Get Me Out of Here (4 page)

“Then why do you think you're here?”

The words spoken in a different tone could have been authoritative, admonishing, or sarcastic. But something in the way he said them made me believe he was honestly interested in my answer.

“I got upset yesterday. Very upset. I thought I wanted to die; I called a hotline. But I wasn't really going to do anything. I wish I had the guts, but I don't. I'm a fraud. I've never actually tried to kill myself, and I never will. The old ‘cry for help’ thing.

“But I really don't need any help. I've got a great husband, two beautiful kids, parents who love me, lots of friends, a good education, and a good mind. I've got the world going for me, doctor. Everybody says so. I just need to keep reminding myself of what I have. That's all.”

Dr. Padgett remained silent.

“I'm tough, do you know that? I've been through my fair share of shit in life, but I don't need to go running to some shrink to cry about it. I've always gotten by. I don't need anyone at all. You're not going to sit here and pick my brain and come up with your conclusions, because I know what guys like you are all about. You start playing with someone's head, and before they know it, you've got them convinced that they are so screwed up they can't get by without you. You make them dependent, blame everything on their parents, their dog, anyone but themselves. Absolve them of everything—for a fee—even though they are probably just plain lousy people.

“Well, if you think you're gonna do that to me, then fuck you. Because you aren't. If I've learned anything in this shitty life, it's that you can't count on anyone else to deal with your shit. They've got their own shit to deal with. Life sucks. Period. People lie and cheat and steal and murder and fight wars, and it's always been that way and it always will. I'm the sanest one in the bunch. I'm
not
crazy, just smart enough to realize that you don't get through this life by playing little touchy-feely fantasy games, believing in gods that are just a big hoax, sucking up to shrinks who kiss your ass and try to convince you life isn't the piece of shit that it is. You get it by being tougher than the next guy. Survival of the fittest. And I'm very fit to survive. I can handle whatever comes my way, and I don't need anyone else to do it. Period.”

If Dr. Padgett disagreed with my philosophies, he didn't show it. He sat there and listened. Just listened. My feelings began to flood the room. I began to tell him about my semi-shotgun marriage. All the forays into drugs. The dozens of men I slept with, not hearing from many of them the next day. The near-rape in college. The times I had come close to suicide but never had the guts to go through with it. The hypocrisy I felt because I had so many friends who seemed to like me, when I just knew that if they really knew me they'd all disappear and run like hell. As they should.

I told him I couldn't understand how everyone was so nice to me when I clearly didn't deserve it. I shared the tales of some of the horribly vindictive things I'd done in my life, the awful thoughts I'd had, and my secret desire to just be lobotomized. Simple. Stupid. Because I was sure that I simply thought too much and brought a lot of my pain onto myself. I was too self-absorbed and just too smart for my own good. My mind should have been given to someone good and decent, not me.

I continued on with this diatribe, the emotions, thoughts, and words forcing their way out of me with the vehemence of a hurricane. Until, finally, I felt spent. And incredibly foolish, embarrassed, and ashamed. As Sister Luisa had told me, words are powerful. Once you speak them, you can't take them back. I slumped back in my chair, remorseful for all that I had said. Maybe I'd said too much, and he would lock me up for life.

Finally Dr. Padgett spoke in a gentle, rather squeaky, but soothing voice.

“You've been through a lot of pain. And it's hard to trust anyone, hard to believe that anyone could care because you've always hated yourself. On one level, you've wanted people to believe your tough facade. But on a deeper level, you've wished that someone would be able to get past it, to get inside you and listen to your heart. But you've been afraid that no one in the world would understand—or worse, that you would drive them away.

“Life is really hard for you because you wish you could have been born male. You see males as tough and strong. And you put on a great facade of a male. You walk the walk and talk the talk. But deepest within you, you know that you aren't male. You are female, which you see as weak, manipulative, and worthless. No matter how hard you try to mask it, you cannot change the reality of your gender. So you stay in this trap of putting forth a charade, feeling hypocritical, while inside you secretly seethe in anger and bask in shame because you are unequivocally female. Deeply vulnerable and hurting within as you act tough outside. You do need people; you need them so much so that it scares you to death. You drive them away so they don't get too close; yet you regret it every time you do.

“You claim you don't want anyone to understand you. But you do. You want it very much. It's just that you don't believe that it is possible for anyone to understand, and you cannot bear to be let down again.”

My eyes glazed with tears, and I felt an incredible warmth inside. I was lured to this man. How did he know I hated being a woman? I never told him that. How did he know about the tough facade, how I would brush people aside, attacking them as if they didn't matter—meanwhile wishing that they cared?

Dr. Padgett had put my thoughts, even unconscious ones, into words. As soon as he gave them a voice, I knew they were undeniably true. In just a single meeting, he had touched a place within me that no one had ever touched before. It was more than a matter of him understanding me. His understanding was couched in empathy and concern. He wanted to help.

I was drawn to him in that very first visit more than I had ever been drawn to anyone in my life. I'd gone in intending to pierce his facade, and instead he had gently unveiled mine. I had been wrong.

This was no ordinary man.

I was in a fog of these emotions when I went back to my room. Visiting hours had begun, and Tim was waiting there for me. Tim hugged me, handed me a bouquet of flowers, and we began to talk about what it was like in the hospital and how the kids were doing. But my mind wasn't really in it. I was still trying to absorb all that had transpired with Dr. Padgett. I couldn't get him off my mind.

As if the doctor sensed that, there was a knock on my open door, and Dr. Padgett walked in and introduced himself to Tim. They shook hands, and Dr. Padgett handed me a thin packet of written material.

“I've thought this over and have decided that I'd like to work with you in therapy. You've got some very serious problems, Rachel, and I think the kind of treatment I offer can help you. In fact, in your case, I think this type of therapy is the only kind that will work. This pamphlet outlines the therapy I'm talking about and should answer a lot of your questions.

“Why don't you take a look at it and see what you think? If you have any more concerns, you can call my office.”

With that, he walked out of the room. Tim and I immediately began to read the pamphlet entitled
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
. Much of it reiterated terminology that I vaguely recalled from an introductory psychology course I'd taken years earlier. The origins of neurosis and emotional pain developed in early childhood. The therapist would work with the patient to reveal painful, buried emotions. The patient's natural desire was to keep them buried through defense mechanisms, but the fears would become manageable in the light of adult, rational understanding, along with free association and uncensored thoughts.

The therapist would align himself with the patient to cut through her defenses and allow the frozen feelings to surface. As a “blank screen,” he would reveal little of his personal life or his feelings to facilitate transference, the phenomenon whereby patients direct emotions intended for someone else in their lives, most likely from childhood, onto the therapist. This transference often reveals more of a patient's buried feelings and subconscious motivations.

It was interesting stuff, but nothing I hadn't seen before. It was the Freud and Jung I had at one time memorized and regurgitated back on tests.

The final part of the pamphlet stirred the most discussion. The therapy was conducted on a regular schedule—once, twice, or three times a week. A few patients found “relief” from their symptoms within a year, but most took at least one to three years to complete the therapy, and sometimes five or more years. The pamphlet stressed that such therapy meant a lot of time and money for the patient and required a great degree of commitment from the therapist as well. There were no guarantees, it said, but many people who had been through it had found it to be worth the time and money spent.

Both of us sat there on the bed dumbfounded. One hundred twenty dollars an hour three times a week. Who on earth could afford that? We began to joke about what kind of “psychos” would need or warrant therapy for half a decade, but the unspoken issue was financial.

We decided that I'd go ahead and look into it but not commit to anything yet. Perhaps, being fairly intelligent and driven, I could get by with once-a-week sessions and “lick the thing” in six months or less. After all, it wasn't as if I had that big of a problem anyway. Actually, we both agreed, I didn't even belong in the hospital. But on that issue, too, we decided to wait it out and see where things led.

By midafternoon, the psych floor was nearly deserted. Most of the patients, it seemed, were out on weekend passes. I was informed that newly arrived patients didn't get passes.
Newly arrived? I thought. Just how long do these people expect me to be here?

Tim had left for an afternoon appointment, and I was restless and bored. Weekend meetings, group therapy, and other activities were few because most of the patients were gone. I had absolutely nothing to do. Tim had brought me a few library books, but I couldn't concentrate on reading. I wasn't up for watching television, no one was around to talk to, and the few patients who stayed seemed either so out of it or so despondent I didn't want to be near them.

Anxiety flooded in and took the form of energy. I wanted to run in the most desperate way, but I couldn't leave the floor, much less the hospital building. So I did the next best thing: I power walked.

With the sounds of Supertramp blaring in my ear through my Walkman, I began to walk in a circular path through the corridors of the unit, pumping my arms and legs. Adrenaline flowed, and I found myself walking faster and faster until I finally broke into a jog, then a run. As I turned the corner, a familiar figure was standing there, a scowl on her face, arms folded. It was
her
. The drill sergeant from hell, working a different shift.

“This is a hospital ward,” she informed me, with the terse authority of a grade school nun, “not a gymnasium. You can't run laps in here. It's disturbing me and the other nurses, and it's upsetting the other patients too.”

“There's nothing to do here,” I retorted. “Absolutely nothing. What am I supposed to do?”

“I'd suggest you find something. Something other than running.”

I walked past her, restraining the urge to tell her off, and put my Walkman back on. Certainly she couldn't object if I just walked, if I didn't actually run. I indulged myself in a few more laps of vigorous power walking. Again, she appeared.

“I told you this isn't a gymnasium. It's not a health club. It's a hospital. Now put the Walkman away and go do something else.”

“You told me not to run,” I said indignantly. “I wasn't running. I was walking. Just plain walking. I have the right to do that, you know. Don't I?”

“I don't know what you call whatever it was you were just doing, but I certainly wouldn't call it ‘just plain walking.’ Obviously you can't control yourself. Hand over the Walkman now.”

“You can't do this to me!” I cried hysterically. “You can't trap me in this nut ward with nothing to do, no one to talk to but these—these—
psychos!
You can't take away my Walkman. You can't!”