by Ginger Zee
Dr. Wilson quietly ushered his last patient out and invited me in.
We sat in awkward silence for what felt like a full minute.
I don’t know if that was a tactic or if it was really just five seconds, but I ungracefully started the session with my current greatest fear:
“If my new coworkers had any idea…” I anxiously kicked my feet.
“They don’t and they don’t have to,” comforted Dr. Wilson. He was assuring me that I could get through my first day at ABC News despite the hell I had been through. The hell I had put myself through for much of my life.
That hell that had culminated in me checking myself into a mental inpatient facility in Manhattan about ten days before I started to work at ABC. That’s where I had met Dr. Wilson.
This part of the book may seem to be coming out of nowhere. So, let me explain a bit.
Up to this point you have gathered that I can be hard on myself, that I love self-deprecating humor, and that I have never been perfect. A few people close to me read the first version of this story and their biggest note was that I was “too hard on myself.” But that’s just it. I am. Always have been, always will be. But recently I’ve found a way to live that is far less self-destructive. I want to share the journey that got me here, because I feel like there are a lot people who could benefit from hearing that they aren’t alone.
Those who read the first draft also said that people have an image of me as “strong, fearless, and brilliant.” I was so flattered to hear that and I don’t think that image needs to change. I do hope it makes you think that even more.
Despite what you are about to read, please know there are years of stories and experiences I don’t have time or don’t think are appropriate to share. The purpose of sharing the next few chapters is to let you in to a mental health challenge I had, and to give hope to those who feel like there is none. No matter how bright and shiny, perfect and put together someone may seem on TV, she is a person just like you and me. For anyone who watched me that first decade on television, you were seeing the best representative of me. For three minutes at a clip. Here’s a glimpse into what was really happening and how I got through it.
Depression has always been my general diagnosis. And by always, I mean since my suicide attempt.
So the term depression was not new to me. What I did know is that in the months leading up to my move to New York my depression was rivaling that postcollege low. The girl in the dark room was back, calling me to crawl in. As low as I was, I had this huge job ahead of me at ABC, and even though that dream job wasn’t enough to pull me out of the depression, it was enough to give me motivation to get better. I knew there was a strong, smart woman buried inside somewhere, and that’s who I wanted to show up at ABC. That alone was saying something. I wanted to show up. That meant I wanted to live. So I was already one step ahead of the other dark places I had ended up in too many times before.
These were skills I had learned from multiple depression guides to help me better cope with my predicament. I did what I was supposed to do when I started feeling really low. I called some of the most supportive and understanding people in my life, such as my cousin Tammy and my mom, told them what was going on—the real ugly truth—and asked for their help.
Collectively, we made the decision that instead of moving into my new apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I would get to New York and check myself into an inpatient therapy hospital for a week. The place we chose had a concentrated intense program that would separate me from the outside world for a little while and remove any possibilities of self-destruction. It felt like the right decision. But when I got there, I was struck by how cold, scary, and eerily reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest it felt. The moment I turned over all my personal belongings, including my phone, and said goodbye to Tammy, who’d flown in just to drive me there, I was overcome with a huge wave of panic. I wanted out. Now. This was a mistake. This was not for me. These people were so much worse off than I was. They looked like real zombies. These were people with real mental illness, not just my garden-variety depression. The voice in my head screamed, I don’t belong here! What in the world did I just do?
But then haunting images from my past flashed before me like a movie—shivering, trying to muffle my cries under a table as I hid from my emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend John; my makeup artist Diane asking me, “Have you been drinking?” at two in the afternoon; and all those long, dark winter days I’d spent holed up in my apartment liquored up and depressed and considering suicide. And then I remembered what my cousin Tammy had said when she dropped me off: “You need to do this. Because we don’t want to lose you forever.”
I will never forget how serious she was, how scared she was of losing me, and I decided then and there that I could do this. If not for me, for Tammy and my mom. They had both seen me go too far down this road and not get the help I needed. This time we weren’t taking any chances. They deserved it even if I didn’t fully believe I did. So I went into that cell—I mean, room—resolved and determined to face my demons head-on and find a new way to live as a natural disaster that wasn’t so exhausting and self-destructive. I know I can’t change who I am. I will always have elements of my personality that are impulsive, chaotic, and dramatic, but I had to find some peace in my life as well. I had to figure out a way to exist in which I could let go of the bedlam I’d been addicted to, and learn to accept peace as a possibility—and maybe even accept love. But first I had to learn that I deserved peace and love. Because as strange as this may sound, I don’t think I came into this world ever feeling that I deserved either.
As I got older, obviously I took all of those same issues into my relationships with men. Their feelings became my feelings. Joe’s disappointment and sadness over the breakup of our engagement became my guilt and shame that I punished myself with for almost a decade. And that’s what I did. I punished myself with men.
And in turn I punished them. I was never fair, rarely honest with myself or them, and I was always looking for a void to be filled. Pretty common, but it doesn’t always happen in such an unfortunate manner. I was ready to figure this all out once and for all and heal wounds that had been with me for years or even a lifetime.
The first morning of rehab, the hard work began. I got up and easily beat my roommate to the shower. She hadn’t said a word to me since I arrived. She was obviously in some serious distress. But even knowing that, I took it personally. I wanted this stranger, this mentally ill stranger, to like me. That’s what I sat down and told the doctor right away in the hospital.
That doctor was Dr. Wilson, and he was unlike any therapist I had ever had before. He was distant, clinical, and matter-of-fact. He seemed like he was in his late thirties or early forties and was handsome in a Jason Bateman kind of way—same dark hair and stature. There was no parental warmth; he wanted to get to the bottom of what my issue was and get me out of here. That’s what I wanted, too, so I felt good with him right away.
On day one, this guy figured out what at least six therapists in my past had never been able to capture. Or maybe I had just never been able to hear it.
After expressing my distaste for my roommate ignoring me, I dove right in. I started with the event that I had been playing over and over in my head since it happened.
It was three A.M. when I dialed 911.
“What’s your emergency?”
“I need help. I need to get away from him.”
“Ma’am what’s your address?”
I answered. She hung up. And I prayed.
My arms curled around my knees, my body tucked in a ball, I sat, silently sobbing, rocking, just hoping the police would arrive soon to rescue me. I was hiding under a table at a remote resort—hiding from my boyfriend, John.
Until this point, I’d been quietly suffering under the weight of his emotional and verbal abuse, hiding my head in the sand as if it didn’t matter because I loved him. But this was different. I was afraid h
e was going to physically hurt me. Check that. I wasn’t afraid he would hit me, I actually used to ask him to hit me because I felt like it would be easier than what he usually put me through. What made this night different is that I truly couldn’t take it any longer and needed help to get away. While I waited for the police to arrive, one thought grew as clear as my name: You have to get out. Everything is at stake. Your career, your emotional well-being, your sanity.
So, how the hell did I get under this table?
How did a woman who worked so hard to grow up, to be successful, to learn to make better choices, to end an engagement, to give up a fancy apartment, to mentor young meteorologists get here? How did a woman who always tried to find the self-deprecating humor in being a natural disaster find herself fearing for her life?
I always felt like my life was split in two. There was the successful, happy-go-lucky “wake up and watch Ginger Zee” side. And then the dark, despondent, tortured, and introverted Ginger Zuidgeest. There are times I would look in the mirror and have no idea who the person was staring back at me. I had gotten into these appalling excuses for romantic relationships over and over and I couldn’t get out.
“I wish I could erase everything and start over,” I told Dr. Wilson.
“With the situation at the resort or in general?”
“Everything. I want a fresh slate.”
I knew what came next, and I hated this part—the part where you have to go back and look at your childhood. It was like having your first date over and over, but this was with a therapist. And I had done this so many times. What a waste I kept thinking. But this time I had that glimmer of hope and wanted to get better.
I looked up at him in my hospital-issued giant gown, slouchy socks, and disheveled hair ready to unleash the fury that I believed to be my life and he cut me off.
“Ginger, have you ever seen a therapist before?”
I’ve probably seen a half dozen therapists over the course of my life. I’m like a therapy connoisseur for goodness’ sake. I saw a therapist after my parents divorced, then again after my mom figured out I was suffering from anorexia nervosa—a disease that is rooted in a need for control in the face of chaos, which was a big part of my childhood. For me, the inability to control it all, which of course nobody can, gets turned into self-hate. My whole life, whenever something went wrong, I thought it was my fault. As I grew up, when other people (like boyfriends or bosses, or friends—or even the guy bagging my groceries) got angry, frustrated, or sad, I somehow figured it was my fault and I had to make it better. Or I gave up. And I let the girl in the dark room consume me like I had right after college.
I hadn’t felt like that again until that moment hiding under that table and waiting for the police. I felt weak, worthless, and finally aware that drinking more than a bottle of wine a day wasn’t going to be enough to erase the memories of John nor the feelings of failure I had now.
I was almost worse than suicidal; I was numb and had been for quite some time. And this zombie was not going to keep this unhealthy lifestyle up at her dream job in New York City. The current issue was the issue I live with always: doing anything and everything to maintain perfection. And above all else, DO NOT FAIL.
In my mind, even with this great job on the horizon, I had failed miserably in my personal life. Almost everyone I dated after Joe I turned into a form of emotional arsenic. I couldn’t turn any of them into the man I wanted them to be and I couldn’t get any of them to love me the way I had fantasized about. I had failed. And when I fail I am worthless. Feeling worthless is like feeling you don’t deserve to be alive, to occupy space or even breathe….
By the way, that was just day one with Dr. Wilson.
He encouraged me to slow down. I tend to get animated when describing my near suicidal thoughts. But I swear I didn’t get here on imbalanced chemicals and bad relationship choices alone. It took me nearly thirty years of chaos to get to this place. That was a big part of days two and three for Dr. Wilson and me to figure out. Here’s what we came up with: To be a natural disaster, you need to grow up in some turmoil. You need to find comfort in all things uncomfortable. Which I do. But in my particular case, I am a natural disaster who wants…no, needs…everyone around me to be happy. I had never attempted to make peace with peace because the need for chaos is buried so deep inside of me, it feels like it’s in my DNA.
He then asked me about childhood.
Now, before we begin, I need to make the point that my parents are both loving, supportive, and awesome. As the cliché goes, they both did the best they could. But whatever judge came up with our custody agreement after the divorce should probably be asked to hang up his robe. We spent one day a week and every other weekend with my dad from Easter to Christmas. Then on Christmas Day, we would move all our things to my dad’s house and spend all of our time there, except one day a week and every other weekend, for which we flipped to my mom’s house. On Easter, we would move again. This was my childhood. While I was grateful for my ability to adapt when I went to college, it definitely set me up for a life where I am only comfortable when I am on the move. For a long time, I really didn’t like being in one place. Dr. Wilson and I discussed my need to travel, and to move apartments (I moved four times in five years in Chicago). I was comfortable being constantly displaced. That was home.
Then, there was the chaos.
My mom is a fiery, mostly Italian gal with what we might call a bit of a temper. We all have stories about our parents, and by no means am I blaming everything on the actions of my mom and dad, but there’s no way to deny that they had an influence in shaping my personality.
After the divorce, my mom had many single-parent moments that set her off. Whether it was forgetting her purse at the bank or finding our dirty dishes in the sink instead of the dishwasher, it didn’t have to be much; but when you are under a lot of pressure as a single mom working twenty-four- and thirty-six-hour shifts and coming home exhausted, your reactions may be slightly heightened. Especially if you are Dawn. My mom is a pathological perfectionist. She is the ultimate protector and caregiver. She’s the woman you want with you when you are in a hospital needing the best care. She’s also the woman who spreads herself so thin that when she isn’t perfect, or something isn’t perfect around her, look out.
Behold, the story my brother and I like to call “the Fruit Ninja.”
It was late on a weekday night. My brother Sean and I had school the next morning, but we had nothing to eat in the house. My mom said, “Get in the car. Let’s go get groceries.” Awesome. We had a blast running the aisles and picking out what we wanted for lunches and breakfasts. I could tell my mom was in a good mood, because we were all singing and Sean and I were even allowed to pick out a few treats. The joy and celebration of full paper bags packed in our station wagon was almost too good to be true. As I shut the car door behind me and let out one more yelp finishing the song we had been singing, I felt the shift before I even turned to see what was happening. The mood had changed. The energy had gone sour. Sean was silent, too. We both watched as my mom fumbled around in her purse. When we arrived home, she started small, murmuring:
“I must have put them in here somewhere. No way do I not have the house keys. No fucking way.”
The volume started increasing, and her voice grew shriller. She slammed her purse to the ground.
“No fucking way. Fuck you.”
She checked the console in the car, the glove compartment. Slam. Slam.
“Fuck everything. Fuck fuck fuck!!!”
“Argh slkdfhaipfhnal,kajlelkfjdkvjsldkj.”
I actually don’t even know how to type some of the sounds that come out of my mother. But they weren’t pretty. This was not the first time we had seen her melt down. It had been commonplace since she and my dad divorced. And my mom had been like this since she was a child. They used to call her Betty Boop when she was a kid, because like the cartoon character, she would count while the anger escalated. As a child, I d
on’t remember many blowups before the divorce, although I am sure she had some. It’s just that they became much more common under the extreme stress and pressure of the divorce.
By this point, Sean and I had been through these episodes enough times to know what was coming next. My mom has always had a thing about taking out her frustration and anger on inanimate objects like drawers, mirrors, and doors. It wasn’t us, ever. But nothing around us was safe. What she did next went down in the family history books as my favorite blowups.
First she kicked the back of the car and ripped open the trunk of the station wagon.
I couldn’t see exactly what she was doing because I was trying to distance myself. (She never hit us, I will emphasize again, but it was always good to give her some physical distance in these circumstances.)
And then I saw it. A plum from our spree at the grocery store, splattered against the wall of the garage.
Bam!
Another plum bit the dust. The soft, ripe fruit I was hoping to have for lunch was smashed against the wall.
Then came the peaches, the apples, and the corn. In fact, almost all the groceries were in her sights. With every launch by this five-foot two-inch dynamo, there were words accompanying the action that you couldn’t use on a cable TV show. This was an adult woman who couldn’t find her keys and thought it best to hurl produce at a locked door, as if that would help.
Sean and I knew better than to laugh, even though sometimes these fits of rage got to be just downright hilarious. Years later we did laugh, and I still bring this one and a few other classics up with my mom. I know she isn’t proud of how far off the handle she would fly, but that’s who she was. And now she’s much mellower. And medicated. Thank goodness.