Chapter 1: If Life is a Gift, It’s a Fruitcake

 

Powerful gusts of wind buffeted our flimsy single-wide trailer. Sheets of rain assaulted the windows with a sound like distant machine-gun fire. Thunder, in hot pursuit of the lightning that leapt from cloud to cloud, roared across the sky. Fierce as it was, the fury of the storm without was as nothing compared with the battle within.

 My son Jack bawled like a newly-branded calf and thrashed back and forth, struggling to yank feet from leggings and arms from sleeves before I could pull up the zipper on his snowsuit. He braced his heels against the matted brown carpet, and flung himself backwards with utter disregard for the concussion he’d give himself if I let go.

“There must be easier jobs than mine,” I told my squalling toddler, as I pushed his kicking legs back inside the suit. “Deep-sea fishing, smoke jumping…crocodile hunting…”

At last the zipper slid to his chin. As if the zipper were a toggle switch, his howls stopped and he went boneless in my arms. His glare was eloquent; I could force him to wear the snowsuit, but I could never imprison his spirit.

I tucked my hair into the hood of my jacket with one hand and scooped up my limp son with the other. “We have to get moving, Bud. We are so late.”

A blast of wind yanked the screen door out of my hands and slammed it into the deck railing, like a bratty big brother. Typical Tuesday in Wyoming.

 “You’re going to be thankful for that coat in a minute, Jack,” I said, and hustled down the rickety wooden steps toward our Dodge Caravan, ducking my head against the rain sleeting sideways into my eyes.

 The snowsuit was too puffy to fit in the car seat, so I readjusted and retightened the straps. “This is taking forever,” I muttered. “It must be noon by now.”

Trapped and annoyed, Jack started fussing.

“Don’t worry, baby, you’re safe and warm,” I told him, and patted his fluffy leg.

The windshield wipers thumped a rhythmic beat as the van pulled out of the driveway. I recited a poem in time to the wipers’ percussion as I drove; “The splendor FALLS on castle WALLS and snowy SUMmits old in STOry...”

 In no time at all, we pulled into a parking space. I turned off the van, reached for my purse, and then stopped, confused. Instead of the Meals on Wheels parking lot, we were parked in front of the Albertson’s grocery store. How in the world did we end up here?

Bewildered, I started up the engine again and looked at my watch. My little detour had cost fifteen minutes. Odd, I would have sworn we’d just left…whatever. To stay grounded and prevent my brain from switching to autopilot again, I threaded my fingertips into the leather laces that wrapped the steering wheel.  “We wulnae be fooled again!” whispered an inner voice in a thick Scots accent, and I chuckled.

The aroma of tuna casserole greeted us as we entered the Meals on Wheels kitchen; the digital clock on the wall showed less than an hour of delivery time left. “I’d almost given up on you,” the volunteer coordinator said as she handed me a stack of strapped-together trays and a bag of milk cartons. “Would you like me to help you carry this out to your car?”

“No, I’ve got it.” My armload shifted, and I bounced my son higher up on my hip. His hood fell back to reveal brown curls drenched with sweat.

“He looks hot,” the coordinator said. “You could probably take that off him in the car.”

“Yeah, good idea.” In a pig’s eye I could. He’s all sweaty. He could get a chill.

At each stop on my route, I followed the same ritual. Go around to the side of the van. Unbuckle the baby and pick him up. Loop the milk bag over my arm and carry the tray by the strap to the client’s doorstep. Knock on the door. Bring in the food. Grab the old trays, balance them and the baby in the same arm, and reload son and trays in the van. Each stop, we grew wetter and Jack’s protests grew louder.

A silver-haired lady remarked, over the sound of my son’s angry squawks, “Maybe it would be easier for him if he stayed in the car while you did the deliveries?”

“Oh, good idea, thanks.” Leave my baby alone in the car? Not in this lifetime.

At last we reached the final stop, a dilapidated house trailer. Pink insulation oozed from gaps in the peeling siding, giving the place the look of a mortally wounded animal.

The instructions on the client print-out told me to knock, walk in, and put the food in the refrigerator. Few things feel more awkward than entering a stranger’s home uninvited. I masked my apprehension with a cheery shout, “Hello! Meals on Wheels!” No one answered, so I knocked and crept inside.

Stacks of newspapers, boxes of junk and old magazines framed a single corridor from the front door to the refrigerator. The place stank of fossilized spaghetti. As I cringed my way along, angling my body away from the mess to prevent my son’s eager hands from grabbing anything disgusting, I mentally cataloged items I could use as weapons if we were threatened (old wrench, screwdriver, thick glass bottle). The fridge was stuffed with the remains of former meals, and I had to turn the tray sideways and shove to make it fit. But where was the old tray? I scanned the room again, and spotted the corner peeping out from behind a hill of old TV Guides. I leaned over to grab it, balancing the baby on the opposite hip, and then behind me the door slammed shut--BANG. I shrieked, leapt backwards, and brandished the tray in front of me like the deadly weapon it wasn’t.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” said a smiling, wizened little man. 

My voice unsteady, I said, “It’s ok. You must be Mr. Lewis.”

“Must I?” he said, and his eyes twinkled. “Thanks for bringing my lunch. What’s for dessert today?”

“I think it’s Jell-O, the green stuff.”

He sighed. “Since my heart surgery, eatin’s no fun. My doctor, he says, he says to me, ‘You’re on the tasting diet, Bob. If it tastes good, spit it right out.’”

I laughed dutifully. “I’m sorry you had to have surgery.”

“That bypass’s the best thing ever happened to me.” His faded-denim eyes locked on mine, and after the manner of the older and wiser, who know from a lifetime of experience that long speeches are forgotten but short sound bites may have a chance to stick, he said, with a beatific smile, “It taught me that every day of life is a gift!”

His words hit me like a punch to the throat, and I nearly choked on a sudden upwelling of despair. “That’s—that’s great.  Seriously, so inspiring.” I forced a smile.

“Wave bye-bye to Mr. Lewis!” I urged my son, as I made a totally-not-mad dash out the door. Jack scowled and hung limp, arms akimbo, like an angry sack of potatoes.

I splashed through the mud puddles to the van, the loose tray slapping against my leg, before the caustic words inside my heart could spill out and burn innocent Mr. Lewis.

            Life, a gift?  Not even close. Life is fear and depression and pain and anxiety with little bits of joy and happiness sprinkled over the top for variety. Life is misery, and struggle, and the only thing that makes it bearable is the hope of heaven and peace in the next life. If life is a gift—it’s a fruitcake.

The rain dwindled to a trickle as I buckled Jack back into his car seat. His face pink from the heat, sweat rolling down his temples, Jack hollered for freedom and thrashed his little arms. “It’s ok, baby,” I said shakily, and patted the leg of his soggy suit. “You’re safe and warm.”

We pulled out of the trailer park and turned onto the highway; unwilling to revisit the Albertson’s, I focused hard on my driving. The world narrowed into a tunnel; the rough asphalt filled my field of vision.

Then I felt a mental nudge, and an inner voice said, “Did you see that? Over there, beside the road?”

I looked in my rear-view mirror, puzzled. The writhing figure hanging off of the side of a white Ford 350 pickup truck didn’t register; at first, I couldn’t process what I saw. Was that a dog, dangling from the side of a truck? I cranked the steering wheel around and headed back.

The Ford was pulled over on the side of the road, and on the side facing the ditch, a German Shepherd hung by its collar, scrabbling for a foothold that wasn’t there. For once, I didn’t hesitate to leave Jack alone in the van; I didn’t even shut the door.  No one was in sight. I shouted for help as I ran, but no one came running.  A second dog, a Blue Heeler, stood in the back of the truck whining, his own tie rope so short he couldn’t look over the side at his imperiled friend. The Shepherd’s desperate brown eyes locked on mine.

Bracing myself against the bedside, I grabbed two armfuls of wet dog and heaved, taking the pressure off of his collar. He coughed, and gulped air, and I realized his tie rope was fastened to the toolbox in the truck bed. The rope was so short his owner must’ve been sure he could never get out of the truck, but the owner’s strategy had backfired. Not only had he managed to get out, but the tie rope had slid between the cab and the bedside, and pulled his collar into the gap. His legs couldn’t reach the ground, so he couldn’t brace himself and take off some of the pressure. He must have been so scared; in the circumstances, I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d snapped at me, but he didn’t. “It’s ok now, boy,” I said, and tried to untie the rope on his collar, but his struggles had pulled the water-logged knot tight. It wouldn’t come loose.

He was a big dog, and my feet kept skidding out from under me, thanks to the muddy slope. Panic began to set in. I didn’t know how to get him into the truck and save him, and I was his only hope. “Please, Heavenly Father,” I begged, “Help me save this dog.”

In my mind’s eye, I envisioned my strength training teacher as he demonstrated the proper way to perform Back Squats to my fitness class. That would work! Like most good ideas, it was obvious once the Spirit pointed it out. I faced away from the truck, crouched down, balanced the Shepherd on my shoulders, and then drove upward with all my strength. My heels thrust into the slope and the dog slid over the bed rim and landed inside, where he scrambled to his feet and stood with lowered head, sucking air. His Blue Heeler buddy, whining, shoved at him with its nose.  I couldn’t tell if the dog had damaged his throat or not, and worried about his windpipe. His owner needed to know he might need a vet visit—and also how dangerous the short tie ropes had proved to be.

Back to the van for a pencil and some paper. Jack was fast asleep; how long had it taken me to help that dog, I wondered?  I penciled a quick note on a piece of a McDonald’s bag, then stuck it under the truck’s wiper blade. The Shepherd was still focused on his breathing, but the Heeler seemed to grin at me, tail whipping back and forth. It wasn’t the reaction I expected; Heelers are protective and loyal to the point of aggression. Did the dog understand what just happened?

Now that I had a moment to look them over, their thick coats and superb physical condition were evidence that their owner took excellent care of them. Someone loved these dogs.

I was thankful for the nudge that had prompted me to pull over.  I whispered a quick prayer of gratitude for a tragedy averted, and added a plea that the dog would pretty-please stay put this time.

As we pulled back onto the highway, I glanced in the rear-view mirror. Soaked curls plastered to his forehead, his head tilted to the side, Jack slept on. “You’re safe and warm, baby,” I whispered. “Safe and warm.”

 

 

Chapter 2: Kitty Litter to the Rescue

 

 

“You’re going to be so warm in these!” With Jack’s gleeful assistance, I tugged pair after pair of footed pajamas out of the UPS box. The bright Crayola colors were cheerful, they were exactly Jack’s size, and they were in even better shape than the Ebay seller had promised.

We dug to the bottom of the box, Jack because the chaos of flinging clothes around made him laugh, and me because the seller’s policy was to include a free gift with each purchase, and I couldn’t guess what it could possibly be.

At last I pulled out our tissue-wrapped surprise. Jack tore off the paper to reveal a vintage pair of toddler pajamas. My heart stuttered in my chest. I KNEW those pajamas, those soft white terrycloth PJs with red rocket ships on them. I recognized the snaps that ran all the way around the tummy—the little shirt snapped to the pants for ease in dressing the baby, of course—and the snaps seemed to singe my hands with cold fire wherever they touched. I sat frozen in shock, my muscles locked with fear, and felt acid rise in my throat.

And then something snapped, and I lurched to my feet and took off running, pajamas in hand. I held them pinched between finger and thumb, as far away from myself as possible, like a diaper full of diarrhea, and gagged as I ran through the house. They were horrible, they were terrifying, they were evil! I couldn’t look at them! I couldn’t bear to see them ever again!

What could I do? I couldn’t put them in the trash, because they would still be there, lurking in the can, when it came time to take the bag out to the dumpster. I had no way to incinerate them. I couldn’t magic them into dust. I had to get them out of my hand NOW. I opened random cupboards in the laundry area, desperate to find a secure hiding place. Success! One of the shelves held a 50-pound bag of kitty litter. I shoved the hideous pajamas under the bag, all the way to the back.

I dropped to my knees, dizzy with relief, the anxiety fading. There. I couldn’t see them, or touch them, and I was the only one who ever changed the cat box, so no one else would touch them either. We were safe. My son came toddling over, and I hugged him close and promised him that bag would stay there forever, we would never have to see those pajamas again. When we needed more kitty litter I’d buy a nice new bag. He giggled, and tugged at my hair. I was glad he was too little to share the cat litter story with his dad, because I knew I couldn’t bear to even think of those pajamas again. Seeing or touching them would be like gargling toxic waste.

It took half a bottle of hand soap to wash the psychic residue away. As I scrubbed my hands for the umpteenth time, an unwelcome thought wandered into my mind. I wasn’t acting like someone who had triumphed over a threat to her family’s safety; I was acting like someone who needed serious psychiatric help. I stared into my own eyes in the bathroom mirror. “What is going on with me?”

By dinnertime, I’d changed my mind.  I was not the kind of person who needed psychiatric help. I was strong, I was logical, I had a scientific mind, and I could figure this out. And somehow when my husband Jim asked about my day, the subject of predatory pajamas and deliverance via kitty litter never came up.

 

 

Chapter 3: Descriptions of Depression Are Depressing

 

 

Jack made a grab for the telephone receiver as I hung up the phone, and got a handful of my hair instead. “Ouch!” I pried the strands loose from his pudgy fingers, put him down, and then whirled to face my husband. “Jim, my Visiting Teachers from church are coming over! I forgot all about them!”

My husband and I scanned our cluttered, neglected kitchen and living room. “How long do we have?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes!” I ran my hands through my tangled hair, thinking fast. We could do this.

“How can I help?”

“Toss all the toys in the playpen and vacuum the living room. I’ll get the kitchen.” I dashed to the sink, scooped up piles of dirty dishes and stuffed them in the oven. They wouldn’t all fit! I stacked the remainder of the dirty pans away in the cupboards and hoped the baby wouldn’t find them. Thank goodness the deep double sinks hid all of our cups and silverware. I tossed a washrag over each sink. A teasing voice in my mind quipped, “Voilà, zee newest concept in kitchen décor! Avant-garde Grunge!” I stifled a giggle.

The clutter on the kitchen floor was easy to hide; I swept it under the computer table, out of sight. The dirty laundry in the hallway fit perfectly in the dryer. Eight minutes remained on the clock. We were winning.

 The vacuum roared in the living room. The debris hitting the hood made a sound like a million tiny hailstones. Had it really been that long since we vacuumed?  Our three children watched, goggle-eyed, at their parents’ hyperactive tidy-up.

“What can I do, Mommy?” asked Jamie, our oldest daughter, and I kissed the top of her head in passing.

“You can stop Jack! He keeps pulling the toys back out of the playpen.” Hands full of opened and unopened mail, I yanked the desk drawers open, one after another, until I found one with enough headspace to shove it all in.

As Jim rewound the vacuum cord and pushed the vacuum against the wall, there was a knock on the door. “They’re early!” I hissed. “What did we miss?”

“Too late now,” Jim said, and opened the door. Jack made a dash for freedom, and Jim spun him around and sent him careening off in another direction, like a human pinball.

Only one of my Visiting Teachers, my friend Peggy, stood on the porch. She looked like a bedraggled stray.  Her normally sleek hair hung lank and wavy, her usually-impeccable clothing was wrinkled and her eyes were bruised from lack of sleep.  “Sorry, Barbara couldn’t come. It’s just me.”

I gave her a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Don’t say it’s ‘just you,’ say, ‘It’s ME!’ ” Jim teased.  

Peggy tried and failed to smile. Jim’s gaze met mine over the top of her head; something was definitely wrong.

“Come sit down,” I said, “You look worn out.”

Peggy collapsed onto the cushions of our couch with a sigh, rubbing her seven-months-along baby bump. “Did the morning sickness come back, Peggy? Are you feeling ok?” I asked.

Peggy’s eyes filled with tears, as if sympathy was more than she could bear. “I’m not feeling ok, I’m really not,” she said. Her fist tightened around her car keys. “I’ve never felt this bad in my life!”

The girls stopped playing and stared at Peggy. This conversation didn’t need an audience. “How about I take the kids to our room?” Jim asked, reading my mind.

“Great idea,” I told him. “Bring the Little Smart Driver, Jack loves that thing.”

Jim grabbed the back of Jack’s overall straps and picked him up like a suitcase, and our son crowed with laughter. “C’mon, girls. Mama needs some privacy. ” The three of them trooped down the hall.

I scooted closer to Peggy and put my arm around her shoulders.  “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s depression,” she said, and a tear rolled down her cheek.  “My anti-depressants haven’t kicked in all the way, and the doctor said it could be another week or two before they do.”

“I didn’t know you were depressed.” This was the first time I’d ever seen Peggy without a smile on her face.

“I felt so bad, Heather, like everything I did was wrong. I couldn’t stop crying. It was awful. One of the doctors I work with at the hospital said the pregnancy probably caused it.”

I was amazed at Peggy’s willingness to open up about her depression. Mental illness is a taboo subject in my personal universe. I heard myself blurt out, “I get post-partum with my kids, but I didn’t know you could get depressed while you were still pregnant.”

Good grief, I’d just admitted to having post-partum depression. I couldn’t believe I’d said that out loud. Peggy didn’t flinch, though, it didn’t faze her. “My doctor said it can happen before or after the baby’s born.”

“I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this right now.”

“Once the drugs kick in all the way, I’ll be ok,” Peggy said, and wiped her eyes. “I already feel better than I did.”

“Well, that’s good, I’m glad they’re working.” I handed her a tissue.

“I tried to shake it off, and I couldn’t,” Peggy said. “And I was scared, because it hurt so much I wanted to die, and I was afraid I’d act on that feeling.”

I had no idea how to respond to her, and we both went silent.

Her desperation was difficult for me to understand, as was her fear she’d somehow lose control and kill herself. Depression was my constant companion. It had been for eighteen years. It waxed and it waned, but it never went away.  You fight it, you push back, that’s all you can do. You don’t let it win. But how could I say that to Peggy? Depression had her in a choke hold.

I looked at the mangy carpet, and thought of all the times depression had knocked me over and kicked me when I was down. Sure, sometimes it hurt so much I’d longed for my life to be over, but I didn’t want to end it. What good what that do? Suicide would mean never-ending regret, a spiritual torment that could well last forever; how could I ever forgive myself for doing something so selfish? The thought of eternal pain in the next world made suffering for a lifetime in this one seem like a bargain. I wondered if I’d feel differently if I were agnostic, like Jim.

Peggy pulled her thoughts together. “The doctor told me not to blame myself. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, it isn’t anyone’s fault. I was worried about the baby getting hurt if I took Prozac, but he said the risk to the baby was a lot worse if I didn’t take my meds, because depression kills people.”

Not me it doesn’t, I thought. It never will. So that risk doesn’t apply.

She turned to look into my eyes. “Know what the worst part is? As a nurse, I’ve had lots of patients with depression, and I never believed they were hurting as much as they said. I thought they could shake it off, I thought they were doing it to themselves by being negative all the time. Now it makes me sick. I hate remembering I dismissed their pain.”

Jim strode into the living room, Jack in tow, and began to dig for a diaper in the playpen. We both watched him for a long moment.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “No one can understand something they haven’t felt themselves. They don’t have any frame of reference.”

“It’s like being in labor,” Jim broke in. “I can’t understand that. But I do know one thing—if it were up to men to have the babies, there would have been one. Then the human race would have died out.”

Peggy and I laughed. I reminded myself how lucky I am to have Jim, whose optimism and cheerful good humor can lighten any mood, however dark.

XXXX

Long after Peggy left, I continued to ponder our conversation, and Peggy’s approach to her depression. I was shocked by her openness and honesty, and by her eagerness to take the medication the doctor claimed would help her feel better. I was amazed, too, that her doctor believed her and didn’t judge her, or call her hysterical.

As I stared up at the darkened ceiling, I thought of all the reasons I kept my illness to myself, and weighed the pros and cons of getting help. Depression is a mental illness, there’s no getting around it. And mental illness carries a stigma that lasts a lifetime.

Once you’ve admitted to depression, the Powers-That-Be have license to question your sanity forever. Child Protective Services can use it as leverage—are you competent to raise your children? The government can question your second amendment rights—is it safe for you to own a firearm? The military can use it as grounds to reject you—should anyone with depression be allowed to enter the Armed Forces?  People would have reason to distrust your perception of events—could your depression be blinding you to what really happened, or give you motivation to commit crimes against others or yourself? Psychiatrists could use it against you, and commit you to a mental institution. That last thought made me shiver, so I scooted closer to Jim.

I’d never asked for help with depression. To ask for help would be tantamount to admitting I was weak, that I was unable to cope. Poor Peggy was blindsided by it. She didn’t grow up with it, she hadn’t learned to handle it. She was tempted to kill herself, so of course asking for help was, for her, the right decision.  After all, the level of pain inflicted by malfunctioning serotonin and dopamine receptors does have to be felt to be believed.

Imagine you opened your eyes one morning, and everyone you loved and cared about was lying on the floor of your bedroom, dead. And it was your fault. Hold onto that feeling.  Now imagine waking up and feeling that same level of despair and sorrow and guilt and self-hatred for NO REASON AT ALL, which means you not only hurt like blazes, you also feel like a loony. That’s clinical depression in a nutshell.

Until Mr. Lewis shared his nugget of wisdom, I hadn’t realized constant mental pain and exhaustion had eroded my hope and optimism to a critical point. What kind of life is it, when you would rather die in your sleep than wake up to another day of pain? My focus was on enduring this life until my time on Earth was over, and I could leave this world behind and go home to my Father in Heaven. Life wasn’t supposed to be easy, right? If it were easy, why would the reward for living a good life be so amazing?

But wouldn’t it be nice to have the option to be happy, and be the person I felt I truly was, deep inside? I didn’t want to be negative and cynical. My children deserved a mom who didn’t cry and stare at the wall on her down days.

Peggy didn’t worry the doctor would decide she was exaggerating, or say it was all in her head, or institutionalize her. She wasn’t afraid to take medication.

Maybe 18 years was long enough to endure this kind of pain, maybe I deserved to live a better life. Maybe Peggy was right.

​

Chapter 4: Trust and Belief Catalyze Change

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Why are the exam tables in doctor’s offices located under air conditioning ducts? I shivered. The thin hospital gown was open in the back and offered no protection from the icy zephyrs that swept down from the ceiling to torment me.   

I scanned the opposite wall, hoping for a distraction. A rack of pamphlets promised to educate me on subjects from diabetes to AIDS, while Health Department posters revealed what ear infections and heart disease looked like from the inside, enlightening and revolting me simultaneously. One poster featured a worried young woman with her hand on her protruding belly, with the following tagline: “Usted esta preparada para la posibilidad de tener depresion? Se puede tener depresion antes y despues del parto.”

My middle-school Spanish wasn’t great, but I got the gist of this message. “Pregnant ladies, prepare to get slapped upside the head. Depression is in the HOUSE.” Noticeably lacking were any ideas on how to prepare for the possibility of getting the disease, how to identify the disease, or how to recover from or cope with it. Like most of the posters placed in this office by the well-meaning people at the Health Department, it was long on awareness and short on advice and assistance, which rendered it useless.

The calendar pages clutched in my hands crinkled as I shifted my weight. For two months I’d tracked my moods, in an effort to prove to the doctor that something measurable was wrong. It seemed to me the patterns were clear, but my track record with doctors was poor, and I didn’t know how my new doctor would react. Would she be cross with me for trying to self-diagnose my problem, or would she appreciate my methodical approach? Would she believe me, or would she refuse to believe in anything she couldn’t feel for herself?

At last the door opened, and in bounced a human song sparrow: she was rotund, bouncy, bright-eyed and adorable, a petit brunette in a white lab coat at least two sizes too long. “Hi! I’m Doctor Caldwell. It says here on your chart you think you might have depression? Tell me what’s going on.”

I was tongue-tied. There was too much to tell, and I was scared that this cheerful person was going to think my symptoms were all in my head. Maybe she’d tell me to look on the bright side, to turn my frown upside down. In the background of my mind, I heard a voice belt out an old children’s song from Primary; “No one likes a frowny face—change it for a smiiiiile…”

I took a deep breath. “I’m tired all the time, and I’m always sad. It gets worse before my period, it gets much worse in the winter, and it has been really bad since my son was born.” I showed her my crumpled chart, and explained my notes. My emotions were all there, in black and white; I pointed out anxious days, crying days, short-tempered days, sleepy days and sleepless nights.

“I think you’re right,” she told me, and her eyes were sympathetic.

 I was gobsmacked that she believed me.

“It sounds like you might have a whole bunch of different things going on, but definitely depression; maybe more than one kind.”

Then the floodgates opened, and before I could stop myself, it all came pouring out; the irrational fear episodes, one of which made me flee from my loaded shopping cart in the grocery store; the way I ached every day, as though I was going through life inside a plastic garbage bag weighted down with lead; the way things looked so overwhelming, the guilt that smothered me and colored everything I did despite the fact that I’d done nothing wrong, the self-disgust that slapped me down and kept me miserable. “Every day I force myself to get up and take care of my baby and the girls. I don’t have an interest in anything, I don’t have any motivation, and I feel worthless, like garbage. I feel like my family would be better off without me.”

I actually broke down and cried, maybe because being believed was a huge load off of my mind, maybe because her eyes were so kind.

“Do you feel like you might harm yourself?” she asked.

My brow furrowed in frustration—why does everyone assume people with depression must be suicidal? “No, of course not.”

“If you do feel that way, you need to let me know right away, ok? Promise? Depression is nothing to fool around with.”

“I promise. But that’s not why I’m here.”

Dr. Dobbs said she thought there was more going on than the baby blues; she thought I might be having panic attacks and that it sounded like I might have something more serious, like major depression, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) (“it’s like being allergic to your own hormones,” she explained), seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or maybe something else, maybe all of them together. She said I needed a specialist and a real diagnosis, so at last I agreed that she could call a psychiatrist and make an appointment for me, but I asked her to postpone that phone call until “I have a chance to check my calendar.” 

She squeezed my hand and told me to call her office and leave her a message so she’d know when I was ready. She wrote me a script for Zoloft, to get me through in the interim.

I was suspicious of the Zoloft, but I promised to take it anyway.

For the next few weeks I balanced on the edge of cancelling the appointment.

I didn’t want to see the psychiatrist, I didn’t trust them. The self-reliant rural culture in which I was raised viewed the entire profession as suspect, and suitable only for people too weak to handle their own problems.

The only person in my family who’d visited a psychiatrist was my mother. She went to him for years, and in my opinion, he never helped her do anything but vent her frustration and enable her to stay exactly the same. I’d hoped, at first, that this shrink of hers would at least convince her to have some self-respect and maybe even help her heal enough to stand up to my father, but it was not to be.

What good could come from a visit to a psychiatrist?

The Zoloft did seem to help. I didn’t feel great, but I did feel better. I could get up and make breakfast and lunches for the children before school without feeling like I was dragging a ball and chain. The downside was the medication’s unpleasant side effects. I now lived with severe dry-eye, headaches and nausea, none of which I had before. The doctor was sure the side effects would soon fade. I wasn’t so sure; every pharmaceutical miracle has its price.

​

 

Chapter 5: Monsters In the Dark

​

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.

​

Chapter 6: Don’t Ask the Question if You Can’t Handle the Answer

​

The next morning, I peeled a few potatoes to make hash browns for my children’s breakfast. Inside the largest potato lurked a curving black scar of rot. I tried to cut out the blemish, but it went so deep I gave up and threw the potato away.

It felt like an omen, like an archetype of my life. Yesterday, I had no inkling a skeleton as dark as sexual abuse lurked in my own personal closet. Now, it was all I could focus on.

My mind worried at the idea like a child picking at a scab. Part of me didn’t want to touch it, it was too painful. Part of me wanted to bury the flashback the way I’d buried the scary pajamas, and never tell anyone. The abuse of a child is so unthinkable, such a horrific crime, that even the words “sexual abuse” seemed to leave 3rd-degree burns on my psyche.  I didn’t want it to be true. 

While it was a horrible thought, it did make a lot of my personal quirks make sense. I’d only met one mom who was equally paranoid about her children’s safety, and she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted as a child. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it would explain a great many things about my behavior.  It was almost like being the heroine of a gothic novel. A huge, complex mystery lurked all around me, with clues everywhere, but until I realized something was rotten in the State of Wyoming, I hadn’t been able, or hadn’t allowed myself, to see them.

 Something terrible happened to me when I was little, and if I understood the Spirit correctly, last night’s memory was only the tip of the iceberg. But I faded in and out of denial, because I didn’t want the vision or whatever it was to be real.

Like an automaton, I went through the morning routine with my children. I fed them, made them lunch, and walked the two oldest to school, all on autopilot. My mind was stuck in a feedback loop. What would this newly-discovered information do to my family? How could I tell them? Dared I tell them? Did anyone else in my immediate family already know, and could they fill in the details I was missing? I hadn’t spoken to my father for two years, still furious about his treatment of my mother during their divorce, and I was reluctant to break the silence in order to ask if he were a child molester.  Not exactly the best conversation starter, was it? Even if I were audacious enough to ask, he possessed what my family of origin called the “Exaggeration Gene” and I’d never get the truth out of him. “You know Dad,” my brother Cody once said. “If he’s got a nickel in his pocket, he’ll tell you it’s a dime.” 

But my mother called nearly every day to vent about whatever was happening in her world. If anyone knew what happened to me, it would be her, right? Protecting my children was a responsibility I took seriously, probably too seriously, and if anything happened to them, I was sure I’d know about it. So my mother was the logical person to ask. She was the kind of person who kept painful secrets to herself, in an effort to both protect people from hurtful information and to protect herself from painful confrontations. She was also a ninja at avoiding direct language regarding things unpleasant or indelicate, and she sometimes lied by omission in order to prevent arguments, but I’d never known her not to answer a direct question.

I screwed my courage to the sticking place and picked up the phone. “Hello, Mom? I need to ask you something.”

“What’s that, honey?”

I took a deep breath. “Was I ever sexually abused?”

Silence on the line, then a small, trembling voice—“You might have been.”

Her answer rocked me back on my heels. You might have been? Not yes, no, or I don’t know, but a sideways dodge that took no responsibility and yet didn’t outright lie.

Her words hit me hard. I had been, and she had known. “I’ve gotta go, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

All this time, she knew. And she’d said -- nothing.

XXXX

Although the Monster in the Dark memory indicated by the question, “Why, Daddy?” that the identity of my rapist was my father, a psychedelic swirl of color overlaying a shadowy face was my only visual clue. How could I prove the strange, bizarre creature in the vision was my father? In something like this, wasn’t it vital to be certain? I ticked off the possibilities as I examined the evidence.

The pain in the flashback was explicit. It had to be a man, that much was clear. The odds of the person being a family member were high, as my parents didn’t have many friends, and only family members ever bunked out on the couch or living-room floor.

My father was the most volatile member of the family, the least honest, and given to abrupt, irrational bouts of anger. One memorable evening, he’d slammed me into a wall and held me there, suspended by the throat, as he screamed in my face because I’d refused to choose between corn and green beans for dinner. Usually, he restricted himself to verbal abuse, but he wasn’t averse to violence. He was selfish, too, and treated himself to steak lunches and trips to Alaska while my mother struggled to stretch a pound of hamburger far enough with noodles and tomato sauce to fill six hungry stomachs. He had ostrich-skin boots; we had threadbare jeans patched so many times the patches had layers. He had new airplanes; we had rusty, second-hand bikes.

 He also had a long history of sexual transgressions, including adultery, and had been excommunicated from our church twice as a result. He was the most logical choice.

Still, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, because although my father could be a fearsome Mr. Hyde, he had his Dr. Jekyll side, too. He took my brother and I fishing, he took our family camping, and he took us for rides on his motorcycle and in a succession of airplanes he owned or borrowed. Some of my favorite memories involved trailing after my father through the mountains and foothills of Montana. If it weren’t for him and my Grandpa Jack, would I have been able to indulge my deep love of and appreciation for the natural world?

He was lavish in his praise, as well. He praised my fishing skills (which mostly involved the ability to sit still and wait until the trout forgot about me). He’d bragged on me to his friends, to my mom, and to anyone else who’d listen when I earned all A’s on a report card or won a prize in the science fair. He’d taught me the value of hard work, (although the tasks he asked of me were often too much for a child; I began mowing the lawn when I was so little the handlebar was over my head and I had to use the second rung to push the mower). He’d helped me with my homework and with school projects. When I failed to get the leading role in a musical, and expressed my disappointment, he laughed and shook his head and said to Mom, “Only Heather would try out for a major production with only a few hours’ notice, and do such a great job she still got a part.”

I didn’t want him to be guilty of child abuse.

It makes no sense to pop a happy bubble of denial by asking a question when you can’t handle the answer. I didn’t want to ask anyone this question.

I held out until November, when Grandma and Grandpa invited my family to visit their ranch for Thanksgiving. My mind raced, because I knew I’d have to protect my daughters from Dad if he were the abuser. He might show up for Thanksgiving at the ranch despite the fallout over his relationship with his first cousin. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had to know the truth.

My stomach twisted in pain, but I forced myself to kneel in prayer and ask the question I didn’t want to ask. Had my father been the man who abused me? In response, a black-and-white montage of scenes rushed through my head. Each was shot from my perspective, and each featured a younger version of my father; by the time the images stopped flashing through my mind, little doubt remained. My father was a child molester.

As I knelt there, a little girl’s voice in my head said, with hope in her voice, “Then I’m NOT bad, HE’S bad. Jane was right. He’s a bad, BAD MAN!” Apparently for me as a young child, “bad” was the worst pejorative there is, the most stinging, vicious word that could be used to describe someone evil, because when she used the word “bad” it held all the force of a deadly curse.  Being the “Bad Guy” is irredeemable; children live in a black-hat-white-hat world.

Shaken, I got off of my knees and thought about the old saying, “Ignorance is bliss.” Denial is an unusual place. You can’t live in it without losing your grip on reality, but it’s a great place to visit when you’re overwhelmed and have questions you’d rather not ask. I was going to miss it.

Confused, I wracked my memory for the answer to the question I did want to ask—Who was Jane?! 

​

Chapter 7: Could It Be Hate at First Sight?

​

The countdown to my visit with the psychiatrist ticked to zero. To say I didn’t want to go meet the man would be an understatement. When I was a child, my mother brought me to one of her sessions, and left the room so I could talk to her psychiatrist, or, rather, so he could talk to me. It was hate at first sight. His eyes were calculating and his gaze sharp, and his body language didn’t match his words, so I didn’t trust him. He kept trying to win my confidence and trick me into revealing my secrets and feelings, kept trying to pry his way into my mind and my business, and I was furious. I refused to go back.

I walked into this new psychiatrist’s office with my heart fluttering like a hummingbird, my nails bitten to the quick. Before I could even get in to see the doctor, his nurse put me through what felt like an interrogation, asking nosy, personal questions that I didn’t want to answer but felt obliged to answer anyway. (I hadn’t yet learned a person can refuse to answer questions posed by authority figures). 

She worked her way through all sorts of private and upsetting subjects, and finally asked a whopper—were you ever sexually abused? Yes. By whom? My father. When? Where? How old? How often? I lost my temper—I’d only begun to figure this out and could barely say the words out loud and didn’t even have all the information yet and she wanted me to rattle off my history like a character in a weekend special. My fierce one-word answers and glares set off her temper as well, which didn’t help the situation, and by the time I was allowed to see the doctor, I was in a foul mood.

People lie, but their bodies don't. With booted feet propped on his desk and both hands behind his head, my new psychiatrist’s pose advertised casual relaxation, but his entire body screamed tension. The man hadn't opened his mouth yet, and already he was lying to me. I hated him on sight.

Poised on the edge of an overstuffed couch like a nervous gazelle at a watering hole, I waited for the ambush. I knew the drill. First he'd chat with me and ask a few disarming questions, and then he'd hit me with a zinger, crafted to trick clients into blurting out private truths.

The new doctor didn’t disappoint. How are you, how about this weather we’re having, hear you're having trouble with depression and possibly PTSD, what are your symptoms, and then--zing--let’s talk about how your father sexually abused you.

 “Let’s not and say we did.” I didn't so much smile as bare my teeth.  Point, set, match.

The psychiatrist sighed and sat up in his chair, easy-going ruse abandoned. He rubbed the back of his neck with a chubby hand. "Child abuse is endemic in Wyoming. When people come in my office, I don't ask them if they were sexually abused as children. I ask them who did it."

I could have done without that little factoid. Knowing I was one of a huge group of injured former children only made me feel sorry for them as well as for myself.

To fill the silence, the doctor told me all about Seasonal Affective Disorder, Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, Major Depression, and PTSD, all of which he assured me I had. “But good news!” he said. “You’re not Bipolar!”

Possibly this man was broken. “Um, good?” I said, wondering how long this info dump was going to take, and wanting to cut to the chase. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

“Anti-depressant drugs will help; at least, they will help you with everything except the PTSD. PTSD is an anxiety disorder created by traumatic experiences. It isn’t a chemical imbalance like the others; it’s a wound that results from an injury.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” I dug at the ragged stumps of my fingernails with my other fingernail stumps and wished myself anywhere else.

“When a person's life is endangered by a natural disaster, a combat situation, or a violent crime, the emotions and memories involved can get "stuck" in the brain's processing center,” the shrink explained.   “This causes the person to relive events over and over again, through recurring nightmares, general feelings of anxiety, phobias, flashbacks, and panic attacks.” He looked at me expectantly, like I was supposed to contribute now, so I did.

“Then do I need anti-anxiety drugs, or what? Because I’m still nursing my baby, and I’m not sure that’s safe for him.”

“You might think about weaning that baby.” He glanced at my stubborn expression, read my refusal there, and looked away. “Anti-anxiety drugs can help PTSD, but the traditional treatment includes both prescription drugs and years of intensive therapy.”

I glared at him. “I don’t have time for that. I have three kids, I have a husband, and I have a home business. I can’t fit therapy into my schedule.”

The psychiatrist laughed. “PTSD is like having a baby. You can be smart and help the process along, or you can be stubborn and slow it down, but you can’t stop it.” Catching my wince, he added, “There is a new drug-free treatment available.”

“I’m all ears.”

“It’s called EMDR.  It could shrink your recovery time from years to months. It helps the brain to heal itself by enhancing connections between the right and left brain,” he said.

Uh-huh. Sounded like black magic to me. Still, my college neurobiology classes had taught me that our current understanding of the biology of the brain was so limited that the only answer for many questions was ‘black magic.’ What does Ringer’s solution do that keeps neural cells alive? It’s black magic. What motivates the mitochondria in our cells to produce the energy that keeps us alive? That’s black magic.  Maybe EMDR was black magic, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work.

The psychiatrist rummaged through a cluttered desk drawer, pulled out a yellow sticky note and a pen, and started scribbling. "I think it would be easier for you to talk to a female therapist. These therapists specialize in PTSD, and they're very good, especially the first two."

He handed me the note, and said, “I can diagnose you with PTSD. I can prescribe anti-anxiety medication if you want. But until you work through the trauma and talk to someone about it, you aren't going to feel any better."

His list of PTSD specialists clutched in my hand, I stood to leave.

"Hey," he said, "You might need to call a few of them before you find someone you can work with. Don't give up, and don't let anyone intimidate you, ok? The truth is, the only difference between us and the crazies is who has the keys."

Ok, maybe I don't hate him after all.