Early Life
Born Henry Lawrence Garfield in Washington, D.C., the only child of Iris, a federal employee in the health and education sectors, and Paul J. Garfield, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who was a World War II veteran with a PhD in economics. When he was two years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in the affluent Glover Park neighborhood of the city.
As a child and teenager, Rollins suffered from depression and low self-esteem. In the fourth grade, he was diagnosed with hyperactivity and took Ritalin for several years so that he could focus during school. His mother taught him how to read before he was enrolled in kindergarten; however, due to "bad grades, bad attitude, poor conduct," he was soon enrolled at The Bullis School, then an all-male preparatory school in Potomac, Maryland.
According to Rollins, the Bullis School helped him to develop a sense of discipline and a strong work ethic. It was at Bullis that he began writing; his early literary efforts were mainly short stories about "blowing up my school and murdering all the teachers."; "it was a very rough upbringing in a lot of other ways. I accumulated a lot of rage by the time I was seventeen or eighteen." Rollins regularly rode to school in the back of the bus with a boa-constrictor. He has also mentioned that a Ramones concert helped shape his thoughts on music into becoming the musician he is today.
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