I eased my aching body into the steaming water, then lay back in the tub with a sigh. All day I’d promised myself that if I were able to trick the children into falling asleep on time, I’d indulge myself with a bubble bath. My arms floated at my sides, my toes peeped out of the bubbles on the far end of the tub, and the scent of orange blossoms—or at least what I assumed was orange blossoms, having never smelled them myself but trusting the perfume designers to get it right—filled the air.
THUMP! The gypsum-and-cardboard wall beside me shuddered, and the thought, “That’s my daughter’s room!” raced through my mind on wings of fire, and carried me with it. Up and out of the bathroom and down the hall I ran, to fling wide my daughter’s bedroom door and find my little girl peacefully sleeping, one bare leg stretched out against the wall.
My pounding heartbeat eased back to normal. I shivered. So speedy had been my flight, my robe and towel had been left behind. I stood stark naked in the hall, dripping on the carpet. Damp footprints darkened the floor all the way to the bathroom.
Thankful that my husband was already in bed and hadn’t witnessed my latest irrational dash to check on the girls (he found plenty to tease me with as it was, he didn’t need fresh material), I hurried back to the warmth and security of the bathtub, shaking my head at my own foolishness.
As I climbed back in, I said aloud, laughing at myself, “Why do I always panic every time those girls make noise at night?”
As clearly as though a small child stood at my side, whispering in my ear, I heard, “Because little girls have to be careful. Because sometimes…there are monsters in the dark.”
“Monsters? What do you mean monsters?” I asked.
And before I could blink, my mind was hijacked into a nightmare.
I’m seeing the world through younger eyes, curled on my side, watching a dark shape approach my bed. Fear paralyzes me. I am seized by my ankles and tossed back on the bed on my belly, and my face slams into the mattress hard. My nose gushes blood. My head is pushed into the bed by a huge hand, which spreads the blood across my face. An elbow in the small of my back compresses my ribs. I fight to get my arms under me, to make space for my chest to expand, to bend my chin to my chest, so I can create a tunnel between my arms to breathe through, but the person holding me down is far too strong.
Colored lights dance before my mind’s eye, and I feel lightheaded and dizzy. Then the person holding me down shifts position and straddles my thighs, releasing my head and back. I gulp air, disoriented, and twist around to see who has hold of me. Instead of a person, I see, through the strange distortion in vision you sometimes get if you rub your eyes too hard, a man’s body with a monsters’ leering, gleeful face. The features swim in and out of focus, and despite the darkness, the monster’s countenance is lit up in Technicolor.
He lunges forward. Now my stomach is squeezed into the bed by the full weight of the man on top of me, the weight crushing my chest down, slamming my lungs closed, I can’t breathe. A hand is yanking up my nightgown, but I can’t worry about that now, spots are floating in front of my eyes and my chest won’t inflate. Now the man’s forearm shoves hard against the back of my neck, and I feel the familiar tearing pain as he shoves himself inside me. I manage to suck in a breath, but so much blood comes with it I choke, losing what little air I’d gained. I have time to think, ‘Why, Daddy?’ before everything fades to black.
Then I dropped out of the nightmare past and back into the present. I lay half-submerged in the tub, my chest aching like someone was still sitting on it, gasping for air. “It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real,” I muttered.
A dry, sarcastic voice in my mind said, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
“See?” The child’s voice cut in, with an air of having proved her point. “Little girls have to be careful, because there are monsters in the dark. Ask Jane, she knows all about monsters.”
I looked wildly around me, but couldn’t, of course, see a child, that dark bedroom, or a monster. All I saw was that a good portion of the water that had been in the tub now soaked the linoleum floor.
I opened the drain to let the water out of the tub and leaned forward, arms across my knees, head resting on my arms. I didn’t want to know what this meant. I didn’t want to be crazy. I was a mom, a wife, a small business owner, and I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t want to BELIEVE in this.
I grabbed a towel and dried myself, then the floor, and got dressed, my movements robotic as my mind tried to process what had just happened. Was I having an adverse reaction to my new medication? Was it a hallucination? Once, when I’d gone without sleep for three days, I’d seen our truck drive away, then walked smack into the actual truck, which was still in the driveway. But this didn’t feel like a hallucination. It felt familiar, like I’d been reminded of something I’d forgotten. How could anyone forget anything so violent and horrible, and why had I heard voices, how did that fit in to any of my theories? Who was “Jane?” I didn’t know anyone named Jane. I’d never known anyone named Jane. Was this what schizophrenia felt like? Could people develop schizophrenia at age 29?
I was too freaked out to call for my husband. What would I say to him? Besides, how could he explain what was going on in my own head, when even I didn’t know?
So I knelt by the tub instead, and prayed for help. My Heavenly Father was the only person who could possibly know what was going on. I begged Him to please shed some light on what I’d experienced.
As I prayed, I felt peace settle on my shoulders like a sunbeam. The pain in my chest faded to nothing, and my breathing steadied. In my mind’s eye I saw a beautiful crystal model of the Salt Lake Temple, the kind once sold at the Seagull bookstore in Utah. Only this temple was dark, the interior packed full of what looked like anthracite coal dust. As I watched, the dust slowly poured from the little temple like sand pours from an hourglass, without leaving any residue behind. When it was gone, the crystal shone clear, spotless and beautiful, its shimmering facets reflecting all the colors of the rainbow, and I saw it begin to glow with its own inner light. Then in my heart, I felt the Spirit whisper, “It all has to come out, daughter. It will be ok, but first it all has to come out.”
Chewing on that answer, I climbed into bed with my husband, who rolled over and asked, “Is everything all right?”
“I’m not sure. I might be going crazy. Isn’t that how the old joke goes? Talking to yourself doesn’t mean you’re crazy—unless your self answers you back?”
My words were light, but the foreboding in my gut warned me my problem was much bigger and far more complex than I’d thought. One thing I was sure of—Zoloft couldn’t fix this.