Forgotten Girl

by Naomi Jacobs

  ‘But you cope. You have coped,’ she reassured me. ‘Sometimes when you get knocked down and you feel you can’t get up again, you need help. You need someone or something to help you get up and keep going.’

  ‘Even splitting?’

  Maria nodded.

  I wasn’t convinced. ‘But for most of my life, it’s been drugs.’

  ‘What about Leo?’

  ‘Well, that goes without saying – of course Leo. I mean, I often think I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him. When I was suicidal through the breakdown, it was the thought of him that stopped me from pressing the razor blades into my flesh.’

  The room fell silent. I took a deep breath and wiped the fresh tears.

  ‘Oh gosh,’ I sobbed. ‘What if he wasn’t here? I’d be dead by now.’

  ‘But he is here,’ she said softly. ‘And you’re still here, and that’s all that matters right now. But what about you? Or even the child or teen within you? Haven’t they helped you? Haven’t they lifted you back up when you’ve been knocked down and felt you couldn’t go on?’

  I thought about this for a moment. ‘Yeah, I suppose they have.’

  ‘Not they. You! They were you, you are them, so bottom line, it has been you that has kept you going; it has been you all along who has known who you truly are and what you are truly capable of because it has been you who has picked yourself up and carried on.’

  It took a minute for it to sink in, but when it did I finally understood what she was saying. It was me. I had survived. I was still alive, I was still breathing and eating and sleeping and laughing and crying. I was still living and I was still here for Leo, and it was me that had done it, and that was all that mattered. There was no need for me to dwell on the fact that I’d ‘almost’ checked out. I needed to concentrate on the fact that I hadn’t.

  Since I’d come back, after Egypt, the diaries and short stories I’d been writing, Paris and now therapy had all made me realize that I’d been living most of my life with The Voice.

  ‘The voice?’ Maria asked me during one particular breakthrough therapy session.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, and just to make sure, I went around to all of my female friends, and some of them have never experienced any form of mental illness, but they all said yes.’

  ‘Yes to what, Naomi?’

  ‘To having a voice. I mean, I know it’s taboo, no one wants to talk about the voices in your head but . . .’ I stopped and when Maria didn’t say anything, I added, ‘I bloody well am going to now, I need to.’

  ‘Go on,’ she encouraged.

  ‘I need to expose the voice in my head that I have had for as long as I can remember, telling me time and time again that I am not good enough, you know? It tells me that I can’t do it, that I won’t be able to do it, and if I try, I will fail. It tells me I am not pretty enough, tall enough, slim enough or talented enough. It tells me that I am weak when I most need strength; it tells me I am a fool when I seek wisdom; it tells me I am undeserving when I want love.’ I could feel a deep well of emotion rising to the surface. I took a deep breath. ‘It’s pushed me into a fearful place, it’s attacked me at my most vulnerable and it’s been so unforgiving when I have made mistakes.’

  My body began to throb with the force of this emotion. I paused for a moment and thought about all of the women who had said pretty much the same thing to me about The Voice. ‘It’s so powerful,’ I added as the tears spilled over.

  Maria played out the familiar and comforting act of passing me the box of tissues. I took one, blew my nose loudly and smiled.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Powerful how, Naomi?’ She wanted me to continue talking.

  ‘Well, I figure that when I was born, I had a space around me and this space was empty, and over the years this space has just got filled up with stuff.’

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘Yeah, just stuff, you know, from my parents, friends, society, my environment . . .’ I reeled off a list. ‘But at some point my space started to get filled up with crap, horrible stuff that told me I was wrong, and this sense of wrongness has followed me into adulthood.’

  I looked down at the green top I was wearing and pulled on it. ‘I had the wrong clothes – they were not expensive enough. I had the wrong hair type – it wasn’t straight, blonde, curly or soft enough. I had the wrong body – my breasts were too small or my thighs too big. I didn’t speak properly or I couldn’t write in the correct way. I was the wrong colour, gender, class or culture. I wasn’t rich enough, smart enough, clever enough . . .’ I took another deep breath and thought about the magazines and television Teen Nay had experienced in my future and how they had made her feel.

  ‘You know what as well? I have also realized that television has fed my space, books have fed my space, pictures from magazines and newspapers have fed my space.’

  I started to cry again. ‘Strangers that hurt me, family members that bullied me. Bosses that didn’t recognize my work, boyfriends that belittled me. Friends that talked about me. It’s all fed this space around me.’

  ‘What has this got to do with The Voice?’ Maria asked me softly.

  ‘It’s all fertilizer for this bullshit voice; it helps it grow. All this stuff in my space gives The Voice power, and who I am has become so crushed underneath the weight of this stuff that I have broken into pieces, and even if I have tried to find and fix those pieces back together, somehow The Voice has always got in the way.’

  ‘What do you think, if anything, you could do about it?’

  ‘I have to stop it now.’

  ‘The Voice?’

  ‘No, feeding it. I have to watch what stuff I fill my space up with and make sure that it’s not stuff that is feeding the voice, making it more powerful.’

  ‘What do you hope that will achieve?’

  I stopped and thought about her question for a moment. I had never really thought about what was needed beyond changing the people, places and things in my life that helped The Voice. And then it came to me.

  ‘I suppose when I do, when I eventually get rid of the old stuff and fill my space up with stuff that is good for me, that tells me that I am good enough, well then, maybe I’ll find my own voice, the one that comes from me and only wants what is right for me. Yeah. ’ Smiling, I wiped my wet face with more tissue. ‘Maybe my voice will show me who I really am and tell me what I need to live an authentic life, a life with a healed mind.’

  ‘Imagine for a moment if it did – what would it say to you?’

  I stopped and closed my eyes and then I could hear it clearly, a voice that was soft and gentle and kind and full of love for me. I listened.

  ‘It would tell me that I am strong and capable and wise, and that I know, deep down underneath all of my stuff, who I am and what I need.’

  ‘What is that?’

  I opened my eyes and smiled at Maria. ‘I am about to find out.’

  15

  Letting Go

  Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling

  with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain.

  But you have already borne the pain.

  What you have not done is feel

  all you are beyond the pain.

  SAINT BARTHOLOMEW

  I left Maria’s office full of determination to change my life. Now I understood that the amnesia was my mind’s way of telling me that the stress had to stop and I wasn’t going to ignore it. I needed to continue my own rescuing. I had to listen to Teen Nay and honour what she had experienced and follow through with the changes she had started to make. I didn’t want to live a life that prompted the memory loss any longer.

  First thing was admitting that starting something important and not finishing it had a negative and debilitating effect on my psyche; I knew I needed to finish my psychology degree once and for all. Not having that sense of completion had contributed to the low self-esteem I had before the amnesia. I contacted my university to enquire whether it w
as too late for me to retake my final four exams. They were very accommodating and because of my ‘circumstances’, were willing to give me one more chance (my very last chance) to resit them. I got to work. It was now July and I had until September to prepare so I pulled out all of my old books and coursework and drew up a study schedule. It seemed that working on the film sets had got me used to the routine of going to bed at a decent hour, getting adequate amounts of sleep, and working all day with breaks.

  Surprisingly, this time I found myself enjoying relearning the work, especially abnormal psychology and brain and behaviour. Having now had first-hand knowledge of amnesia, I had a different perspective on the study of memory loss and a new-found respect for the brain.

  During this intense period of studying, a woman turned up at my door, introducing herself as Rosalyn, my new mental health social worker. Rosalyn was tall, stood straight-backed, and wore her strawberry blonde hair in a sharp bob. Her black glasses and grey suit added to the oracular cloud surrounding her. She was serious, to the point and she scared me. Teen Nay said she was like my old teacher Mrs O’Shea, who, when you actually sat and listened to her, you realized was a really great teacher who you could learn a lot from. Still, I didn’t know Rosalyn so decided I wasn’t going to trust her and needed to be careful about what I said.

  Intuitively I knew that Rosalyn was one of those women who relied on her instinct as well as her social work knowledge and I knew I wouldn’t be able to pull the wool over her eyes. So, in true contradictory style, I decided to pull the veil of illusion over my whole existence instead and peep nervously from behind it like a young Arab girl peering from behind her hijab at the authoritative patriarch.

  Rosalyn was supportive of my commitment to retaking my exams and approved of my new routine. But there was one thing – my dark and pungent secret that I couldn’t let her find out, no matter what. I was still smoking weed. I wasn’t smoking as much as I had done, but nonetheless, I was still experiencing the emotional need to get high. Of course, I knew it didn’t fit in with the psychologically healthy life I was envisioning for myself. In the past I had quit on several occasions and abstained for long periods of time, usually when I was at my happiest and most content. But whenever a crisis occurred, one I couldn’t cope with, I went straight back to the Mary Jane to suppress the emotion until it manifested in some other way. But I knew a sixteen-year habit wouldn’t allow itself to be eradicated so easily. It would go fighting, kicking and screaming. I wanted to quit but how was I going to do it on my own?

  I turned to Maria, the one person I knew would listen and not judge me. For the first time in my therapeutic life, I was truly willing to take a long hard look at myself and make the changes necessary to live a ‘better’ life. I loved having the space, if only for an hour a week, where I could sit and be myself and talk to someone who didn’t know me, had no emotional attachment to my life, and only knew what I told her every time I sat in that chair.

  ‘Why does keeping secrets destroy such a huge part of who you are?’ I said to her during a particularly hard session.

  ‘Can you elaborate?’ Maria asked.

  I nodded. ‘I’ve just realized that most of my issues are because of keeping secrets.’ I paused and thought about it some more. ‘I mean, no matter what is happening to you or around you, you can’t tell anybody what is going on, for fear of what will happen to you or those you love.’

  ‘Is this what happened with you?’

  ‘Yes. The men who abused me when I was little told me they would kill my mum and sister if I told anybody what was happening. So I never told.’

  ‘How does this make you feel? Were there other secrets you had to keep?’ Maria asked me.

  I nodded. ‘It makes me feel sad, and angry, but angry where I want to scream it out all over the place.’ I thought about Eve. ‘Well, the landscape of alcoholism photographs in quite the same way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We wore the facade of the fake, smiling family that was hiding the secret of the illness that was destroying our family from the inside out.’

  ‘Why do you think this is?’ Maria asked me gently.

  ‘Well, it’s because you’re afraid of people getting involved and the secret being found out, but I know now, if I want to live an authentic life, I have to stop with the fear of exposing these damaging secrets and let them out. I am not a child anymore; I am an adult and I feel like I am colluding with my own self-destructive self.’

  Maria asked me whether I had any other secrets that I wanted to tell her. I did and told her that in spite of everything, I still had the need to get high. I explained that it calmed the panic, quelled the anxiety, and made me go from not being able to cope to thinking, Everything happens for a reason; chill out and one day it will all become clear.

  I needed to know whether I could do this naturally without drugs. I needed to know how to think this way without the aid of an illegal substance.

  Maria suggested I tell Rosalyn. I burst into tears and covered my face with my hands.

  ‘Naomi, what do you think will happen if you tell?’ Maria leaned forward slightly in her chair.

  My heart was pounding as I forced myself to look her straight in the eye. ‘I think she’ll take Leo off me.’

  ‘For smoking weed?’ she asked with bemused concern.

  ‘For everything.’ Fresh tears rolled down my already soaked cheeks. Even as I said it, I knew it sounded ridiculous, but my fear was genuine.

  Maria’s question had made me see my situation for what it was: I was a meditating, Jungian, journal-writing pothead, who smoked one or two joints a night outside in the garden when Leo was in bed. I wasn’t a hard-core drug addict who had sold all the furniture and was neglecting to feed my child. Maria reassured me that Leo was not at risk and wouldn’t be taken off me. The best thing I could do for myself, she said, was to tell Rosalyn that I was still smoking weed.

  In that moment I surrendered to the help on offer. And I felt unburdened enough to spend the rest of the session exploring the reasons why I’d started to smoke in the first place.

  After my suicide attempt I had gone to live with Art in Liverpool. I was sixteen, in an unfamiliar city, struggling to find a job, friendless and directionless. Then I’d met Angel, a short curly-blonde-haired fifteen-year-old, who lived near my Aunty Mae’s house. Angel’s mum was good friends with Aunty Mae and I met them both one night while I was there. Angel hadn’t finished school and was having serious issues with her mum. Maybe her mum thought I was a good influence, because when I wasn’t getting on with Art she let me live with them for a time. When her mum’s boyfriend used to stay, we would wait until they were asleep and then Angel and I would sneak out of the living room window and into the bad part of town to flirt with the young drug sellers on the street corner and haggle for a five-pound bag of weed.

  For someone who hated drinking, the first bag I was given was ‘weed dipped in brandy and then dried at optimum room temperature for a smooth smoke’ (the guy was the Donald Trump of Drug Alley and an effective salesman). Smoking my first joint gave me a high I had never experienced before, all warm and fuzzy and sweet, and I spent the next sixteen years looking for that same buzz. Needless to say, I’d never found it.

  With Maria’s help, I could see, all these years down the line, that our need to engage in faux delinquent behaviour was the only way we both could control our uncertain environment and unstable lives. Missing my family, as dysfunctional as it was, created an emotional void that I was trying to fill with acceptance from my peers. In this case, the drug sellers on the corner and a teen who had issues with her mum.

  Now, I wanted – needed – absolution, redemption, forgiveness for being so weak-minded, for turning to drugs when things got too much in life and for not being ‘normal’ enough to deal with life’s ups and downs like everyone else. Telling Rosalyn was akin to being a devout Catholic and waiting to go into confessional to absolve my sins to the hard-nosed priest
. . .

  To my surprise and great relief, Rosalyn was fantastic. She didn’t judge me or scold me. Instead, she admitted she’d thought something was wrong with me and had suspected I’d started to smoke weed again. She pulled out her diary and wrote down a number for the local substance misuse service, ripping out the page for me. She said she would refer me to a key worker so that I could go on their twelve-step programme and get the help I needed.

  I had never felt so relieved. It seemed as if a big weight had been lifted and I could at long last let go of all the years of taking drugs. To finally release the constant battle of contradiction felt redemptive. Strangely, even more so because Rosalyn was someone who didn’t know me but was on my side. She was here to offer me temporary support. And when she assured me that the last thing she was going to do was take my child off me, I felt so much relief I hugged her.

  Several days later, a woman from the twelve-step programme called Anna contacted me and arranged for me to go and meet her the following week. I was nervous and even slightly sceptical, but I forced myself to go.

  Anna was a small, round, comfortably built, pink-cheeked woman with masses of buttery curls that sprang from all over her head, reminding me of the bunches of spiralled ribbon you find on birthday presents. She had a strong Bolton accent and gave a slight giggle after every sentence as if exchanging the word ‘the’ for the letter T was a dialectic joke I wasn’t privy to.

  After our first meeting I had it figured out: Anna was a genuinely happy person. She didn’t put it on; it wasn’t an act. She had a sunny disposition, which living in Manchester (with all the rain) was rare. I was usually wary of happy people; I didn’t trust them. I believed it took way too much energy to be consistently happy and, somewhere underneath it all, was a miserable wretch just waiting for the right opportunity to pounce up and devour you with years of suppressed anger and latent hostility. But Anna challenged that belief and the greatest thing was her verve for life was in no way patronizing because I got this sense that she knew exactly what I was going through. While I couldn’t imagine Anna ever stealing your flat-screen TV so she could score that night, I knew the look. It was an empathic understanding mixed with a peaceful smile and a quiet joy. I had never seen this in myself. I was seeing it in Anna and I wanted to not only know it, but own it.