Get Me Out of Here

by Rachel Reiland

  I wanted him to cry again, but he wouldn't. Soon, deprived of that emotional reaction, I hungered for even more than his tears. I wanted to be held, to sit in his lap, have him stroke my hair like any good father.

  Tim, who at one time had been profusely complimentary about my looks, had, in the aftermath of my diet, taken to being guarded in his comments. He could never be certain just how I might react to the most innocuous of statements. When he said something nice about how I looked, it would backfire as I'd immediately pinch my thighs, clutch imaginary fat, and emphatically insist how fat I was. It didn't take a licensed psychiatrist to figure out that the last thing on earth Tim would want to say was that I was looking good because I was gaining weight. Appearance became, between us, an unspoken issue.

  But subtle changes were taking place. The five pounds I'd lost after my last hospital visit had slipped back on, and I'd added a few more. At 112 pounds I was still too thin but not quite so emaciated. My ribs were less prominent now, and there was a little softness about me. It wasn't nearly as uncomfortable to sit in a church pew. As the autumn leaves began to turn, so, too, were my own “colors” beginning to change.

  I had discovered the merits of resale shops. A bean counter at heart, I loved buying a sweater for three dollars instead of fifty at the mall.

  When I discovered the racks of size-five clothing at the Goodwill, I could afford to experiment with new looks and new styles. Now the old blue suits remained abandoned in the closet as I opted for lacy, flowing dresses. I developed a passion for floral prints, for the soft and colorful. Cottons gave way to silks.

  It began to matter to me how I looked. Although I didn't wear makeup every day, I wouldn't dream of going certain places without it—to church or a client appointment. Frequently I found myself searching through my new “used” wardrobe, devoting some time to the choices, pulling out the iron, the curling iron, the makeup palette just for a fifty-minute session with Dr. Padgett.

  As trained as he was to notice the smallest of nuance, certainly the doctor noticed this as well. It was a crisp day in October when he ultimately brought it up.

  I'd walked into the session in a cream-colored sweater dress with elaborate lace and tiny embroidered flowers on the collar. I wore matching pumps and a cream-colored bow in my thick, black hair. I was fully made-up, including lipstick, something I'd never worn even in my man-chasing days. I carried myself differently, with smaller, almost floating steps, and I crossed my legs at the knees instead of the ankles.

  I looked good, and I felt good because I knew I looked good.

  Still I was astounded when Dr. Padgett opened the session with a compliment. Like direct advice, direct compliments were something he rarely, if ever, doled out.

  “That's a beautiful dress you have on,” he said, not in a leering way, but as a perfect gentleman. “You look very attractive today.”

  Certainly this is what I'd wanted him to think but not necessarily what I'd expected or wanted him to say.

  It reminded me of when I'd been a child, pedaling a bike without training wheels, riding solo without being aware of the fact that Daddy was no longer holding on, steadying the seat. Then Daddy cried out, “You're doing it yourself! Way to go!” Meanwhile, now aware that I was pedaling solo, I was gripped with fear, and the bike soon crashed to the ground. It was Daddy's fault for saying anything. Daddy had spoiled the moment.

  “Why should that matter to you?” I snapped back, a bit guilty at having rejected his compliment and yet somehow driven to do so.

  Even the “master of the mind” was visibly surprised by this one.

  “I was just commenting that you look very nice today—as you have in the last several sessions.”

  “Is this a come-on? What do you want from me?”

  “No, actually. It's an objective statement. You really do look nice.”

  “What's that supposed to mean? You just want me in dresses all the time, don't you? To be some little Barbie doll, some Stepford Wife. You know, just because I'm wearing this doesn't mean I don't hate being a woman, if that's what you're trying to prove!”

  Where is this stuff coming from?

  “I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just making a comment,” he replied.

  “Actually this is a horrible color on me. It makes me look fat as hell. Oh yeah, that's right. You want me to be fat.”

  “I want you to be happy, and I want you to be able to accept yourself for who you are.”

  “Why don't you just come out and say it, Dr. Padgett? You want me to be able to accept myself for being a woman. Well, I might have to live with it, but I'll never ever like it.”

  Dr. Padgett settled back in his chair. Obviously this was going to be an intense and confrontational session. If he'd had the stereotypical psychiatric goatee, he might well have been tugging on it now.

  Why am I being such a bitch to this man? He was only being nice.

  “You thought I'd be a pushover just because I walked in dressed like this, didn't you? Well, I'm just as tough as I've ever been. This is just a costume. And the last time I'll ever be wearing a dress to this place.”

  “You think I respect you less because you're wearing a dress?”

  “Bingo!” I said, uncrossing my legs, taking off my pumps, and planting my feet on the coffee table. “That's exactly what I think.”

  “You are what you wear?”

  “You are what you wear if you're wearing a dress. I'm announcing the fact that I'm a woman.”

  “And because you're a woman, somehow I think you're a pushover? You're saying I think you deserve less respect?”

  “Yes!”

  “Why can't you be a strong person and a woman too?”

  “Don't patronize me, okay? You wouldn't get it. You can say all you want to, but you don't know what it's like to be stuck being a woman. You have no idea. You're a man.”

  Dr. Padgett redirected the focus, “What is it precisely that you hate about being a woman?”

  I countered with a litany of reasons. He would not render me speechless on this one. It was something I'd been thinking about for as long as I could remember.

  “There were those stupid frilly dresses that you couldn't play in instead of the pants boys always got to wear. Boys got to pee standing up, and they could do it anywhere.

  “Boys did fun things: they played sports, climbed trees. Girls did prissy things like fooling with dolls. Boys were direct. Girls were catty. Boys were strong and tough. Girls were weak and had to cry to get their way.

  “Boys who stuck to their guns were assertive; girls who did so were pushy little bitches. Boys were steady and strong, while girls were overemotional and oversensitive.

  “And no matter how much I, as a girl, might have learned in high school or college, there would always be a man who'd think I couldn't hack it because I was female.”

  Content that I'd made my point undeniably and unequivocally, I smugly leaned back in my chair.

  “That's your father talking again,” he sighed.

  “No, not just my father. My mother too. My mother thought the same things. I know she did.”

  “I don't doubt that she had as many distortions about her gender as you do. But they're stereotypes. Every single one of them. There are men who are emotionally weak and women who are emotionally strong. These are individual qualities; they don't have anything to do with gender.”

  Time to move away from the topic of emotional stability and strength. Besides I had plenty more ammunition to make my case.

  “So, are you so blind, then, that you don't see men who discriminate against women? Men who refuse to believe that a woman is capable no matter what she accomplishes just because she's a woman?”

  “Now you're talking about discrimination. I'm not going to deny that it isn't a part of our culture, but it's still wrong. It's a distorted view. One that, hopefully, some day, will go away.”

  “So you're saying there's no difference between women and men?”

&
nbsp; “Not at all. I'm saying that most of the issues you've brought up are gender neutral. Assertiveness and strength aren't the domain of one sex or the other. Neither are intelligence, competence, or emotional stability.”

  “All I know is one thing,” I replied, ignoring his points. “It would be a cold day in hell before my father would ever step into a shrink's office.”

  “And that's a good thing?”

  “Yes, it's a good thing. Maybe you respect women because you are touchy-feely and emotional yourself. Maybe my dad was right; you shrinks are nothing more than frauds and pansies.”

  A verbal kick in the balls, I thought smugly.

  “Maybe your father felt that way because he was afraid of his own feelings. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Maybe that's your own brand of self-delusion. My dad was tough. He didn't sit around and wallow in his problems. He pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. He was strong. He wasn't afraid of anything.”

  “Strong enough to abuse an innocent, vulnerable little girl,” he said softly.

  “I heard that!”

  “I intended you to hear that. You're confusing toughness and brutality with strength. An easy mistake to make, considering what you were exposed to while growing up. But wrong nonetheless. Not every character trait that is stereotypically male is desirable, anymore than the stereotypically female character traits are.”

  “Then what? Am I supposed to be like my mother? Crying all the time, manipulating the hell out of him, out of us? Totally helpless. Hysterical. Unreasonable. And then she'd point the finger to her triggerman and let him fight her battles. She could just bat her little eyelashes and get him to do anything she wanted. Pathetic. Manipulative.”

  I was exhausted and depressed by now and wasn't up for any more combat or debate.

  “Look, Dr. Padgett. I don't know what to think. I don't know what the answers are. My head is spinning. I'm tired. I'm sick of fighting you on this one. I came in here all dressed up, hoping that you'd notice, but then I turned into some kind of raging bitch when you said what I wanted you to say.

  “I try to be tough, but I'm really just as emotional, just as manipulative as my mother. Ruled by hormones. Let's face it. I'm screwed. And stuck. Why don't we just drop this one and move on to something else, okay?”

  “This is your therapy,” he said gently. “We don't have to talk about what you don't want to talk about. But your conflict about your gender is something that isn't going to go away. And, at some point, you're going to have to come to grips with who you are and who you want to be.”

  I nodded, tears coming to my eyes. Indeed, I was conflicted on this one. And just as deeply convinced that there was no way out of it. I looked down at the collar of my dress and fiddled with the lace. As much as I hated to admit it, I did like the lace. I liked the dress. And I didn't hate everything about being a woman, just most things.

  Dr. Padgett began to tell one of his parenting stories. His little girl, then a toddler, all dressed up on a spring day, had modeled her pretty dress to him, spinning in circles until she nearly fell down just to show him how she could make the dress twirl. She'd playfully run out of his reach as he'd tried to hug her, giggling at the game of chase. And he had looked at her, her proud and impish smile, her pretty dress, thinking she was the most beautiful thing in the world. He'd been so proud to be her father, so grateful to have a little girl.

  Visions of Melissa danced through my mind as I listened. Melissa was also a big fan of pretty dresses, although she was just as comfortable and content in a hand-me-down pair of her brother's sweats.

  One day Tim and I had spied on her as she was absorbed in a game of Barbies and G.I. Joes. The Barbies had been teaching the G.I. Joes how to fly the fighter plane. Then she sat them all down for tea. Melissa, a little girl proud to be exactly who she was, undeniably feminine and yet not in the least prissy. Just free to be who she wanted to be. Had I been just like Melissa at one time in my life?

  As always, it boiled down to the same questions: If things had been different, who would I be? Beneath all the facades and distortions and faulty coping mechanisms, who was I?

  I remembered the moment when Melissa was born. I recalled the sinking feeling of utter disappointment when the obstetrician announced I'd had a girl. I'd played the game, going along with it, ashamed of the disappointment I didn't dare admit. I'd bought the little dresses, the dolls, and the pink fuzzy animals. As much as I had hated being a girl, I had vowed not to pass that legacy on. But I had been afraid that I'd never be able to love this infant in the same way I loved my son.

  I had been wrong. The little girl captured my heart. Dr. Padgett had once speculated that the event that brought me to the hospital and therapy in the first place was watching Melissa grow past infancy. Perhaps seeing Melissa proudly wearing dresses at the age I had forsworn them, happily feminine at the age when I was ashamed of my girlhood had triggered something within me. Something I had yearned for but had missed.

  Maybe it was a positive sign. Maybe, someday, I could be as content and comfortable with myself as Melissa. Maybe, buried beneath it all, was a little girl who desperately wanted to be a little girl.

  I sighed. If only Dr. Padgett had been my father.

  Chapter 16

  Over the next week or so I spent hours reflecting on the past, rummaging through dusty boxes in the basement to find old photographs, mementos, anything that might stir my memory and help me revisit my childhood. I fished through old letters and junk mail, mountains of programs for special events. I'd always chided Tim for being a pack rat, but seeing all this detritus forced me to admit I wasn't much better.

  Finally I found a small, white box, partly smashed by the other boxes stacked on top. Although it was labeled “Baby Pictures,” I found few of them. As the fifth of five children, my parents, like most, had lost the urge to memorialize my every step, crawl, and silly face.

  Nearly all of the pictures in the box were studio portraits, an annual ritual for my parents. Me at one year old. At two years old. At three years old. I'd been wearing dresses in all of them, since I couldn't refuse them. Baby-fine curls of dark, downy hair crowned my head. Little pudgy elbows peeked out from frilly sleeves.

  I'd been an attractive child, with almost a porcelain china-doll quality.

  Nonetheless, these weren't portraits I'd want hanging on my wall. I wasn't smiling in any of them. My lower lip protruded as if I were on the verge of tears; my face was strained. Tiny lines furrowed my forehead, a creased knot of worry gathered between my brows. By the three-year-old portrait, these distress marks seemed permanent. My clear, blue eyes were open wide with an unmistakable terror and inconsolable sadness.

  I'd seen these pictures before, but I had never paid much attention to the child's expressions. The photos served as veritable proof that my early childhood was indeed as painful as I had been admitting.

  I moved on to another box, this one filled with mementos from my grade school years. A chronicle of annual family expeditions to destinations across the country. Unlike my early childhood, these events were well-documented. I had to chuckle as I looked at the wardrobes of the time. I was at least smiling in these pictures, the ear-to-ear goofy grin of a dyed-in-the-wool class clown.

  At first glance a stranger would see a happy, healthy, all-American family: the seven of us all together, scenes of national parks and landmarks in the background. Of the children I was the smallest one, scrawny, built straight up and down, clad in the same getup as my brothers. In those days I had been frequently mistaken for a boy. It thrilled me and mortified my mother.

  I came upon a slew of pictures from my early adolescent days. I had abandoned the plaids and settled on a simple wardrobe. A white T-shirt and a pair of Levi's, the James Dean look. My mother, at her wit's end, afraid what people would think, attempted to lure me into more feminine attire. She purchased bags of flowery girlish clothing at the local mall. But they remained buried in my closet untouched, tags still
attached.

  The last box contained a folder of writing projects from fifth-grade English. Reading through them, I was struck by the extent of my writing style and vocabulary.

  Soon, however, another pattern emerged. I told every creative-writing story in first person, and every single first-person character was male.

  A sick feeling lumped in my stomach as I forced myself to read on, stunned by my clearly disturbed writing patterns. How could my teachers have read these essays and not been convinced I was emotionally disturbed?

  The Rambunctious Rebels

  Rachel M.

  Grade 5

  “Speed up the steak, Gertrude,” I called. “They'll be coming any minute now!” It was the day the Frontens were coming over. Mr. and Mrs. Fronten were coming for the night.

  “I wonder how in heaven they got a babysitter for those ten monsters of theirs?” I added. “Why don't we have children? Well, I'll ask them if we should adopt a few.”

  Dingdong. The doorbell rang. The door opened, and Mrs. Fronten walked in. Then Mr. Fronten walked in. I was about to shut the door when I got a horrifying surprise. In walked Mary Anne, John, Joe, Jim, Sue, Mary Beth, Tim, Bob, Barbara, and David.

  “Get the aspirin, Gertrude,” I whispered in my wife's ear. “I'll need it!”

  The experience then started.

  “Bobby, what's this?” Jim held up a five-hundred-dollar vase. Then Jim got angry and crashed the vase against the wall and then started to knock down and break all of my lamps. (Jim was known to get hysterical.) Then all the kids joined him in the destruction.

  “Arrrgh,” I cried. “Out I say! Leave, all of you!”

  The parents exited with two kids' collars in each of their hands. I gave Jim and Bob a swift kick out the door. The rest of the kids left quickly.