It’s hard to breathe. My veins feel carbonated; tiny bubbles with that same slight burn throughout my limbs and torso that I often feel against my tongue when drinking soda. I’m slightly disoriented, as if my airy blood is trying to make me float. My forearms are light. They can’t help but rise up toward my face. My chest is pounding. I must breathe. Just for a minute. I don’t want to do anything, think anything, feel anything. I just want to sit and breathe, very still, with my face buried in my hands.
I know it’ll pass. It always does. I just wish I could get through a day without freezing. Without feeling rising memories and having to involve my whole body to keep those thoughts at bay so I can focus on work, family, paying bills, doing dishes…
It’s hard to keep up with simple daily life when I must drop everything, without warning, and breathe for half an hour. But I do it. I must keep going. I begin my DBT exercises.
The floor is beneath my feet. I can feel the floor. The iPod is playing in my daughter’s room. I notice the song. I notice my daughter is humming to the song. The room is warm. I can feel the temperature of my skin, sending signals that the room is too hot. I open my eyes. In front of me is my coffee cup. It is solid. It is blue. It has a flower pattern. It is empty. I can smell overripe bananas. I remember that I meant to toss the bananas out this morning. My head turns toward the kitchen, and..
I’m out of it. I rise naturally toward the kitchen, not dizzy, not scared. I feel myself again. I toss the bananas, wrap up the trash and easily lift it to the front door. Okay, back to my day.
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.
Erase and Start Over 