Don't Tell Me I Can't Do It! (7 page)

Graduate school brought me dangerously close to not achieving one of my key goals. The demands and pressure of being a graduate student and homemaker were almost insurmountable—exacerbated by the fact that when I chose to go back to school as an adult, I had little, if any, support at home. Nobody wanted me to do it—not Jerry, not the kids, not my parents, not even
my friends, most of whom judgmentally sympathized with my husband. From the beginning, I felt alone, so alone. There was an almost savage pressure for me to give up on this dream of mine.

That wasn’t my way, of course. As in the past, I did what I had to do. Once I made up my mind that I would earn my PhD, and especially once I saw that I was capable of completing the work required to do so, I knew that nothing would stop me. Yet again, I would march to the beat of my own drum, with or without my family’s backing. I enrolled at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) with no clue how close it would bring me to my breaking point.

At CSPP, performance was evaluated periodically by the faculty on a pass-or-fail standard. Either you measured up or you didn’t. Though the criteria were intensely subjective, a mere two NS (“not sufficient”) marks would spell the end of a student’s career. I received my first such mark after I offended one of my professors by treating her more like a peer and colleague than one of my superiors. I meant no disrespect, but my forward style and blatant expression of a contrary opinion regarding Rogerian theory apparently rubbed her the wrong way. It hurt more
deeply than I could have imagined, being labeled “not sufficient” in spite of my most dignified efforts to excel in the program.

My biggest trouble, however, would come during my third year, when I interned at UCLA in the Department of Legal Psychiatry. It was a most enviable placement for me, but it came at a dire price. The psychiatrist in charge was rumored to select a scapegoat from among the interns each year, someone who intimidated him enough to merit his blazing fury and unmitigated harassment. I was fortunate, at first, to have a supervisor who recognized and praised my clinical skills. I felt competent and proud of myself.

But then I came under the supervision of the lead psychiatrist, and it became my turn to be the scapegoat. He hammered me during staff meetings. “I can’t understand you!” he would yell in front of the other staff as I gave my report. “Why do you still have such an accent? Why do you hang on to it? I can’t even understand what you’re saying.” I was mortified. It was more than simple frustration he was expressing. It was transparent, vitriolic antipathy. I could tell he hated me, but I felt helpless to do anything about it.

Another Nazi, in a place I least expected to encounter one.

I was frantic. I sought the help of a speech pathologist at UCLA in a desperate attempt to rid myself of my cursed accent. She was so kind, insisting that there was nothing wrong with my verbal expression and that she could understand me just fine. Meanwhile, the tirades continued. “Why don’t you just go home and take care of your kids and your husband?” he taunted. In spite of my colleagues’ earnest encouragement and sage advice, I withered beneath the weight of his criticism.

I saw others parry his attacks with finesse, saying things like, “That is not helpful,” or “Wait a minute, let’s get back to the issues.” Not me. I was immobilized, cowering before the Nazi, tiny and helpless once more. So he labeled me according to what I projected: a nebbish, a pathetic little wimp with no right to sit before clients as their doctor. And then he did the unthinkable: At the end of my third year of training, he assigned me a second NS, dooming me to expulsion from the program.

Everyone knew what had happened. People whispered about me as I wandered the campus like a condemned prisoner: “She’s going to be thrown out.” I
felt so exposed and vulnerable, like the young fifth grader at the Catholic school in Romania, a marked person all over again. Yet this vulnerability was even more unbearable than before. In the camps, I had my mother to shelter me from evil. In the Israeli Air Force, even during war maneuvers, I was surrounded with the reassuring presence of my fellow combatants. Expelled from CSPP, I was completely alone, without even my family’s support to bolster my desire to fight back. There was absolutely no one who would come to my rescue this time, and I knew it.

I thought about all the hard work I had done over the past several years. I’m still not entirely sure from which deep recess of spirit I summoned the courage to do it, but I decided that this outcome was unacceptable to me. I couldn’t let this happen, and I wouldn’t go down without a fight. I would take on the system in a quixotic but righteous defense of my prerogative to complete my PhD. Like my mother, propping up the near-lifeless frame of my father on the road home from Mogilev, I tapped a well of inner strength I had never realized I had to face a crisis that threatened to
destroy me. My lifelong resolve and determination came to my rescue once more.

I was a survivor.

I hired an attorney and threatened to sue. For several months my fate hung in the balance, and students avoided me like the plague. Everyone wanted me to simply vanish and take my complications with me, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I continued attending classes, defying the “powers that be” until such time as my fate was either sealed or reversed. I had a few colleagues who came to my defense, testifying to my abilities and promise as a competent, insightful clinician. They explained that the real problem was simply an incompatibility of personalities between me and my supervisor, and my attorney seized upon the argument that no one becomes suddenly incompetent after two quarters of professional accolade.

It was a sufficiently compelling case for CSPP to recognize an imminent threat. The Nazis backed down. I successfully stood my ground and was reinstated to the program. Soon thereafter, I would revel in the joy of formally earning my PhD—a victory appropriately
sweetened by the peculiar hardship I had endured along the way.

Don’t tell me I can’t do it!

After completing the two thousand postgraduate hours required for licensing as a practicing clinical psychologist in California, I took the state exam in San Francisco and came short of a passing score by five points. Five measly points! I was so disappointed. I might as well have missed it by twenty-five points, since the outcome was the same either way. I had failed the test. I was tired, so very tired; I knew I lacked both the energy and the desire to face the licensing board a second time.

A colleague suggested that I consider an alternative: the Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling (MFT) license. So that’s what I did. I passed the qualifying exams of MFT with flying colors. It wasn’t what I had originally set out to do with my degree, but I was content with the outcome. I could still enjoy the status
and prestige of my hard-earned title: Dr. Miller. No one could take that from me. No one.

Some might wonder whether I finally gave in and admitted defeat. To them, I would say, “Absolutely not!” Had I really wanted to, I know that I could have obtained my license and practiced psychology in whatever setting I desired. I simply had different priorities. My success was self-defined. I didn’t care where or how I practiced psychology. What mattered to me was that I was helping other people overcome their problems. I was a credentialed, respected professional in a dignified, influential field. I had arrived at my destination, and I wasn’t about to let anyone dilute my satisfaction.

I still live that way today, and it makes all the difference in how I experience the distinctive trials of aging. Someday, when I’m long gone, I hope my grandchildren will remember me for modeling an indefatigable resolve to be the best, most self-actualized person I can be.

J
erry and I once visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. There was an exhibit of debris in concentration camps, and I remember seeing heaps of shoes with holes in them. Instantly, I was the little girl trudging her way back to Romania from the camp in Mogilev, dirty and smelly, hungry, my shoes worn through, and my feet hurting fiercely. My shoes were in that pile—or they could have been.

I hadn’t cried then. I wanted to be strong for Mama. But I cried now.

We saw the cattle cars, and they seemed so small. As a little girl, I had found them large and frightening. There
was a collage of pictures of camp refugees from Mogilev, and I looked for myself among the mass of people. My family wasn’t pictured—but we could have been.

I stood gazing at the pictures, tears gushing down uncontrollably. I wept in silence, though not for anything specific. Poor Jerry didn’t know what to do with me. “I’m fine,” I told him. “I just need to cry.” I walked ahead, away from him. I didn’t want to share that experience with him; I didn’t want to keep reassuring him that I was okay. For once in my life, I really just wanted to let it out—to allow myself to emote.

When I was little, I used to taunt my father when he scolded me. “Go ahead. Hit me all you want. I won’t cry.” I might have ended up black and blue with bruises, but I always waited until after he had left the room so I could cry privately. I’m still like that. When there’s a trauma, I do whatever has to be done, detached and purposeful. Only after the crisis is over do I allow myself to become vulnerable, to shake a little, and then to move on.

As a young woman, I befriended a pilot in the Israeli Air Force named Aaron. I was smitten, in love; we were committed and talked about having a future together. But then one day he was sent out on a maneuver and never came back. His plane was shot down. I was crushed. I couldn’t forgive him for dying on me. Even though I had seen more than my share of death in the camps as a little girl, losing Aaron was personal— very personal. I decided then and there never to get too attached to anyone. The pain that was the price of loss wasn’t worth it. It had worked for me in the past as a child, and it would work for me in the future as an adult, I thought. I would never depend on anyone else completely, only on myself.