Chapter 8: We’re Out of Silver Bullets, Kemo Sabe

The list of therapists hung on my refrigerator for days. Every time I opened the fridge, there it was. The scrawled names seemed to glare at me, accusatory, as though to guilt me into picking up the telephone. Hiding from unsavory tasks never makes them go away. It makes their voices stronger and increases their nag factor.

Still, I couldn’t make myself touch the telephone.

Then the temperature outside began to drop, and I found myself afraid of the cold. Serious fear, like Jack Frost was lurking outside my door with a blade of ice, ready to cut me in two. Then I developed a fear of the dark. I couldn’t stand to go out alone after dark. Since January in Wyoming is both dark and cold, days passed when I didn’t go outside at all. Depression settled over my shoulders like a linen shroud.

Many babies are sensitive to their mother’s moods, and get fussy when they sense something wrong. My son was anxious because I was anxious, and wanted to nurse constantly, which left me feeling trapped and desperate to be alone, to be free of the touch of another person for at least a few minutes. The exhaustion that accompanied this bout of depression was palpable. I’d see something on the floor, like a pair of my husband’s dirty socks, and begin to weep because the physical exertion required to pick up those socks would hurt, it would strain every muscle, like I had manhole covers attached to each limb.

It was Domino’s pizza to the rescue several nights a week. It began to be harder and harder for me to leave the house at all. I was so tired I couldn’t face getting myself and the baby dressed and going shopping, and when Jim was home to watch the children, I couldn’t endure the dark and the cold. The days I spent isolated in the house became weeks. 

I’d always been a helicopter mom, hovering over my children, but now I became a bungee-cord mother. I couldn’t stand for the children to be out of sight for an instant. I panicked when we went for walks, because with three children, two little girls plus a stroller, I couldn’t always hold every hand. Children tend to dart like neon tetras back and forth, side to side, despite not getting very far away, and I couldn’t always see each child every second. I couldn’t bear it, it made me fearful and that made me short-tempered and then I spoke harshly to my children and then I felt guilty, which only fed the depression.

 Things that were never a problem before became emergencies—aggressive stray dogs were life-threatening dangers, Jim being silly and driving in the ditch to make me laugh made me scream instead. Everything scared me and I could not help transmitting that fear to my children.

I couldn’t live like this. I had to call those therapists. PTSD was forcing my world to shrink into a bubble so small that soon there wouldn’t be room for me inside. 

The pros and cons of therapy battled in my brain for supremacy. I might be able to feel better. I might be able to recover and lead a normal life. On the other hand, insurance only covered half of the cost of any treatment for mental illness, and money was tight. I might be able to be a better mother, wife, friend and person. On the other hand, maybe accepting treatment would encourage others to see me as weak or broken. Would people treat me differently? What if I was painted with the same brush as all the people who sample suicide? If the therapist thought I was a danger to myself or others, would my children be taken away, would I be committed? What am I setting myself up for, going to therapy?

In my prayers that night, I poured my heart out to Heavenly Father. I told him how hard the decision was, and how conflicted I was, and how fear of what the stigma would do to me and to my family was keeping me from calling those therapists. Was starting therapy the right thing to do? He was able to see all consequences of every choice I could ever make, so which choice was the best?

A warm feeling flooded my mind, my racing heart slowed, and the crease in my forehead smoothed out. Within the feeling of peace was my answer. Going to therapy was not only the right choice, it was essential. If I’d broken my leg, I wouldn’t try to set it myself, right? I’d get help, because if I didn’t, it would heal wrong and give me trouble for the rest of my life. Yes, money was tight, and yes, insurance only covered half the cost, but I couldn’t heal myself. It was the only healthy choice, stigma or no stigma.

The next day, I called the first woman on the list and spoke with her—she told me she didn’t do talk therapy, or anything long-term, but she could give me eight sessions of EMDR therapy and that would fix me right up.

I thanked her and called the second woman, who told me she couldn’t predict when my treatment would be over, that different people took different amounts of time to complete it and no one could know how much trauma I had to process.

I mulled over my choices. The first therapist promised to give me a magic silver bullet to kill the monster, and the second promised a lot of hard work. I’ve never believed in magic bullets. Everything worthwhile takes work to accomplish, and there aren’t any easy fixes.

I chose the second therapist, Clara, whom I believed to be more experienced and honest because she didn’t make any promises she couldn’t keep, and whom I believed had the tools to help me. Together, we set an appointment.

This was it. There was no turning back after this. I’d be “in therapy,” like a character in a  Woody Allen movie. On television and in real life, it was always the most screwed-up characters that went to therapy, and the therapists seemed largely ineffective, asking mirroring questions and listening to the answers, maybe writing a few notes, never fixing the problem. 

But this therapist and I had a plan. EMDR was a real thing. We wouldn’t be just having long rambling conversations about nothing or whining about the same thing for years on end or whatever mom and her therapist did for all that time.

That’s what I told myself, anyway, and tried like fury to believe.