She screamed obscenities at me from her porch and then came barreling in my direction, her eyes bulging with poison. When she got an arm’s length away, she grabbed me, dragged me, and whipped me up onto my porch. As she cursed with indignation and called me terrible names, she spat with anger, “How could you do this? What were you thinking? How could you be so selfish?”
As I floated in and out of my thoughts, my neighbor continued her berating rant. Frankly, I didn’t see the point. I had condemned myself enough. In fact, I was quite the expert at calling me names and putting me down. There was no need for extra reinforcements. No need for her to gut my heart like a fish. I did a fantastic job on my own, thank you very much. What I really needed in that moment was compassion.
The sting of shame and the suffocating grip of condemnation seared my heart. As I curled up in a fetal position, drowning out the neighbor’s voice with my own thoughts, she finally threw her hands up in surrender. My stepbrother showed up on the porch, his eyes wide in shock, and my neighbor handed me off to him. Apparently, she had reached the point of hopeless frustration with me and pawned me off so Chuck could . . . what? Yell at me more?
Chuck led me inside the house and asked, “What happened? What made you do this?”
I had nothing to say. I didn’t have an answer. The living room spun out of control and my mind was far away, far from the table in the corner, the old-fashioned couches, my stepbrother’s face close to mine as he played detective to uncover the details of the last twenty minutes. He called my mom at some point. As we waited for her arrival, Chuck continued to hurl questions my way.
“Talk to me, Pattie. What got you to this point?” he asked again, determined to rouse an explanation out of my dazed stupor.
I couldn’t respond. I was frozen. Trapped. I just sat at the kitchen table, stuffing my anger inside, and numbly stared out into space. I knew my mom would be home soon. What on earth would I say to her? As I sat on the cold, hard chair, I couldn’t escape the gnawing feeling of wanting to die. It was all I could think about. The beckoning wasn’t loud or intrusive, though. It didn’t attack me with hysteria. It was hypnotic, softly whispering in my ear, Die, Pattie. Just die. The soothing lullaby consumed my thoughts until they became one with my spirit.
When my mom came home and sat at the table with me, her hands shaky as she tried to compose herself as much as possible, I opened up. I unleashed the truth of all I had suffered and told her about how I had been repeatedly abused for five years by those we both knew. I told her how I had agonized in shame and in secret for years. How Jeremy had threatened to tell. I told her I couldn’t handle it. And I didn’t know what to do with the pain.
I saw my mother soften a bit. And after we sat in silence for a few seconds, she made a shocking admission. “Stuff happened to me too, when I was young.” She didn’t say much after that. She didn’t need to.
I don’t think either one of us knew what to do at that point.
It was Mom who broke the silence. “I’m taking you to the hospital. We’re going to get you help.”
CHAPTER
Six
I am troubled
I feel empty
I don’t know what I want
Comfort, love and mostly attention
I have a wall built around my heart
I am worried
I am sad
And I’m filled with regret
Regret for not saying no
When I was little
When I was curious
And when I was hopeful
I wrote this poem on May 20, 1992, the day before I was admitted to Stratford General Hospital.
The evidence that I needed help was there all along. Silent cries. Acting out. Rebellion. All signs I was fighting for attention, for someone to stop and listen and tell me I mattered. Like so many others, I suffered in silence, unsure of how to claw my way out of the pit of despair and into light. The only way I knew how was to kill myself.
It hadn’t been the first time I’d wanted to do so. Almost two years earlier to the day, I had written in my journal, “I’m so depressed lately. I’m always crying, and I’ve thought about suicide a couple of times but I doubt I’d ever get enough stupidness to do it.” I guess I’d finally found the “stupidness.”
Nothing happens overnight. I buckled under the combined pressures of the sexual abuse, deep childhood wounds, and simply being a teenager. The latter is hard enough. When you’re a teenager, you are tangled in a web of hormonal mayhem. The roller coaster begins when puberty hits. So many things are happening. Mood swings show up. You’re trying to figure out your identity on shaky ground. You get squashed in the frustrating place between being a child and being an adult.
Add to that whatever emotional and mental issues have followed you around since you were younger. If you don’t resolve them, or at least work on digging out the roots of your problems, they just grow deeper. And you act out progressively worse as time goes on.
In this state it’s easy to fall into abusing drugs and alcohol. It’s how I numbed my pain. It also made my emotional condition worse and contributed to my severe mood swings. My highs were really high and my lows were extremely low. I was emotionally unstable, unable to find equilibrium. Being in a temperamental relationship didn’t help matters.
I didn’t protest my mom’s suggestion of going to the hospital; a part of me felt I had to go. I was just embarrassed. A cloud of shame hung over my head, ready to burst. I knew where I would stay: the psych ward. The stigma of the “crazy” floor started whispering seductively in my ear.
You’re crazy, Pattie.
Who’s going to love you now?
What kind of girl finds herself in the crazy hospital?
When my mom signed the consent forms, the self-condemnation grew louder, making it almost impossible to convince myself that I wasn’t crazy or stupid, that I was just a girl with a broken heart who needed some help. So I let go. I gave up. The last bit of faith and hope I’d clung to had been destroyed.
I was a patient for nineteen days, much longer than I would have guessed. I want to get one thing straight, though. The psych ward was nothing like it’s often portrayed in the movies. The floor wasn’t a human zoo overrun with patients soiling their pants and being chased by orderlies. I didn’t see people in zombie-like trances aimlessly walking the hallways, talking to ghosts. And I didn’t come across violent patients who needed to be contained in straitjackets to keep them from tearing up the TV room. The ward was actually quiet. And sad.
My roommate was there because she tried to kill herself by taking a bunch of pills. She seemed normal, friendly, and polite. Just like me. But if you paid enough attention to her beautiful face, you could make out a glaze over her distant eyes. I guess it’s easy to recognize the look when you see it every day in the mirror.
I didn’t think I was any different from the other patients—the depressed ones, the schizophrenics, the suicidal, the delusional. We had a bond; we were all troubled, just to different degrees and in different ways. Each of us was there to ultimately try to make sense out of our individual circumstances. Whether it was finding a reason to live or figuring out why we hated ourselves so much. Or trying to stop the voices in our head from controlling our thoughts. Or, like me, trying to get to the bottom of unmanageable and debilitating depression.
Why did I throw myself in front of a truck? Why did I keep returning to a volatile relationship that only dug me deeper into an emotional grave? Why did I think ending my life was better than living it? I had a slew of questions—some obvious, others unknown—that needed to be investigated. A big part of me was ready to dredge up the mess, to talk about my past and expose it to the light of day. But I didn’t get to do that in the hospital.
My meeting with the admitting psychiatrist was unpleasant. He seemed cold and indifferent, flying through my mental health assessment as quickly as possible. Maybe he’d had a bad day and wanted to rush home in his fancy car so he could si
t in front of a warm fireplace and nurse a glass of cognac.
He fired off each question in a machine-gun succession without taking any time to unpack each one.
“In the past two weeks, how often have you felt down, depressed, or hopeless?”
“How long have you had these feelings?”
“When did these feelings begin?”
I didn’t expect the doctor to be my best friend and sit there for an hour patting my head and telling me everything was going to be okay. But I was put off that he didn’t express even an iota of genuine interest. At least pretend! Look up from your notes more than for a fleeting glance. Give me a chance to answer the questions without being interrupted. Hey, I’m sure working in a psych ward isn’t as fun as spending the day on a beach in the Caribbean. But still, a little effort goes a long way.
After an hour of asking questions, scribbling in his leather notebook, and constantly nodding like a life-size bobblehead doll, the doctor gave me some meds and left. I saw him maybe one or two more times before I was discharged.
I met with another therapist during my stay. Our meetings were pretty much more of the same. I was dying to talk about the sexual abuse in detail, not just as a passing thought when describing the symptoms of my depression. I didn’t have much luck.
It would be like that for years. In the course of my search for healing, I visited with a number of counselors and tried different forms of therapy. I think each counselor assumed I had addressed my sexual abuse with the previous therapist, so the topic would never be broached in detail. The reality was, I had never combed through that part of my past. In a way, I felt I fell through the cracks, though I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.
One therapist in particular, a sexual abuse specialist, was adamant that talking was futile. “You don’t need to talk so much, Pattie,” she told me. “Many people mistakenly believe that you have to talk about things to get better. That’s just not true.” Instead, she focused on a psychotherapy technique called EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) that is used for people with PTSD. I had to think of a traumatic memory and focus on it while I followed her finger’s movements and answered a few questions. I’m sure this therapy has helped others, but it didn’t seem like it did a whole lot for me.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally had the opportunity to bring about lasting healing by dealing with the abuse. But back at the hospital as a teenager, I felt like none of my core issues were addressed. None of my hang-ups were discussed. None of the reasons I found myself in a psych ward, specifically the aftermath of the many years I had been sexually abused, were any more than merely mentioned in passing.
I was lonely in the hospital. There wasn’t much to do outside of popping meds, watching TV, going to group therapy, and hanging out in the common area. I felt trapped, like I’d been given a prison sentence without the possibility of parole. None of the therapy seemed to be making a difference. Nothing in my mind or heart was being rewired. I was the same person with the same depressing thoughts, low self-esteem, and haunting past.
I didn’t even get many visitors. Outside of my parents and John Brown, the director of the Bunker, I don’t remember anyone stopping by. It was a sobering wake-up call that I had no real friends. Sure, I had plenty who would party with me in an instant, but when I hit rock bottom and acted out my exit plan, none of my party buddies showed up.
John, on the other hand, was determined to show me he was genuine and he really did care. He regularly visited with me. I always knew he was coming because I could smell him down the hallway. Well, not him exactly, but rather the unmistakable, mouthwatering aroma of the fast food he brought. John would walk into my room carrying greasy bags of McDonald’s and KFC, and my eyes would immediately light up. Hey, what seventeen-year-old doesn’t like junk food?
I didn’t mind John’s visits so much, even though he droned on and on about God. Though I was used to his constant God-babble from hanging out with him at the youth center, at times it grated on my nerves. God this. God that. As I half-listened while munching on french fries and fried chicken, I remember thinking, “This guy can’t stop talking about God, and it’s not even Sunday.” Needless to say, he still left quite an impression.
The first time John came to visit, he brought a rose and told me that God told him to tell me He loved me and saw me like that rose—beautiful. I chewed on a Big Mac and stared at the perfect flower. First of all, I thought John was nuts for telling me he heard from God. Second, I thought he was completely off his rocker when God’s message was that I was as beautiful as the flower John was holding.
Somehow I was able to get past the whole hearing-from-God bit. But I just couldn’t escape the comparison to the rose. Oh my gosh, there is no way I’m like that rose. I’m not beautiful. I’m not good. What planet is this guy on? John continued to visit me and to share God’s love for me in a caring way, but the more he talked, the more I thought he had gone bonkers. What did he know about God’s love for me? Obviously not much.
One day he said something that struck me, something I couldn’t even roll my eyes at in my head. “Pattie, when you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go but up. You don’t want to live anyway, so why don’t you just see what God can do with your life and what plans He has for you?”
With eyes of compassion John asked, “What do you have to lose?”
Though we’d had many heart-to-hearts about God, I’d never even entertained John’s passionate belief that God loved me. I’d never experienced God before, let alone the kind of love John shared with me. Frankly, at that point in my life, I didn’t know if I believed God even existed. I did, however, know pain. I knew abuse. I knew abandonment. I knew fear. I knew disappointment. I knew all the junk that led me to attempt suicide. But love? Not so much.
What do you have to lose?
The question stumped me. I had no defense. I was speechless because the truth was, John was right. I had nothing to lose. I had tried doing life my way and failed miserably.
After John left that day, his words echoed in my head. As I lay in bed, plagued by my life choices, by the path I had chosen, and by the injustices I had experienced as a child, I realized I really didn’t have a better option.
I lay in my bed, mulling over what I was about to say. I felt vulnerable. Either I was about to pray to the God of the universe, or I would be talking to the ceiling, confirming my mental state as a deranged nut. “Um, God,” I began. “If You’re real, I pray You do what John said. Help me live my life. I don’t know how to do this on my own.” A part of me wondered what God could possibly do with my life. But I saw it as the ultimate challenge. I’d see what, if anything, He could do to redeem the story I had so poorly written myself. I was willing to give it a shot.
I knew there was more I had to say. I couldn’t just stop there. John had talked to me before about how we are all sinners and how our sin separates us from God. He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins so that if we accept His forgiveness, we will be reconciled to God. So I asked Jesus, “Would you forgive me of all my sins?”
The moment I uttered those words, vivid images flashed across my mind. I’m sure you’ve heard stories of how when people are on the brink of death, they see their lives flash before their eyes. Well, that’s exactly like what happened to me, except the images I saw were specific and extremely hard to watch. Every sin, every wrong, every destructive behavior, every indulgence—everything I had done that was against what God desired for my life came to my mind. The sleeping around. The drugs. The drinking. The stealing. In that moment, I was made acutely aware of how sinful I was and how holy God is. It humbled me to the point where I couldn’t see how God could even begin to forgive me. Maybe I had gone too far. Maybe I had crossed the line where His grace couldn’t reach.
I felt so ashamed. And hopeless. I took my eyes off the ceiling, looked down at my hospital-issued slippers, and whispered, “If it’s too late, God, I totally understand.”
&n
bsp; I spoke the truth. I considered the possibility that I was too far gone in my sin for God’s forgiveness to reach. I didn’t believe in or understand grace at that point. How could I? I didn’t know a thing about it. How could I expect God to accept my apologies for living such a messed-up life and welcome me with open arms? It may have been too much to ask.
But then He showed up. God met me in such a powerful manner, there was no way I could doubt His existence or His presence anymore. Pardon the cheesy sounding details, but what I experienced next was very intense and very real.
With my eyes closed, I saw in my mind an image of my heart opening up. As it unfolded, gold dust was poured into the opening and filled every inch of my heart until there was no room left for even one more speck to squeeze through. Somehow deep in my spirit I knew the gold dust represented God’s love; He was pouring His love into my heart. Then as quickly as it filled up, my heart closed and turned a blindingly bright white. I felt like I had been purified and cleansed from the inside out. I was in awe, and I was fully aware of God’s presence.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t feel loved in an overly emotional or warm and fuzzy way. It was like a deep knowing. A love on a level I would have never before recognized. A love that could only come from God.
I started weeping. Tears of relief. Tears of hope. Tears of gratitude. Tears of myriad pent-up emotions, some of which I didn’t understand. I felt like a woman who had been wandering in a desert for days without water and accidentally stumbled into a babbling brook. Still trying to wrap my brain around what had just happened, I sat in a daze, uttering in wide-eyed amazement,
“Oh my God . . . YOU are real.”
“Oh my GOD . . . You ARE real.”
“OH MY GOD . . . You are REAL!”
“Oh my God . . . You’re really real!”
For the next few minutes, I sat unable to move. I was so overwhelmed by this knowing, all I could do was repeat that God was real.
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