrics on the computer to match the chords he composed on the piano.
He found an outlet.
He's written countless songs in the last few years, documenting his frustrations with bullies at school, serenading a lullaby for an unborn niece and honoring the memory of his great-grandmother.
Some songs are angry. Some are speckled with curses. Others are wistful. Some are dark.
All express his heart.
"Most of my songs are life lessons. They're kind of like my remedies, my candlelight. They're my comfort zone," Drew said. "It ranges from relief, sadness, anger and resiliency. I feel power, like it's my light to the tunnel."
About two years ago, he began surfing the Internet for a stage. He found USA World Showcase, a fee-required competition for unsigned artists to get discovered -- and win $50,000.
To audition, Drew called and sang a cappella for 20 seconds. He was accepted.
But he couldn't go. It was too much. Too soon.
A year later, he auditioned again. Today, he's in Las Vegas.
His psychologist, Karen Pauly of Northwest Psychological Resources in Longview, began treating him in the spring of 2005.
"He couldn't live a normal life. His anxiety was so bad it just permeated his life," she said, talking about Drew with permission from his family. "He is a real example, if he can overcome that, anybody can."
Pauly credits his progress to the faithfulness of Drew and his parents to his appointments -- and their willingness to work on issues, despite the difficulty.
And his music has been an added bonus.
"His music is his source of inspiration and release, and I think it's been a big part" of his progress, Pauly said. "He's always had the talent, but the anxiety was keeping him from showcasing it."
In the last year, Drew grew in confidence, Cindy said.
He's able to talk about his emotions. He formed a group of comrades at school. He's willing to spend the night at a friend's house for the first time, and he's looking forward to starting his freshman year at R.A. Long High School in the fall.
Cindy is finding him dancing in the garage again.
"I see less dark song-writing with him. I see happier songs now. I see excitement," Cindy said.
On a Tuesday evening earlier this month, Cindy booked a performance for Drew at Common Ground, a coffee shop in Longview. They set up a keyboard, and Drew, dressed in clingy track pants, took the stage in front of an audience of 20 family friends.
"Hi, my name is Brooklyn," Drew said, using his chosen stage name. "Thank you for coming tonight."
Then the music swelled, and Drew tipped his head back, his voice shrouded in emotion, the tone sometimes dipping down to huskiness.
His father videotaped the entire hour-long performance.
Afterward, Drew talked with his mother, using his hands to sign out the words as he spoke -- a common practice for him. Drew, who is now fluent, taught himself sign language after taking a class as an 8-year-old. He wanted to communicate with students who are deaf at his school.
Drew's own struggles have given him compassion for others: "His passion lies with ... art and working with underprivileged groups," Pauly said.
Saturday in Las Vegas, Drew will sing an original song called, "When I fall."
"In my life, I've been knocked down and kicked when I've been down," Drew said of his song selection. "I always try to find a way to get back up, and right now I'm in the process of rising."
He will have one minute to sing, and he may have a chance to make the television taping, which will be aired on PAX at the end of August. On-line voters choose the winner of the entire competition.
But even if Drew just steps on the stage and belts out his lyrics, he will be a winner, his parents said.
"This is the kid we're talking about who won't drive to Central Oregon. This is hopping on a plane and going to a place that is larger than life and performing in front of a studio audience," Cindy said. "This is totally huge."
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