Get Me Out of Here (34 page)

The falling snow had abated, but the temperatures had dropped dramatically below the zero mark. The streets were cleared, although a few icy patches plagued the roads. I had been relieved when I'd called Dr. Padgett's office and heard he was able to make it in for the day. I'd spent a few days replaying the altercation with the insurance representative.

I tried documenting the course of the conversation in a letter to the supervisor of the customer service department but was having a difficult time deciding what to say. I wasn't sure if I was accurately recalling the conversation or if my recollections were tainted by irrational anger. Half-written, the letter remained on my bedroom dresser.

When I related the incident to Dr. Padgett, I was torn between remorse and righteous indignation, between all of my ambivalence about my rediscovered ability to feel and express anger and my fears that I had somehow been irrational or had blown everything wildly out of proportion.

Bless me, Father Padgett, for I have sinned. It's been a few months since I really lost my temper. She may have felt she was just trying to do her job. In addition I didn't sit and listen to both sides of my kids' stories and render real justice. I just sent them to their rooms. I lost my patience. I promise to try and never do it again
.

“That's pretty much what happened, as best as I can remember it. I just don't know what to think. A few years ago I wouldn't have given any of it a second thought. Now I'm not so sure.”

“She said all the things you're saying?” he asked, assessing the situation with the objectivity of a judge.

“Yes, she did say those things. It's just that I don't know whether I overreacted or not.”

“Do you think you have justification for the insurance company to pay both claims?”

The legal issues were far more clear-cut for me.

“Definitely. I think if I call the endocrinologist and have him resubmit the claim, emphasizing exactly what he did differently than a gynecologist would have, I have a good chance. And I know that they can't try and get out of paying for physical conditions just because I have a mental illness.”

“So you think you were right to protest the denied claim?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you feel you were somehow unjustified in the conversation?”

“Because I got really angry. I threatened to contact her supervisor.”

“Do you think what she said is the proper way to talk to a customer?”

I had to think about that one.

“No, I guess I don't.”

“So what are you worried about?”

“Maybe I had a right to be angry. But maybe I overdid it too.”

“Welcome to the land of imperfection, Rachel,” he said. “Nobody can completely control their anger all the time. And even if you did overreact a bit, who doesn't sometimes? Everyone is irrational sometimes.”

“Even you?” I asked.

He smiled broadly then. “Even me.”

The onus had been lifted. I'd been given permission to get pissed off again, to exercise my right to be assertive, even if I wasn't always in the right or crossed the fine line into aggression. Not all anger, not all irrationality was borderline rage or distortion. Some of it was just a part of being human.

Most people inherently know this and might never have given it a second thought. In the intensity of my introspection, where everything I had once taken for granted was now in question, the normal emotions and actions of life had become an issue that paralyzed me for many weeks. I had, nonetheless, found an answer. I was more than “just a borderline.” I was also wonderfully imperfect. Human.

Once upon a time perfectionism was my noble aspiration. My perfectionism extended beyond academics or career. I also aspired to be the perfect mother, lover, and friend, always appropriate in all my emotional expressions.

Of course I never reached it. Worse, given my all-or-nothing thinking, I viewed myself as an abject failure when I, like every other human, inevitably failed to reach that goal. It was a wretched trap.

As February rolled into March, the topic of perfectionism and my irrational expectations dominated sessions. My attitudes were changing as I began to realize that, although I could never reach such a state, I could still be satisfied with myself. A tremendous burden lifted as the tide of my self-hatred slowly ebbed. Laughter now reappeared in my life; the moments of remorse and self-recrimination were fewer and farther between. For the first time I was getting a taste of how it felt to have peace of mind.

Realizing the absurd impossibility of perfection in myself also had an impact on how I viewed others. The borderline fixation on hero worship fluctuating with bitter disappointment blurred as I began to understand that my expectations of others had been dictated by the same faulty yardstick of perfection. Increasingly I could see the gray area, and I was finding it much easier to handle my relationships with other people. Everyone had flaws, even Dr. Padgett.

Now the issue turned to my parents. I'd been more comfortable with them lately, and they, in turn, had seemed more at ease with themselves. Although I wasn't sure how I felt about them, Jeffrey and Melissa loved them. My mom and dad were good to them, playing, paying attention, and listening.

Were these the same people who had raised me? Had my recollections been tainted or had my parents changed? Did they love me now? Had they always loved me? How could they have acted abusively if they had loved me? How could they act lovingly now if they didn't?

Initially I had been reluctant to discuss my parents in any negative terms. But Dr. Padgett had encouraged me to reach into the memories and feelings of my inner child, which had led me to thoroughly despise them. He'd encouraged me to share the depths of my rage at them, the pain of the injustice, my childhood marred and, in many ways, stolen.

Indeed, much of my acceptance of the need to change was rooted in the perceived transgressions of my parents and the depths of my repressed resentment toward them. With these feelings roaring to the surface with the momentum of a speeding freight train, it was inordinately difficult to reverse course. But it was happening nonetheless.

I discussed these concerns with Dr. Padgett and described my confusion about how I could loathe them so much and still feel pangs of guilt for judging them too harshly. His answer surprised me.

“You feel that way because, despite it all, you still love them. They always loved you too. It was an imperfect love, perhaps, but love was there. It's part of what helped you get by.”

I was unnerved at first by his apparent audacity. Here was the man who had prodded me into seeing my childhood for the travesty that it was, and now he was telling me that I still loved them. Even more, that they loved me and always had.

It didn't make sense. If they loved me, then why had I spent these years in therapy? Why had I been hospitalized three times? Why had so much of my life been consumed by dreams of dying?

I felt a tinge of betrayal. Was he siding with
them
?

“A lot of awful things happened in your childhood,” he explained. “You were abused, and it affected you. But not every act of theirs was abusive. You've felt the hatred that you buried for so long. Now it's time to feel the love.”

Sure, Dr. Padgett. Let me just snap my fingers and feel the love. Let's just forget everything we've been saying for the past two and a half years and just call them lovable
.

Was I screwed over, or wasn't I? If I was, then how do you expect me to just forget about it? If I wasn't, then what in the hell have we been talking about in here for all these hundreds of sessions?
These thoughts just made me angrier. At my parents. And at Dr. Padgett. Why was I the one who had to feel all the pain and do all the work?

“It's up to you,” he told me. “Whatever happened, happened in the past. You were helpless then. A vulnerable child. But you aren't helpless now. They can't hurt you in the ways that they did back then. It's up to you to decide what kind of relationship you want to have with them now. Adult to adult.”

“Sometimes,” I replied, “I wish I could just go up to them and tell them about all of this. But I know they wouldn't accept it. I've dreamed sometimes of telling them off. I've even dreamed of … of … killing them—even though I'd never do it.”

“Fantasies never hurt a soul,” he said, “unless you act on them. It's natural to be angry with all that you've discovered. But at this point holding on to the anger doesn't do you much good. Someday you've got to let it go.”

“Let it go?” I shook my head in disgust. “Everything is always ‘let it go.’ I always have to do everything! What about
them
? What are
they
supposed to do? Maybe they deserve to be hated.”

“You can't control them. The only person you can change is yourself. Holding on to the anger and hatred hurts you a lot more than it hurts them. It consumes you; it distracts you.”

“They deserve revenge,” I snapped.

“The best revenge is living well,” he finished.

I'd heard the old saying before but had never really given it much thought. Was that wisdom or merely a consolation prize where justice is absent?

I pondered it for a moment in silence.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said, “about the politics of envy, of revenge. Maybe it might have some meaning here.

“There was an American farmer and a Russian farmer, both living in their respective countries. The American was out plowing his field when he saw his neighbor driving past in a brand-new Cadillac. The American farmer looked at his rusty, old pickup, then at his neighbor's shiny, new car, and vowed, ‘Someday I'm going to have a shiny, new car just like his.’

“Meanwhile the Russian farmer was plowing his field and saw his neighbor driving by in the fancy luxury car. He looked at his rusty, old pickup, then at his neighbor's Cadillac, and vowed, ‘Someday he's going to have a rusty, old pickup just like mine.’”

“Hmm. Interesting philosophies.”

“Any thoughts on what it might mean in the context of what we're discussing?”

“That you're a capitalist?” I asked facetiously.

He smiled. “And?”

“The Russian farmer isn't going to be any better off himself just because his neighbor loses his nice car.”

“Exactly,” he said. “The instinct for revenge is strong. But in the end it doesn't do a person much good.”

Intellectually the philosophy made sense. Reaching that point emotionally, however, was an entirely different story.

With the March winds sandwiched between the few remaining snowfalls of the season also came the season of Lent, a time of introspection and preparation for Easter. In church we sang melancholy songs about ashes and repentance, and the altar was stripped of plants and other decorations to represent the starkness of fasting.

As a child, Lent had had simple meanings to me: fish sticks and macaroni in the school cafeteria on Fridays, shuffling into weekly stations-of-the-cross ceremonies to reflect on the story of the suffering Christ, and giving up chocolate. As I re-evaluated the whole notion of God and religion, however, so, too, had Lent taken on a deeper meaning. I couldn't listen to these readings about sin and repentance every Sunday without feeling the challenge within myself.

My pastor, the choir director, and my fellow parishioners had accepted me despite my professed agnosticism and mental illness. Tim had stayed by my side despite the turbulence in our household, the burdens he endured, the unpredictable emotions, and the huge expenses that derailed our dreams. Undoubtedly I had been the beneficiary of forgiveness and compassion.

God protects the fools and the children, and he had protected me when I was both, even when I pondered my atheism.

Now, feeling stronger than I ever had in my life, I wondered if it were my time to return the love and unconditional acceptance I'd been given by granting a little forgiveness of my own. The issue of how to come to peace with my parents, knowing full well they would never be able to admit or accept what had happened, loomed larger than ever. It became harder to sit in church hearing the exhortations of challenge while still very much at odds with my parents and family. My conscience would not stop nagging me.

Finally, on a blustery Saturday afternoon in late March, I decided to take the whole issue into the confessional.

The sacrament of confession—now called reconciliation—had changed dramatically since my days in Catholic elementary school. While the darkened little cubicles with the small grilled windows still existed for those preferring the traditional method, one could also see the priest in a face-to-face setting in the same small room. I opted for the latter approach.

Father Rick smiled and stood up to greet me when I opened the door to his small confessional office. Windowless, with a few religious poems thumbtacked to the corkboard walls and dated vinyl chairs of the vintage seventies, it was a far cry from Dr. Padgett's tasteful decor. Still it lacked the stark sackcloth-and-ashes theme I recalled from my youth.

Perhaps this wasn't where I should be. After all I wasn't at all sure that I was willing to do what my conscience was telling me I should. Fortunately Father Rick, who knew the broad details of my childhood and therapy, wasn't the kind of priest to condemn. He was an excellent listener.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I started. It was the one piece of the ritual I still remembered. Like many Catholics, I'd been avoiding the confessional for years. “I confess I forget what I'm supposed to do now. It's been awhile, Father Rick.”

“The first thing to do is relax,” he assured me, “and tell me what's on your mind.”

I told him of my moral dilemma. I had recently discovered much of what had happened in the past, and I was still angry at my parents. I knew I should forgive them, but I wasn't sure what that entailed. Nor was I sure that forgiving them was something I wanted or was ready to do. Still it was eating at my conscience.

“Not much of a confession if I'm not even sure I want to take the penance, is it?” I smiled sheepishly. “I guess it's not very Christian to be that angry at my own parents, is it?”

“Whoever said Jesus didn't get angry?” he replied.

Father Rick went on to recall some of the stories of Jesus. Jesus had indeed gotten so angry that he'd kicked over tables and hurled goods to the ground when he saw the money changers again hawking their wares on the temple steps.

“Do you think Jesus just calmly sat back and accepted his fate?” Father Rick asked me. “He spent hours agonizing in the Garden of Gethsemane, literally begging God to ‘take the cup away’ from him and spare him the ugliness of his inevitable betrayal and death. Ultimately he did his Father's will—but not without experiencing the same reluctance, bitterness, and hurt as the rest of us.

“Having human emotions isn't the sin, Rachel; it's what you do with them,” said Father Rick.
Thoughts and fantasies never hurt anyone. It's the way someone chooses to act on them
. For a man who steadfastly refused to reveal the slightest bit about his religious beliefs or nonbeliefs, Dr. Padgett's words were strangely similar to Father Rick's.

“But you're missing something here, Father Rick,” I said, my conscience still unappeased. “Jesus did go up on that cross. He did forgive them. ‘Forgive them, Father; they know not what they do.’ Pretty amazing words. I don't know if I can do that with my parents. I just don't know. So much has happened. I'm thirty-three years old, and I'm still bearing the brunt of it. I don't know if I can let go of it all like that.”

“Notice that you didn't hear him say ‘forget,’” Father Rick replied. “Jesus never said, ‘Father, forgive them; forget about what they did.’ He didn't say they hadn't done what they'd done to him. He didn't say they hadn't betrayed or hurt him. He forgave, but he didn't forget.

“
They know not what they do
. He wasn't calling them
innocent
; he was calling them
ignorant
. And there's a world of distinction between those two words.”

Father Rick was telling me I didn't have to forget everything that had happened. I didn't have to deny the past. I didn't have to pretend that everything was rosy. Forgiveness didn't mean I had to forget.

Indeed, he told me, I
shouldn't
forget. To forget the past was to leave it wide open to be repeated. There was nothing wrong with being vigilant for an oncoming truck of destruction and to get the hell out of the way when I saw it coming. Because it very well could.

There was nothing wrong with protecting myself. But I could still forgive, not only because it was the right thing to do, but because to do so would benefit
me
as well.