I’m the early riser and first up, although it was late for me.  I open the door, and my sister Agatha hears me.

She comes out and says, “Where are you going?”

I’m thinking, I just had to go through all this babysitting at the hospital, now I have to do it here too?!  But I just say, “I’m going walking.”

“Where?”

“I’m going home to walk Max, then take a shower and get some clean clothes.”

Agatha says, “I forbid you to go alone. I’m going with you.”

“OK.”

She wants to get her phone but I tell her she doesn’t need a phone. She tells me, “I’ll just carry it.”

“Do you need that to report back to my husband?”

“I just want to take it.”

“I won’t walk with you if you’re on the phone”. So she turns if off.

I was hoping for a quiet walk, but my sister wanted to talk. I let her do all the talking while I tried to think about what I needed to do to make things right.

As I’m walking along, I’m thinking how odd it was that there were so many people out in the neighborhood on a weekday during work hours.  Was this normal that the neighborhood felt so alive?  Either I never noticed this before or my senses were just super heightened. I noticed houses as I passed and people would come out of the house then go back in. I walked by another house and the same thing happened again. Almost as if it was choreographed. It reminded me of a life size German cuckoo clock, where the people come out from the side, go around the front, and disappear on the other side. Continually.  This seemed so abnormal. I wondered if I just never realized what went on during the day while I was working.

Agatha used the walk and my silence as an opportunity to connect with me. She wants to talk about what happened the day before and on Friday.

“Nothing happened, it was all a mistake,” I tell her in a tone I thought would stop the questions. “I ended up in the emergency room of Memorial hospital, and somehow in the behavioral unit at Teddy Roosevelt. It was all a mistake.”

Her face tells me she didn’t believe me.

She asked, “What happened yesterday?”

She was referring to Wayne leaving me at my parents’ house. I was vague and told her it escalated out of control. She tried to connect with me by telling me about her son Aidan. She mentioned that he had been seeing a psychiatrist and was in a program to deal with his depression. I knew he was a cutter because I’d seen the marks, but I respected their privacy and never tried to talk with her about it.  Instead I showed my love and support in a non-invasive way.  I took action to help him by working on building up his self-esteem and showing how much he was loved every opportunity I had.  I offered to spend time with him and let him know I was available if he ever needed me.  I didn’t need the details to help him.

I’m sure Agatha thought this moment of sharing would make me want to talk, but it didn’t.  This would be just the beginning of my efforts to avoid talking about myself, my “long weekend”, and how I was feeling.

I saw one young woman in our neighborhood, Daisy, who I would normally stop and talk with on a typical dog walk, but today I didn’t feel like it.  Daisy was young, in her 20’s I would say. She had gone to college at one time, but then something happened and she was diagnosed as bi-polar, and lived with her parents now. She loves to walk.  I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was keeping myself away from people who might have something to say about the weekend.  I was trying to avoid people telling me what to do and wanted to avoid explaining where I had been. I was generally trying to keep to myself until I felt more mentally and emotionally prepared to talk about the “long weekend”, so I dodged her. I knew she saw me and would expect me to chat, but I just couldn’t today, so I crossed the street to avoid passing her directly.  She saw that and crossed the street as well, to meet up with me.  Then, as ridiculous as it sounds now, I crossed the street again. Sounds like a scene from some bad comedy.  Unfortunately she followed me. Maybe she didn’t see the intention behind the double cross? She said Hi. She wanted to keep talking but I just kept moving. I was not going to be held up today.

Once we picked up the dog and started walking I avoided eye contact with neighbors. I would have normally smiled at people and said “Good morning”, only today I avoided them. I was in a surreal state where I felt I had some scarlet letter pasted on my forehead and everyone just knew.  At that time, it felt like people were looking at me like they knew something was wrong. Was it pity?  Fear? Curiosity? I don’t know, but I knew they knew.  Of course, with all this happening I felt insecure — paranoid to a point (who wouldn’t), and suspicious.

When my husband brought me from the incarceration he told me to stay in the back yard. “We don’t want you to go in the front yard”.  Turns out my husband told all the neighbors how I spent the “long weekend”.  I don’t know why he would do that. I’m not sure if he did that on his own or if someone told him to do that to protect me.  Protect me in the sense that I needed to have everyone feeding me reality and had to face up to what happened.

I believe now that my insecurity, shame and embarrassment was being projected on everyone I walked by.  Burdened by what happened, I struggled with acting “normal” when nothing would ever be normal again.  It was tremendously stressful to double check every behavior, word, and look to ensure I wasn’t “acting” crazy.  I did this not for my peace of mind, but to ensure I didn’t get locked up again, and to reassure my family so my sisters would go back home and I could work on cleaning up the mess of my life in private.  I couldn’t work all angles at one time – reassure my parents, keep my sisters out of my business, work with my husband to reunite, talk with my daughter about what happened, and get back to work.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking back and reflecting on the events of the weekend, how everyone behaved, looking for motivations and agendas, and trying to understand more about myself.  So many odd things have happened to me inexplicably, that I look for reasons and rationale for them.  I’ll share another side story of note that I attributed to my physical state, but you may find another reason for it.  At this time, I was ill, but I didn’t know it.  I knew that physically I didn’t feel well or right. I was well attuned to my body and sensitive to changes.

On several occasions, even weeks after my “long weekend”, people said things that triggered something in my head that made me feel guilty, especially instances of my breaking rules.  One example was when my sister and I were walking the dog.   I let her drive the conversation and idle chat.  She started sharing how she took it upon herself to start watering some city trees on her street during the drought.  She wanted to keep them alive and would water them even though the city was telling residents not to waste water on landscaping.  This story triggered a deep response in my mind/heart/soul of overwhelming, heavy guilt.  There are two instances in my life about trees when I felt bad.  The first was cutting down a liquid amber tree in my front yard because I hated that it lost leaves and had these spiky balls that would hurt your feet if you stepped on them.  I knew it was against city regulation to cut down a tree without a permit (they consider them city property, even on your property). I didn’t want to pay for a permit, so I hired someone to cut it down.  Agatha’s conversation brought all that back and I felt really bad about breaking the rules and having the trees cut down. It wasn’t just a twinge of guilt you might get when you realize you got too much change from the store clerk and didn’t notice, but more like the guilt you’d feel for intentionally killing a living thing, only magnified a bunch.  I could feel it in my body. I had a repetitive loop playing in my head.  My thoughts were racing. My stomach wasn’t queasy, but nervous like when you have to present in front of a large audience. It’s like a burning or pulsing sensation in my stomach.

The other example that struck me about trees was when I cut down a tree in my backyard.  I used to have 2 large trees in my yard. They were given to me as presents on my 40th birthday by my good friends.  They had me pick out the trees and they planted them for me. I liked the trees, but they were ash trees, fast growing, and I started to worry that they might be so big they could fall on the house and cause damage. I decided to cut one of them down to avoid any possible damage down the road, but I never told my friends. I felt bad that I had ruined their gift to me.  I had essentially thrown away their gift to me. I felt bad that I kept this a secret, too.  This was more than being embarrassed at my poor tree selection choice. This was a bone weary, heavy guilt trip the likes of which your parents could give you, only I was doing this to myself.

At this time, I took ownership of everything. Everything was my fault. I took on all the guilt. I was the first to claim responsibility. I have always been a rule follower and would feel bad if I broke rules — I would feel guilty, it’s who I am.  But coming off the mental hospital stay, having everything crashing around me, that guilt was louder, deeper and more exaggerated than ever.

When we get to my house, I realize Agatha had given my husband notice that we were coming, because he had just gotten out of bed, and was sitting on the couch. Agatha sits down with him.  I let them know I’m going to shower, as I wonder what the two of them are going to talk about.

After my shower I ask my sister to leave us alone for a minute to talk.  I asked Wayne where my work desk and laptop were and what happened to my stuff.  He told me that I didn’t need to concern myself with that.  I told him I needed my stuff back and I needed to let my manager know that I was back home.  He just told me not to worry.  He had handled it.  I didn’t know what that meant. Of course I was thinking to myself, ‘Wow.  That took some effort for a guy who didn’t contribute to any of the household duties or chores.  The guy can’t get a cup into the dishwasher but he managed to organize, pack, and move all my stuff.  He was really motivated.’

Why did he move all my stuff?  That question bothered me for a while.  Did he think I was incapable of managing the household suddenly?  Did he want to control me by keeping me away from anything that gave me purpose? Was he just trying to make me crazy? Maybe he thought I would sabotage our finances or forget to pay our bills? It had never happened before. But why take all my archives? What was the point in hiding my old work presentations from prior careers?  And all my receipts?

I had been naive.  I thought that the long weekend away was just an aberration. That once this calamity was over, our lives would return to normal.  But I could now see that would be nearly impossible.  There were implications and ripple effects of this long weekend that would last for years. I just couldn’t see that at the time.  I thought that once we put the weekend behind us, we would pick up where we left off.  But already I could see that by telling my work I was mentally incapacitated, they would never look at me the same. Nor would the other “friends” that he probably told about my stay.  And for me, the shame, degradation, embarrassment and pain were only starting.  I was angry too.  When he had his medical crisis I had to tell his work he wouldn’t be in, but I maintained his privacy. I didn’t say why, just that he was in the hospital and would call when he felt better. I never told anyone about his diagnosis because it was his private information, not for me to communicate.  Too bad he didn’t see the propriety in that.

Noticing he didn’t look well, I forgot about my missing stuff.

With a concerned voice, I ask, “How are you?”

He says he didn’t sleep well and he’s starting to have symptoms of his chronic illness. I could hear his tiredness in his voice.

I tell him that I’m worried about him, that I don’t know what is going on, and that he needs to rest if he’s having symptoms.

He says sternly, “It’s supposed to be MY WAY.”

“Right now you just need to rest. I’ll get you some food. And if it will help, I’ll stay at mom’s house again.”

He says harshly, “You aren’t allowed to come back, I told them that.”

I don’t want to give him more stress with his health condition. So I say, “Whatever”, and leave with my sister to get him food.

I return to my parents’ house and tell the family that I’m going out to get my husband some food. I could see that he wasn’t feeling well and I wanted to be sure he was cared for.  I couldn’t help myself, I could see he needed help, so I stepped in to help him.  I brought food to him, made sure he was comfortable, and returned to stay at my parents’ house.

That night I plan to sleep on the couch again. Agatha tells me she thinks I should have the guest room.  Agatha moves her things out. At this point, I have all the hospital paperwork with my things.   Agatha knew where my paperwork was. I thought it was nice of her to give me the bed. Then I realize why I get the bed. Her whole point was to remind me that I’m supposed to live here. I went to bed.

After some time, I see Agatha sneak into my room. She must have thought I was asleep. She grabs my paperwork and leaves.

I can hear her down the hallway say, “I’m going to Target.”

She comes back awhile later, still thinks I’m sleeping, and puts the paperwork back under the bed. She probably copied it all. Who knows? Maybe everyone in the family now has their own copy.  I’m pissed and feel incredibly betrayed.  I couldn’t know that she’d betray me again and in the worst way possible.

Photo by Ivan Ulamec on Unsplash

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Nikita@dontreleaseme.com

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