Call Me Cockroach: Based on a True Story Read online

  As a child, all I wanted was to be loved. As an adult, all I wanted was to be loved. But it was hard for me to believe in happily ever after when the one person I should have been able to count on to love me unconditionally had failed me. If my own mother didn’t think I was deserving of love, how could I expect anyone else to? The thought of having my heart mutilated again scared the hell out of me, so to retain a sense of safety, I always kept a part of it to myself, hidden and protected. Because I never allowed anyone too close, or trusted anyone enough to give up my heart, I’d been unable to develop healthy, long-term relationships.

  My mother wasn’t all to blame. Because of Daddy, I saw men as being weak, untrustworthy creatures that could be easily manipulated. My father’s betrayal was like an earthquake to my soul, and every time thereafter when another man came along and in some way betrayed me, I felt the aftershock.

  Even though I had trouble developing lasting relationships with men, I still dreamed the dream. Whenever I thought I was in love, I went through all the motions, playing out the love stories I’d read about, or seen at the movies, sometimes at the expense of some poor man’s heart. I never did this maliciously—each time I believed my feelings were real. But, as it always turned out, being in love was a brilliant star far beyond my reach.

  DESCENT

  At three o’clock in the morning, I was sitting in the dark, on the kitchen floor of my apartment, eating vanilla wafers from the box. The night before, I’d sat in the same spot, at the exact time, shoving sour cream and onion potato chips into my mouth by the handfuls. The night before that, I’d eaten a whole jar of peanut butter and half a sack of marshmallows.

  My bizarre eating habit had been going on for months. Every morning, at three o’clock, give or take a few minutes, my eyes snapped open, I rose from my bed, and like a zombie, plodded into the kitchen and ate the first thing I could get my hands on. I never turned on the light, as if eating in the dark somehow made it less real. I sat on the floor, as if by not sitting at the table I could fool myself into thinking I was not actually eating. But I was eating, and fully awake and well aware of what I was doing. I knew, and yet I still couldn’t stop.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out why I’d started eating in the middle of the night. Hunger had been a constant in my childhood, and now, as an adult, food remained significant in my life. When I was a child, Mama had withheld food from me to the point where I finally found the courage to sneak out of bed while the rest of the family slept and steal something to eat from the kitchen. So it was no surprise that I’d begun reliving this pattern, and like when I was a child, eating and eating, unable to satisfy my hunger. But I couldn’t understand why it was happening at this particular point in my life. Had I pushed my past away one time too many, and now it was pushing back?

  In addition to the middle of the night eating, my tendency to inertia, and my unhealthy desire for isolation had begun to overwhelm me. Being alone at the end of my work day had become as soothing and comforting as a cup of cocoa on a cold night. But that’s the danger of isolation; it lures you in with the deceptive promise of protecting you and then it feasts on your spirit. Becoming a recluse would have been my preferred way to live, but I couldn’t because of my children, and the necessity of a job that forced me to interact with people, the despicable creatures I didn’t entirely trust. But if I didn’t go to work I didn’t eat. And I had to eat. I had to eat, because I was a damn cockroach, a survivor, even if I didn’t want to be.

  I’d always been efficient at activating the protective mechanism of shutting off my feelings whenever I felt threatened. The problem had now become, lately, I always felt threatened. Each day, I turned more and more reclusive, retreating within myself, going out only when necessary, calling in sick for work or showing up late. Even when I was at my job, I wasn’t. My sales had plummeted, and it had become a daily challenge to conceal my true self from co-workers. As soon as I got home every day, I collapsed on the sofa, drained from having held up such a heavy façade. I was afraid if I couldn’t somehow gain the capacity to effectively bond with other people, I’d reach the point where I would no longer be able to function in society.

  The many blessings in my life were getting lost in the dense, gray fog of my depression. I’d become distant and emotionally unavailable to my children, tangled in the underbrush of the mental anguish caused by my own self-induced isolation. Molly and Daryl had always saved me before. Whenever I slipped into my black hole, loving them, caring for them, had brought me back out. But there was no saving me now. This time I had sunk too far—was still sinking—and I knew dragging my children down with me would be the cruelest thing I could ever do to them.

  The time I wasn’t at work I spent in bed with the curtains drawn. I was afraid of what the light might expose. I got to where I wouldn’t answer the phone. Whenever it rang, I cringed and covered my ears, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the receiver and stop the ringing. Like my fear of driving, I couldn’t connect my phone phobia with anything from my childhood. I simply added it to the long list of my other fears.

  Some days I didn’t bother to get dressed, bathe, or brush my teeth. I was too exhausted for hygiene, exhausted from years of smiling, hiding, fighting—surviving. Mama had finally made good on her threat to throw me into a bottomless pit; I was spinning downward fast and nothing could stop me, not Dani, not even my kids.

  I began concocting excuses for not getting the kids on the weekends, because I didn’t want them to see me in such a state. I had reached the bitter and shameful realization that Molly and Daryl were better off with Chad. On some level, I’d always known I would inevitably end up in a dark place. The eating disorder, the endless string of obsessions, had all been a preview of the big show to come. Even the nature of my marriage to Chad should have sent up a red flag. Only a woman with no confidence or sense of self-worth would have allowed a man to dominate her in such a way.

  Fleeting thoughts of suicide began passing through my head. The first time it happened, I was soaking in the bathtub; the water was warm and beckoning, caressing my shoulders like a lover easing me into his bed. Reflected in the milky water, I could see the glaring overhead light and white tiled walls of the bathroom. Even the curve of my leg, propped up on the ledge of the soap tray, was perfectly replicated. The world in the water was identical to the world in which I lived, but without the hard, hard edges. With every drop from the leaky faucet, the watery world rippled softly. It’s a more malleable world, I thought. One I can possibly change. Fix.

  That’s when it came to me—a fraction of a second when I believed maybe I could do it, slide under, head and all. Take a deep breath. Slowly I dropped my leg, allowing my body to ease into the tub. As soon as the water wrapped around my neck, warm like a gloved-hand, I remembered Mama’s grip as she smashed my face into the bottom of the bathtub, and jolted up, gasping for air—the same thing I always did whenever water came within inches of my face. What was I thinking? Hell, I can’t even drink a glass of water without losing my breath.

  My first flirt with death had only been a notion, I told myself, a moment of impulse. A lot of people think about killing themselves with no intentions of actually doing it. But then the thoughts began to visit me more frequently. I began thinking in detail, considering the different options of suicide, most of which were not available to me, because I was afraid of almost everything. Obviously water was out of the question. I couldn’t bear the sight of blood, and I had a paralyzing fear of heights. So right away, I could eliminate jumping off a bridge and slitting my wrists. I considered an overdose of pills, but decided it was not a reliable solution. I’d seen too many people on TV who’d been found in a stupor from an overdose and ended up in the hospital getting a stomach pump.

  After careful consideration, I chose carbon monoxide poisoning. I’d read somewhere it was the most painless way to go. Who needs more pain? Sitting in a dusky car with the motor running, drifting peacefully to my death, seemed movie-star
glamorous, in a morbid sort of way. In the movies, people who killed themselves with carbon monoxide usually did it in a garage. I didn’t have a garage, but Dani did, and she and Barry were taking a vacation soon. They always asked me to watch their house whenever they went out of town. It would be the perfect opportunity. The plan had been made. The time had been set.

  Standing in the checkout line at the Wal-Mart, I went over my mental checklist to make sure I had everything I needed: a water hose, a roll of duct tape, and a box of Sominex. My next stop would be the liquor store, where I’d buy the most expensive champagne I could find, and then I’d fill the gas tank of my car before driving to Dani’s house. When there was only one person in line in front of me, the checker glanced at the contents of my shopping cart. I began to get paranoid. Does she suspect something?

  I’d always hated people who committed suicide—hated them for wimping out on life, leaving their loved ones behind with shattered hearts and unanswered questions. But death seemed like the only escape from the hopelessness that had consumed me. I hated myself for needing to escape, for my weakness. After all I’ve overcome I’m giving up now? How can I do this to my children on top of what I’ve already put them through? How can I do it to Dani ? I imagined how devastated she would be coming home from her vacation to find her best friend dead in her garage. I turned my shopping cart around, excused myself through the line of people behind me, and headed for the exit. When I got to the door, I abandoned my cart and ran out of the store. I needed help and I needed it fast.

  Close by where I lived, there was a state mental hospital with a lovely pond beside it, and I decided to swing by the apartment to pick up some stale bread, and then go there and feed the ducks. It was a place where I felt at peace, and in my heart I knew it was where I belonged.

  As I sat on the bank of the pond, tossing bread crumbs to eager ducks, I watched the patients wander mindlessly about the grounds of the hospital, and longed to join them—join my people. I wanted to stand in line every day for a pill—a pill to make me forget the past, make me numb to the future. That’s when something dawned on me: Maybe I can get such a pill.

  When I got home, I called and made an appointment with the only doctor I’d seen in years, the same one who had delivered Molly and Daryl.

  My thoughts were all over the place as I sat waiting for Dr. Watson to come in. My elbows were locked at my side, palms pressed flat against the thin sheet of paper beneath me, and my legs hung stiffly over the edge of the examination table, like two icicles. What will I say? How much should I tell him? What the hell am I doing in here?

  There was nothing to be afraid of. I’d known Dr. Watson forever, and in the most personal way. I should have been able to tell the man anything. But suddenly, spreading my legs and baring my bald vagina, while pushing out a seven pound baby seemed far less revealing than what I was about to do.

  I thought of the first time I’d seen him. I’d been throwing up for weeks. “You’re pregnant,” he’d said, barely glancing at me. “But for formality’s sake, I’ll do the test.”

  Then there was the time, six months into my pregnancy, when I was still throwing up at least twice a day.

  “I can’t keep anything down, Dr. Watson,” I whined.

  He looked at me with steely gray eyes. “Like Popsicles?” he asked. He always responded with short, snippy sentences, like he was in a hurry. This might have offended some people, but I liked that he never tried to poke around in my life.

  “Yes, I like Popsicles.”

  “Suck on Popsicles then.”

  And how could I forget the day I went into labor with Molly? After fifteen hours of screaming profanities at Chad and hallucinating from pain medication, Dr. Watson walked in my hospital room, dragging a bum leg he’d gotten from a war wound. After he’d examined me, he patted me on the hip and said, “You’ve got a long way to go, missy. See you tomorrow.”

  The door to the examination room opened, and Dr. Watson slid in sideways. “What’s the problem?” he asked, peering up over his glasses at me.

  “I’ve been exhausted lately, Dr. Watson. Some days I don’t even want to get out of bed.” I took a deep breath. “And… and…” Then I started crying, blubbering like a fool, until I could no longer form words.

  “You need an anti-depressant?” he asked.

  “Yes… I mean, do you think I do?”

  “Sounds like it. The thing with anti-depressants is they mess up your sex life.”

  Sex was the last thing on my mind. “I can deal with that.”

  He cracked a brief smile. “You’re still young. You might not feel that way after your mood picks up.” He studied me for a minute. “There is one that might work well for you. It has the least sexual side-effects, and it’ll get you out of bed.”

  “Anything,” I blurted.

  He jotted something on his prescription pad. “You’ll have to take it twice a day, as soon as your feet hit the floor in the morning, and again around two in the afternoon.”

  When I got home with the prescription, I opened the bottle and poured the pills out into my hand. Purple tablets—not what I expected. I thought they would be more interesting, maybe shiny red or yellow capsules, like in the movies. I took one immediately.

  I didn’t know what to expect from the pills Dr. Watson had prescribed. I’d read somewhere that anti-depressants turned people into zombies incapable of experiencing essential human emotion. But I figured I had nothing to lose by taking them, because I was already an emotionless zombie. I followed the prescription religiously. A week went by, and I felt the same as before. After two weeks, still nothing. Then right around the third or fourth week, I started to notice an improvement in my mood.

  After two months of taking the medication twice a day, every day, my outlook on life changed radically. I bounced out of bed in the mornings ready to tackle the day ahead of me. I opened the curtains in my bedroom and plugged the phone back in. I looked forward to seeing my children, and even started going out to dinner with co-workers. As an added bonus, I no longer had the urge to smoke, or the compulsion to get up in the night and stuff myself with food. And the eating disorder I’d been trying to keep at bay for years, practically disappeared overnight. Later, I discovered this particular drug was commonly used to help people quit smoking, and sometimes to treat anorexia. The difference was palpable, and the fact clear: I needed the purple happy pills to function, just as diabetics need insulin.

  PUSHING OFF THE BOTTOM

  One afternoon, on her way home from work, Dani stopped by my apartment, grinning like a kid who’d discovered an M&M tree growing in her backyard. “You’ve got to read this,” she said, extending a thin book to me. “Tonight.”

  I took the book from her and read the title. “A Child Called “It.” What’s it about?”

  You’re not going to believe this, but the man who wrote this book went through almost the exact same thing you did when you were a kid.”

  “What? No way.”

  “I’m serious—read it, you’ll see.”

  Overcome with curiosity, I started reading the book as soon as she left. From page one, I became enthralled with the author’s heart-wrenching account of his severe childhood abuse. Dani was right, the similarities in our stories were startling. Not only had the author been severely beaten and starved by his mother, just as I was; he was also the only child in the family singled out to be treated this way. Both of our fathers were passive and did hardly anything to help our situations, and the jaw-dropping part was there were so many parallels in the details of the systematic, often twisted behavior of both our mothers. For instance, both of us were not allowed to look at anyone in our families, and neither one of our mothers would call us by our names. His mother referred to him as “it,” or “the boy” and mine called me “weasel,” or “horse face.”

  Our mothers were so similar, they could have been sisters, and after I had read A Child Called “It” I felt as though I had found a brother in the auth
or. I wanted to write him a letter to thank him for sharing his story, and tell him he’d made a huge difference in at least one person’s life. I wanted to let him know how brave I thought he was for writing about all the degrading things his mother had done to him, for finding the courage to write his story, regardless of how his family might react, and that people might doubt the validity. And I had a question to ask him, too, the same question that had been gnawing at my brain for years. I wanted to know if he had any idea why we were the only ones targeted for abuse. I searched everywhere on the internet but couldn’t find a way to contact him directly.

  I had to talk to somebody, so I called Dani. “Put on a pot of coffee,” I said “I’m coming over.”

  Dani looked at me over her cup of coffee. “You should write a book about your childhood,” she said. “You’re a great writer.”

  “But I can’t write a book.”

  “Yes you can. You thought you couldn’t drive to Henderson either, but you did.”

  “I’m afraid if I wrote a book some people would be embarrassed.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like my brothers.”

  “When have your brothers ever cared about you and the hell you went through? You’re right; it may embarrass them to read the details of what your mother did to you. I’m sure they love her because she never mistreated them. But I’ll bet your story helps more people than it hurts.”

  “I think two of my brothers have kids, not to mention Molly and Daryl—that’s their grandmother.”