Controlled Chaos Sessions 10, 11, 12

Session 10

 

It was hard to go two weeks without my therapy session.  I get anxious at the end of one week.  Two weeks was really hard.  I’m mad at her for not being there last week, but my anxiety is so high that I don’t care what she did as long as she is here today.  I pull into the parking lot. 

I walk down the long hall and stand in front of the door.  I’m afraid to turn the doorknob.  What if it’s locked again?  I can’t handle that twice.  I’m trying to pretend that I didn’t feel rejected last week, but it’s not working.  If I pretend I didn’t feel rejected, I have to pretend that I don’t care.  I do care.  I just don’t want to admit it.

I stand in front of the door.  I look down the hall to see if anyone is watching.  I can’t do this with someone watching.   No one is in the hall.  I take a deep breath and turn the knob.  It opens.  I exhale, letting out two weeks’ worth of anxiety.  I walk in and stand still for a minute.  Her office door is open, but I don’t want to go in.  I don’t know what to say.  I can’t confront people. 

“Come in.”

I walk to the office.  I try to look fine.  I sit in my spot on the couch.  She looks at me and smiles.  The warmth of her smile melts my resolve.  I tell myself that everyone makes mistakes.  And Jen, although a professional, is a little scattered and unorganized like me.  I understand.  I just don’t want it to happen again.

“How did you do for two weeks?”

“Fine.”

It was not fine!  I need to tell her the truth, or I’ll never get better.

“Actually, it was kind of hard.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but I’m glad you got a chance to see that you can make it two weeks if you need to.”

“Yeah.”

I want to ask her how long she’ll let me come here.  Missing a week scared me and made me aware that I can’t keep coming forever. 

“Is there a certain number of sessions that I get before I’m supposed to be done?”

Jen changes modes.  She sits up and looks me in the eye.

“There are a lot of therapists who believe that you should only be with a client for six-to-eight weeks.”

I squirm in my chair because it’s been more than eight weeks and I don’t even feel like I’ve gotten started yet.

“Another group of therapists think there’s a need to go back to a person’s childhood to find the root causes of their beliefs and behaviors. That can last as many weeks or months as it takes.  I work closer to that belief, but I also think each client is different.  I really try to take each person as they come and let the Holy Spirit guide us.”

I knew she was a Christian counselor, but I didn’t know how much she relied on God in our sessions.  Some of our sessions make more sense now, the way we shift gears suddenly from one thing to another and hit on something important.  She seems to be able to find the things we need to talk about without a very systematic approach.  Knowing she is letting God guide her makes me feel slightly more secure.  My desire for security reminds me to ask her about DBT, a therapy I’d heard about during the week. 

“Have you heard of DBT?”

“Yes, why?”

“I saw that psychiatrist you wanted me to see about my medications.  We had a very nice talk, and she mentioned that DBT might be good for me.  Then, I was with Andy’s therapist for a parent meeting, and she said the same thing.  I can’t remember what the letters stand for.  Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Dialectical Behavior Therapy.  It was designed for people with Borderline Personality Disorder, but it teaches skills that anyone can benefit from.”

She pauses.  I get the feeling she doesn’t think I need it.  I begin to wonder if I have Borderline Personality Disorder.  I’ll look it up when I get home.

“It just seemed weird that I’d never heard of it before and then two different therapists tell me in one week that I should look into it. Andy’s therapist even gave me some places where they have DBT programs.”

“Well, my church started a DBT group.  They are in the experimental phase so they are just taking people from our church, but I will talk to Terri.  She is the person heading it up.  Maybe we can get you into a group there.”

“Ok.”

I feel relieved.  I feel like I’m supposed to go, like God is steering me that way, but I don’t know how to say that.  I’m glad she’s going along with me on this.

“The DBT program requires a long commitment; six-to-twelve months.” 

Every nerve in my body melts.  Six-to-twelve months is security.  It means I won’t have to worry each week whether this might be my last.  The more I open up, the greater my fear grows that it won’t last long, like it’s too good to be true.

“I was recently trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy.  Since it was developed for people with Borderline Personality the group contains people with a lot of issues and behavior problems. I just don’t want you to be shocked when you get there.”

Shocked.  I don’t think anything could shock me like my first day in treatment. 

It’s Friday afternoon.  JB is driving.  We are heading out of the security of our suburban Woodbury home to the city where I’m supposed to go for chemical dependency treatment.  The drive is long and quiet.  I have a bag with a few days’ worth of clothes, my journal and some toiletries.  We enter through a back door off the parking ramp.  The hallway is empty.  We ride an elevator to the third floor.  Two large wooden doors guard the entrance to the Mental Illness/Chemical Dependency wing.  JB opens the door.  I take a deep breath.   The noise level jumps immediately.  People are coming and going. There’s an older man in a ripped shirt with scraggly hair sitting in a chair in front of us getting his blood pressure checked.  Another woman is standing at the counter asking for her meds.  The look in her eyes is desperate, but the nurse doesn’t look up from her work as she tells the woman it’s not time yet.  Another nurse walks by me in a hurry.  A big lady at the counter asks for my name.  She looks at a board on the wall next to her.  She asks who is with me.  I tell her that he is my husband.  She says that he can leave now.  I panic.  I thought he could help me to the room, maybe stay for a little while.  A man walks up to JB to escort him out the door.  I grab his arm in desperation. I turn to the nurse and ask her if she knows how long I’ll be here.  A nurse behind me laughs and says I could be here for 30 days.  My mind races and the room feels like it’s spinning.  The man is showing JB out the door.  Tears stream down my face.  I want to run into his arms and go home.  He kisses me goodbye.  He’s crying too.   

The big lady at the desk asks for my bag.  I look at her.  Her request doesn’t register right away.  I’m still panicked that I’m alone now in this scary place.  I put the overnight bag on the counter.  I’m still thinking about running out the door.  There has to be another way.  My head is still spinning.  The nurse opens my bag and starts looking through it.  I feel violated, and I’m beginning to realize I’m not capable of walking away from here.  I don’t have the mental capacity to reason or make a decision.  My desire for alcohol has taken over, and I’m not just a prisoner at this hospital; I’m a prisoner in my own body.  She pulls out my travel-size mouthwash and throws it in the garbage.  Then she pulls out my depression medication and puts it on the counter.  She puts everything else back into the bag and hands it to me.  I can’t believe I brought the mouthwash.  Now they think I was trying to bring alcohol into treatment.  I think about telling her that I had no intention of drinking it, but I realize they won’t believe me.  I’m scared I won’t get my medication.  I need it.  What if I spiral down into that huge dark pit again?  I’m not sure I can make it out again.

Another nurse has me sit down in the chair where the old man was.  She puts the blood pressure cuff on me.  The nurse looks at the cuff a little funny and says my pressure is normal.  She writes it down and asks me my height and weight.  I’m thinner than I should be.  My cheeks are sunken and I have more lines on my face than a 34 year-old should have.  She puts a thermometer in my mouth.  A woman walks in the big wooden door.  She stares at me like I stared at the last guy in the chair.  The nurse takes out the thermometer, writes something down and tells me I’m in room 10.  I look down the hallway.  I look back at her.  I don’t know what to do.  She points and says it’s straight down the hall.  I start walking.  There are people in the hallway.  I look at the floor.  Every step takes me further from my comfort zone and into the unknown.  Three young men lean against a wall talking.  They have on baggy jeans, headbands and muscle t-shirts.  An older woman with oxygen tubes in her nose sits in a wheel chair.  She’s being pushed down the hall by a thin woman with scraggly dark hair.  Another girl is talking on one of the pay phones.  She’s in sweatpants, and her hands shake as she yells into the phone and then starts crying. I hate this place.

I look at Jen.  Borderline Personality Disorders don’t sound very scary after being in a treatment facility that specializes in mental illness. 

“Since I had depression while in treatment, I was put in the mental illness outpatient group with schizophrenic and bipolar alcoholics.  I think I’ll be ok.”

“I’ll talk to Terri.  She will probably need to meet with you beforehand to see if you meet the requirements. ”

I hope this works out.  Even though my stomach turns over when I think about opening up to people, I sense that the constant loneliness and depression I feel could go away if I could keep trying to share myself with people.  I just need to keep working at getting off the island I live on. 

“Okay.”

I wonder what kind of requirements I have to meet.  Maybe I have to be mentally ill enough to be there.  I don’t think I am.  But maybe I’m sicker than I think I am.  Sometimes I feel like I’m healthier than the people in my twelve step group, and other times I feel like I have more issues than all the other members put together.  Jen moves onto a new topic.

 “Let’s talk about hobbies.  What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?”

I hate this question.  I’ve heard it a half dozen times, mostly in my Bible studies as a conversation starter.  Everyone has lovely answers like shopping, going to the spa, getting their nails done, reading a book.  I can never think of anything so I just repeat what someone else says.  I decide to be honest with Jen.

“I don’t know.  I never have spare time.”

“Something adult children of alcoholics do is to try to make every moment of everyday a productive one.  They don’t know how to relax, and they don’t know that it’s okay and healthy to have some down time.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about or how to relate this to my life.  There are too many things that need to get done in a day.  If I want to catch up with all of those, I can’t just sit around and read a book.  I allow myself to read self-help books, because it improves my production.  The only novels I read are required reading for classes. 

“Is there anything you and JB like to do together?”

“We go to movies sometimes.  Once we went golfing, but that didn’t go so well.”

“What do you mean?”

I try to come up with words to describe how JB and I interact.  We’re like fire and water.  I’m the fire that burns slowly, exploding unexpectedly at times.  JB is the calm water attracted to the danger of the flames, and prone to put them out.   

We are standing on the range at the golf course.  I place my hands on the grip like JB showed me.  It feels funny with my fingers intertwined.   I pull the club back over my shoulder.  It feels like a baseball swing, so I know I’m doing something wrong.  JB tells me to keep my elbow straighter.  I straighten it out and feel more awkward than ever.  It’s making me feel anxious.  I swing and the ball dribbles off the tee and rolls five feet in front of me.  I grab another ball out of the wire basket and place it carefully on the tee.  JB says I need to keep my eye on the ball.  I line up my feet.  JB says my feet should be further back from the ball.  I think JB should stop talking now.  I pull the club back again and check my elbow.  I focus on the ball, hold my breath and swing.  I hit the top of the ball and it rolls out just another foot farther than my first one.  JB says I shouldn’t hold my breath.  I want to hit JB with my club.  I grab another ball, line up my feet, and bring my club back.  This time I completely miss the ball.  I want to scream and throw my club across the range.  JB doesn’t say anything.  He knows I’m close to my breaking point.  There’s nothing he can say to help me because I am all emotion now, and I can’t hear anything.  I only feel hot, red anger boiling inside me. 

JB turns to his own bucket of balls.  His first shot goes at least 200 yards.  He reaches for another ball.  He’s ignoring me now.  I put another ball on the tee.  I take a few deep breaths and try to let go of the tension.  I try to tell myself that this is supposed to be fun, but it doesn’t work.  It never works.  I go through half of my bucket of balls with little improvement.  I watch JB swing again.  He has so much power behind his swing.  The harder I swing the more I miss the ball.  I ask him for some more help.  He turns slowly.  I try to sound calm and defeated so he’ll help me.  As much as I don’t like asking for help, I can’t give up, because something inside me says I will keep swinging until I hit a decent ball.  He might not believe that my anger is under control, but he is willing to help me again.   He gives me a few more tips about how I’m holding the club and how to shift my weight.  I’m starting to feel the difference between my baseball swing and a golf swing.  I finally connect with the ball and it feels right and the ball sails to the second flag.  JB says I hit it 75 yards.  I should feel happy, and I do feel better, but I’m disappointed it took me so long.  I put on a fake smile.  I don’t know why I fake one because he knows the difference. 

“I’m pretty competitive, and I get angry when I can’t do something well.  It took me awhile to hit the ball, so it wasn’t very fun for either of us because I was angry most of the time.”

Maybe I’m not as laid back as I think I am.  My whole life I’ve claimed to be a laid back, go-with-the-flow kind of person.  Nancy has contended that I’m more controlling than I think.  I didn’t believe her until now.  Maybe I’ve just been telling myself I’m laid back because I feel so out of control, and I can’t handle it.  I think JB has been trying to say this for years, but he gave up.  Nancy never gives up but she doesn’t have to live with me.  I wonder how long water can exist with fire.  

“Let’s make a list.  You have homework for this week.  I want you to come up with ten things that you can do for fun; things you enjoy.”

“Ok, I’ll try.”

I pack up my things and head out of the office.  This could easily take the whole week.  I get into my car and sit.  I like to just sit and think over our sessions before I drive home while the information is still fresh on my mind.  Even more so I don’t like to leave Jen’s office.  She makes me feel good.  I get out a piece of paper and write the numbers one through ten on the side of the sheet.  I stare blankly out the window.   I see the Harley Davidson billboard.  Yes!  I’ve thought of something I like to do just for fun.  There’s no rhyme or reason for riding a motorcycle except they save on gas.  I’ve always pictured a romantic escape from my life, riding my bike into the sunset.  But even if I had nowhere to go and no reason to go, I love riding.  I write it down on my list.  Only nine more to go. 

 

  

                                                                     Session 11

I made my list of ten fun things to do with my spare time.  About five of them are lame and I added them just to fill up the page.  I really like the first two, but I feel guilty at the same time.  It doesn’t seem right to waste my time doing something unproductive.  It’s hard to imagine doing something for myself that’s completely unproductive. 

I pull into the parking lot, grab my list and head into Jen’s office.  Her office door is open so I stand in the doorway.  She’s sitting at her desk writing something.  She has her glasses on and she looks unusually organized.  Her smile warms me all over like it does every week.  I go sit on the couch and write out my check.

“How was your week?”

Her voice is filled with life.  It picks me up out of the seat cushions, like a hot air balloon.

I start with the appointment I had with Terri about the Dialectical Behavior Therapy group.

“I saw Terri this week about the DBT group.”

“Really, that was quick.”

“Yeah, I called and was able to meet with her on Wednesday.  I filled out the forms, and she said I could jump in because they just started the second session.”

I’m in Terri’s office.  Her desk sits next to two other desks in a small, somewhat defined space.  Her desk is filled with papers.  A picture of her family is tucked next to her desk lamp.  A few comic strips are tacked to the grey wall dividers along with some inspirational posters.  I sit on a chair next to her desk.  I’m in the walkway of the other two desks.  Even though no one else is at their desk and we seem to be in this office space alone, I have little sense of privacy.  It doesn’t matter though because I’m desperate to get into her group.  She starts asking me some simple questions about me and my family.  Then she gets to some of the harder questions.

“Have you ever felt suicidal?” 

I think about my worst days of depression and carefully choose words to describe the depth of my feelings without giving her the idea that I might still feel that way. 

“Yes.”

“Have you tried to commit suicide?”

“No. I only thought about it.”

“Did you ever have a plan?”

“I never had a real plan.  I only had ideas about how I’d like to do it.  I didn’t go through with anything.”

“Are there any other factors that are leading you to participate in this group?”

“I’m a recovering alcoholic.” 

“Did you get help for your alcoholism, and how long have you been in recovery?”

“I went to treatment in January, so it’s been about three months.”

She asks me some more questions, but they seem more methodical than informational, and I think she is satisfied that I have enough issues to be part of the group.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but I’m happy I passed.

I reach into my bag and hand Jen a contract I signed in order to be in the DBT group.  The contract is about making a commitment to the group.  I suppose most of us with mental illness or addictions are not the most reliable or dependable people.  But this contract means something more to me.  The contract says that I am committed to attending group every week for one year, and I am not allowed to be in the group without doing one-on-one therapy in conjunction with the group.  This means I have to see Jen for a whole year.  If Jen signs this I don’t have to worry every week about whether or not this will be the last session.  It’s impossibly hard to fight myself every week to share something when I’m constantly afraid of being rejected.  Maybe if she signs this it will be easier to tell her what’s in my head and how I really feel. 

“This is the contract we have to sign.”

Jen takes the contract.  My hand is shaking.  I tell myself I drank too much coffee this morning, but I know it’s really fear and anxiety.  If she doesn’t agree to this I don’t know what I’ll do.  I feel my heart preparing to shut down just in case she doesn’t think this is a good idea.  I’m trying not to let myself be hopeful, but it’s too late.  I let Jen get her foot in the door of my emotions weeks ago, and now I can’t close it.  She puts on her glasses and skims through the contract.  I don’t think she has any idea how much this means to me.  If she doesn’t sign this I might as well quit coming, because it’ll just be a waste of money.  

Jen takes off her glasses and puts the piece of paper on her lap.

“You know this is a big commitment, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to fill out diary cards and be there every week as well as coming here.”

“I know.”

She looks down at the contract again.  I can tell by her tone of voice she thinks this is overkill, which makes me think I’ve masked my feelings again, as usual, and have appeared to be much healthier than I really am.  I realize that I’m holding my breath, and I try to let it out slowly so she doesn’t hear it.  She reaches for her pen and signs her name at the bottom next to mine, then hands it back to me. 

“Here you go.”

I try to hide my relief, but I’m sure it’s obvious as I take a deep breath and let my shoulders relax into the cushions of the couch.  As my fear of rejection subsides, the fear of actually digging up my emotions starts to swell.  I tuck the contract carefully into my bag.  Jen stands up and grabs one of the dry erase markers.

“Today we’re going to do a storyboard.”

Jen draws a line across the white board.

“We’re going to draw out your life in a storyboard format, highlighting your most memorable experiences.  I want you to think about your earliest memories.  Not just the good or bad ones, but anything that really sticks out.”

Memories flash through my mind.  Some of them are surprisingly pleasant.  Some are not. 

“What’s the earliest memory you can think of?”

I race back through pictures of myself at all different ages and I see the earliest one I can think of.

“I think the earliest thing I remember is my fourth birthday.  It was the night before my party, and my mom had made a train cake.  I was sitting by the heater vent trying to tie my shoe.”

I pause for a moment as I travel back to being four.  In our old farm house the heater vents are big and square and when the heat comes on I curl up in front of them like a kitten and let the heat blow up my nightgown.

“I was determined to learn to tie my shoe.  I remember finally getting it and being really proud of myself.  I also remember being excited for my birthday the next day.”

Jen writes on the board, “4^th birthday; tied shoes.”

“Good, can you think of some more things that stand out?”

I think of the lake I grew up on, one of my favorite places to go and get away from the world. 

I’m walking down the long dirt road on the way home from school.  Instead of heading up the driveway to my house, I keep walking.  I go down the carpeted trail to the lake.  I shuffle down the steep slope to the dock.  Underneath some leaves between the birch trees I find the fishing poles.  In a small clearing a shovel sticks up out of the dirt.  I dig up some worms and put them in the ice cream bucket that is hanging from a nail on a tree.  I sit on the end of the dock and put the worm on my hook.  I throw the line out and watch the bobber hit the water.  It bounces around until it sits still on the surface.  I can see little sunfish gathering around the hook taking turns nibbling at my worm. 

Lots of pictures begin to float through my head of when I was younger; my friend and I sneaking into the neighbor’s detached garage and sitting behind the oversized steering wheel of her Model T car, rowing our boat across the lake to an abandoned house where we run up the staircase that is attached to the only remaining wall, walking along the old wooden timbers of the trolley car tracks pretending to be gangsters from the 1920s searching for our hidden loot.

In between all these fun memories, one bad one keeps intruding into my thoughts, and I can’t get it out of my mind. 

I’m six years old, staring out the window of my school bus.  I feel a tug on my hat.  It’s winter, and I’m wearing my favorite hat.  It’s blue and white with penguins on it and a black and white pom-pom on top.  Some older boys are sitting behind me.  I feel another tug on my hat.  The boys start laughing.  I don’t want to turn around.  I’m scared.  No one else is sitting by us.  I feel my hat pull again.  I look out the window.  We’re close to my stop.  The boys keep pulling my hat.  They are laughing really hard now.  I stare out the window trying to think of something else so I don’t cry.  Something falls onto the seat next to me.  It’s a few black and white pieces of yarn.  I realize they are pulling out the strings to my pom-pom.  I can’t keep the tears from coming.  They stream down my face.  I wipe a few of them away with my mitten trying not to look obvious.  My stop is coming, and I don’t dare move until we’re there.  The bus stops.  I get up without turning around.  I pick up my backpack and get in line with the neighbors.  I try to wipe away the rest of my tears so no one sees them.

The older kids at my stop live in the opposite direction, and I quickly walk away.  I walk until I think I’m far enough down the road that no one is watching.  I take off my hat.  There’s nothing left of the pom-pom.  They pulled out all the yarn.  I can’t hold back the tears anymore, and I start crying.  My hat looks weird without the pom-pom.  It would have been easier if they had just hit me.  I think about home.  My mom is probably busy.  She won’t notice me, but I can’t be crying when I get home.  I try to stop, but it’s hard.  I feel like a baby.  I can’t be a baby.  I feel pathetic.  I can’t let people hurt me.  I have to be strong. I promise myself I’ll never cry again.  I dry my tears, crease my eyebrows, and set my jaw tight.  I shove my hat deep inside my backpack so I don’t have to explain the missing pom-pom to my mom in case she sees it.

“There was this time when I was six and I was coming home from school.  Some bigger boys on the bus pulled out all the yarn to the pom-pom of my favorite hat.  On my way home I made up my mind that I would never cry again.”

Jen shifts in her chair and leans forward.

“You remember thinking that you would never cry again.”

“Yeah, I remember that day really well.”

“Why did you decide not to cry anymore?”

“I knew I had to be tough.  I didn’t have anyone to go to.”

“Did you tell your parents?”

“No.  I never told them anything.”

“Why not?”

My dad was never home and if he was he’d tell me to stick up for myself.  My mom might have been home, but she wasn’t really available to talk to.”

“So, she wasn’t emotionally available?”

“That’s a good way to put it.”

“So, you were on your own at six?”

“I guess so.”

“That is so sad.”

Jen’s eyes get red and her voice cracks.  Her sympathy reaches me, and I feel the crust around my heart melting.     

Jen writes down, “Never cry again – age 6.”

“How about some preteen or teen memories.”

I start to think about being a teenager.  I picture my school, my friends, my neighborhoods.  As I think of my neighborhood friends, my shoulders feel heavy.  My eyes move from the windows to the ceiling to the floor.  I have a hard time moving.  I feel frozen.  My mind isn’t racing anymore, it’s just blank.  There’s no more color in my memories, just black and white images that scroll slowly across the screen in my mind.  I have to concentrate to see the details of the scenes.  I want to get up and walk out.  I think about the Harley Dealership and getting that motorcycle.  I remind myself I have to get better.  I need to stay in this room mentally and focus.  I force myself to look at the scenes in my mind that are scrolling by.  Images from several memories pop in and out.  One memory stops scrolling.  It just sits in front of me.  I try to make it scroll away so I can see something else, but it doesn’t move.  I don’t know how to talk about this memory, so I back up a bit before starting.

“I started drinking pretty early.”

Jen nods her head slowly.  She sets down the marker and listens attentively, never taking her warm brown eyes off of me.

“One of my friends was a neighbor.  She had an older brother and two older sisters who had a lot of parties.  Usually we weren’t welcome, but one night they didn’t bother to kick us out.”

The memory is sketchy.  It was so long ago, and I was so drunk I don’t remember everything.  I try to put the pieces together.

“I liked this one boy.”

Jen’s voice is soothing and calm.

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

She waits for me to continue.

“I had a lot to drink.  It was one of the first times I drank other than the beer my dad gave me.   I remember sitting on the couch because I couldn’t stand up anymore.  I remember the feeling of being drunk was kind of scary, but felt really good.”

I pause.  I don’t want to talk about it anymore.  I’m trying to think of something else.  I need to change the subject.  I try to talk about anything else, but I can’t get the images out of my head.

“I don’t remember how, but I remember being in a bedroom with this guy.”

My body tingles.  I look at the floor.   I cross my arms and legs.  Somehow, just thinking about it makes me feel like it’s happening again, and I want to curl up in a ball and stop talking.  I look down into my lap. 

Jen is quiet.  The air in the room is heavy.

I can’t look up at Jen.  I can’t talk.  I’m trying, but I can’t say anything.  She’s waiting.  I hate the silence. 

“I made a really bad mistake.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I don’t remember if he did it or I did, but one of us took my clothes off.”

I’m looking down at my shirt.  The buttons are being undone.

“The next thing I remember was being in bed with him.”

I can’t sit still anymore.  I feel sick.  I’m cold.  Goose bumps cover my arms.  I move around on the couch some more.  My eyes dart around Jen’s office.  I’m looking at things but I don’t really see them.  She says nothing.  I want to move on, go to the next thing.  I’m done talking.  I look out the window at the parking lot.  It doesn’t matter where I look, I can’t stop the images flashing through my mind.

He is on top of me.  My head sinks into the pillow so far I feel like I’m drowning.  He pushes himself inside of me, and the pain wakes me from the dreamy state the alcohol has put me in.  Tears stream down the corners of my eyes. 

I can’t think anymore and I push the fast forward on my memory to speed past the event.

“I don’t know if I passed out or fell asleep, but I remember waking up in the morning.  I found my clothes, put them on, hurried out of the house and walked my bike home.” 

My senses have come alive, and I’m surprised by how much detail I remember. 

I hear the crunch of the rocks under my bike tires.  I’m praying no one is watching me.  I tried to get on my bike, but sitting on the seat was excruciating, so I’m walking it.  I want to run, but it hurts too bad to walk any faster.  I don’t know where to go.   I can’t go home like this.  I decide to walk my bike down the trail that goes through the woods. I have to go home sometime.  But will anyone notice I’m not the same person that left the house yesterday?  Probably not, but I need to wait until I can think.  I need to figure out what to do.  I would do anything to turn back time and wake up in my own bed. 

Hours later after finding the courage to walk home, I stand in front of the mirror in my bathroom.  It’s been less than 24 hours since I left my house, but it might as well be years, because the tarnished girl I see now is barely recognizable compared to the young, innocent girl I saw yesterday.

I finally look up.  My eyes travel from my lap to the floor to Jen’s shoes to the chair to Jen’s clipboard resting on her lap.  I can’t look any higher than that.

“So, at fourteen years old you were raped.”

Raped?  …Raped?!  Her choice of words seems violent and overstated.  It was stupid, shameful and humiliating, but not rape.  I made a bad mistake.  I drank too much.  I slept with a guy.  I was stupid and ruined my life.  But rape?  I don’t think so. 

“Do you know how old this boy was?”

Her words sound far away, like I’m no longer in the room; like I have fallen down inside myself somewhere, far enough that her voice is like a cavernous echo.  I try to stay with her.  I focus on her question.  

“He was a couple years older than me; about sixteen.”

“At fourteen, you were a minor and you were under the influence.  Even if you didn’t say a word, he took advantage of your condition.  That is rape.”

For 20 years I’ve called it my fault.  For most of that time I didn’t even think about it.  The first year I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  I had moments of relief where I laughed at a joke or got sucked into the story on TV, but it always came back.  I tried drinking it away, but it only seemed to make it worse.  Eventually, I painted it dark colors and hung it on my wall.  As time went by I hung up more works of shame and disgust until my wall was covered in it and I became comfortable looking at it every day.  It was a childhood room and once I got married I closed that door.  Showing Jen around my old room is one thing, but for her to rename the painting rape is a very different thing.  The events play through my mind as I try to see it through Jen’s eyes. 

I’m walking down the hallway to a bedroom.  Am I walking?  I don’t remember walking.  Maybe he carried me.  I don’t remember being carried.  The hallway is narrow.  The music is loud.  I’m getting scared.  The hallway has four doors; three bedroom doors and a bathroom door.  Two bedroom doors are shut.  One is open and people are sitting around talking and drinking.  We are walking toward their parent’s bedroom.  Did I walk in the door?  I can’t remember.  My shirt is being unbuttoned.  I’m really scared.  I’m standing next to the bed.  Then I’m in the bed.  What happened?  How did I get in the bed?  Did we kiss?  Did he take off my clothes?  Did I?  His skin is on my skin.  He pushes.  I can’t think about this anymore.  I’m done.  Done!  I don’t know what happened.  Jen stands up.

“I’ll be right back.”

She walks out of the room.  I look at the whiteboard.  The words are scribbled across the timeline and it’s blurry like my mind.  It seems far away.  I’m falling inside myself.  It’s a dark hole where I don’t feel anything.  Jen walks into the room and I try to crawl back out.  She’s holding a brown fur blanket.  She walks to me and lays it over my shoulders, like a shawl.  It’s heavy and warm.  The sensation drags me back to this room. It’s so comfortable.

“This is a shame cloak.”

The shawl suddenly feels heavier.  My emotions are being prodded out of their hiding places.  I try to keep them silent. 

“When women are sexually abused they tend to blame themselves.   This causes a blanket of shame that covers them and every aspect of their lives.  Some women may consciously be aware of the shame, but many don’t realize the blanket is even there.  They just carry the shame with them everywhere they go and it interferes with their work, their relationships, their self-esteem and their spirituality.  How does it feel to have this shame cloak on your shoulders?”

“It’s heavy.”

“What else?”

I’ve disconnected.  All the feelings I tried to pry out of my heart are now in a pile in the bottom of a closet, and I shut the door.  My thoughts are stripped of emotion as they drift in and out the window.  I’m struggling to mentally stay in the office and listen to Jen.  I didn’t do anything to stop this guy.  I liked him before it happened.  I thought he was cute.  I didn’t say anything.  How could he know I didn’t want him to do that?  I want to let myself drift out of Jen’s office window and leave her mentally, but I need to stay here.  I can’t run away anymore.  I grasp for a word that conveys some feeling.

“It feels dark.”

“Good.  What else?”

I wasn’t attacked.  I wasn’t in a dark alley.  He didn’t have a weapon.  We were just in a house and then in a bedroom.  He was drunk, too.  We didn’t talk.  We were just there.  I’m sure he saw me look at him earlier that night.  He knew I liked him.  The more I look for feelings, the harder the images are to get out of my head.

He’s pushing himself back and forth on me.  Tears stream down the side of my face.  I’m silent.  I don’t speak.  The pain is piercing.  My head is bumping the headboard. With each push it beats harder and humiliation washes over me.  He stops.  Relief.  The piercing pain subsides.  He puts his arms around my waist and pulls me down the bed.  He moves around and starts again.  The pain is worse, like someone has sprinkled salt on a wound.  It’s never ending.  It’s excruciating.  I can’t take it anymore.  My head hits the board again and again and again.   

I should have said something, anything.  I should have said no, or struggled, or just got up and left.  Why didn’t I try to leave?  Was I that drunk?  I can’t remember.

Jen is waiting for me to talk more.  I want a drink.  I want to wash away my thoughts.  I’m so tired of fighting the cravings.  I want to go home and crawl into bed…for a long time, maybe forever.  Jen is still waiting.  I try to put my thoughts into words.

“I feel depressed, worthless.”

Jen doesn’t say anything.  She waits.

“I want to crawl into a hole.  I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Jen waits.  There is silence, but I don’t care.  She isn’t waiting for me to just talk.  She looks like she’s listening, but not listening to my words.  She’s listening to my soul. 

“Do you know that this wasn’t your fault?”

“No.”

“Why do you think it’s your fault?”

“Because I was drunk.  I didn’t try to stop him.  I didn’t do anything.”

“Everyone has a different reaction to sexual assault.  Some women fight.  Other women freeze.  Your body reacts in ways that you can’t control.  It’s the ‘Fight or Flight’ reaction each of us has for our survival.  Do you see that he took advantage of you?”

“He was drunk too.  I don’t think he knew.”

“You don’t think he knew what?”

“That I didn’t want to do it.”

Jen moves around in her chair and leans over close to me with her eyebrows furrowed. She looks frustrated.    It’s the first time I’ve seen her like this.

“How old is your son, Andy?”

“He’s eleven.”

“Think of Andy with someone older who is taking advantage of him.”

I feel sick.  I try to shove the image out of my mind, but it won’t go anywhere.  I’m angry.  My teeth clench and I want to hit someone.

“Would you blame it on Andy?”

“No!”

“Now, try to see yourself as a young girl.  Try to see yourself at Andy’s age.”

“I was older than Andy.”

“You were a child, just like Andy is a child.  You probably felt like you were older because you had so much responsibility, but you were still a child.”

I picture my son.  I try to picture a girl about his size and pretend it’s me.  I look different than I’ve imagined.  I feel different.  I feel like it’s someone else, because I’ve never looked this vulnerable in my own imagination.  In my mind I see an innocent girl.  I picture her in the bedroom, naked and scared.  I feel sorry for her. 

“When you see this girl do you blame her for the assault?”

I pause.  I know I’m being tricked into feeling sorry for myself.  I can’t feel sorry for myself.  I knew I was on my own.  I should have known better.  I’m a fighter, a survivor.  I can’t convince myself that it was his fault.  I’ve never looked at it from an outsider’s view.  I look so young.  I’ve never pictured myself as a child.   In my imagination, I am an older, tougher kid, not this young, innocent child.

 “No.”

 “What do you think about her?”

“I feel sorry for her.”

“Let’s do that.  You couldn’t have done anything.  You may have had a lot of expectations at home, but you couldn’t control this.  It’s an unfair thing that happened to you.  It wasn’t your fault.”

Her words begin to seep into my mind and into the closet where I left my emotions.  I want to believe it wasn’t entirely my fault, but it seems too easy.  I can’t quite accept that none of it was my fault, but for the first time I think that maybe I’m not a terrible human being.  Maybe I’m not completely worthless. 

“You were a victim of a selfish, ruthless boy who took advantage of you.  You can take the blame for drinking.  But you can’t blame yourself for being raped.”

My chest tightens.  I close my eyes.  That word “rape” is so coarse.  I still can’t completely grasp the idea, but something feels different.  I don’t feel as lonely.  I feel like Jen has made her way in through the locked doors of my heart.  I feel a small sense of relief. 

“Remember that shame is when we think we are bad because of something that happened to us or something we did.  We need to separate ourselves from the events in our life.  We all make mistakes and we all have bad things happen to us that are out of our control.  We don’t define ourselves by these events.  We define ourselves by how we deal with them.”

I’m staring at the floor.  I’m letting her words sink in.  They are like cool water in the desert of my heart.  I never thought of separating my actions from who I am.  When I did something wrong, it confirmed that I was bad.  But, I’m not bad.  I’ve done some bad things, but I am not bad.   It makes sense.  The corner of my mouth turns up slightly into a smile as I can’t help feeling a bit of joy and relief that I might be okay, and I don’t have to define myself by my past.

Jen stands up and puts her hands on the fur blanket.  She lifts it from my shoulders.  I want to smile bigger, but I’m afraid to.  I’m afraid to think that I’m not bad, because I don’t want to find out I’m wrong.  I can’t disappoint myself.   Disappointment hurts so much that I try to force myself not to hope, but I can’t help it.  Jen puts the cloak down on her office chair.

“I think the Holy Spirit did something inside you today.  You are no longer bound by that old shame.  You are free.”

My self-defense system tries to refuse this wonderful feeling, but I can’t.  I feel lighter like God lifted me out of the deep well and set me back on the couch in Jen’s office.  I feel less foggy and more clear-headed.  I don’t feel a million miles away.  I can smell mint from the tea pot on the shelf.  I can hear the song from the birds outside the window, and the colors of the pictures on the wall are more vibrant.  A voice comes from inside me somewhere.  I recognize it.  It tries to tell me that I’m a terrible excuse for a human being; that I’m worthless and I’ll never amount to anything.  It tells me to get up and leave because I’m wasting my time and money.  I can do life on my own.  I don’t need therapy.  I just need to stay tough.  The voice is familiar, but it’s not as loud as usual.  It sounds far away and muffled.  I’m having a hard time hearing it over my new sense of freedom.

 

Session 12

I’m driving to Jen’s office.  My head hurts.  My stomach hurts.  My chest hurts.  If I wasn’t so young, I would think I was having a heart attack every time I drove to therapy.  I haven’t stopped thinking about our last session.  I feel unsteady.  Last week felt like a miracle as I left the office.  Then the word “rape” began to sink in, and the heaviness returned.  I turn on the radio.  KTIS, a Christian radio station, is on.  The guy is singing about trusting God and being protected by him.  I thought I trusted God.  Maybe I don’t.  He didn’t protect me. 

I pull into the parking lot and walk to Jen’s office.  I turn my neck and pull my shoulders back.  I know she’ll ask me how I feel.  I feel like someone turned my body inside out, and I have no protective skin.   I walk into the office.  

“Come in.”

I go to the couch.   I cross my legs and look around the office. 

“How was your week?”

I’m looking at the wall and notice I’m biting my nails.  I thought about rape all week long.  I looked up rape on websites and browsed the bookstore for books.  I couldn’t get my mind off it.  I have so many questions, but I don’t want to talk about it, so I lie again, like usual.

“It was fine.” 

 I scramble to think of something else to talk about. 

“I went to my first DBT group.”

“Great!  Tell me about it.” 

 I’m walking down the hall of a church.  It’s not a typical steeple and pews church.  It’s a big warehouse type of building.  I find a sign that points the way to the DBT room.  I walk slowly up to the door.  Someone walks by me into the room carrying two chairs. I peer inside.  People push two round tables together.  Another person carries a lamp with octopus looking arms.  Each arm has a different plastic colored lamp shade; blue, yellow, red, green, purple.  Someone plugs it in and turns off the bright fluorescent light.  The mood in the room changes immediately from stark and sterile to warm and inviting.  Candles are placed on the tables and people are talking to each other as they take a seat. 

A big, loud blond woman walks around the room hugging everyone.  I turn away.  She scares me.  I sit down in a chair close to Terri, the group leader.  Three teenage girls are sitting together.  They’re all beautiful, but they don’t look like they know it.  Two of them are talking and laughing.  The other one is quiet.  She is smiling faintly, but there is deep pain in her eyes; much more than seems possible for a girl her age.  Another woman is older than me, maybe in her early fifties.  She is talking to someone and her voice is deep and scratchy like she has smoked most of her life. 

After everyone is seated, Terri starts our group with a prayer.  She then goes through a quick overview of what our group is about, why we’re here, and what we’re trying accomplish.  People are quiet, but I’m not sure we’re listening.  Our body language exposes our preoccupation with our own thoughts.  I’m not sure how many of us are capable of focusing on what someone else is saying.  Terri seems to know this from experience and keeps talking.  After a quick overview we do a meditation exercise. 

She asks us to find an object in the room to focus on.  She’s going to time us for one minute, and we’re to concentrate on the thing we’re looking at.  Each time another thought pops into our head, we’re supposed to dismiss it and go back to the object.  I decide to look at the funny octopus lamp.  She starts the timer.  I’m thinking about the different colors of the lamp.  Then I think about the girl next to me molding play-dough in her hands and how that must feel kind of cool, but it’s also distracting.  I realize I’m not thinking about the lamp.  The lamp.  I’m staring harder at the lamp and think about my grocery list, and I have to get milk later.  The lamp.  This book is really thick.  I wonder if we’re going to get through it all or how there could be so much information in there.  I wonder what’s in there.  The lamp.  Think about the lamp.  The timer is ticking softly.  I don’t like the ticking sound.  Someone coughs.  I hate that.  The lamp.  Thinking about the lamp.  Think about the lamp.  The lamp.  Maybe if I repeat the word “lamp” I can stay focused.  The lamp.  The lamp.  Someone coughs again.  AAHHH!  Shut up!  I’m mad now.  I can’t think about the lamp because there’s too much noise.  No, it’s because I can never focus.  Why don’t I have ADD?  I still don’t get that.  If I had ADD maybe I’d get to play with some play-dough.  The cinnamon smell of the candle drifts by.  I like the candles.  The lamp!  I keep forgetting about the lamp.  How can anyone think about one thing for a whole minute!  I can’t think about it for more than a couple of seconds!  There are way too many thoughts going through my mind.  Does everyone have this many thoughts?  The timer dings.  Time is up.  We go around the group and talk about our meditation time.  I’m comforted by the fact that everyone seemed to have trouble focusing on one object.  Some people got off track and never came back to their object at all. Maybe I’m not the worst one after all.  Maybe I did better than everyone else! Ugh. Why does everything turn into a competition for me?  I hope we don’t really have to do that every week. 

I look at Jen.

“It was ok.  She gave us these huge workbooks and talked about dialectics and something about how opposites can work together.” 

“Yes.  That’s a big concept.”

“Yeah.  It was very hard to understand.  She used an idea to explain it to us.  She said, ‘I love you guys right where you are, AND I love you guys enough to want you to have a better life.’  She said dialectics is understanding that two thoughts like those can co-exist.  We all disagreed, because if she loves us right where we are, then there’s no reason for us to change.  If she wants us to change, then she can’t love us right where we’re at.  It doesn’t make any sense.”

I start getting mad just thinking about it.  I feel like I have a palette of paints with all the colors neatly separated and Terri mixed them all up.  My heart is beating fast.  Jen smiles like she knows something I don’t.   

“How would you describe how you feel right now?”

“Irritable.”

“Why do you think you feel irritable?”

I shift around on the couch.  I look out the window.  I really don’t want to answer her question.   

“I don’t know.”

“We’ve dug up a lot of emotion lately.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you feel you are dealing with it?”

“Well, I guess I’m having a hard time with it.”

I feel sleepy.  Emotions are draining, and they wear me out fast.

“What do you think is the hardest thing for you?”

I think about a conversation I had with Nancy during the week.

We’re walking through a park.  We talk about me.  That’s all we talk about because that’s all I can think about.  My recovery has lasted months, and I can’t think of anything else.  

“Did you have a good session with Jen this week?” 

I pause.  How do I begin to tell her what we talked about? 

“It was hard.” 

“What was hard about it?”

“We talked about something that happened to me when I was pretty young.”

My head hurts.  I can’t talk about this.  I feel squeamish.  I feel like something is crawling all over me.  But, I have to talk about it.  She is safe.  She is more than safe.  God has used her in amazing ways that I can’t explain, like the time I was mad at God because I couldn’t justify my drinking anymore so I tested him by saying, “If you really don’t want me to drink anymore just say so and have Nancy call me before I get my alcohol out of the garage.”  Nancy and I weren’t even friends back then.  She was my Bible study leader, and she called everyone in our group once a week.  She had just called me the day before so I knew she wasn’t going to call me today.  Giving God this chance to stop me helped me justify my drinking again.  But as I reached for the garage door, the phone rang.  Goose bumps raised the hair straight up off my arms and neck.  For two more rings I couldn’t move.  I finally told myself it was just a coincidence; it could be anybody, but as I reached for the phone I saw Nancy’s name on the caller I.D.  It felt like God was calling me.  I was so stunned I told her the whole story and everything about my drinking, and she became my accountability partner after that.  I call her an accountability partner, but she’s more than that.

I have a voicemail message she left me a few months ago.  I feel stupid keeping it, but I can’t delete it.  All it says is, “Hey, you’ve gone a little silent on me.  Just wondering if you’re okay.  Talk to you later.”  I never had anything like that growing up.  No one knew if I was silent or hurt or missing.  I often stayed out until three in the morning.  When I came home everyone was asleep.  Sometimes when I feel lonely, I play Nancy’s phone message over and over. It helps me feel like I can face the world.

I decide that after all the stuff she’s gone through with me if I can’t tell her about the deeper things in my life now, I never will.   I try to find the words.  It’s hard to breathe.  I feel like there’s a strap around my chest that was buckled too tight.

“Can you tell me about it?”

I need to say something.  My mind is swirling.  I have to talk even if it doesn’t make sense.

“I called it a really bad mistake….  Jen called it…rape.” 

Saying the word sucks the life out of me, and I want to sit down and melt into the ground.

“Wow, so you were raped?”

“I guess so.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

“What do you mean you guess so?”

“Because I was drunk… I didn’t try to get away…I didn’t really do anything.”

“Maybe you don’t want to call it rape because you would have to admit that you were a victim.”

I stare straight ahead.  I don’t understand.

“Being an alcoholic is not being a victim.  The alcoholic makes the choice to drink.  Your husband and kids are the victims.  I’m not saying it isn’t hard on you, but as an alcoholic, you are causing the wreckage.  As a rape victim, you had no control.  I don’t think you want to admit that you were in a situation where you didn’t have control.”

She’s right.  I can feel it.  If I admitted I was raped, I would be admitting that something happened to me.  And I would be admitting that it could happen again.   If I call it a mistake of my own, I’m still in control, and I can control whether it could happen again.  I hate the idea that something could happen to me that I can’t control. 

This seems like an important thing to talk about so I tell Jen about my talk with Nancy.

“I was talking to my friend this week and she said something that made sense.  She said maybe my problem is I don’t want to admit that I wasn’t in control.  Like, if the rape was my fault, then maybe I could keep it from happening again.”

“That’s very insightful.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Jen stands up, grabs a dry erase marker and draws a line straight down the center of the white board. 

“I want you to make two lists.  On one list, write down all the things in your life that you have control over.  On the other list, write down all the things in your life that you don’t have any control over.”

I make a line down the center of the paper and quickly write on the top of the page “Control” and “No control.”  She continues to explain.

“For instance, you can control whether you get out of bed in the morning, right?”

“Right.”

“Write that down.”

I start writing.

“What’s something you don’t have any control over?”

I think about things that happen in my life during the day. I look out the window.  Rain is drizzling down the glass.

“The weather.  I can’t control the weather.”

“That’s true.  Write that down.”

I write down “Weather” on the “No control” side.

“What else?”

I’m stuck.  I can’t think of anything. 

“What is something that makes you angry?”

I think.  That shouldn’t be hard to come up with.

“When the phone rings and it’s someone I don’t want to talk to.”

“Can you control if someone calls you?”

“No.”

“Can you control if you answer the phone?”

“…Yes.”

Jen tells me to write that down and I do, but I’ve drifted somewhere else.  The idea of not answering the phone is like the clouds parting on a rainy day and the sun shining on my face.  How could it never occur to me that I don’t have to answer my own phone?  I quickly write down on my paper “Phone call” on the “No control” side and “Answer the phone” on the “Control” side.  I feel a new sense of freedom, like Jen unlocked the padlock that chained me to the phone.  I wonder what other things I’m chained to that I don’t know about.

“The list we are making is providing boundaries for you.  It’s going to help you see the reality of what we can control and what we can’t.  Kids from alcoholic homes grow up without any boundaries resulting in chaos.  Chaos makes people feel like they have to control everything around them in order to stop the chaos, but it’s impossible to control everything and everyone around you.  Everyone needs to feel in control of their life.  By placing boundaries, you can release the things you can’t control and will feel better about the things you can control.  I’d like you to bring that home and add as many things to the list as you can.”

“Ok.”

I feel much lighter as I walk out of Jen’s office thinking about the possibilities.  As I climb into my van I look across the road at the Harley dealership.  It’s the first time I haven’t felt the urge to ride away from my life.