Be Your Own Hero
When I was born, I can’t say that I was welcomed, but my grandma seemed happy to love me, I see it in the photograph. When grandma died, shortly after my mother, I looked for a soft warm lap. I looked for someone to replace her. A very wise counselor, after I tried to leave this life, counseled, “You cannot replace people with people.” (I love you Rick).
One day (it was November. The ‘thankful’ month glossed over to get to Christmas, as getting is funner than giving) a woman had her newborn brought in to the psych unit, and I, envy leaking from every orifice, watched Rick holding her. So sweet, so tender. I am 21 but I want that. Am not moving forward until I go back, and my parents do it right. The baby was a stranger, but so gently welcomed. Unearned, it was loved. Accepted without conditions. No wonder I was jealous! Tired of jumping through other people’s hoops to find some semblance of caring, I really couldn’t care. I just didn’t want to be here.
I learned about Love in the hospital, of all places. My young psychiatrist, fighting to keep me admitted when the old blustery attending signed me off home. “You can’t possibly send her home like this!” he yelled (I was near the nurses station and heard everything). “I wanted to not be a problem any more and now I’ve made things worse.” “This is exactly what I mean!” (Dr T. is trying to be composed). “You are *not* just a problem!” but of course I was, had been from the get go. Here’s a kid we don’t want, now what? My mother dies, my father wants his freedom, what to do about the kid? Drop her at her aunt’s and split. It was good of them to take me in, but I came burdened with problems. Guilt and shame were my constant companions. I couldn’t ditch them. I was wrong, I was bad, I was trouble. “People only care because you make them feel sorry for you.” That hurt the worst. I didn’t want pity, but I might have needed some compassion.
I had come upon a cross roads in the hospital. I had to decide if I wanted to be here, if doing the work was worth it. It was Love that changed my mind. Not the meds or the ‘structure’, routines or visits from the head Psychiatrist: (“Do you feel like taking your life?” “Hell no, I’m too tired to take a pee!”) I made some friends (Michelle and I got a pass and went to a Phil Collins concert! When I left the unit she said, “Go get ’em, Tiger!”), and I had two stellar human beings as counselors. They chipped away at my defenses by being real and showing their soft underbelly, and that’s all I ever wanted or needed and I melted. Not alltogetheratonce, but over a month, my well-defended castle began to crumple. I still showed my incisors but I let my ears be scratched. So thanks for your tethering, Rick and Joe and Dr. T., thanks to the entire cast of angels watching over me. All these years later, all the muddy water under all the rickety bridges I can finally say, “Praise be to God, it’s really good to be here.”
LBM 11/5/2019
