Get Me Out of Here (35 page)

“Forgiveness,” Father Rick told me, “isn't just healing for the trespasser. It can set you free to move on and live your life.”

Clearly the physical setting was not the only change in the years since I'd taken the sacrament of confession. I was struck by the change in its emphasis as well. It was on healing rather than punishment. For many years I'd viewed Jesus's challenges to forgive and to love one's enemy as a call to sacrifice the instincts and pleasures of this life in order to be rewarded by a life hereafter. Perhaps, however, his instructions were a means to make this life better as well. Maybe, if all people actually did all the things Jesus called them to do, we wouldn't have to wait for heaven. It would be right here on earth.

I looked at my watch. Father Rick and I had been in there for well over thirty minutes—most of his one-hour block of time allotted for confessions. Anyone else waiting to see him must have gone to the other priest. I felt a tinge of guilt for monopolizing his time, but Father Rick didn't appear to mind.

“Well,” I concluded, “you've made some excellent points. I'm still not sure if I can forgive my parents right away. But at least I'm willing to consider it. I guess I need a penance then. Fifty Hail Marys maybe?”

The priest smiled, “No, your penance is to take care of yourself, to forgive yourself first, and to spend some time every day in prayer thinking about what we've discussed here.”

“That's it?” I smiled back. “You're pretty easy, Father Rick. No wonder the line to see you is always so long.”

We stood as he laid his hands on my shoulders and said the ritual words of absolution. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I absolve you from your sins.”

Afterward he gave me a warm hug.

“I hope you're realizing that you're really a special person, Rachel,” he said as I walked out of the confessional.

“I'm beginning to,” I answered sincerely. “I've got a ways to go, but I'm beginning to.”

As was my penance, I spent a lot of time over the next few weeks thinking about all that Father Rick had said, trying to decide what forgiveness entailed. After all, how could a person say “I forgive you” to people who had never asked for forgiveness, had never apologized, most likely never would, and who failed to see or admit any wrongdoing at all?

It would have to be a one-sided forgiveness, something within me that would in all likelihood never be recognized or appreciated. Any change of heart was going to have to be mine and mine alone.

The more I thought about forgiving them, however, the more it made sense to me. Dr. Padgett was right. The hatred I had felt, while all-consuming, had not encompassed the full scope of my feelings. Despite it all, I
did
feel love for my parents. And in their own flawed way, they, too, had felt it for me. I could not remain in a distorted world of black and white. Sentencing myself to a powerful anger and desire for revenge would only hold me back.

Forgiveness was not an overnight phenomenon. It happened slowly over time. I was less bitter toward them and more open. Still aware that they had not changed, I did not leave myself vulnerable to the kind of pain they were still capable of inflicting. But, as I let go of the anger, I could also see some of what was good about them, what had been right in my childhood.

And even though the forgiveness remained unspoken, they must have sensed my change of heart. They, too, became more open, gentler, and seemed to be more loving.

They would never be the first people I called in times of emotional crisis. Many parts of my life would remain unknown to them, including the raging anger I had felt at the revelations of what the past had really been. Visiting them, however, was no longer such a painful obligation, and in many ways I came to enjoy their company as adults.

The spring of 1994 was a peaceful time for me. I was not nearly so harsh on myself, nor was I that way with others. For the first time in my life I realized I had few enemies; many people, despite their individual imperfections, were truly my friends.

I had come to define an adult relationship with my parents, and I was comfortable with that, knowing what I could expect, knowing what I could never expect, and accepting the relationship for what it was.

I was more relaxed with Tim and the kids, and the passion had slowly crept back into our sex life. Business was growing. I was handling more clients than ever, yet I was able to leave my work behind me at the end of the day.

Sessions were increasingly less focused on events of the past as Dr. Padgett and I began to discuss my plans for the future. Sometimes we just shot the bull, enjoying each other's company, adult-to-adult. Like friends.

Still I wasn't ready to think about leaving therapy yet. I was enjoying the time we had together. Dr. Padgett had assured me that the warm feelings of companionship, therapy as pleasure, were also part of the process.

I'd succeeded in letting go of much of my anger, in defining my relationships, in accepting my femininity, in looking at the world in a completely new way, and in feeling a calm security I'd never dreamed of feeling. But a few matters still needed work. Foremost among them was the issue of termination, no longer just a far-off, “someday” prospect but an imminent reality.

Although sexual desire had reappeared in our marriage, there was still a long way to go. And even though I was no longer emaciated, I couldn't quite look in the mirror and accept what I saw. The morning trips to the hidden scale had not stopped. Nor had the routine doses of multiple Ex-Lax to assuage my guilty feelings about having gained back the anorexic weight. I hadn't found a way to tell Dr. Padgett about that yet. Things were going so well I didn't want to disrupt them.

Besides, a woman had to have a few secrets, didn't she?

In many ways April and May had been the best months of my life.

No major events or surprises came my way. I was content, enjoying the fresh delight of looking at the world in a way I never had before.

I felt comfortable with myself. Things that used to worry me didn't concern me anymore. Like a blind person granted the gift of sight, I was astounded by the goodness in people despite their flaws. My reactions to circumstances were as different as they ever had been. My new ability to see the gray areas in life had opened my horizons and fueled my optimism.

In short I was realizing that, incremental and painful as the process had been, I was a fundamentally different person than I had been when I first entered therapy. For all the doubts and second thoughts I'd had, it was clear to me that the time and money spent, the delays in reaching my primary goals, were worth the pain.

Sometimes in the midst of discussing an issue with Dr. Padgett, I stopped midsentence, stunned by the stark difference in my reaction.

“This is definitely where I would have picked a fight, isn't it?” I'd ask him. “But somehow I don't find myself needing to fight the way I used to.”

Dr. Padgett would smile back at me. I could tell he was proud of me and my progress. I was too.

So it was with surprise and dismay that I felt the tides of change roll in as I approached the three-year anniversary of my therapy. It was a subtle but steady shift as the sunny horizon began to fill with clouds; both my days and nights darkened.

The fight instinct was gone. The new lessons were not lost, perhaps, but I could feel myself slipping back into the depths of depression.

I knew the familiar symptoms. A decreased appetite. My newly emerging flickers of sexual passion dimmed. I was lifeless, listless, lacking in energy. Getting out of bed in the morning was a chore; making the bed was almost impossible. I was finding excuses to get out of social events, crafting alibis to get out of dinner invitations, and canceling client appointments.

I was retreating into my shell without any apparent clue as to why this was happening. Thoughts of suicide began to reappear and dominate my thoughts, the inner drumbeat of self-destruction softly tapping, growing to greater intensity, until it was a pounding roar and I could hear little else.

Why was this happening? I racked my brain to find an issue that had remained undisclosed, a subconscious origin, a buried secret begging to be revealed. But I could find none.

Knowing how pleased Tim and Dr. Padgett were with my progress, I didn't want to worry or disappoint them by revealing my feelings. Someday, I knew, I would have to handle these types of emotions on my own. Perhaps this was as good a time as any to try.

Both in session and out of it, my life was on automatic pilot as I put on a facade of togetherness. I faked optimism and inner happiness that didn't exist. It was a pretty convincing act. If Dr. Padgett or Tim had any doubts about my state of mind, they didn't express them.

In the privacy of my journal and my thoughts, however, I was thoroughly frustrated. What if my recovery had been simply an illusion, a brief respite in a life that was destined to be hell on earth? Once a borderline, always a borderline. Who was I to believe I could ever fundamentally change?

Pessimism overshadowed me as I slipped back into the mode of all or nothing. My life was shrouded in darkness.

The kids were in the backyard dousing each other with Super Soakers, but I couldn't find the energy to watch them or join in their antics. With the shades drawn and the air conditioner running, sealing myself inside, I flipped through the pages of a back issue of
Time
magazine. Kurt Cobain, the rock-and-roll icon, had killed himself, and suicide was a hot public issue. Was it a tragedy or a heroic exit? Speculation supporting both opinions filled the magazine.

Maybe Cobain, whose music I had never heard, simply understood life better than most people. Maybe he had looked deeply enough into the mysteries of life to reveal The Truth: optimism was just a fairy tale people desperately clung to because reality was simply too hard to bear.

Perhaps he had discovered the same answer I was beginning to realize about the meaning of life: there is none. Life was a cruel hoax, and he had opted out. An act of ultimate wisdom. The heroism of facing The Truth.

As I sat in shaded darkness, the window unit still humming in the background, I began to ponder if death might not be the answer for me as well. Why raise my hopes just so they could be dashed again? Why not allow Tim and the kids to move on with their lives?

I started to speculate on how I could end my life in a way that would leave Tim and the kids none the wiser. A disguised suicide that could just as easily be an accident. A car wreck? A carefully staged fall? A car wreck seemed the best option, driving off the road in a way that would not injure anyone else but myself.

I hadn't yet settled on all the logistics but was feeling a strange sense of calm at making a major decision when Jeffrey came running inside the house.

“Mom, you've got to come out here,” he cried breathlessly. “There's a lobster in the yard!”

Melissa followed.

“Yeah, Mommy, a lobster! Come and see it!” she said as she tugged on my shirtsleeve.

I had to admit a lobster in our yard would be a strange sight. I followed them to appease my curiosity, vowing that I wouldn't be distracted from my plans to die.

As it turns out, the “lobster” was a crawdad, most likely escaped from the neighbor's fishing boat parked on the driveway next door. I was amazed at how much the little creature resembled a lobster. A few of the other neighborhood kids had already assembled, circling around the newest addition to the block. Jeffrey and Melissa were beaming with pride. “Can you get us something for it?” Jeffrey asked. “It needs water or something. Otherwise it's gonna die.”

“Can it be our pet, Mommy?” Melissa begged.

Thousands of dollars spent at Toys “R” Us, yet none of those toys were as fascinating as a slimy, shelled creature with snapping claws. I had to smile. Had life ever been that simple for me?

I retrieved a rectangular casserole dish from the kitchen and a big cup of water. With Jeffrey in charge, the cadre of kids set about making a comfortable environment for their new friend—a pile of mud for it to crawl on, surrounded by a moat to keep it cool and moist. Melissa came over and hugged me, beaming with joy and admiration. “Thanks for helping us make a house for our pet, Mommy,” she said. “You're the best mommy in the whole world!”

My plans for suicide were quickly unraveling. Dr. Padgett was right. Suicide, in whatever form, would completely destroy these kids. There had to be another answer.

When Tim came home from work, I confessed.

“The suicidal thoughts are back,” I told him bluntly.

He paused for a moment, obviously surprised.

“How long have you been feeling this way?” he asked, a quiver of worry in his voice.

“I don't know. A few weeks.”

“Have you told Dr. Padgett?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn't want to bother him with it. I didn't want to bother you either. You've all been so good to me that I didn't want to let you down.”

“Like killing yourself wouldn't let us down?” he exclaimed, then quickly resumed a calm demeanor, not wanting to upset me. “Rachel, that's what he's there for. That's what I'm here for. You've worked through so much. Don't you think you ought to try and work through this too?”

“What if I'm like this for the rest of my life?” I asked him, tears in my eyes. “What then? I'm really sorry you had to marry somebody like me, Tim. I really am. You deserve better than this.”

“You have an illness, Rachel,” he said emphatically. “An
illness
. I wouldn't leave you if you had cancer or diabetes, and I'm certainly not going to leave you because you have an illness of the mind and not the body. If I wanted to be with someone else, I would be. But I don't. I want to be with you. And if I had it to do all over again, knowing all of this, I would still marry you. In sickness and health. We can get through this. We really can.”

Sobbing, I fell into his arms. One thing was certain. If I had to do it all over again, I would have married Tim too. Maybe he was right. Maybe we could make it through this.

Dr. Padgett, although clearly concerned, did not appear to be thrown off stride by my admission of how I'd been feeling.

“What do you think it could be?” I asked him. “I've been racking my brain, but I can't find an issue. I'm really scared. I came so close, and now all that peace and serenity have gone away.”

“What medications are you on right now?”

I had expected him to ask the routine question: “What do
you
think?” Instead he was acting like a medical doctor rather than a therapist. I was surprised.

“Desyrel. Three hundred milligrams.”

He got up and reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a prescription pad, and scrawled the trademark chicken scratch of the physician. He handed it to me. I couldn't decipher a word. How did pharmacies manage?

“What's this?” I asked.

“I'd like you to try a new medication. It's called Effexor. It's relatively new on the market, but the clinical tests have shown it has minimal side effects.”

“Do you really think drugs are the answer here? Maybe there's some issue we need to explore.”

“Sometimes if you take an antidepressant for a long time, it begins to lose its effectiveness. A new one might help.”

“You mean you think this is all because the Desyrel has stopped working?”

“I think it's a strong possibility.”

For some reason I began to cry. “Am I going to be on drugs for the rest of my life? Don't you think that's a cop-out? I mean, other people seem to manage their whole lives without these drugs. Am I going to be a borderline for life? I don't know if I want these drugs. I don't want to be an emotional cripple.”

“Rachel,” he said firmly. “You're thinking black and white again. This is a temporary setback. And, in this case, I think it's purely chemical. The progress we've made hasn't been undone. And, no, I don't think that you'll need to be on medications for the rest of your life. But for right now this might help you get through a tough time.”

“What does that say about my self-discipline?” I lamented. “What does that say about my ability to handle things on my own? I don't want crutches.”

“There's nothing to be ashamed of,” he said gently. “You haven't failed. Let's go ahead and try these and see what happens.”

When session was over, I shoved the prescription slip in my purse. I contemplated swerving off the interstate but dutifully drove to the drugstore to have the prescription filled.

My body was shaking a bit, but I felt good. The phone rang a few times before Tim answered.

“Just thought I'd call and say hi,” I chirped exuberantly.

“Hi,” he answered, surprised at my newfound cheerfulness. “What's up?”

“This stuff is amazing,” I rambled. “I could run ten miles right now. I could clean the whole house in an hour. It's just incredible! Kind of like the first blast of cocaine, except it lasts and lasts. And it's legal. Do you believe it?”