Erase and Start Over

The resurfacing memories of a woman with PTSD.

Tag Archives: empowerment


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Jo Finally Gives Her Back

woman-leaving-door

January 5, 2015

Jo closed the magazine, placed it on the table and, finally, decided to walk through the door. She was done, and she knew it. She ignored the trembling of her fingers as she clasped the overstuffed purse beside her. Lips and back straight with decision, Jo rose from the old-fashioned couch. She blinked, momentarily surprised at herself, and realized she really was going to leave, permanently. Her eyes focused steadily ahead, and she took a step.

“What do you think you’re doing?” demanded the room’s only other occupant, a steel-grey-haired woman enthroned in her stiff pine rocker, plucking querulously at her scratchy afghans.

Jo wondered how the familiar door could seem so far away. Steadily, she put one foot in front of the other. She pushed through the tense air as if she were wading neck-deep through a pond, thick with clinging water plants.

The old woman snorted. “You never did know what was good for you. You mouse. Afraid of a little truth? Go ahead and leave, cry baby, but take that magazine with you. Maybe it’ll teach you not to be so worthless.”

Her heart was pounding in her ears, thankfully drowning out the eternal harping of the voice behind her. No more “improving” magazines to read, thought Jo, feeling lighter as the door swam closer. No more sarcasm, or wet blankets, or dripping layers of … of undeserved guilt.

“Don’t you walk away when I’m talking to you. You listen to me, young lady! I’m your mother!”

Jo stopped, one hand on the doorknob, and sighed a big, deep, cleansing breath, up for air for the first time in her life. She hung onto the reassuring solidness of the door, validating her own strength of purpose in the worn wood that had withstood years of kicks and slams by the house’s matriarch. She was done. Done with it all.

Turning slightly, Jo gave a long, last look upon the woman behind her. The unusually firm, quiet decision in her face surprised the old lady into momentary silence.

The two women looked at each other across gaping years of crushed hopes, low expectations, and shredded spirits. One pair of eyes wide with realization, the other pair narrowed in angry confusion. Finally, Jo spoke.

“I never had a mother.”

She gave the old woman her back and opened the door, stepping out of the murky waters and into a future that, at age 49, she could finally call her own.


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Teach Your Daughters Well

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This image from Blue Nation Review has been trending on Facebook. It depicts the consequences of a girl thinking that being smart is way cooler than boys, cigarettes, parties, or being popular.

You cannot teach this to girls. I have two daughters of my own, one 30 and one 16. I also have given workshops on college campuses as a Women’s Issues Director student leader. You can instruct, cajole, demand, and give a song and dance, but young women will always hear you with wariness. Their internal voice of rebellion and personal freedom will always have a contradictory argument for you. “You don’t know what it’s like, Mom, being a teenager today.” Women between the ages of 13 and 22 are confident they know better than those of us who’ve been around the block more often than we care to count.

No, you cannot teach values and principles to girls. But you can model them.

Your daughter will be as disciplined as you are, not as disciplined as you tell her to be. She’ll read because she sees you reading. She’ll appreciate regular exercise because she remembers seeing you get up uncomplainingly every morning for a walk or run. She’ll unconsciously prefer to skip drinking with her buds in order to get some extra studying in, because she grew up seeing you turn down alcohol or attention from husbands/lovers in favor of opportunities to grow or stretch.

In the end, she’ll be her own person, but you’ll see the positive and negative influences you modeled for her appearing in her life more regularly than you might think. Especially given how much she may argue with you. Go ahead and lecture her once in awhile, but don’t beat the dead horse. She’ll get it, just by remembering what she’s seen you do.

My mom modeled that women are nothing without a man. She spoke like a feminist, but her words were just parroted from current events. Her actions made it clear to us girls that her husbands/lovers were much more important than we were. I began to unconsciously believe that my future was predicated on having a man in my life. When I hit 14 and noticed that I was being noticed, I made the most of it. I fell in love regularly, a serial monogamist, sure that each boyfriend was “the one”. I hadn’t been out of high school a year before I was pregnant and married, in that order, and considered myself a success.

I was so proud of my firstborn daughter that I went back to my high school to show her off to my former teachers. They all cooed and smiled over my cherubic infant, except for Mr. Stewart, my English teacher. I walked into his empty classroom, he turned around from whatever he was doing, saw me standing there smiling with a baby in my arms, frowned, shook his head, and said, “You should have gone to college.” Then he turned away and went back to what he was doing. Not another look or word.

I stood there, surprised and mortified, then quietly left. I have never forgotten that moment, and I will be immensely grateful to Mr. Stewart for the rest of my life. In pondering his words, I realized that all he knew about me was my work in his class. I’m sure he knew I was an editor on the school paper and involved in Drama Club, but for the most part, his assessment of me was based on the papers I turned into him. He knew my work, and thought I was good enough to go to college.

No one had ever told me that before. I think he never said it because he assumed I would go. I had always been told I was too stupid to go to college and my parents refused to pay for it. No one told me I could apply for scholarships or loans. My high school GPA was 3.4, but I thought that’s just what students get who do their work.

I did well in school for two reasons: I was lucky enough to be born intelligent; and Mom taught me to be obedient, or else. A teacher was an authority figure to me. If the teacher said “do this”, I did it. But college? No. I was sure I wasn’t qualified, and definitely knew I couldn’t afford it with my salary at Taco Via.

I have done my greatest work when there has been no man in my life, when I fought the unconscious impulses of my upbringing that fiercely whispered I was not whole without a man. I earned a double-major with honors in just 35 months in between husband #1 and #2. I became a student leader statewide and a lobbyist during those years. I began a career as a legislative analyst, able to read, analyze, and write law when I was focused on me and my child and not on my looks, night life, or other means of seeking a man.

Imagine where I would be right now if I had gone to college straight out of high school. Imagine the career I would have if I had paid more attention early on to the talents I own that make my happy. Imagine the kind of marriage I could have if I had waited until I found my own place in the world, obtained my own healing, before seeking a life partner.

I know I am not a good role model for my daughters. I am certainly a better one than my own mother, but I have enough of a sense of my strengths and shortcomings to know I must allow other women to influence my girls, as well. First Lady Michelle Obama is a woman I greatly admire, and I speak of her in casual conversation with my girls. I talk about all of the women who have influenced me over the years, and the lessons I’ve learned from them.

I’ve also demonstrated change to my girls. I’ve been fearless in sharing my shortcomings, and showing them that it is possible to be better today than I was yesterday. Between me and Michelle Obama, and the trove of great female role models out there, I know my girls will find their place and much happiness. What more can a mother ask?


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Self-Destructive Behaviors

TRIGGER WARNING

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.