I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, he was an icon that represented the good in my childhood. My mom had his Wonderfulness album, and we listened to that record over and over until we knew the stories by heart. We would laugh together, as a family, and it was – well – wonderfulness.
I saved my pennies and when he came to Albany, NY, I bought a ticket and went to see him at the Palace Theatre as a birthday present to myself. It felt great to sit in the same room with this man who could make my mother laugh, who unknowingly brought motherly hugs and kisses and tickles to girls who were desperate for their beautiful mother’s love, this woman whose smile could light the Empire State Building.
Even today, just thinking about Tonsils or the Chicken Heart, I feel that happy warmth of those very rare, loving hugs from Mom. But if the news about Bill Cosby is true, then a part of me will know I’m listening to the work of a rapist. My heart and prayers go out to his family and his victim(s).
I know, I know. Whatever he may have done, it doesn’t change the fact that those happy childhood moments did happen; they were real. I’ll probably get over this feeling that those memories are now tainted. But today, my visceral reaction is to wish I could punch this man in the nose for being unable to control his baser instincts. He’s a national family-man icon. He has a responsibility to behave like one, and if he can’t do that, to at least not do anything criminal.
My answer to Chartock’s question is that I’m drawn to the story because I feel betrayed by a public figure I trusted, that the little girl inside of me trusted. It is very hard to lose a childhood hero.
October was domestic violence awareness month, so I guess I’m a bit late for talking about my first husband. He so rarely crosses my mind anymore. It was so long ago, and I was so very young. But it’s a part of my journey, and there was one wonderful thing that came from it – my daughter, Demi. And Gigi, wherever you are, thank you for being there when I needed you. I hope life is treating you well.
Here’s the beginning of a tumultuous, sometimes violent relationship.
Summer 1983, I was 18
I met Dell when I interviewed for a job selling magazines door-to-door. He was short, but had a wiry build, Luke Skywalker hair and cleft chin, and bright blue eyes that were always kidding around. He was seven years older than me, and I thought he was cute. I knew during the interview that it was an awful job and I would never make any real money, but they paid for travel and we’d be touring the country and staying in hotels, which seemed like luxury to me. I used to sell Girl Scout cookies door-to-door, so why not magazines? Plus, I didn’t want to dance anymore (I never called it stripping back then – I was a dancer, thank you very much). Selling magazines was way better than dancing.
So I quit the Pink Garter, told my worried roommate that she could sell my stereo for rent money if I wasn’t able to send it to her, and took off to Wichita with Dell and the magazine troupe. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Dell had a thing for me. How empowering it felt having this older man, one of the team leaders, flirt with me, choosing me over all the other pretty girls on the team. I ended up in his bed and then on the best door-to-door leads.
I spent my days sitting with stay-at-home moms and lonely elderly people, convincing them to buy magazines (often unsuccessfully). I spent my nights wandering cities I’d never seen before, hand-in-hand with this good-looking man (not boy!) who made me feel like the most special person in the world. He was so incredibly charming, putting his coat around my shoulders, helping me circumvent puddles, opening doors for me. My high-school boyfriends kinda treated me like a buddy. Teasing, punching my shoulder, asking me to wait on them when we made snacks at their houses. I had never seen anything wrong with that kind of friendly banter before, but with Dell I couldn’t help but think this was the difference between friendship and love. To treat me so nicely must mean he was in love with me, true love, right?
We made it all the way to Seattle when I realized that there was no way I would have that month’s rent, so I called my roommate to tell her to sell the stereo, and the phone went dead part way through because I didn’t have enough change for the payphone. It never occurred to me to call her back collect – who does that? I wasn’t going to be that rude. Besides, I was sure she understood that I would call her back when I could, and the stereo was worth nearly three times what I owed her, so no big deal.
Dell decided to quit, too. The boss gave us a bus ticket back to our homes, which is what the job guaranteed. Dell went to Wisconsin, promising to travel to K.C. within a day of getting to Madison.
I remember sitting in a bus transfer station in Wichita, smoking a clove cigarette. I had taken them up at the Garter because all the girls were smoking pot, and although it smelled kinda nice – like incense and a warm fireplace – I just couldn’t stand the idea of doing something illegal. God forbid I should get caught. I was pretty scared of any authority figure in those days. Anyway, I took up clove cigarettes because they smelled nice and I could fake smoking them pretty easy. The smoke just gathered in my mouth and I blew it out, without actually inhaling the nasty burning stuff.
So I’m sitting there with this cigarette, thinking I looked so cool and grown up (at 18 years old, out of high school all of eight weeks), when I see a woman in a suit directing a bunch of security guards to check out bathrooms and dark corners. I could hear her muttering something about being able to “smell it”. I looked at my cigarette, looked at her, and realized it would be better if I spoke up first than if they came over to check me out. I was completely mortified to have to stand before this woman and apologize for scaring her and her officers with my sweet-smelling cigarette. She looked down her nose at me, like I was a troublesome child, and walked away without saying a word, dismissing her guards as she went. I had clearly just wasted her time. I was pretty glad when the announcement came that my bus was loading.
When I arrived in the Kansas City depot, I called my roommate. Her boyfriend answered the phone and I asked if they could pick me up, and he said no, that I didn’t live with them anymore. Then she got on the phone and told me she had sold everything I owned and it still didn’t cover what I owed her.
I stood there with my bags at my feet, in that dingy bus station, grasping a greasy pay phone at 10 p.m. at night, horrified to hear that everything I owned was gone. I sputtered about my stereo, and how it should have been plenty. She said no one would buy it, so she was keeping it, and that as far as she was concerned, I had skipped out on the rent and was not welcome back. I asked her about all the stuff no one would buy, like my dresser drawer filled with years of my half-written stories. She said she threw away anything that didn’t sell. There was nothing left.
I hung up the phone, my mind racing. I had only been gone on this magazine gig for four weeks. How could I lose everything in four weeks? I looked around the bus station, thinking hard. No fare for a taxi. I couldn’t sleep here. There were no diners or fast food joints around, and I didn’t even have money for the vending machine that looked like it had hundred-year-old cupcakes in it. Who could help me?
I stepped out of the phone booth, pacing back and forth with my thoughts. It never crossed my mind to call my mother. She was a “you made the mess, you clean it up” person. My sisters were still in high school, no wheels between them. I thought of my various high school friends, but realized I had lost touch with most of them when I ran away from home. I saw them at school, sure, but I was always working, so I kinda dropped out of sight. My SCA friends were also my roommate’s friends – she probably bragged to them about selling all my stuff, just like she bragged that she had a dancer for a roommate. They would take her side. Maybe she did this to get back at me for not taking her advice and keeping the dancing job.
Then I remembered Gigi. I went back to the phone and made my first and last collect call in my life. I was relieved to hear her voice accepting the charges, and almost cried when she exclaimed “that bitch!” after I told her what my roommate had done. I hung up the phone knowing there was someone on my side, that I wouldn’t have to curl up in one of those hard, plastic bus station chairs for the night.
I was going to have to tell Dell that we didn’t have a place to stay. He was taking the bus from Madison to K.C. tomorrow. I let him down. I wished I could tell him just to stay in Madison, but he was doing well at the magazine job. He left that job for me. It wouldn’t be fair to tell him I’d changed my mind just because I was nervous to have him find out we had no place to live.
I gathered my last remaining belongings and sat down. One large suitcase of clothes. One smaller case with makeup, curlers and hairdryer. And my purse. And my keys. Good God – I didn’t think to ask if she had sold my car! Could she even do that without the keys? The big, empty bus station was cold this late at night. One of the overhead lights was flickering, and went dark. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly, holding the fear and tears as deep inside as I could. Gigi was coming. I had a place to sleep. The rest would have to wait until morning.
I always cringe a little when I think of my behavior in Kansas City. I was not the person I am today. Add my unhealthy behavior to culture shock, and the result is that this poor man never received the reunion he hoped for when meeting his long-lost children. Mom not only took me from that side of my family, but she took me from our cultural heritage. My father will never have the Puerto Rican father-daughter relationship he imagined, and I’ll never know what it is to grow up Puerto Rican. It’s a real loss.
November 1986, I was 21
The organza was so slippery, and all I was doing was trying to make a neat hem. I stopped the machine and cut the thread, thinking I’d have better luck on the serger, when the overhead announced I had a call on line 2. I sighed and left the sewing room for the laundry area, where the phone was, expecting another pre-booking for a Santa costume. “Jo speaking, may I help you?”
“Your name is not Dumont, it is Bautista and your father is looking for you,” said a heavily Spanish-accented frantic voice.
“Um, what?”
“Your name! You’ve been lied to. Your real name is Bautista and your father is trying to find you!”
I didn’t appreciate the dramatic tone in her voice and began to suspect a prank. “Well, I’m married now, so it’s neither. Who is this?”
Something in my own tone must have tipped her off that she wasn’t handling herself professionally. With more calm she said, “This is the Red Cross. The man you think is your father is not your father. You are a missing child. We’ve been helping your father look for you for 18 years. He is anxious to meet you.”
Well, I had already found my real birth certificate years ago, and knew my birth father’s last name was Bautista, but I was married with a toddler and another light blinking on line 3. There was nothing life-or-death in this call and my boss frowned on personal use of the phone. And not for a minute did I believe I was a missing child. I was right here in Kansas City for over a decade. It was a bit of a surprise to learn my real father was alive, but why he was bothering to look me up now, after all these years, was beyond me. Whatever, I thought, it’d be nice to know the family medical history.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll meet him. Can you call me at home tonight? I really have to get back to work.”
She took my number, clearly disappointed with my anti-climatic reaction, but what did she expect? She was practically hysterical, unlike any Red Cross person I had ever heard of, she had nothing much new to say and I had work to do. She said she was calling from New York, so maybe that’s just how they talk out there. I picked up line 3.
“Jo, it’s Meg. Did you get a call from the Red Cross?”
Good grief, that crazy woman called my sister, too. We talked about how frantic she sounded, and how we both agreed that she was very unprofessional. If the whole missing-child story was real, why weren’t the police calling us? Or why not our real father? If I had a missing child and knew where she was, I’d be on that phone lickety-split myself, not leave it to some crazy person. Meg said that mom had called her yesterday, warning her that she might get this call. Astonished, I asked how mom got the heads-up, and why Meg hadn’t called to tell me. She said that somehow mom’s brother had found out, and told mom, and Meg wasn’t sure whether it would be fair to call me and possibly prejudice me. Mom had told her not to listen to anything he had to say. But Meg had a son, and I had Demi, so we both agreed that a medical history was an important enough reason to meet this guy. It’s not like mom was able to give us any decent information about her side of the family. The biggest drawback of meeting him, though, was that neither of us felt any need for a parent at our age. We’d had enough of those.
A few days later, I was sitting in a Waffle House facing the man who claimed to be my father. He had dark hair, worn a little on the short side. His skin was smooth and a darker olive than mine. He had a neat mustache. Other than his coloring, he didn’t look like me at all. He was – well – compact. Taller than me, but average height for a man. He appeared muscular but lean, an average build but well-shaped and probably stronger than he looked. I felt overblown and blousy next to him. His face and features were smaller than mine. I had big, brown eyes, unlike either of my parents. He was clearly fastidious, also unlike me. I was willing to just accept the diner’s dirt with a shrug and surreptitiously wipe my silverware on a paper napkin. Not he. In a Spanish accent with an educated and well-modulated tone, he politely asked for a clean fork, charming the waitress as if it were his fault that the fork wasn’t cleaned properly.
I didn’t know what to think. He told me this fantastic story about my mother taking me and Meg out for ice cream when one of my uncles was babysitting us, and never coming back. That he called the police, went to the courts, and even reported us to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Surprised, I asked him if our pictures were on milk cartons, and he said no, that by that time we were too old and he only had baby pictures of us. Then the pictures came out.
He was the oldest of eight boys. My grandparents were still living. I was the first girl in the family, and my grandfather had my baby picture on his nightstand this whole time, waiting for me to come home. I listened to Papa Bautista tell me about how his whole family missed me and my sister, how delighted and surprised he was to learn about Amy and how he wanted to bring the three of us home to New York. Apparently, mom was pregnant with Amy when she abducted us. I stared at the baby pictures, all younger than the ones mom had, and tried to see myself in them. There were pictures of him with mom, whom I had no trouble recognizing despite how young she looked. It must be true – but how did I turn out so big and curvy compared to everyone else on his side of the family?
He reached his hand across the table to stroke mine, and I pulled it away. He was 20 years older than me, but he looked young for his age, and I have had way too many older men put their hands on me. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, but I didn’t know who this guy was. His story rang true, but he was so different from anyone I had ever known. There was a restrained passion about him that made me a bit nervous, and I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I tried to bring a little coolness to the conversation, and asked him about our medical history.
He sat back, easily able to sense that he needed to back off, and said I came from a very healthy family. I had a great uncle who had lived to 115 years old. My grandparents were as healthy as could be. No heart disease, no cancer, no arthritis – nothing for me to worry about.
He apologized for not finding us sooner. He explained that the courts all felt that girls belonged with a mother, and flat refused to help him. That he had broken his leg at one point, and was in long months of physical rehabilitation. That as soon as he got word from the Kansas City sheriff’s office as to where we were, he hopped into a car and drove through a Pennsylvanian snow storm to get here. He wanted to know everything about me, and was surprised that I wasn’t in college. He said I come from a very intelligent family and must know that I’m very smart. He was certainly charming.
After about an hour of talking, I felt comfortable enough to invite him to my home the next evening to meet Dell and Demi. He took care of the bill, just as charming as ever to the waitress, and we paused outside before separating to our cars. He reached both his hands toward my face, respectfully asking if he could touch me. I nodded and felt his two warm, dry hands resting on each of my cheeks. His face was very close, and he pulled my head down and gently kissed my forehead. As he pulled away, there were tears in his eyes, but he was smiling and said he looked forward to meeting my family tomorrow. Then he quickly stepped away.
Embarrassed, I went quickly to my own car, but hesitated with the key in the ignition. There was something so sad about him. Almost as if he were disappointed that I was too old to call him daddy, to sit on his lap and play patty-cake. I turned the key. I had plenty of problems of my own. Eighteen years were a long time, and there was nothing I could do about that. I couldn’t be his child, but perhaps we could be friends. Right now, I had to figure out how I was going to tell my husband that I had agreed to bring this man into our home without his permission.
I was trembling from the time I left my office, through the cell phone calls from my car trying to find help, to the time I pulled into the garage of the medical office park. I felt physically sick and lightheaded, and my emotions were swinging from anger to trepidation to relief and back. I was going to get to talk to someone and get this all out of me, and everything would be back to normal tomorrow. I locked up the car and headed to where I thought the entrance was for the Capital District Psychiatric Center. Every step was a struggle. I wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and just cry. But I made it to the building and, after a little confusion, found the right entrance. The door was locked, so I pressed the buzzer and waited, wishing there was a bench to sit on.
The unprepossessing entrance was opened by a wary face who only let me in as far as the vestibule, his eyes looking me up and down as if I could be hiding a weapon. I lifted my eyebrows, a bit surprised, and he explained that they had to be very careful about what went past those doors. He asked my purpose, and made sure I understood that if I admitted myself, I couldn’t leave until the doctors gave permission for me to leave.
I didn’t see a problem with that – I knew I wasn’t a danger to myself or anyone else, I just needed to talk to someone and I couldn’t wait six weeks for a regular therapist to be available. I was sure I’d be out in a few hours, so I signed the book and let him look through my purse, and then he unlocked the next door and let me in, locking the door behind me.
I had never been in an emergency room like this one. Being locked in made me apprehensive enough, but the place was dingy. An old box T.V. was attached up high in one corner. The wood and cloth chairs were bolted together and to the floor. There was only one wooden table with rounded corners, also bolted to the floor. The dull fabric looked stained. The glass door behind me had small lines running through it – some kind of security glass, I guess. It was cloudy with greasy fingerprints and smudges. I wouldn’t want to touch that door handle unless I was wearing gloves. There was another door to the left, locked with a small window at eye level, and a third door just like it straight in front of me. To the right was a reception area, with a staff person sitting behind more security glass. There was a long hallway to the right, with several gray metal doors with small windows.
Everything looked grubby, and there was an occasional waft of unwashed human bodies floating in the cold air-conditioned space. Curled up on a chair near the reception desk was a woman with unkempt hair, covered in a blanket up to her chin, sleeping. There was a litter of small brown paper bags on the chair next to her, and a half-eaten apple.
The staff person who admitted me regained my attention and took me through the door straight ahead. On the other side was a row of three closet-sized rooms, each with a table and a couple chairs. He gestured to one and explained that I would begin with some paperwork, and then there would be an initial intake interview. Then he left me alone with a pen and clipboard.
I pushed back my regret as I reached for the paperwork. Finally, something that made this place feel a little more like a legitimate hospital. Of course they’d get the money-part right. I filled in my insurance, took emergency contact numbers out of my cell phone, and was just finishing up the last form when a man and a woman walked in, smiling their welcomes.
I shook their hands and they walked me through the next steps. One was a social worker, the other a staff member trained in peer counseling and emergency aid. They were both kind and intelligent, so I relaxed a bit, ready to trust the process. The relief started to outweigh the trepidation.
When they asked why I was here, I gave them the short version first as background. I was abducted by a parent at 3; we were always on the run – went to 5 elementary schools; she beat the hell out of us with a metal cooking spoon and whatever else she got her hands on; I was a teenage runaway; I got pregnant and married at 19; that marriage ended with me in the hospital and him in jail; and my real father found me when I was 21; that I’d been having nightmares my whole life.
Then I told them what was new that brought me in here: that my step-father had died the week before, and I went to visit my estranged mother at my sisters’ request. That my sisters and I had gotten to talking, and that one sister revealed she had been raped – in our mother’s presence – when she was 9 years old. And after that I began having memories I had never had before. That I was afraid I might have been there when it happened. That I was so angry and had all these emotions I was struggling to control. I told them I just needed to talk to someone and get it all out because I felt completely wrong, like I would explode if I didn’t do something, anything.
They asked me if I had ever contemplated suicide, and I told them of course, just like anyone else, but I wouldn’t do it because I have two children I’m responsible for. That worried them at first, but once I explained that Demi was 29 and Daisy would be 16 in a few days, and that Demi and my ex-husband could take care of Daisy in my absence, then they were reassured. I did say that sometimes I thought that if I could just hang on for two more years, until Daisy went to college, then I could go away, perhaps forever. And that was partly why I was here, so I could make it the next two years, because the way I had been feeling and acting this past weekend, since Meg’s revelation, I wasn’t sure I could make it two weeks, much less two years.
As I’m writing this, I realize how dramatic that sounds, but when I was facing those two people, I didn’t want to hide anything. I wanted help, real help, so I quietly told them the truth. I tried not to cry, but I did reach for a tissue and did my best to keep my cheeks dry and speak calmly. I wished ruefully that someone else would take care of me for awhile. I have been taking care of someone else since I was six years old. I was just so tired, too tired to be a strong, normal, responsible person anymore.
They took plenty of notes but still managed to give me their full attention. They made me feel like they really heard me and they cared. I felt like I was finally going to get help. They said I would need to wait in the waiting room for a little bit, while they reached out to my primary care physician. They also took my purse and cell phone, apologizing and explaining that they would be locked up safe and that they couldn’t have those things in with other patients. They would try not to be too long and would come back to me with some next steps.
So I went back out to the waiting room, relieved and obedient. An hour later, I was a little impatient but amused. Just like a hospital, the wait is always longer than the doctor visit. I watched other patients come and go, some staying with me waiting. A couple of them spoke with me, freely telling me their stories. I have a neon sign on my forehead that says “I want to hear your life story” and often people obey that sign, even if all I want to do is crawl under a rock and deal with my own problems.
I was surprised to still be in that small room with people who were quietly rocking or walking and talking to themselves at 5 p.m., when they handed out brown paper bags of cheese sandwiches and applesauce. I asked if I could call my daughters at that point, because they were expecting me home from work soon. They let me get the numbers off my cell phone, but I had to wait while someone fetched it, then I had to keep my hands and cell phone inside the tiny window on the receptionist’s desk. No cells allowed for a single second in the waiting room. I used the landline provided for patients to call my girls and explain where I was. I promised I’d call them as soon as I knew anything further.
I went to use the bathroom and immediately knew I had made a mistake. No way did I belong in this place. This wasn’t a hospital, it was a minimum security prison. There was a shower in there with a torn black curtain and a floor that was too grimy for bare feet. There was toilet paper but no trash can and no paper towels and no mirror and – what was worse – no lock on the door. I went back to the receptionist to explain I was on my period but there was no trash can, and he told me I had to wrap my ladies things in toilet paper and put it in the cardboard box of trash under the TV in the waiting room, the worst place for privately throwing something away because the whole room was facing that direction. He handed me a tiny bar of soap, like what you’d get in a hotel, and a rough white washcloth he said I could use to dry my hands. He said to just leave it in the bathroom.
I was in that waiting room a total of seven hours before one of the intake staffers spoke to me again. By then, my anxiety was higher than it was when I had walked in.
I was interviewed yesterday by a small local magazine about the missing-child part of my story. We met at the gala Friday night in Saratoga Springs, NY to benefit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. She and my dad (my real father) got to talking, but I was busy helping the gala chair make sure everything went smoothly, so she took my number and called me yesterday.
After I gave her the Reader’s Digest version of my story, the reporter asked what it’s like, sharing a story that’s so personal and revealing. I’ve been getting that question here about my blog, too.
Well, frankly, it’s like stripping. I remember that first time I got up on that stage at the Pink Garter. The lights were not strong like the stage lights in my high school plays, so I could see the audience as clearly as they could see me. I remember trying to simultaneously smile at them and not look at them. I was nervous as hell, and couldn’t believe I was seriously going to stand up in front of these strange men and take my clothes off down to pasties and a g-string. I glanced nervously at my friend, Gigi, by the jukebox who had talked me into this, and she nodded and smiled and clapped, encouraging the audience to give a welcoming clap, too, as the music started.
Africa. I was dancing to Africa by Toto. I picked it because that was the song that a different friend and I stripped to at the after-party among the cast and crew of Camelot, our last play before we graduated. We were a bunch of drama club high-schoolers gathered at my new apartment with that older friend of mine who took me in after I ran away from home. Yep, there was alcohol, and yep, we all got silly, and before we knew it, me and Sandy were giggling in our bras and underwear, running screeching from the room when the song ended to put our clothes back on. I had just turned 18 a couple weeks earlier.
Well, Gigi, my future maid of honor (who knew that I would be married less than a year from that night? Certainly not me!) was an exotic dancer part time, and she knew I was struggling to make money at Taco Via and pay rent while going to school, so she convinced me that if I was brave enough to strip in front of my friends, I could certainly do it at the Garter. She told me that some girls made over $1,000 a week. Back in ’83, that was a whole lotta money.
On that postage-stamp-sized stage, though, it seemed like a very bad idea. The room was dark, dingy and smokey. The audience was dressed in thrift shop clothes for the most part, although there were a couple of suits. Lots of unkempt hair and beards out there beyond the lights. Some looked like they hadn’t bathed in a while. Not the people I was used to seeing in suburbia, where I had just graduated two weeks earlier. I definitely didn’t feel safe, but that I was used to. I had long since given up looking for safety. There was no such thing.
So I stayed right on that stage, without the false courage of a Fuzzy Navel, but with the real courage that survival gives to desperate young women. My roommate didn’t take me in out of the goodness of her heart. She expected to be paid my share of the rent or she would sell my stuff and throw me out. How can an inexperienced 18-year old high school graduate make enough money to pay for rent, food, and car insurance? Taco Via and Pizza Hut were the extent of my skills, unless you count the Star Wars fan fiction I had written. Much as my friends liked it, no one offered to pay me for it. I could thread a needle, too, but everyone could do that. I couldn’t waitress because the only places that paid decent money (what I now know to be a living wage) sold alcohol, and I had to be 21 to serve it. Until then, all I had was a pretty face and a Bunny figure, plus my friends told me I was a good dancer, so how bad could this be?
Grown men liked me. They would chuck my chin and “accidently” brush a hand across my chest or bottom. They’d laugh and call me “jailbait”. I took it as a compliment. I was a powerless girl, suddenly getting a feeling of power. And now I was told my adult curves would also bring me money. My mother didn’t teach me about morals or values, but she sure taught me about men and opportunity. It didn’t matter that some of my friends and family would judge me if they found out. This was an opportunity to support myself, to become independent and maybe make enough money to get an apartment on my own, one that I could share with my sisters, freeing them from my mom’s metal cooking spoon. So what if I had to expose myself to do it? There were bouncers to make sure there would be no touching, so what’s the big deal if foolish men wanted to pay good money just to look? No skin off my nose.
So, yes, I stayed right there, dancing like I was in one of those new MTV videos, and revealing more of myself than I ever thought I would to strangers who just sat there, watching, without the laughing cheers or teasing catcalls of my friends at school. I avoided those silent, cool, assessing eyes and pretended I was surrounded by choreographers and make-up artists and an adoring audience, maybe even a talent scout, all clapping just for me.
Then I went into the dressing room and met the other dancers. One was hooked on drugs, sporting a bad bruise on her upper arm that make-up couldn’t quite hide. Another was a very petite 31-year-old woman who was supporting both a child and a sick mother, and scared to death that her height wasn’t going to make her seem young enough to keep this job for much longer. There was a former Las Vegas showgirl who had long since aged out, but she was a friend of the owner and had glamourous outfits, so she had job security. And then there was Star, who was just as cool and assessing as the men in the bar. She said she was 22, and that was the most personal information she ever gave me. Looking back, it wouldn’t surprise me if she were an undercover cop. I’ll never forget the desperation and showy bravado of that tiny back room. Just a handful of women who had each other’s backs because they all knew nobody else would.
I made fifty bucks in tips that night. I went home, gave it to my roommate, showered, crawled into bed, and cried. The world was just as bad as my mother always said it would be. My heart shrunk a size smaller that day.
It’s now 31 years later, and a reporter wants to know what it’s like to be writing and sharing my very personal story with the public. I told her it’s like stripping. Revealing way more than most people ever would, knowing I’ll be criticized for it, knowing I’ll hate myself at times for saying too much, and knowing I’ll have to wrap a tight band around my heart to get through it. But in spite of all that, there’s no question that this is an opportunity to reach other young women, somewhere out there, who think survival is up to each of them alone. They’re not alone. I never did go back to rescue my sisters, but there are many more out there still silently desperate for help. In the end, we’re all sisters. My story is not rare to happen, it’s just rare to be revealed.
I have many more good days than bad days, now. Today is a little in-between. It was hard to write last night’s post. I do get frustrated with myself for having bad days at all, and to those who believe I lose credibility by telling this story, well, part of me agrees with you. It was nearly 40 years ago, for heaven’s sake. I’m perfectly safe, have been safe for decades. I’m a professional and a mother, with many responsibilities. I have other things to do with my time than relive memories I never knew I had. I don’t have time for numbness, staring into space, feeling fear rush through my veins for no reason, or getting persistent pokes from unwelcome memories at inconvenient times. I just want to shake myself and say “get over it, already!”
The most pernicious thing about stigma is that many of us with PTSD, or other mental health issues, actually buy into it. We stigmatize ourselves just as much as others do. I don’t need someone telling me to get over it because I tell myself that almost every day. When I came back to work and found no flowers, not even a welcome-back or get-well-soon card from my coworkers, I wasn’t surprised. I had been in a mental hospital for a month. No one gets flowers in today’s world for that.
If I had been in the hospital a month with a broken limb or appendicitis or something, I would have been welcomed back warmly. Instead, there was very little acknowledgement that I had been gone at all. Where I had been or why were questions that were studiously avoided. I have no idea what people did or didn’t know. I am grateful for the coworker that gave me a hug, and the other one who took me to lunch that day, but I don’t mind admitting that it would have made my return much easier if there were some daisies or something on my desk to let me know I had been missed, that people cared that I was okay. Instead, I felt like I had let me team down by being gone so long, so jumped into work like nothing had happened so I could pick up my slack. I kicked myself for being silly over a stupid thing like a get-well-card.
Logically, I know it’s not inappropriate to wish I had been more warmly welcomed back. I know that it’s normal to struggle over these new memories. My emotions and unconscious acceptance of social stigma aside, with everything I’ve been through it would be no surprise if I were still in the hospital now, five months later. Think about it. I am a person who has known more violence in the first 25 years of my life than most people ever experience in a lifetime. I had come to terms with all that, had accepted it and moved on, and even helped others. Now to find out that on top of everything else, I had been raped as a child? And one of my sisters, too? And that my mother – probably due to her own struggles – allowed these things to happen, and was even present? That there may have been drugs involved?
I think it’s understandable for me to have felt that enough is enough. I’ve had more than my fair share, and last June I needed to stop the world and get off for a bit. The important thing is that I got back on the world, and relatively quickly, all things considered. Sure, it’ll be several more months before I’m completely back to normal, whatever that is, but I’m happy and working and taking care of my family and setting great future goals.
Growing up the way I did, it’s a miracle I’m not in jail, a junkie, an alcoholic, a prostitute, or dead. I beat the statistics. How many teenage runaways go to college and graduate with honors in just three years? How many children who grow up in households with 15 years of recurring, unpredictable violence are able to break the cycle and successfully raise smart, healthy, happy children of their own?
I want to be the best possible mother to my girls. I want to have mastery in my career and be a pillar of strength to the people in my life and my community. I did the right thing by checking myself into the hospital, so I could achieve those goals. I stand by that decision.
Of course I will continue to have good days and bad days for awhile. This is all still relatively new to me. Of course I should continue to reach out for help with my mental and emotional health, as much as I do for my physical health. That’s what a responsible person does.
One day, regular mental health checkups will be as normal and commonplace as regular physicals. One day, our healthcare system and insurance companies will realize that humanity is a sentient species, much more than just physical mammals, and our healthcare should reflect that.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing about my experience with PTSD both in and out of the hospital. Hopefully, this inside view will help people understand and accept that it is normal and expected that a human being will have mental health issues. Hopefully my story will help the movement to end the stigma. After all, silence is the enemy of change.
Do not read this post if there is any chance that you can be negatively affected by reading about sexual assault.
Friday July 11, 2014 around 8:50 a.m.
I was on 787, driving to work, half-listening to Marketplace on NPR. Traffic was busy but steady, and I anticipated a light day at the office. I was thinking about the therapy session I had the evening before – EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which I was told is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the distress of disturbing life experiences faster than traditional therapies. Try anything once, is my usual motto.
The therapist had me put on a set of earphones connected to something that looked like a Walkman. It played a series of beeps, first in one ear and then in the other. Then she had me recount one of my memories. I told her about the time my first husband tried to strangle me.
It may seem odd, but I’ve had the memory so often and it’s appeared in nightmares so regularly that I’m really not bothered by the story anymore. It was a long time ago, and it’s only useful for advocacy purposes now. I told her the story just as easily as I’ve shared it at speaking engagements in front of women’s groups over the years.
Nothing happened. I pondered that now, as I was driving. I had felt a little silly, wearing the headphones and hearing those beeps while talking about a serious topic. It felt a little like it was minimizing what happened to me, making light of it. Maybe that was part of the point. I remember thinking that I would be uncomfortable listening to those beeps while recounting my most recent memories – and then there it was.
Just like that, in the middle of the highway, I remembered. The memory I had been fighting against, ever since my sister told me about her memory six weeks ago, was suddenly right there. I saw his face, I knew I was on the couch in our house in California, and I knew what was about to happen.
I shut down my mental white walls quickly, glancing in all my mirrors at the traffic, grounding myself in the present. My heart was pounding, and I was shivering to the point that my teeth were chattering. I started counting the cars I could see in the traffic, carefully noting where they were and any shifts in speed and lanes. I listened carefully to everything being said on the radio, as if I would have to recite it later. I could smell the cold in the air from the air conditioner. Part of the DBT training we had in the hospital taught us that noticing every little thing around us can help keep us in the present.
It all happened so fast, and my reflexes kicked in the same way they do if I sneeze while driving and involuntarily close my eyes. Just like a sneeze, the glimpse of the memory appeared and shut down, and I was driving as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t stop shivering, but the steering wheel was solid under my grip, I was breathing normally, seeing normally, driving normally, and I made it to the parking garage without incident.
Once the ignition was off, I leaned my head on the steering wheel, gripping it as if it were a lifeline. DBT be damned – I was safe now, and by God I needed to know what happened.
TRIGGER WARNING
I was on the brown sofa in the living room on Cass Avenue. I know I was 10 years old because that was my age in that house. There was music playing. A record dropped with its soft plunk, and music played. He was in front of me, smiling and stroking my hair. I kept trying to turn my head to look around the room, but he placed a hand on my cheek to keep my head from turning. He told me I was a good girl, a sweet, pretty, good girl. He asked me if I liked him, and I nodded.
With one hand on my cheek, keeping me still, his other hand traveled all over me. He asked if I liked how that felt. He slipped a hand inside my panties, then pulled them down, all the while whispering what a good girl I was.
I remember I was trembling, uncomfortable and confused. This was mommy’s friend and I knew she would be mad if I wasn’t nice to him. I didn’t understand why his hands were on me, but it didn’t hurt, and he was very nice to me, so I didn’t do anything. Then he put a finger inside me, and asked me how that felt.
I was so surprised, I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know there was an empty spot there to put something in. He moved slightly, and I felt this strange warm glow down there. I could feel my eyes were very wide, and I looked down at what he was doing. He was naked. I don’t remember him taking his clothes off. I saw his pee-pee, and quickly looked up away from it. He laughed softly, as if he were trying to stay quiet.
He took his hand from my cheek and slowly pushed me back on the couch. His face was inches from the top of my hair and I thought for a minute he was going to kiss my forehead. I could almost feel the short, scratchy hairs from his chin. Then he took his hand away from below, and I could feel something bigger pressing there.
Then there was a blinding pain, like I was being ripped open, and I opened my mouth to scream. He quickly put a hand over my mouth, and the pressure and my thrashing made my head turn to what he didn’t want me to see.
My mom was asleep on the big, round papasan chair. Her hair was messy, all over her face. She was in her long, furry robe. That’s right, it was cold outside. I could see part of the fireplace hearth, and there was some silver tinsel leftover from Christmas laying there. The tree-table was between me and mom. She didn’t hear me. She didn’t know I needed her. The table was between us, that big slice of a tree trunk, polished and glossed, where I had spent many lazy afternoons counting the rings. The table was littered with beer bottles and filled ashtrays, but one spot was cleared off and only had some uneven lines of white powder. There was music playing.
That was it. The memory abruptly ended, leaving me hanging like the flipping of broken film at the end of a movie reel. I slowly left 1975 and realized my hands were hurting from gripping the steering wheel so tight. I threw back my head and gulped huge mouthfuls of air.
I felt a dozen emotions crowding in on me, all clamoring for attention. I was frightened. No, I was remembering feeling frightened. I was in disbelief. How could I possibly not remember that happening? How could I go forty years, and be unwaveringly positive in all that time that I had never been sexually assaulted as a child?
And no way were there drugs in the house. I never remembered such a thing. There were no hints of it in any of my regular memories – except that time I flew back to California to visit friends when I was in seventh grade in Kansas City. My old friends from California took me to a party where there was a bong being passed around. I didn’t touch it – I was too nervous and we thankfully left quickly. I guess it was more prevalent there than it was in Kansas City. Whatever. This memory was wrong. It had to be wrong. It wasn’t real.
And I was angry. Over everything else, I was incredibly angry. I grabbed the steering wheel again, lowering my head and screamed at it, forgetting for a moment that I was in a public parking garage. The sound snapped me out of it, and I remembered I was supposed to be walking to the office. I gathered my things and got out of the car, automatically being the good girl, going to work and doing what I was supposed to do, but I saw every detail of his face the whole way.
I made it to the bench outside the Assembly side elevators in the Capitol building, and sat there, trying to slow down my heart and breathing and do my DBT drill. I dug out my phone and called my therapist. No answer. I left her a lengthy voicemail. I sat wondering who else I could call. Then I remembered a friend of mine had been a child advocate in the court system. I called her, and she knew exactly what to say. She made me get a peppermint out of my purse. She made me touch the floor and describe what I felt. She walked me through my DBT until I felt silly for getting all worked up over something that happened forty years ago. I set my head straight, got up, got on the elevator, and went to work, being the responsible person I was supposed to be. But I was still quietly angry.
We’ve all done this. Showing up late to work every day with an unconscious desire to be fired, even though being fired would be the worst thing right then. Spilling all your skeletons out on a first date with a really great guy, ruining a future before it’s begun. Not paying bills on time or over-extending credit cards. Saying yes to one more drink, then driving home anyway. Well – that’s both self-destructive and potentially other-person-destructive.
Point is, teenagers aren’t the only ones with frequent self-destructive behaviors. The difference between teens and adults is that we know better, do it anyway, and often don’t get caught or held accountable. Are we really going to shake a finger in our own face, saying shame-on-you for getting that extra credit card, extra drink, extra pint of Ben & Jerry’s?
Well, yes.
I don’t know about you, but I’m shaking a finger in my own face all the time. Truth is, my own guilt and shame is not enough of a deterrent. I’m sure my mother shakes a finger in her own face all the time, but she’s still drunk before noon on a regular basis. How can I hold myself accountable when I feel like I deserve whatever punishment is coming to me?
Logically, I know I have personal power. Of course I can lose weight. Of course I can clean out my fridge with a sponge instead of my stomach. Of course I can find a way to make time to exercise. So why do I spend countless hours watching season after season of West Wing, curled up in bed with popcorn and coffee?
I’m being self-destructive. Why? Depression. PTSD. Low self-worth. Suicidal tendencies. Am I going to commit suicide? No, of course not. I am fortunate enough to have three amazing sisters and two wonderful children, all with more unconditional love for me than most people get. It would devastate them if I ever did anything like that. I would never hurt them.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. It has crossed my mind numerous times that in two more years, my youngest will be on her own, off in college. I’ll have an empty nest. If I pay down all my debt by then and save for my cremation expenses, my girls won’t be financially burdened. It would be so easy to plan this out. I could drive right off that curved bridge I travel every day home from work. Thelma and Louise style. I could research online to find the right mix of over-the-counter meds and put myself to sleep forever, just as I prayed would happen that night when I was 15.
I told my psychiatrist all this. I wasn’t sobbing or being hysterical. I just calmly explained that I’m done. I’m not almost 50 years old, I’m almost 100 years old. I have lived more life in my first 22 years than most people will ever experience. I am not just tired, I’m exhausted. I have been responsible for someone else’s needs since I was 6 years old. And then there’s the violence. Really, how much violence can one person take in a lifetime? The injustice of knowing that no one is going to pay for what they’ve done, and the helpless realization that even if that were possible, it wouldn’t make a difference. I would still have to get up every day, go to work, clean my house, pay bills, take care of others and know that there is no one to take care of me but myself.
I just can’t be responsible anymore, not even to me. The weight is too much for too long. I have taken care of my mother, my children, my husbands, my community through volunteer work, and even served the people of NYS as a public servant. I’ve done my part to make the world a better place. It’s someone else’s turn now. I can’t do it anymore. I’m done.
I think if I really were a hundred years old, no one would have a problem with me being done. I sometimes think if I just explain to my family how I feel, that they would understand that some people age before their time and that’s just the way it is. I think they would be sad, but after a year or so of getting used to the idea, we’d all say our goodbyes and I would leave.
My psychiatrist was pretty calm about this. He raised an eyebrow and asked how often do I have this particular fantasy? I almost laughed out loud. In one fell swoop, he let me know that I’m not the only one who has ever thought like this, and that it’s a self-indulgent dream that deserves to be discredited. And he knew that I knew better. He’s worth the extra drive it takes for me to get to his office, compared to doctors that are closer to home.
I think what hurts families the most is the surprise of suicide. If it’s planned, like in Oregon, then everyone has time to discuss it, prepare, even change minds. I think it’s a shame that talking about suicidal thoughts is so frowned upon in our society. Why not stand up and say “I’ve had all I can stand and I won’t take it anymore?” There’d probably be fewer suicides if we talked about it more.
Well, thinking is not doing in my case. Yes, I know that it should be taken seriously anytime someone even hints that it could be a possibility, but truthfully I can’t do it. I love my girls and my sisters too much. I do want to see how their lives turn out, and to help them achieve their dreams any way that I can. I’m not too tired to do that.
Meanwhile, I have to stop being self-destructive in other ways. Writing about it helps. Talking about it with my family helps. Making the time to do things I’m good at, so I can feel accomplished, really helps. That’s part of my treatment. DBT. But that’s for another post. Right now, I have a writing workshop I’m going to. See? I won’t be in bed with Netflix today.
Jo, 1970, Simi Valley, CA. Two years after being taken from New York City and under a different name with a new birth certificate. Missing for 18 years. Listed with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Found in 1986.
I am touched by the very kind emails and posts I’ve received, encouraging me to keep writing and publish. When we think of PTSD, we usually think of soldiers recovering from the horrors of the battlefield. I can’t possibly imagine what they must be going through, although I have more of an inkling now than I did this time last year. To just thank them for their sacrifice seems so feeble and inadequate. On the other hand, we don’t thank our servicemen and women near enough. I don’t want my story to take away from the vital importance of raising awareness of PTSD in the military and the need for funds for research and their continuing care.
But there’s another population with PTSD. There are children who grow up knowing more violence and pain in their first 15 years of life than most people experience in a lifetime. Those children become adults who are remarkably strong and incredibly fragile at the same time. Too many of them do not get help, and never reach their full potential. This is a “pick yourself up by your own bootstraps” nation. We don’t talk about mental health issues. We deny there’s a problem. We grin and bear it. We keep a stiff upper lip. Shame on those who don’t.
These attitudes negatively affect government and private funding. The research is not near as far along as it could be, and new studies raise more questions than answers. Apparently, my children could be genetically affected by DNA affects that my PTSD may have done to my genes? Yeah, I’d kinda like to see another study clarifying what the heck that’s all about. There’s a few million of us who’d like to see more research. According to the National Center for PTSD, about 5.2 million Americans have PTSD during the course of a given year.
But my story is not just about the sudden onset and resulting treatment of PTSD. It’s about child abuse. It’s about domestic violence. It’s about parental kidnapping, rape, and sexual assault and molestation of children. And it doesn’t include other common factors of trauma in children’s lives: gang violence, homelessness, and hunger. I grew up in middle-class privilege, and still experienced the kinds of violence that America thinks only happens in impoverished inner cities. Much as I want to raise awareness that childhood violence occurs in the suburbs, I absolutely don’t want to take away from the fact that we should be doing a better job of addressing it in cities, too. We should be doing a better job addressing it worldwide. It shouldn’t hurt to be a child.
I know who I’ve been. I don’t know who I’m becoming. I do know that I’m changing a little bit every day through this process of shocking realizations, acceptance, and healing. I do know that treatment for non-military PTSD is still filled with guesswork and trial and error. I know that not one professional has pointed me in the right direction, to the right type of treatment, and I have to kiss a lot of frogs to find what will work for me.
I’ve been involved in public policy for the last twenty years. It’s so ingrained in me that I cannot sit in a therapy session without thinking of the larger ramifications of treatment and public health. I met a reporter in the hospital, and he told me he was thinking the same thing. Whatever’s happening to us, we may as well have it happen for a reason.
My story is not uncommon. There are many of us trying to figure out where to go for help, keeping it secret from the workplace, and keeping a stiff upper lip while we search. I hope writing about it will encourage others to seek help; encourage people to call their legislators and demand increased funding for research and care; and raise the level of conversation in this country about the importance of addressing mental health. Perhaps, one day, an annual mental health checkup will be as common and expected as an annual physical. Maybe my book will help make these things happen. Maybe that reporter I met will write about it and make change. Something good has to come from all this. Cross fingers.
If you share any post, I hope you share this one. Thank you for taking the time to read it, and a special thank you to all of you who have sent me your kind words and prayers. I am truly touched.
I was on automatic. I showered, dressed, had coffee, drove my youngest to school. My responsibilities were completed in numb automation, but there was a silent struggle going on in my mind and body. I wanted to stop and scream – she was raped and I was there! I was trembling with anger. I wanted to call the police. I wanted to hop in the car and drive to North Carolina and look that woman in the face and demand her apology, demand she get on her knees and beg forgiveness from all of us sisters. I wanted to throw her in a rehab facility and swallow the key, then smash every bottle she has in the house into the kitchen sink.
I parked and hung my employee tag on the rear view. Gathered my things, locked the car and walked to the elevator. I let my eyes follow the trees through the elevator glass, idly pretending I was climbing up them, like I always imagine when riding those elevators. I stepped out and walked past Congress park, as usual, and idly wondered for the umpteenth time what the city was doing with that old fountain, now surrounded by signs of construction. I paused at the traffic signal, waiting, staring up at the walls of the New York State Capitol building.
The powerful structure rose several stories above my head, unashamedly representative of a monarch’s seat, with red-orange turrets and intricate carvings. The building usually centered me, its carefully crafted beauty inside and out reminding me that someone, somewhere, cared deeply about a good job well done. Just a few weeks ago, I was among a handful of people negotiating a $22 billion budget for 700 school districts, in a small room on the first floor of that beautiful building. Not a good job well done.
I didn’t want to walk in there. The halls echoed with the powerlessness of good people trying to do the right thing. Politics too often trumps proven research, and about a quarter of the decisions made are to support a re-election campaign rather than the needs of the people. Much as I loved the building, I couldn’t stand facing another impotent day of work. Fighters don’t belong on hamster wheels.
But there was nothing I could do about it. A single mom doesn’t just quit her job. Policy analysts are a dime a dozen in Albany. There was nowhere else to go.
The beeping of the crosswalk signal brought me out of my reverie. I walked across the street, pulling my security pass out of my purse. My eyes were wet with helplessness. I couldn’t quit. I couldn’t call the police. I couldn’t stop in the middle of the street and scream. I couldn’t protect my sister. I ran. I ran and left her there.
I made it to the policy pit on the fourth floor mezzanine, dropping my bag on my desk. One of my co-workers got up to hug me, saying she was sorry for my loss. With her arms around my shoulders, I realized I had almost forgotten about my step-father, whose ashes sat before us at the wake just four days ago. I felt ashamed anew, and couldn’t hold it back anymore. I clung to her, sobbing my heart out, much to the surprise of everyone in the room. The story just spilled out – I told her that I had just found out that my sister had been raped at 9 years old, that Mom just watched.
I backed away, realizing I shouldn’t have said that out loud, and saw the shock and concern on my coworkers’ faces. I gulped and pulled it all back together. Grabbing a tissue off my desk and drying my face, I apologized and waved everyone off, telling them I was fine and just needed to focus on work.
I sat down to sort through my missed emails from the last week, but focus was not coming to me. Impatiently, I opened my snail mail instead, and automatically began sorting. Then I sorted all the files that were scattered untidily all over my desk. Then I got some paper towels and cleanser from the bathroom and started cleaning my desk. I scrubbed the phone, my keyboard, even my chair. And when there was nothing left to clean, not a single paper out of place, I stared back at the computer and realized there was no way I could understand a single piece of legislation today. I emailed my supervisor that I was going home, shut off my computer, told my coworkers that I’m sorry, I’m just not feeling well, and left. I didn’t even make it to noon.
I drove two blocks before I realized I had no idea where I was going. I pulled into an empty parking spot on the street and called a therapist I had seen the year before. She could see me in a couple weeks. I googled more therapists on my phone. Three, four, six weeks before anyone could see me. One of them told me that if it were an emergency, I could go to the Capital District Psychiatric Center, and check myself in. I googled it and drove there, figuring I’d talk with someone for a few hours, feel better, and be back to work the next day.
I didn’t realize that it would be a month before I saw the Capitol building again.
Erase and Start Over 