Erase and Start Over

The resurfacing memories of a woman with PTSD.


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Work Ethic

I have a Swiss cheese memory of the past. My sisters remember way more than I do. I don’t remember a single birthday or Christmas, even though I know we had them. I have some wonderful memories, scary memories, and glimpses of scenes about nothing in particular. I have many memories of beatings. This is one of them:

I loved the soap bubbles in the sink. They were so bright and they caught the light with greasy rainbows. I took off one of the rubber gloves so I could catch the floating ones with a bare hand. My sister, Meg, was standing on her tippy toes next to the sink, hands clutching a dish towel under her chin against the sink’s edge, round eyes smiling at the bubbles, too. We had already filled the rolling dishwasher, but were now washing the things that wouldn’t fit by hand. Mom had left us to watch T.V. in her room some time ago, and it felt good, just the two of us, to giggle over bubbles.

I lifted a dishcloth to watch the soapy water run off of it from as high as I could reach, which was pretty high given the chair I stood on. Meg laughed out loud as it splashed some bubbles onto her face, and she slapped the water so I would get wet, too.

“What the hell is going on in there?”

We both froze, six- and five-year-old eyes locking. I wanted to quickly pick up something to wash, but I made the mistake of glancing over at the door from her room to the dining room, across from the kitchen where we were. She had yanked it open and stood there, with glowering eyes and hair standing all over from her head, the most terrifying monster I had ever seen in my frequent imagination. I just stood there, completely frozen. I could her Meg quietly whimper, “no, Mommy”, behind me.

“You are not done yet?!” she screeched terribly, striding over to us and reaching into the dishwasher. We both knew what that meant, but neither of us could move. Meg had backed into a kitchen corner, and I shrunk down into the chair, trying to make myself as small as possible without leaving the spot. “You think this is a joke? I give you a simple chore to do, and you think it’s funny?”

And there it was. The large, metal cooking spoon with slight scraps of buttery mashed potatoes still clinging to it. I screamed before it even landed, covering my head and sliding off the chair, hoping to get away. I felt her strong grip on the top of my arm, pulling me back into her iron hold as that spoon came down, again and again, on whatever part of me was exposed.

Meg was trapped – mom, me, and the chair I was standing on all blocking her way out of the kitchen. Not that it mattered. Mom would have followed us down the hall and cornered us in our rooms. There was no escape. I felt her release me, and I fell to the floor, sobbing and too frightened to move. I could hear Meg screaming, knew she was being beaten, but my arms and legs were like heavy lumps of ice, a snow girl with soft bubbles breaking on her yellow glove, who could do nothing but lay there on the floor, battered and unable to block out her sister’s cries and screams. I heard Meg being thrown into the lower cabinets, and felt that iron grip pulling me up from the scruff of my tied-dyed t-shirt collar, baring my back and shoulders and behind to that spoon again.

I don’t remember what happened after that. I can tell you that, as an adult, I am the most thorough and quick dishwasher you will ever meet. I have never owned a metal cooking spoon. And as soon as I can afford it, I will hire my very own Alice Brady, and never, ever, pick up a broom or scrub a pot again.


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The Beginning of Done

Today is the last day of National Suicide Prevention Month, making this post apropos. I’ve been fighting bouts of depression for years, just like any parent in America trying to keep their heads above water. It’s hard to keep up with multiple responsibilities at home, at work, to extended family, to friends and neighbors and nonprofits. Add the occasional surprise, like unexpected surgery or a sudden opportunity for your child that costs an arm and a leg. Not to mention the guilt around grabbing fast food for the family when you come home too beat or too late to cook.

Intermittent depression, pierced with rays of joy here and there, is just the American way of life, and most people don’t complain about it. They just keep swimming, and enjoying those infrequent stretches of rest on sunlit beaches. As do I, usually.  It’s just this year has been unusually hard.

It started in March. I was working long hours, barely seeing my family, eating crap, feeling the onset of menopause with hot flashes and other symptoms, and feeling like my boss was setting me up to fail at every budget meeting. Then my grandfather got sick, my stepfather was diagnosed with cancer, and my nightmares increased to almost daily.

I don’t only have the stresses of an overburdened American life. I also have the memories of a violent childhood and first marriage. Life has been one very long struggle and I’m pretty tired. In March I realized I was too tired to keep going.

I wrote the below a couple months later, and looking back at it, I can see the sparks that were going to head me to the hospital in June.

May 15, 2014

I just turned in my annual financial disclosure form to the NYS Legislative Ethics Commission. It’s due by May 15th every year. I dragged my feet on it. It’s long and complicated, and anyone who is a policymaker has to report from where and how much money we get throughout the year, to prove we aren’t taking bribes to pass legislation.

I cried as I handed it in. Far from showing kickbacks or unexplained windfalls, that 14-page public document shows the world that I have nothing. Almost every line is filled with “non-applicable” in my tight handwriting. I just turned 49 years old, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. No property, no savings, no investment accounts, nothing. The lady was sweet and sympathetic, and not at all surprised to see a face of tears turning the form in. I’m guessing I’m not the first. She noted the front of the form which clearly stated ‘single with child’ and remarked that I needed to find myself a rich husband, or at least buy a lottery ticket. Then she stamped my form as received and handed me a receipt.

And you know what? I didn’t walk away in feminist outrage. I walked away, still in tears, thinking no wealthy man would want a middle-aged fat woman like me, and that my three-cent bank balance would not even get me a lottery ticket.

I’m tired of being outraged. I’m tired of being broke. I’m tired of doing meaningless work. I’m tired of fighting battles and – win or lose – living to fight again another day. I am life-battle weary. So very weary. If only I would get sick and have to be in a hospital for a month. Just one whole month of someone else taking care of me for awhile. I’m done.


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Minipress Mini-Memory

September 25, 2014 2:43 a.m.

It wasn’t a nightmare. I’m not sure why I was drifting awake again, but I was just floating in a half-awake state when his face appeared. He was smiling, telling me what a good girl I was. I noticed I was clenching my teeth, and then I fully woke up.

Usually when I have a nightmare, I come fully awake with my breathing heavy and my jaw hurting from holding my teeth clenched in my sleep. Sometimes I’m sweating, as if I’d been running. I haven’t had a nightmare like that, though, since they put me on Minipress.

What an easy fix that was. I’ve had nightmares for decades, usually of my sisters screaming and I can’t help them, or of my first husband’s face in the moments before his fingers on my throat made me pass out. Over and over again. As the years went by, I was less afraid upon waking and more likely to run my hand over my face and say “good grief” out loud before rolling over and going back to sleep. I think if I ever got mugged now, I’d probably look at the guy’s knife or gun and just roll my eyes and say “good grief.” But the Minipress stopped those dreams. Weird how my primary care doctor never recommended we give that a try before.

Anyway, tonight is different. I’m remembering something. I don’t know who the man is, but he’s been appearing more frequently since my hospitalization a couple months ago. From what I can piece together, he was a frequent visitor at our house when I was about 10 years old, when mom was in between husbands. I sat up to see if I could remember more – I think better with my fingers on a keyboard – but nothing more is coming. Guess I’ll just go back to sleep. As my psychiatrist says, the memory will come when my brain says it’s ready to handle it.

Since I’ve started taking Minipress, my memories have been surfacing just as I’m falling asleep or just as I’m waking up. It hasn’t happened in the middle of the night before now, but it still feels the same. More curiosity than fear. And a touch of anger, of course, but I’m too tired to let that cinder spark up any further tonight.


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That’ll Be Five Cents, Please

September 24, 2014  6:05 a.m.

I’m done. No more therapists. This last one was the last straw. I had complete control of the room, and she didn’t even know it. It was so easy to get her talking about any subject I chose, and sit back and watch the entertainment.

Not so entertaining when I had to give her my $20 co-pay after the dubious pleasure of listening to her talk for an hour.

I knew it wasn’t going to work the very first visit, when she mentioned being scared when a police officer came to her door looking for a juvenile who’d escaped custody. Her eyes got wide, her eyebrows lifted, and she went on and on about how normal it was to be surprised and nervous upon opening a door and seeing a cop standing there.

“Of course, I completely understand. Perfectly natural,” I told her, with my most sympathetic expression. She beamed at me, kept talking, and ended by saying she knew we’d get along just fine.

I handed her a twenty and rolled my eyes all the way to the car. Scared of a uniform? How would she react to be arrested? Or to be kidnapped, raped, beaten, and nearly strangled to death for that matter? She’d need therapy just for giving me therapy. This woman has about as much experience in PTSD treatment as I have in rocket science. Which is to say, zilch.

But none of them do. I have told my story to numerous therapists over the past twenty years. They are appalled, concerned, sympathetic, but clueless as to what to do about it. I’ll see a therapist for a couple months, then throw my hands up and swear I’ll never see another one.

Then, a couple years later, I’m back trying again. Like Charlie Brown making an appointment to see Lucy, who is as convincing as ever about that stupid football, and has no qualms about charging her nickel.

I’m sitting up in bed, typing this on an over-large laptop that I bought on Black Friday without doing my research first. I really hate Windows 8.

My coffee is getting cold. Black with a touch of stevia. I don’t want to get up and put it in the microwave, though. As soon as my daughters see me, they’ll ask me for something, and as much as I love them dearly, right now I just don’t want the pressure of even the tiniest responsibility. I’m done.

I’m too tired to keep typing. I think I’ll go back to sleep for twenty minutes, and then get ready for work.