by Maria Bello
He began with, “How can I be of service? What do you need?”
I immediately got right to the point, “I have done many modalities of healing. I was very sick last summer so I know I am healthy now, as I’ve had many tests as you can see on my blood test chart. I meditate, do yoga a bit in the morning, see an acupuncturist, and get vitamin therapy and take supplements.” Turned out that his big sell is selling all of those things but for 10 times the average price.
“So what do you need?” he said.
I said I had read in his magazine about a new psychosocial program that was integrative. I said I felt that my smoking blocked me somehow and I wanted to open up more emotionally and spiritually. Now this is no new age information. Smoking pushes down emotions and takes time away from family, so you feel disconnected, at least I do. I was using it to dull the pain of being menopausal and middle-aged and not finding a new dream to chase. I went on to say that I’d seen many different kinds of healers and told him what one of my mentors had told me: “You dare people to like you.” I told him that I knew he couldn’t fix me, that the answers were all inside me and I just needed to love and accept myself. I cried a bit talking about needing a new dream and trying something different and about some regrets I had. He looked at me with a stern look and then came over to the couch and kissed me on the head.
I thought it was a little strange, but like I said, I’ve been to many of these kinds of folks and they do similar things. The doctor said, “You don’t love yourself.”
“Well, certainly not this last week,” I said, laughing. I had been a bitch with Clare and short with Jack, so I definitely wasn’t feeling much love.
I told him that I was in a romantic relationship with my best friend, Clare, after being with men most of my life and he seemed shocked. I told him he should read my article from the New York Times and that I was writing a book inspired by it. He then exploded. He looked at me like a madman and said, “What book? You have nothing to write! You can’t write a book! What are you going to talk about? You don’t even know or love yourself!” I tried to tell him what the book was about. He then said, “Oh, I got you, they don’t know, they don’t know, I see what you do. . . .” He really looked like a madman now and popped off his chair and said, “You’ve walked around your whole life with a big dildo pointed at everyone, telling every man to fuck off. You need to open your pussy! You cannot receive; you need to receive a man.”
Seriously, that’s what he said. And I didn’t leave. I started to believe once again that this man knew much more than I did about me. I listened. He sat back down and drew out a graph for me with odd words he had invented but that made no sense. As he scribbled down the page explaining, I said, “I’m usually pretty smart, but can you explain again, because I have no idea what you are talking about.” He looked at me. I don’t think he was used to people asking him questions.
Then he looked at me and wrote a word, “sychotic,” and a line going up a graph like up a huge hill. “This is you,” he said.
“I’m psychotic? Did you spell it wrong?” I asked. “I don’t think I am. I haven’t gone off my meds or anything and . . .”
He stopped me. “Most people are here.” And he pointed to another graph—this one with a straight line and then tiny little anthills popping up. “These are normal people and this is you.” He pointed to the “sychotic” line. My line was way off from the normal. I stared at him and he flew across the room to his desk and pulled out a Bible.
He rolled back and opened a page dramatically where he had underlined “The meek shall inherit the earth.” I knew the phrase well after 16 years of Catholic church and since my mentor was a Catholic priest and all.
He asked if I knew what it meant. I said, “Humility.” I had prayed since I was sick last summer for grace and humility, to help me be open to whatever it was God wanted me to do.
He raised his voice. “And do you know what humility means?”
“Um,” I said, “to be on your knees and know you don’t know everything and God will take care of it. And no human will fill God’s place?”
He then said, “Do you know where the word HUMILITY comes from?” I was stumped and wanted to call Jackson, as he has been taking Latin for two years. And the doctor blurted out, “HUMMUS!” The dip? I thought. “Hummus means soil. You have to be in the soil to be meek.” I felt relieved. I’d certainly felt dirty all week, detoxing.
It seemed he finally got tired of explaining and of me saying, “Oh, I get it so . . .” And he pulled out a book and rolled back over again, nodding his head and looking at me suspiciously. It was a book of faces. A teen with acne, a woman with wrinkles, a man with a lopsided face. “This is what’s wrong with you!” he said.
“Something’s wrong with my face?” I asked.
He said, “When I came into the office and surprised you, that’s part of my analysis. I like to catch people off guard to see how they really are and read their face.” I thought about his hug and wondered how I had measured up. Thank God I didn’t just shake his hand and lower my eyes; he would have thought I was really psychotic.
Time was almost up so I asked, “So what do you think I need?” I was serious. I thought he would tell me that I needed deep psychotherapy with him. But he wrote the name of another doctor down on a paper.
“This is my teacher who taught me cranial sacral. You need to get your face and mouth straightened out first. Your forehead and cheeks are not open enough and the right side of your face droops and your mouth is too tight, your teeth are too crowded.”
I didn’t take any offense, as I knew my teeth were a bit crowded and the right side of my face slightly drooped. But only slightly. It’s not like magazines published photos of me with headlines like LOOK AT HER DROOPY FACE!
He then said, “You can spend twenty-five thousand dollars with me in my special celebrity and powerful people one-on-one therapy sessions but first you have to get this situated.” I was in a bit of a daze at this point. I came here for the guy to say, “You are too fucked up for me to help you”? He hugged me good-bye, looked deeply into my eyes, gave me his cell phone number, and said again, “I am at your service, whatever you need.”
After signing a copy of his new book for me—about how to lose weight—I thought, “Well, at least I don’t need that.” And we walked into the lobby. I caught the eyes of another woman who was sitting there with a cute young man. I realized she was a celebrity whom I knew. We gave each other hugs and hellos. The doctor took the young man into his office, looking a bit annoyed. I guess he didn’t just see me and cancer patients on Wednesdays, but beautiful celebrities and their young boyfriends as well.
After I paid my $600—and I almost threw up signing that receipt (I could have given that money to my sister to spend on her Italy trip or even to be nice to myself and buy a few pairs of shoes)—I thought about what he had said. “He really helped me,” I thought. And that’s what I told Clare when I got home. I believed it. Clare wasn’t having any of it. She listened to me, with all the earnestness in my voice. And then she looked at me like I was really psychotic.
She pulled up his book from the side of the bed and started reading me the quotes that appeared in the front pages, all written by celebrities. “Dr. Heal Me is the most compassionate, kind person.” “He changed my life with his gentleness and guidance.” On and on they went. I was slightly devastated but laughing at the same time as she read on. He definitely wasn’t very gentle or kind to me. Clare and I talked about how we all look for someone outside of us at times to tell us who we are and to make us feel better. When people you respect tell you that a particular person has the answer to make you happy, we often believe them. I find often with folks who preach that they have an answer to your existential pain, it’s mostly what you know already—the answers are in yourself and your relationship to your higher power. This doctor was the same kind of healer I met when I was 21, trying to tell me what was wrong with me. “Same guy, different name,” I
like to say.
I thought back to all of my spiritual seeking. I didn’t have the answer, but I thought I had some answers then. I thought that I could bypass my pain by going directly to the spirit. All the rituals I did made me feel good in the moment, but they ended up being temporary bandages. When they fell off, I was still bleeding. I remembered all of the things the well-meaning Beverly told me. If I do this meditation once a day for 40 days, I will no longer be depressed. If I light this candle for seven days, my soul mate will appear. If I, if I, if I . . .
I think now that life doesn’t really work like that. For years I went to channelers, healers, psychics, and astrologers. I met a reincarnated Christ and three reincarnated Buddhas. I have done sweat lodges and vision quests, done yoga, and lived by tarot cards. I have explored every church, every theology, philosophy, and ideology. And I saw that quack doctor. They all helped me, for a while. Some for only a few minutes. But in the end, none of them could really fix what was broken inside of me or give me something that I never had. All I wanted was to be okay. To be a better, stronger person. To make the demons go away. They never do, but they do get quieter as I get to know myself more.
So I don’t believe anymore when someone tells me that they have THE ANSWER. These are the people you should run away from, quickly. I think they wouldn’t be human if they had the answer. I’ve met people who are supposed to be the holiest, wisest people in the world who have turned out to be very unkind. I have met a limousine driver who seemed to have more answers and clarity of vision than any “healer” I have ever met. Life is just complicated that way. And interesting. Go figure.
And yet there are other spiritual teachers who have given me pieces of advice that I will never forget. Most I’ve never met and probably never will, but their words inspire me still. One of the first was Florence Scovel Shinn, who was born in 1871 and wrote the book The Game of Life and How to Play It. She spawned the idea of visualization and positive thinking and putting love above all else. Those who came after her—Marianne Williamson, Melody Beattie, Paulo Coelho, Tony Robbins, Shakti Gawain, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, and many more—all helped me to love myself a little more. But Dr. Heal Me certainly didn’t!
Seems to me in my journeys that the people who tell you they have the answer are the ones you should simply avoid. But I know that no human can relieve our craziness and our humanness. I went to that quack doctor saying, “There’s something wrong with me.” So of course he agreed!
The day after I saw him, I woke up in a shitty mood realizing that I had just spent $600 to get the same answer once again. I knew I had to look within myself for the answer, but I couldn’t remember how to do that and I didn’t have the energy. It’s like being on a diet. You know what to eat; you just have to make yourself do it. All the books and doctors say the same thing, just in different packages. You are the only one who can actually not put that Cheeto in your mouth.
So in my sulking, bitchy, negative state, I went to sit on the sand overlooking the ocean next to our home. I closed my eyes and started to breathe. With every exhale I saw my dark thoughts, which I call my shadow self. With every inhale, I tried to see my inner light and joy.
I prayed.
My mother told me not to pray for the release of my pain, but to ask to be filled up with peace, love, and joy. So I asked that of God.
Please enter me and fill me with your grace. Help me to see my value and worth. I have everything. I ask you dear God with all my heart to heal me in this moment. Show me the way to you. Help me believe in myself. I cannot save myself. I need you to give me meaning and some relief. You seem so far away right now.
I realize what I’ve always been looking for was a closer connection to God. I wanted to have a gentle relationship with both my light and shadow self and accept myself fully. I needed to trust that my connection to God would always lead me back to the light.
So I asked God, Where are you?
Suddenly I heard a voice deep within me.
Asking questions is good. It means you are open to growing, changing, and becoming who you were always meant to be.
I’m right here, partner. I’ve never left.
EPILOGUE
I hope this book is the beginning of a lifelong conversation for me, and for everyone who reads it. I hope we all keep questioning the labels we give ourselves and others, regarding relationships, family, race, religion, sexuality, age, weight, height, culture, mental and physical abilities, and basically, everything else under the sun.
I wrote this book as a series of questions, because at the start of every journey is a question. Part of the word question itself is quest, and each of these questions carried me along as I examined myself, my world view, and where I fit. Some of the answers I came to were surprising. Other answers were more expected. But the exercise of examining what I thought about these topics and these labels pushed me to more fully embrace the woman I have become. We are all constantly “becoming.” That is one of the joys of life. Nothing is static. My ideas in this book aren’t static—as the years go by my opinions will certainly change, colored by age and experience. The relationships I’ve written about will continue to evolve. Some will grow stronger. Some will fall apart. The only certainty is that in a few years, they will all be different from what they are now.
Even in the course of writing and finishing the book, situations arose that surprised me and made me realize just how fluid things really are.
The person I was most terrified of reading the book was the first one to read it—my Pop. I didn’t want Pop to be hurt and angry because of my frank disclosures about his behavior during our childhood. He was visiting me in California when I finished writing. Without my knowledge, he took a copy and read the whole book in one sitting. He thought the stuff about him was right on, but had a pretty hard time with the chapters that included “the sex stuff,” as he called it. Exactly what you’d expect from a dad, I guess. But all of the fear I had felt putting our story out into the world melted away—my dad’s acceptance of how I wrote our story shows just how our relationship has healed.
Speaking of “Fathers”—after months of looking for a Catholic parish to accept us so that Jack could apply to his Catholic high school, we found one who did so with open arms. The monsignor welcomed us immediately with the statement “I read your article, and it’s so wonderful! Jackson sounds like a very soulful and insightful young boy.” I was so thankful. This is the Catholicism that I know. The one that Father Ray showed me.
My mother proved not to be the complete saint I painted in these pages. Soon after the book was finished, she told me to park in a handicap space as we were very late for church. We had Pop’s handicap sign in the car, but something still didn’t feel right to me. “Mom,” I said, “we can’t park here. Can you at least limp?”
In her hilarious way, Mom replied, “You know I’m a terrible actress. I’ll tell them I have cancer! Just because I’m not balding doesn’t mean I don’t have cancer. What are they gonna do, throw me out?!” Mom was willing to push the rules—she’s earned the right after all. Mom does still have cancer, and in the next months we’ll all be locking arms around her to fight that demon once again. But we’ll all keep laughing.
I also recently went back to Haiti, but this time not in the guise of a humanitarian. I went to see my friends Lolo and Caro and my extended family. I went to the beach I missed so much. I saw a country that I wouldn’t have recognized two years ago. Its roads are clean and the tents are gone. Haiti isn’t healed yet, but she’s on her way. I can’t wait to see her again, this time with even more hope for the future.
And I was inspired by something my son said recently about feminism without even knowing or using the word. When I told him he had to take an academic course for his free period instead of Ping-Pong, he was placed in gender studies. He looked at me with surprise and said, “Gender studies, what’s that about? Why do we even need it? Everyone already knows girls and boys are equal.” I was so prou
d of him. I was also excited for him to learn about the incredible courage of the women and men who have fought for these ideals. I want him to learn that the kind of equality he sees is coming, but we aren’t there yet.
And I realized that my visit to Dr. Heal Me wasn’t all bad. At the time that I saw him, I was running out of time and energy while writing this book. He threw me my Hail Mary. He gave me the material for the last chapter and a good laugh at myself for paying someone once again for me to realize that I didn’t need fixing because nothing was broken. I am already whole—just complicated, wounded, loving, difficult, and kind. I have finally discovered the joy that comes from hitting bottom and pushing oneself up to the top again.
My journey has been a series of hits and misses, miseries and obsessions, spiritual seeking and love. It has been about finding myself and finding self-acceptance. This is my wish for you.
IT IS NOW JUST BEFORE THIS BOOK IS TO BE PUBLISHED. I AM SITTING at the slate white-and-gray kitchen island of our rental house. What I see is a kitchen I’ve always dreamed of—open to the dining room and living room, filled with light coming in from the floor-to-ceiling glass doors. There are beautiful photos on the walls. Many are from my travels around the globe, from Massachusetts to Morocco. But the ones I love best make me smile and break my heart at the same time. They are the ones of my family. These photos capture a moment in time that will never exist again and a family that will always be changing. When I look at other pieces of art in the house, like the steel mesh skeleton of a woman’s dress that the real owner of the house created, I remember this isn’t really our house. We are renting this space. And I see in a way that we are renting the relationships with the people we love as well. We do not own them. As I do not own this house. We pay money for renting homes and cars. But what we pay for loving is much more expensive. We sometimes pay for loving with heartbreak, challenges, loss, sadness, and pain.