When I talk about how things weren’t so groovy when I was growing up, I usually hear, “You don’t say! You seem super-together, super-happy.” Phew!
As a child, even a straight face could be interpreted as criticism—in other words, a declaration of war. I learned early on to appear calm and jolly in every situation.
Over the years, the fear of being seen as a fraud intensified. I mean, think about it. As if it wasn’t enough that the people who know my mother wouldn’t believe me for the world…
So now I reply, “I’ve had a lot of therapy.”
I don’t get into the string of counselors I’ve seen, the number of books I’ve read, the money and time I’ve invested. I occasionally refer to my strict routine. Or to the medication I take daily, without which my brain generates a triple stream of information, CNN-style: contrition, complexification, aggravation.
And the strangers who crossed my path, as Verhaeren said! These pivotal encounters, often fleeting, the attentive eyes or words from which I drew what I needed to follow the therapeutic process.
Nevertheless, if I’ve forgotten to boil the potatoes and the rest of the meal is ready, all hell breaks loose. A viselike grip takes hold of my stomach, along with a sensation of imminent danger. A psychiatrist explained that when I was very young, my brain labeled certain feelings as dangerous, and that they would remain stored as such. I can therefore grieve and draw a line under a debilitating, impossible quest. I will continue to agonize over the potatoes, but I practice tamping down the fear. Do you die from eating potatoes at the end of a meal?
When I’m uneasy with someone, I often don’t know why. Lack of chemistry? Fear of expressing myself? I still examine words and scrutinize faces, looking for triggers, primed to stem potential conflicts. I still live under stress even though no real threat is lurking. I’m learning to speak up when I’m offended by or disagree with something. My body prompts me: I discern clues ignored for so long that I thought they didn’t exist. Hands and armpits getting hot, chest tightening… So much information, clear to others, tucked away in the recesses of my mental labyrinth.
Sometimes I misspeak, and I feel bad. Sometimes I don’t speak, and I feel bad. “You tie yourself in knots.” Shoot. Guess I don’t seem super-together and super-happy anymore.
I myself benefited from helping hands. I wonder: How do others manage?
However they can. Like me, they get angry or self-destruct. They attack people, develop diseases, drink, take drugs, or live on the streets. We punish them: they rot in prison while some pat themselves on the back and proclaim that justice has been done.
[CONTENT WARNING: VIOLENCE] Richard Ramirez, the notorious Los Angeles Night Stalker, committed heinous crimes. Despicable, appalling crimes. He has been referred to as the Devil. Born into a large family in El Paso, he is beaten up by his father. At the age of twelve, he falls under the sway of a war veteran cousin. The latter shows him photos of Vietnamese women he decapitated and raped. He teaches the young teenager several ways to kill, then ends up shooting his wife in the head right in front of him. At age thirteen, Ramirez lives with his sister and is taken under the wing of her husband, a voyeur who brings him along on his nocturnal expeditions.
It took me years to recover from what, in comparison with Ramirez’s life, was peanuts.
So what chance did he have?
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