Miles To Go Before I Sleep (30 page)

In the book, Wilde says,

I underlined other sections of Wilde's book that gave me strength and comfort, such as

And, every morning before starting my day, I'd repeat the following affirmations:

I found passages that meant a lot to me in other meditation books too. I underlined and put stars by them in the books so I could return to them again and again. I wrote down a list of affirmations and started saying them to myself every day. Some of them were

I didn't rush through my affirmations, but put my heart into each one. As I said each meditation, I visualized what it looked like. I used the affirmations along with the visualizations to set goals and achieve them.

Shakti Gawain was another author whose books helped me walk through my depression. One of the passages in her book
Living in the Light
, a book about personal growth and transformation, really hit home for me. Gawain writes about our need to develop healthier relationships with ourselves, others, and the earth itself, because the old ways don't work anymore.

Wow! I thought, this woman is great. She was speaking to me. I was learning to love the new Jackie—and I was learning to heal some of the old Jackie's emotional wounds too.

I started thinking more about what the epilepsy center counselor had told me about my limitations. It didn't sound right to me. I recalled a similar episode from earlier in my life that put her predictions in perspective.

In my senior year of high school, I started thinking about my plans after graduation. I thought about working for a while but decided that what I really wanted to do was go to college. No one in my parents' families had ever been to college, but education was a top priority in our home.

I made an appointment to talk about my plans with the high school guidance counselor, as all graduating seniors were required to do. Mr. Jenkins was a tall, imposing figure of a man.

“I'm thinking about college, but I need a scholarship to pay part of it,” I told him.

Mr. Jenkins stared across his desk at me with a sad, sympathetic look on his face. It was hard to break the bad news, his eyes seemed to say, but someone had to do it. “I really don't think you're college material, Jackie,” he said. “Just look at your grades (I had mostly B's and C's). I think you'd be a lot better off doing something else. Have you thought about a vocational-technical school?”

He urged me to learn a trade. I left his office feeling disturbed and confused. Somehow, it didn't feel right.

There has to be a better way
, I thought to myself.

I went ahead and applied to college anyway—and tried for one scholarship. Three months later, I got two letters in the mail. I was accepted at a junior college
and
awarded a scholarship by the Deer Park Cafeteria Workers Scholarship Fund! It wasn't a lot of money—$120 for one year—but it was something.

At the beginning of my junior year at Sam Houston State, I declared myself a sociology major. Taking an education class was one of the requirements. I wasn't thrilled about it, but I signed up.

Was I in for a surprise! A whole new world opened up to me. I was finally in a class where I was getting it. I decided to switch my major from sociology to education. I amazed myself by making all A's. My self-esteem shot up and I finally felt that I belonged in school. My grade point average went from a C to an A. After that, I made the dean's list every semester.

I started thinking about becoming a teacher. Then the doubts crept in. I'd have to study and work harder to graduate on time.
Who did I think I was? Me, a teacher?
I saw teachers as being leaders, role models, the “good” students. In my mind, I didn't fit the bill.

I went to my academic advisor and asked, “Do you think I could be a teacher?” And he said, “Yeah, I think you could.”

THE U.S. ARMY PSYCHIATRIST I saw in Germany had hinted that I might have a delayed reaction to the tragedy. At the time, however, I didn't really believe him.
Me have a problem with anger? No way.
I wasn't ready to give up the image of myself as a happy, “together” person. I wanted to get to the other side of my pain without actually going through it. Going through it meant giving myself permission to feel all of my feelings, especially the ones I wasn't “supposed” to have.

Throughout the hijacking, I remember feeling very angry. I was furious that the hijackers had taken away my power to make decisions. I had worked so hard to take responsibility for my life and my choices, and now that was all yanked away from me with no questions asked.

For the first time in my life, I felt powerless over the most basic aspect of my existence: whether I lived or died.

Now that I was finally starting to slow down a year after the hijacking, the pain started coming out. I felt survivor's guilt for a long time. I kept thinking,
If I had taken the middle seat on the plane, Scarlett would have lived.
The bullet in the gun that shot Scarlett was more powerful than mine. As for the children, I tortured myself with thoughts such as
If I'd only kicked the gun out of the hijacker's hands, maybe the troops wouldn't have needed to storm the plane and the children would not have died.
I had to really own and accept that Scarlett had died, that the children had died.

I decided to call Brenda Schaeffer, a local psychotherapist who had been recommended by my chiropractor, to see if she could help me cope with the fear, pain, and rage I was feeling.

Scott wanted us to go together to my first therapy appointment. Understandably, he was concerned about whom I might be opening up my life to. The therapy process was going to affect his life too. Yet I also sensed that Scott might be tempted to exercise a little too much control over my choice of a therapist. So I made the ground rules clear. He could come with me to check her out, but if I liked her, I was going to go.

We both went to her office in Golden Valley. I felt safe with the counselor right away and sensed her authenticity. I knew she could help me heal and grow. I was learning to trust my intuition and feelings about people and situations. In addition to her private practice, Brenda was the best-selling author of several books.

During the hijacking, I had to freeze my emotions in order to cope with the horror of what was happening around me. I numbed out. Now, to survive emotionally, I had to start thawing out.

Psychotherapy helped me get in touch with all my anger toward the hijackers that I had stuffed. After I'd been in therapy a while, Brenda used a Gestalt method to help me get my feelings out. She had me sit in one chair and imagine the hijacker who shot me was sitting in another. She'd point to the other chair and say, “Jackie, why don't you talk to the hijacker.”

At first, I was a little embarrassed about talking to a chair. Brenda suggested that I not think of it as a chair but rather really imagine the hijacker. I'd start talking and saying what I felt. As I did, I got angrier and angrier. The rage started pouring out.

After saying what I wanted to say, I'd sit in the other chair and become the hijacker. Now I'd be looking over at Jackie, from the hijacker's point of view. I'd tell Jackie why I did it, everything I wanted to tell her but couldn't.

I kept going back and forth, taking turns being myself and the hijacker. It was so powerful. My blocked emotions were flowing again. It helped me—not to forgive, because I wasn't ready for that yet—but to start to grieve. Grieving was hard work but, together, we were working through my pain.

With Brenda's help, I did a lot of visualization. I imagined my hatred, bitterness, and anger as a black cloud inside my body. Then, I released the cloud and replaced it with bright, healing energy. I saw healing light and energy flowing through my body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. As I breathed in, I continued to pull in white, healing light. As I exhaled, I breathed out the black cloud inside me.

About three months after starting therapy, Brenda and I both sensed the positive changes taking place inside me. I don't remember exactly when or how it happened, but I knew that much of the depression, bitterness, and anger had lifted.

At the end of a therapy session, Brenda asked how I felt about completely reliving the hijacking from beginning to end. In therapy, we were always talking about the hijacking, but we hadn't gone through it step by terrifying step. Brenda thought doing this “body work” would help release more feelings and allow me to move forward. She knew another psychologist who worked with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who could be there to help.

I said yes.

I wanted to do it, but at the same time I was scared to go through the hijacking again. I called Barbara for support. “I'm really scared, Barb. I don't know what it's going to be like.”

“I know, honey,” Barb said. “But you're going to be okay. Wayne and I are praying for you. We both love you.”