Who Was I?
The spring of 1978 saw a shift for me. Having left the job at the UCONN Health Center for the one in Torrington, I had, if not decreased my stress, at least “changed it.”
I was free of commuting with my father. That in itself was a relief. And the environment at the community hospital was much different from the high-paced research environment at UCONN. Even though I worked in the microbiology department at the hospital lab, I had much more contact with staff from all the different lab sections — hematology, chemistry, blood bank, etc. It was like one large unified section – the lab – versus individual isolated “kingdoms.” And the staff interactions were more collaborative and friendly. So there were those improvements.
But there is an old saying – “No matter where you go, there you are.” And the question was – who did I bring with me into that lab? Where had life left me after the last several years of intense driving toward my degree?
Only criticisms and questions
Looking back through journal entries, I noticed some trends.
9/23/76 – The start of my last year of college at the hospital:
“I want to remember when I’m older, how I feel now…I will write down a number of topics that serve as my major problems and about which I have the fewest answers:
- My inability to make decisions, especially if it involves going against someone’s will or requires a large amount of independence.*
- My overwhelming need to please people (especially those close to me) even if it means sacrificing my own desires*
- The fact that everything is “relative.” There is no right or wrong per se, no clear, cut-and-dry answers…This is tied up with my need to please everyone & my inability to make decisions. I can no longer decide for myself what **I** feel is right or wrong.*
- When am I too selfish, and when do I give in when I shouldn’t?*
- Where do I go from college…Can I cope with higher responsibility?*
- What do I want out of a man?
- *This might all sound like I am crazy – maybe I am. I prefer to prevent going crazy. Instead of ignoring my problems, I prefer to face them…”
I am struck by three things here: 1) I wrote of myself in such critical terms – seeing myself only as a list of problems. I didn’t list one positive quality. 2) On some level, I was already aware that I wasn’t “taking the reins” of my life. 3) Despite that, I knew I wanted to take action. I just had no idea what. So I just ‘existed.’”
Great insights, totally wrong conclusions
4/28/77 – While in the hospital program in Bridgeport:
“By psychological attacks, he elicits the desired reaction and programs the person’s responses to give him the desired effect, affection, whatever. Creating feelings of guilt, or of some sort of debt owed that should be repaid, he slowly grasps control of that person until they are no longer an entity of their own but rather an extension of him. They cannot function without him….but the person has nothing to be guilty about, and the right to maintain one’s own entity….It is precisely this last item that must be conveyed to the parent…one must demand one’s rights…”
As an aside, I will note that being away in Bridgeport gave me enough distance to start to grasp some healthy truths about my father and how he operated. There was hope and the spark of independence forming in what I wrote above. I am actually surprised at the clarity I had in that moment to see the way he was manipulating me. At the same time I note how “ambiguously worded” my entries were. I wrote in a detached “third-person observer” style, careful never to mention that I was speaking of my father when I said “he,” or of myself when I spoke of “that person” or “one.” I was always afraid Dad might find my journals and read them. If my own body and orifices weren’t my own to control, why would I expect my journal privacy would be respected?
But whatever correct insights I started out with, given my brainwashing, I then drew the absolutely wrong and unhealthy conclusions, shades of that person who never wanted to upset another. And as always, I spoke in vague coded terms of “they” and “anyone”:
“They say one must get these rights regardless of what they must do to free themselves — They are WRONG….A parent, husband, friend who puts such demands on another will not be helped by cold rejection — anyone who can heartlessly walk up to someone and inform her or her to leave them alone deserves to be smothered by another. After all, it might be an attachment born out of deep love, respect, and a sort of plea for help…. All our lives, our parents are throwing out the life line to us….then all of the sudden comes the realization that this function they perform is no longer needed — this is as it should be for the child, now an adult must be able to function independently…But it leaves the parent hanging to threads of what once was…what the parent forgets is that their function is only one piece of their whole person, and there is still more to life.
It is for this reason that the heartless severing of familial ties just because one “comes of age” …is the wrong approach to true freedom…True understanding of what the parent is going through is essential. PATIENCE, even when resentment is overflowing…and above all, showing LOVE…to reassure the parents they are not useless. Instead, expose them to new things. Much patience, love, honesty, effort, and communication are required like never before…it is easier to run away, but more satisfying to succeed.”
There are so many things wrong with these two paragraphs. First, NO ONE deserves to be smothered by another for any reason. But I apparently thought it was my job to put my parents’ emotional needs ahead of mine, and my job to “rescue them” and help them navigate their “mid-life empty nest” issues.
Also, the conclusion that their attachment to me might be deep love and respect was totally wrong. Deep love and respect are shown by honoring the individuality of a person and setting them free. So while I had moments of total clarity as to what was operating, I had such a sense that it was my job to sacrifice myself for their sakes…as if that was true, healthy love.
The wrong path
9/28/77 – A year later, near the end of that hospital internship, right before I moved back home:
“I would like:
- To get in my car…leave this house {grandparents in Bridgeport}
- Move to New York or Boston or somewhere away from here, home, and that job in Farmington
- Be a writer or teacher
- QUIT Medical Technology right now
I feel so trapped….I am not happy here in Bridgeport…in the Med Tech field…and I can go home, but I feel trapped there….
I feel like exploding…like I am hanging in limbo…I could go back to school for something else, but not just yet, as I have to finish this first. And I want a new relationship, but not just yet because I am still waiting to hear from him {current boyfriend}…”
2/27/78 – While still at the UCONN research lab:
“In a previous entry, where I made mention of dealing with parents and loved ones – a labor of love yet one not without its frustrations…frustrations from life at Bridgeport, my parents, school….and my conclusion: The worst was yet to come…, the pain is somewhat eased…Though it looked bleak…one survives, and things can get better.”
So this is the state of my thinking as I entered the new job. None of these entries gives a glowing assessment of my life then. I was “surviving and waiting.”
I hated my career choice – not a setup for professional success. Frankly, Medical Technology was not my passion. It was a means to an end — getting an income. The burning question in my mind always was — I want to be a writer or teacher, so how do I get there?
And I was waiting for some boyfriend to free me from my home. That was what everyone did back then — either date someone, get married and move out, or live at home with your parents.
One bit of initiative I demonstrated though, was to take a writing correspondence course through the Newspaper Institute of America. It was geared toward teaching you journalistic skills and writing for publication. Everything from the basics of grammar to to how to structure a feature article and spice it with fiction techniques.
It was perfect because I was afraid of failing at my dream of being a writer. This was a slow-, and self-paced approach I could do at home — a low-risk, “putting a toe in the water” attempt. And while I didn’t complete the entire course, I did manage to complete the first half. The instructor provided a a lot of quality feedback and positive encouragement. Someone actually thought I could write for publication. For a second attempt at taking a writing class, this was the success I was capable of at that moment.
As to home, I vacillated between thinking it was the best, or getting in my car, driving off, never to return. I just wanted to run away…from all of it. Not exactly a way to start a life. I needed a break from the last several years of pushing and pushing toward a goal I didn’t want.
A moment of respite to think
The fall brought me that. I had been having a lot of abdominal pain — something not unusual when sexual abuse is present. But no one knew that then. I had consulted a doctor who concluded it was my gallbladder and so scheduled me for surgery.
These days, before that happens, medical professionals check to see if the patient has been abused. Back then, no one questioned anything. The x-ray of my abdomen seemed to show a shadow around the gallbladder. Combined with my symptoms, full abdominal surgery was the next step — there was no such thing as the less invasive endoscopic surgery back then. They just opened my abdomen, removed my gallbladder and the appendix since they were “in the neighborhood,” and then closed me up.
About that gallbladder shadow? There was nothing there. It was perfectly fine. That pain was diagnosed years later as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Again, very common in people who have been sexually abused. But at that point, I didn’t care.
Frankly, despite the pain, I didn’t mind. The surgery required an 8-week recuperation at home. I got to stay home from work with sick-time pay. And Dad had to leave me alone. It was just what I needed.
For whatever reason, I pulled out my oil paints, which I’d abandoned since college. And I spent the next 8 weeks painting. Painting and thinking. A lot of thinking…
Soul Mosaic 
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