The vortex

I was hanging on just one day to the next. Change. Questions. Despair. Capitulation. Then try again.

A friend saw my struggle. She was compassionate. Very caring. We had given each other support. She was struggling in her marriage and had her own issues in life. I was struggling to stay alive, and life was my issue.

But I am eternally grateful for her endless support at that time. She fed me. Checked on me. Included me in her activities. Didn’t judge me, even the night I drank a bottle and a half of wine as I mourned the mess I’d been left to fix, then had a huge hangover the next day. In the midst of a spinning vortex, and no solid ground under me, she was a lifeline.

It was as if I had a kind of “family” connection again. “Family” had been the whole focus of my life and self-worth up until that point, and I was desperate. Lonely. Afraid. Mine had “lysed.” In biology, cell lysis is the death of a cell. It blows open, spews its guts everywhere, and there is nothing left. With my whole family world blown apart, I was reeling, and so I grabbed on to her support for dear life.

The Naugatuck River, Revisited

Why did I stay alive? I wanted to die.

But sometimes even ugly things can save you…sometimes, even a “dead river “ can keep you hanging onto life.

Every day I’d go to work, come home, and then walk with the dog. Miles. Miles and miles of walking. I felt like as long as I was outside walking, out there in the land of the living, wandering past homes and people working in yards and garages, I was still in the land of the living. I might still make it.

I pondered suicide…every minute of every day. Why should I stay alive? Who would ever love me? How could I ever tell anyone what had been done to me and expect them to understand? I could see no future, no use for me. No hope.

But in those moments, I kept remembering those car rides home from Bridgeport when I was a kid. How, in spite of what a polluted river the Naugatuck was during the day, it was so beautiful at night as we drove by it on our way home. I remembered thinking I didn’t want to fall asleep because I might miss something to see. The lights sparkling on the surface of the water. The houses along the river. People moving beyond window frames. It was all so interesting to me, and I DIDN’T WANT TO MISS ANYTHING. So I would fight to stay awake and keep watching…to not miss anything.

It was the Naugatuck River and those memories that kept me alive in those moments. For almost six months, I was suicidal. For almost six months, I walked and walked, and listened to the words in my head as I remembered those drives home:

Don’t do it today…you can always kill yourself tomorrow.

You might miss something. You can always kill yourself tomorrow.

3:00 a.m…

My bedroom was on the third level of my condo. But I couldn’t go near it. Nights were terrifying. You never feel an illness, your problems, or your despair more intensely than in the middle of the dark nights. I couldn’t take being upstairs. Alone. Surrounded by the din of silence.

I was already so alone in my life. The days I could crawl through. I would get up. Dress. Thank God I wore uniforms to the lab, so I didn’t have to figure out what to wear. Then I’d go to work. And even as I didn’t want to talk to anyone, at least there was the busyness of work, people, and routines to keep me going.

But the nights….oh…the nights

For months, I slept on the flower-patterned sofa in my living room, my dog stretched out on the floor next to me. Thank God for the dog.

The room didn’t have a lot of furniture, but it had enough to feel like a secure cocoon. The sofas. A microwave and table set. The clock. And the TV cabinet.

The TV. I would leave the TV on all night. Unlike when I grew up, and TV stations went off at midnight, now, with cable, there was always something to watch. It’s not that I even wanted to watch anything in particular. I just needed the sounds of human voices. The sense that I wasn’t as alone at that moment as I truly felt in my life.

I would put on HBO so that no matter how many times during the night I woke up, there was the comfort of hearing a human voice. I will admit there were some really strange things on at 3:00 in the morning, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about content. It was just to have “someone” in that room with the dog and me.

It was just so I might make it through another night.

The catastrophic break…

People talk about their world turned upside down, or the ground disappearing beneath their feet. But how to describe what that actually feels like? I tried to express it through my writing and painting.

Initially, there was the relief and almost joy at having a therapist who was so supportive. His clarity during those early sessions, that my father had terribly violated me and I had every right to break things off, anchored me and gave me strength. After all, if my doctor, a man, said it was so, then it must be. It all seemed so clear and straightforward during the sessions.

But outside of them, I was still alone, defying the full power of that system’s rules, guilt, and manipulation. It is one thing to have someone tell you that you have worth and deserve to stand up for yourself. It is a whole other thing to actually internalize that and …believe it….and…do it. Twenty-eight years of programming that said I was hurting my father, that I had no right to do that, that it was family first, my needs second, all of that was almost too much to fight on my own.

And worse, I was still reeling from the shock of learning that everything I believed about my father, about my life, was totally wrong. You don’t just get over that. You don’t just “delete” the file in your brain that says “Family Systems 1.0” and replace it with a new file, “Family Systems 2.0,” and go on as if nothing happened. The reality of what my life truly had been, I was still trying to wrap my head around. And it started with the searing pain of having my heart torn open with the realization of how badly I’d been used, abused, and lied to.

The truth is, if everything you believed in your whole life turns out to be a lie, then what DO you believe in? What can you trust? Can you even trust yourself anymore if you got it so badly wrong all those years?

If you ever…

It was dark when I got to my parents’ house. I was scared but determined. The therapist and I agreed that this had to be done, and I saw no point in delaying the inevitable. But for safety, I had told a friend exactly where I was going to be so that if she didn’t hear from me in a couple of hours, she would know something had happened.

I don’t remember any of the preliminaries, and I don’t remember leaving. But I do remember sitting at that table and, for the first time in my life, drawing a firm line in the sand:

“I’m in therapy.”

My father sighed. My mother said nothing.

“I came here to tell you that you won’t ever lay a finger on me again.”

His eyes widened. A look of surprise on his face.

“I want you to know that from now on, if you ever touch me again, I will call the police and charge you with assault.”

Countdown….

The waiting room was hot, but I just couldn’t get warm.

My hands shook.

I wanted to throw up.

I should just leave.

Why am I here? I shouldn’t be here…I shouldn’t be doing this…

I was about to break the HUGEST rule of my entire life…the thing that had been most strongly and constantly drilled into me — keep SILENT…protect the family from outsiders.

Was this what it felt like for someone in the Mafia to break the rule of Omerta and speak? That was a betrayal of that ‘family!’ Well, I was betraying my family. Would this spin out of control and hurt them? I should just leave.

“Just because you survived doesn’t mean you came out whole.”

Daria Burke – Of My Own Making

“Disaster Date” then the quiet before the storm…

I don’t recall much about the holidays that year. I assume I got together with family, and things went uneventfully.

The only thing I do remember from that period was a date that nearly got both of us frozen to death. We foolishly drove an hour or so away to go to dinner that night when the temperatures were literally 20 degrees below zero. We should have stayed closer to home.

Here is a poem that was popular in the 1960s. Maybe it was overused then and became trite. But I always loved it. It was written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann, so it is 99 years old. Yet I still think it applies today, and I still derive much peace from its words. I think the world could do well to follow its wisdom.

So, to start 2026, here is the poem Desiderata. Happy New Year….

And tomorrow, my writing journey resumes…

Desiderata – Words for Life

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

— Max Ehrmann, 1927