All That Is Bitter and Sweet (47 page)

My dad took my mother’s hand. (Okay, that in and of itself is like from outer space.) Next, he opened his mouth. Then he began to offer his heartfelt amends. He took full responsibility for himself, spanning the decades they had known each other, and with humility, tenderness, and unmistakable culpability, cleaned up the wreckage of his past.

From that harrowing afternoon in the apartment in Lexington exactly twenty years ago, when he told me he was not my sister’s biological father, when I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that my family was condemned to irredeemable hopelessness … to this. It was only Wednesday of my family week, and the miracles were rolling.

Dad and I still talk about that moment. He says that in it, everything was lifted from him: every resentment, every grief, every urge to get even. But the mercy was not confined to the moment; it has deepened and expanded. He shares about being given great gifts of compassion and empathy for my mother, a new ability to consider life from her point of view and to contemplate how events, such as her own upbringing and the events of 1963 and 1964, affected her.

This recovery thing works, if you work at it.

Not everyone, however, was able to participate on such a deeply positive level, and one family member did not return. The staff requests that all participants not drink alcohol or take drugs—including prescription drugs unless absolutely necessary—during family week. And in spite of the constant reminders from staff to “trust the process, don’t quit before your miracle” and steady encouragement to see my work as something that I had a right to, a necessary stage of my own catharsis and healing, they couldn’t hang. Sadly, I’m told they are one of only two family members ever to bail on the family week process in Shades of Hope’s twenty-five-year history. Maybe my family is just a bit terminal after all. But as Tennie says, as long as they are sucking air, there is always hope. I truly believed what I was being taught: that no situation was hopeless (although at times I might feel hopeless), that there was no difficulty too great to be lessened, and that it was possible for me to find contentment and even happiness no matter how my various loved ones were behaving. And so I took my focus off the disappointment of this loved one’s behavior, dealt with my feelings in a healthy way, and proceeded with my own recovery. Imagine, then, how delighted I was recently when this person called and told me they have a year’s sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Thursday involved more deep work and processing, including a potent chance to offer direct statements about things that needed to improve in different relationships and forgiveness processes. The work was not uniformly smooth. Naturally, the many family dynamics were pinging wildly off the walls. Once, I sank into despair as a couple bickered nastily about an incident they’d had buying materials to make the collages they had been assigned. After twenty minutes, Erica looked at me and asked, “How much more of your family week are you going to let them hijack?” I used my voice and asked them to settle their beef later, reminded them and me that this group was about my recovery, our time was limited, and we needed to move on. But there were also sublime moments of incredible vulnerability and tenderness, such as when my dad cried so hard that he doubled over, once he had offered and I had accepted his amends for having “divorced” me on Winchester Avenue all those years before.

On Friday, I sat knee to knee with loved ones while they each told me five things each one “liked and loved” about me. My God, after having each pitched in seemingly inedible and rotten ingredients, we were actually partaking of that corny stew that had simmered and boiled all week, sharing in a rich meal love, laughter, and fellowship.

I kept the papers on which, in easily recognizable handwriting, were itemized some things each one liked and loved about me. What a far cry this “inventory” is from the old letters, faxes, and interminable voice mails they used to send me! They are gems that consecrate special moments, memories, and connections I share with my loved ones, positive aspects upon which to build with those who also choose to recover. What they describe about me runs the gamut from the way I dance as though no one is watching, to my smile, to the way I make a mess when I cook, to my casual indifference about my appearance, to how beautifully I keep my home and entertain, and my zeal for Kentucky basketball, and the way I smell like violets just as Mamaw did. But one poignant theme repeats and is mentioned by everyone who was present: “Your strong sense of right and wrong; the way you help people; your service work; your ability to still love; your empowerment of others; your commitment to fairness; your unbreakable spirit; your integrity; your respect for your fellow men and women on this journey; the strength of your convictions; your fearlessness in advocating on behalf of others; the way you embrace those who are sick; the way you fight for those who have nothing; the way you hold orphans.”

Yeah. I like and love that about me, too.

For my outing, we had lunch at a beautiful local café. It was my first time off the Shades of Hope property in more than a month. As Dario and I took a nap later, I listened, as I was falling asleep, to the everyday sounds of this beautiful and heartbreaking world: the sound of my husband breathing; a family checking into an adjoining room, the distant sound of traffic, a dog barking. Nothing in the world was different, but I sure was.

I spent my last week at Shades debriefing from my family week, completing follow-up assignments. This included dealing with a newly revealed round of childhood incest. There wasn’t time to unpack it completely, and take advantage of the resources Shades offers for survivors, but we made a good start.

I had considerable codependency with a family member who attended family week; an important, valuable relationship, but one I had idealized, yet others could see was troubled and strained. During one summer of my early adolescence, when I had stayed with her, her husband had molested me. In finally having the courage to share the details with someone, I learned the chillingly accurate term, “grooming,” as well as the typical stages and when I heard it, the visceral feelings of repugnance and shame confirmed that was indeed what this trusted adult man had done: groomed me, to set up the pattern of sexual abuse in such a way that I would be compliant and even flattered. First, he began by hanging out with me when I watched late-night TV after everyone else went to bed (the isolating phase). During that time, he sat a little too close to me on the sofa, telling little jokes that created our own insider relationship, talking just a little bad about others but building me up to gain my trust and confidence, initiating the secrecy phase. During the day, just before others entered a room, or after they left, he would give me a wink, a lingering touch on the arm, doing things to “invest” in our “special” relationship—the desensitizing to inappropriateness phase. He exploited my vulnerabilities and neediness for attention and validation. He would quickly volunteer to drive me wherever I needed to go. He took me to special places, involving me in his life, saying his wife wasn’t interested, and how much he appreciated me (the “our relationship is unique and special” phase). Soon, he made the relationship sexual. When we were alone in the house he came into my guest room at every opportunity. I was so slow in realizing this had been a classic, highly abusive pattern of incest committed by a scheming and clever sexual predator because in his very success as a perpetrator, he convinced me we were having an affair. He insidiously made me believe that I wanted the relationship, even though it revolted and scared the hell out of me. In what could have been a disastrous turning point in my life, my family member and he, aware of my dubious living conditions at home, briefly discussed taking custody of me, having me live with them for a school year. Oh, my god, I shudder to think how much further the molestation would have gone, how much worse it could have been. Even though my next school year was a typically difficult one, I think,
But for the grace of God go I
.

Even after I left that house, the man continued to write me, and begged me to write him letters in return, giving me his friend’s address to which I could send them without my family member knowing. Completely freaked out, I told one of my parents about it, and their response was, “Well, is he your boyfriend?” I managed to avoid him and his attempts to contact me, and then I proceeded never to talk about it. This was one of the many reasons why my after-care plan included a commitment to ongoing trauma, adult child, and abuse survivor work.

I moved on to the other end of the treatment exercises, which, for me, included making a collage of what life had looked like as the depressed Lost Child in my family, and in recovery, what my role in the family might look like. I created my after-care plan and processed it with staff and peers. My minimum commitment to myself was to spend time every day with other recovering people, to read recovery literature every morning with my prayer and meditation practice, to apply the principles and slogans of recovery in all my affairs, to reach out to others on this journey by phone, and to give away what had been given to me so freely. “We cannot keep what we have, unless we give it away,” Shades stresses. I also committed to do an intensive six-day family-of-origin, and survivor-abuse and trauma workshop every calendar year, to continue the deeply healing process of “uncovering, discovering, and discarding.” I made a promise that were I ever to relapse, I would return to inpatient treatment. Simply put, I committed to continue to go to any lengths for my recovery, to clean house, trust God, and help others.

Perhaps most saliently, I wrote a goodbye letter to depression. I had witnessed other clients reading powerful goodbye letters to diseases they had come into treatment not even knowing they had, or denying had been killing them. The work had been exhilarating merely to witness, and so it was perhaps this assignment more than any other that let me know I was completing something, dying to an old way of being, being born into a new life of freedom. I was moved and surprised by the words that effortlessly flowed from my pen. It was an ode, a farewell, a thank you letter, and most important, a triumphant statement of “good riddance.” It said, in part:

Dear Depression
,

You have, indeed, been dear to me. You were my way of life, and such a natural part of my existence, I hadn’t even known you were smothering me, so completely and thoroughly were you my companion
.

I remember night after night of lying in bed, and you coming to me in the form of those dark, negative thoughts, and how I’d collect them, each one a precious chink in my armor. I’d draw those thoughts to me, turning them carefully into the poisonous refrain, and when they settled deeply
enough in my brain, and the much-needed chemical relief came, I’d let it evaporate. Another one would instantly materialize, much like the subsequent waves in the ocean—the tide draws the form back into the sea, where another has been simultaneously prepared. And so these thoughts would collect relentlessly until I got what I needed—proof I was wrong, proof I was unloved, proof everyone chose the words and actions they did to disregard me, their desire to let my needs go unacknowledged and unmet an indictment of my very existence being wrong. I could review the day with your devious help and reframe it to my most severe disadvantage
.

The effects of this were numerous. I could make sense of moments earlier I had not understood. I could pull into the cocoon of my bed and avoid the dangerous man whom you lied about to me, telling me he had all the power to hurt and save me. I could connect the thoughts within my body and freeze, go idle, go mute—oh, the pall you cast on my solar plexus! You could trap with your vicious cycles of thoughts, the endless, rampant loops that somehow never became tedious, in spite of the same hurt being replayed ad infinitum. I could watch the reruns; speak the words in my head, and get the same hit of worthlessness and despair, over and over and over
.

Living with you has been torture. My resiliency has tried with poignant courage to kick your ass out of my body, and such wholesome tactics, craving a cup of tea to set the tone for my day, another person’s love to refute your antic in my soul
.

It was said here at Shades you were my first love. What a peculiar thought. You did isolate me, like a greedy lover, you distracted, soothed, and absorbed me totally. How very odd
.

But all that is over now. I have a husband, a Dad, and a Pop. They aren’t perfect, but they’re mine, and I’ve learned I can be mad at people and still love them—that was perhaps the sharpest double-edged sword of all your lies. I needed to protect myself, but I also needed to trust. You kept me from doing that. You had me convinced that anger excluded love, both in me and in others
.