Get Me Out of Here (19 page)

It was a crude, distorted form of self-preservation I had developed out of necessity—and a pattern so entrenched it would take years to break.

But at least I had taken the first step, painful as it had been. At least I was aware of it. In this particular instance I was, for once, more aware of it than even Dr. Padgett.

Regression.

It was embarrassing, painful, and shameful. I would sit in a therapy session, thrust out of the realm of reasonable, intellectual discourse and into a world of a little girl's inconsolable tears and fears of events that transpired years ago.

It was a world of wild and raging tantrums that even my three-year-old daughter had begun to outgrow. I would whine and plead, demanding the impossible, like wanting Dr. Padgett to forgo his much-needed vacations and weekends so that I wouldn't be “left alone.” I was reduced to a toddler, practically tugging at his pants leg and grasping at his ankles, refusing to let him go.

Regression invaded my sleep too, as I woke up in a puddle of my own urine for a second, third, and fourth night.

I endured the embarrassment and my childishness, believing I had lost Dr. Padgett's respect. And I certainly couldn't respect myself. The normal theme of healthy adult relationships was give-and-take. Yet frequently I chastised myself as someone who only took. I was certain that no one could possibly give me everything I wanted and needed.

Regression, as painful as it was, was a necessary evil. I longed for therapy that was intellectual and philosophical. But the unavoidable reality was that I had to feel. Not just the vague and sometimes hard-to-define emotional discomfort and anxiety of the adult, but the raw passion and pain that fueled this anxiety—the explosive, clinging, irrational feelings of the inner child herself. Dr. Padgett insisted this was necessary. Deepest within me, I knew he was right. Despite this knowledge, it was never easy, never smooth as my emotions vacillated wildly out of control, hemmed in by the limits of therapy like a handball crashing against one wall and then the other.

At times, no matter how driven I was to open up and expose these childhood feelings, I could not access them. I'd leave these sessions feeling empty, numb, and frustrated, the dull ache inside me untouched as if nothing had been accomplished. At other times the fragmented inner child would dominate the session. It was a bitter struggle of emotional explosions and one-sided confrontations as Dr. Padgett sought to rein in the pervasive inner child and maintain some degree of contact with reality.

I would leave these sessions exhausted, often ashamed of the verbal outbursts and outlandish behavior I'd displayed. My loss of control and brush with the edge of sanity frightened me.

Dr. Padgett was a skilled navigator, steering me from extremes. Sometimes he coaxed me out of total repression; sometimes he firmly reprimanded me back to reality.

The characteristics of the fragmented inner child were becoming more clearly defined. Like a portrait of diametric opposites. In my writings I named the two of them. When I was in the throes of spinning conflict, I would script playlike dialogue where the pair would vent their feelings and confront each other, the adult me as a moderator. Like much of what I wrote, I was careful to hide it in the bottom of my sock drawer. If anyone else saw these thoughts, they would think I was unequivocally insane.

Even my closest friends from the church—even Tim—never knew the distorted inner workings of my mind. Had they known, I don't think I could have faced them again. This was a matter between me and my therapist. And it was yet another way that I was vulnerable to Dr. Padgett to a far greater extent than I had been to anyone else in my life. He knew the darkest secrets within me. It forced me to trust him as I had never trusted anyone before.

I was far more familiar with the tough half of the inner child, whom in my writings I'd dubbed Toughie or TC for Tough Chick. This was the hardened facade I had maintained for years. TC was the swaggering presence the sisters ousted from the classroom and remanded to the hallway. TC lived by an I-don't-give-a-shit credo, too tough to be hurt, too independent to care, and too streetwise to ever trust a soul. To TC, trust was an open invitation to be screwed.

TC was male in every way but one. He had somehow been trapped into a female body. He was the portrait of manhood as I saw it in my childhood, one who loathed weakness and sentiment, as my father did.

The other fragment was the vulnerable one, whom I dubbed Vulno in my writings. I was not nearly as familiar with this one, whose presence seemed to have been given life through therapy. Where TC had erected a barricade of walls in self-protection, Vulno was the antithesis, a font of raw openness. Vulno trusted everyone and could not make sense of those who would not return such trust with love. It was as if the vulnerability itself, the willingness to be screwed over, would somehow protect her. She was ruled by emotion, always thirsting for love, seeking it everywhere with anyone, and suffering great pain if it weren't forthcoming.

Vulno was intimidated by power. She did not seek it. She was content to be a follower if that would gain acceptance and love. She was as dependent as TC was independent, and she would give herself up completely if she could only, somehow, be taken care of.

Vulno wished that Dr. Padgett would simply take over. She feared disagreement, as if in doing so, she would anger her loved ones and drive them away. Her only means of asserting herself was through whining, pleading, and begging for mercy or pity.

Neither fragmented identity was admirable. Both were extremes. Neither appeared very worthy to me or, for that matter, lovable. But at least I could respect the tough side, which is, perhaps, why that side openly manifested itself far more frequently than the vulnerable one. How Dr. Padgett could ever believe that these two fragments could somehow integrate, find common ground, and accept each other was thoroughly beyond me. They hated each other, and getting in touch with these conflicting feelings inevitably led to turbulent and confrontational sessions. I went along with Dr. Padgett in attempting to explore the nuances of these fragmented identities. But secretly I was more inclined to believe, and even hope, that it would be a battle to the death with one fragment emerging dominant and victorious while the other was banished to permanent oblivion.

Given a choice, I had to say I preferred that Toughie be the survivor. TC, after all, had gotten me this far. I couldn't imagine giving up that part of myself, my greatest protector and mechanism for survival.

Unlike those who seemed to perpetually circle the parking area to find the closest slot, I eyed an oasis of empty spaces in the farthest corner of the hospital lot. As the July sun burned on the asphalt pavement, wavy lines of heat rising from the blacktop, I sat in my car. The air conditioner was broken, and I baked as I kept watch, making certain no one was around. When the coast was clear, I got out and opened the trunk, retrieving two large garbage bags filled with children's toys. I'd be too visible in the elevator and opted for the stairs.

The inundating pain and excruciating embarrassment of a series of regression episodes in sessions had left me gun-shy and numb, unwilling and unable to brave the territory of childhood feelings again. For the past two weeks the sessions had been numb, distant, and unproductive as I desperately clung to intellectual and philosophical pursuits to avoid being seized by the monstrous inner child fragments.

While Dr. Padgett could understand my reasons to avoid regression, he also felt that until I re-entered the world of childhood feelings, I would not make further progress. At his suggestion I'd agreed to try play therapy, a methodology he and others had successfully used with children.

With young children of both genders in my household, the materials were easy to obtain. Once Jeffrey and Melissa had fallen asleep for the night, I'd tiptoed through their rooms, selecting toys they hadn't touched for months, with a careful eye for those that reflected a gender preference, as Dr. Padgett had suggested.

At ten o'clock, while Tim was absorbed in the news, I had sneaked my bags of goodies out to the car and hidden them in the trunk. Like the writings, I had no intention of Tim seeing the bags either. That would have required explanations I was far too embarrassed to give.

Dr. Padgett had given me his customary smiling greeting, as if such fare were routine for adults, but I felt uncomfortable nonetheless, assailed by second thoughts. Alas, I was already there. I had managed to bring the bags in, so I might as well go along with it.

Wordlessly I emptied the contents of the trash bags onto the carpeted floor. A big plastic fighter plane with a number of badly worn G.I. Joes. A toy machine gun with a broken trigger so that it no longer made any noise. A laser gun complete with sounds and flashing lights. A rubber hunting knife. A miniature football. A stuffed puppy that Melissa had managed to unstuff with too much loving. A blonde, curly-haired ballerina doll that had gained an impromptu punk-rock look when Melissa first began experimenting with scissors. A few more dolls and stuffed animals. A miniature plastic tea set decorated with crayon scribbles.

The largest and most prominent of the toys was a stuffed clown, nearly three feet tall and still looking new. For some reason it frightened Melissa, and she'd banished it from her bed and into the recesses of the closet.

The toys lay scattered on the floor like garage sale leftovers.

“So what am I supposed to do with this shit?” I asked, arms folded, defensive and embarrassed. “You know, Dr. Padgett, this was a really stupid idea.”

“You agreed to try this,” he replied with no trace of admonishment in his voice. “Just pick up whichever ones you want to, play with them as you wish, and say what's on your mind.”

“I'll tell you what's on my mind. I feel like a complete asshole.”

He didn't reply.

I picked up the laser gun first, now loaded with fresh batteries. Dr. Padgett, I decided, deserved to be annoyed. Lights flashing, the sounds of sirens and rat-a-tat bullet fire filling the office, I aimed the gun directly at him. No reaction. He didn't even flinch.

I then turned the gun toward the dolls, firing relentlessly.

Dr. Padgett remained a silent observer, and I began to be immersed in the play—entering the child's world. I lined up all the dolls against the couch next to me, then loaded the fighter plane with disabled G.I. Joes. I dropped imaginary bombs on the little girl toys, then swooped low in flight, tumbling them to the floor like dominos. I stood the dolls up again, then snapped the football at them, scattering them on the floor. In a way I was cognizant of the message I was sending with my style of destructive play—using the “boy toys” as weapons to torment the “girl toys.” But I felt a certain euphoria as well, a fire within that took on a life of its own.

Finally I sat back in my chair, arms folded once again, and stared him down with a you-asked-for-it-you-got-it kind of glare.

“Any thoughts on this?” he asked softly.

Is this man a complete idiot or what? Didn't he just witness this whole massacre? I hate being a girl. I hate dolls. So what difference does it make?

“Gee, Sigmund,” I retorted sarcastically, “can't you figure this one out?” Obviously I wasn't going to get a rise out of him. Once again he was infuriatingly patient and simply reiterated the question, ignoring my caustic remarks.

“What are your thoughts on this, on what just happened here?”

Sighing, I stated the obvious.

“I hate the girl stuff. I like the boy's stuff. Period. I just made a complete asshole out of myself, and we're just hitting on things both of us already know. I knew this wouldn't work.”

“Whose dolls are those?”

“Melissa's, of course, you idiot. Do you think I have a son that plays with dolls?”

“Would you have a problem if he did?”

I rolled my eyes. Visions of Dr. Padgett's son, hopelessly effeminate, flashed before my eyes, although I had never seen him and had no idea what he was really like.

“Maybe you wouldn't have a problem with your son doing it, but I sure as hell would.”

“What about Melissa? Does she play with the dolls?”

“Yes,” I had to admit but added defensively, “but she plays with Jeffrey's stuff too. My little girl plays with whatever she wants to play with.”

“Are you bothered when she plays with dolls?”

“What kind of a question is that?” I retorted. “Of course not. She's a little girl for chrissakes!”

“Did you buy any of these dolls for her? Have you ever bought her any dolls?”

I knew where this line of questioning was leading. He was trying to establish my complicity with doll play. Tempted to come back with a verbal assault to throw him off the track, instead, for some reason, I had a change of heart and decided to be honest. Was Vulno popping in on the scene again?

“Yes, I buy my little girl dolls. Is there anything wrong with it?”

“Of course not. But I see an inconsistency here.”

Which I'm letting you see, you bastard. Quit rubbing it in!

“You don't have a problem with your own little girl playing with dolls—or being openly feminine either. You can accept the fact that Melissa is a little girl, and it doesn't bother you at all. Her femininity, her preference for dolls doesn't make you love her any less, does it?”

“Of course not. I love that little girl more than anything in the world.”