Erase and Start Over

The resurfacing memories of a woman with PTSD.

Tag Archives: risky behavior


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Erase, Start Over – Second Time in Six Months

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

Luke_Skywalker_by_Aliora

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.


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Being Revealing

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.


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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.