Hykie Berg: Ultimate Survivor. Hykie Berg
house whenever she spent an evening out with her friends, just to avoid having us both in the same house without supervision. It was only later that I realised what I was doing to my sister and how it impacted on her life. As a young boy turning into a teenager, bored with life and himself, it wasn’t something I’d thought about.
I tried doing sport when I was in primary school, but I was a little overweight. Why would I want to strain myself? My love for sweets and chocolates outweighed any form of exercise. ‘A bit clumsy,’ one teacher wrote in my grade four physical-education report card. What could I say? She was an adult, so I believed her and made the words my own. And every time I failed or didn’t achieve a goal, I engraved this belief deeper into my soul. Later, I also began to believe that I was clumsy and that sport wasn’t for me. When I experienced a failure, I allowed her negative comment to prove true in my world. In this way, the idea that ‘I wasn’t good enough’ became fixed in my psyche.
Today I understand the power words can hold, especially over children. Words can make or break them.
Rugby was something that most boys did, but I hated it. To play rugby would have meant that I was normal, just like the other kids. But I didn’t belong there, either. In primary school, I actually played rugby for the first team, but rarely got the ball. There was one match, however, that I’ll never forget.
For the first time in my rugby career, I got the ball. I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t know what to do with it. ‘Pass! Pass! Pass the ball!’ the spectators screamed. ‘Just pass the bloody ball, Hykie!’ they shouted. Everyone was shouting. I couldn’t see a gap, only my own anxiety in the eyes of the other players.
But I had the ball. And I was ecstatic. In a battlefield surrounded by spectators, I suddenly had the ball, in my hands. But where to run? I was lost. The noise, the adrenalin became too much. I was tackled. Play continued.
When sport didn’t work out for me, I tried the guitar. My mom bought a guitar for both my brother and me, and sent us for lessons. But it was unbearably boring. I wanted to learn how to play heavy metal – bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, AC/DC and Alice Cooper were big then. I wanted to be like them: to play in front of thousands of people while the world cheered me on. Our music teacher taught us ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’ and ‘Little Drummer Boy’ instead. Rum-pum-pum-pum.
During that time rock music was considered music from the devil. Rodney Seale, a well-known religious speaker in the 1980s, addressed the youth of Lynnwoodrif Dutch Reformed congregation to talk about the ‘devil’s music’. He played vinyls of bands like AC/DC backwards, and alleged that hidden messages lurked within the lyrics.
All I heard was the sound of, well, vinyls being played backwards. I became a big fan of death metal in my later teenage years. To me, bands like Obituary, Sepultura, Napalm Death, Deicide and Judas Priest were amazing. The music was all that mattered to me.
In grade five, I wanted to sing in the choir. It seemed like fun and, although this wouldn’t involve my group of friends, I thought it might be something I could do. I’d barely completed my first audition when the singing teacher announced: ‘Sorry, my child, your notes are false.’
For quite some time, I took art classes. I really loved art. To this day, I still have a talent for drawing. I remember winning a prize in grade five for a house I’d drawn. It was exhibited in the school hall, with a gold star glued to it. I was incredibly proud of myself – until I was chased away from art class: the teacher informed my mom that I was naughty and restless. So, I gave that up, too.
My behaviour became out of control, and I began doing weird things. If you’d asked me why, I would’ve insisted that I just didn’t know. It’s the absolute truth; it was a mystery to me why my behaviour was so extreme. Just before an annual swimming gala, I flung a couple dead birds into the school pool. Sometimes I’d burn lizards with flammable deodorant. Just for fun. From the outside, I probably seemed normal to some, but inside I was in complete turmoil. Indifference satisfied me in a very twisted way.
I even tried to be academic. And all this just to be good at something at school so that I could receive a little recognition, but I wasn’t a smart and obedient schoolboy. I just couldn’t devote all my attention to homework or tests. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, it seemed I couldn’t excel at my schoolwork.
More than anything, I really just wanted to be accepted by my peer group and parents.
Liesl, a primary school blonde, was the prettiest girl I’d seen in my life. Everyone thought she was beautiful. She was the only person at school in whose presence I couldn’t utter a single word. Listening to my Walkman to isolate myself from the world, I’d imagine there was a crowd cheering me on. At the front was Liesl, a loving smile spread across her gorgeous face. Without having to say anything to anyone, I imagined that one day she’d be mine.
Her father taught karate at school, so it suited me perfectly when my parents decided that my brother and I should start taking lessons. Liesl, however, had no interest in me. All I wanted to do was impress her, but she paid me no attention. I just couldn’t win. I couldn’t achieve anything. What a washout; it was terrible. Later, I began to hate karate, too, and begged my mom not to take me any more.
Steadily withdrawing myself from all interpersonal activities, or anything involving a group, I was a void among all the other kids – without knowing where I fitted in, empty and uncomfortable in my own skin. Nothing could fix that sense of alienation.
My reputation as a crazy child forever preceding me, it had by the end of grade seven created a few challenges that my parents needed to face.
Several high schools in Pretoria East had been reluctant to accept me: I’d been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). My mom explained that I was too naughty and that the high schools weren’t prepared to deal with me.
A teacher once remarked that I was a problem child who’d end up in an orphanage one day. I kept many of these remarks from my parents: in those days they would’ve taken the teacher’s side, anyway, and I would’ve been in more trouble.
I was anxious, however. It scared me; I couldn’t sleep for days. Even though those teenage years at my mom’s home would turn into a nightmare, it was the last place I wanted to leave. Countless times I was threatened with boarding school if I didn’t behave. As a young boy, I could never understand it: why is no one ever on my side?
I was only thirteen years old.
My mom realised only later that I was, as I still am today, acutely distractible and hyperactive, but in those days no one really knew about these things. There was also no available medication for attention-deficit (ADD) or hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Many were of the opinion that I actually belonged in a special school – those stigmatised colleges where the young misfits of society were sent.
After a meeting with the Transvaal Education Department, Afrikaans high school Die Wilgers agreed to take me in. The principal made it clear: one misstep and I’d be out.
Life in high school officially began and day one was fantastic. I could start over: new friends, new persona. My bag slung over one shoulder, my socks pulled down to my ankles, untucked shirt, loose tie. I immediately set out to find the smokers and meet a couple of like-minded friends. I wanted everyone in my grade, as well as the older kids, to know who I was. What I stood for. I wouldn’t allow anyone to tell me what to do.
Once we were divided into classrooms, we were ordered to our homerooms. Entering the classroom, I noisily hacked up a ball of spit and spat it on the floor, wiped my shoes over it and brazenly shouted, ‘Now this place is a dump!’
Despite the principal’s continual warnings, I still became unravelled. In any case, I thought he was an idiot. I quickly discovered how teachers chose their favourite kids and didn’t care about the rest. I’m not suggesting that they should’ve accepted me with all my faults, but not a single teacher took me by the arm and tried to get to know me. No one seemed to care about what interested me, or what I thought, as a child, as a boy, as a person.
In those days, there were only two adults who seemed to believe