Get Me Out of Here

by Rachel Reiland

  I spoke at length about this as Dr. Padgett listened with the satisfaction of a teacher whose lesson had finally been learned.

  “Growing up,” he said, “is actually a pretty ambivalent process. On the one hand there is the natural desire to separate from the parent, to move on and be able to handle more responsibilities. A three-year-old sees her older sister riding a two-wheeler and wants to be able to do it herself. A ten-year-old sees that sister driving a car and is no longer as content with the two-wheeler.

  “But every once in a while, that child needs to be reassured that she hasn't grown up too much and that her parents realize how much she still needs them. A good parent can give that kind of reassurance without thwarting the natural and healthy desire to grow more independent.

  “When you were growing up, that reassurance was missing. So, as hard as you tried to achieve your independence, it was a double-edged sword. You wanted your parents to loosen the reins, but you were afraid that they'd just let go of them entirely. With every move toward growing up and independence came a fear of abandonment. It's a scary feeling for any kid, especially in the teenage years. One of the reasons teenagers rebel is to test the limits to make sure they are still there. But for you it was particularly difficult. And something you never really got over.”

  I nodded, absorbing all his words. They made sense.

  “It's the same thing in therapy,” he continued. “You want to grow; you want to move on with your life. But you fear wanting that. As if, somehow, if you need me less, I'll care about you less. But that isn't true for me any more than it would be true for a parent. Your feelings may waver, but mine don't. I didn't care about you in the beginning because you were in a life-or-death crisis and needed me more. I cared about you because you are you.

  “And I don't care about you any less just because you need me less. It doesn't make a difference whether you're acting like the best patient or the worst patient I've ever had. It doesn't change the fact that I care about you. This is a parent's kind of love. Unconditional.”

  “Dr. Padgett,” I said, “I've got a question, probably a dumb one, but I'll ask it anyway.”

  “No question is ever dumb here.”

  “I know. Anyway. Umm, I know I think about you all the time, in sessions, in between sessions. Sometimes it seems like you're on my mind every waking hour. Sometimes, even in my sleep, my dreams have you in them. But what about you? Do you ever think about me when we aren't in session together? You know, not all the time or anything—I know you have your own life, and you have other patients—but sometimes?”

  “What do you think?” he asked gently, not in the least bit sarcastic.

  “I know what I want to think. I want to think you do. At least every once in a while.”

  The blank screen descended for a brief moment.

  “You're right,” he answered, an uncommon direct response to a direct question, one I had not figured he would answer. “I care about you, Rachel. It's only natural that I would think about you at times, even out of session.”

  “Do you think about me when you go on vacations?” I asked hopefully.

  Dr. Padgett only smiled. I was pushing it, and both of us knew it. I didn't need to hear the answer to that question. The first answer was more than sufficient.

  Of course any rational person would assume that, given the frequency, depth, and intensity of a therapy relationship such as ours, a therapist would sometimes think about a patient in between sessions. For anybody else it might have been an eminently dumb question. For me, however, it was anything but dumb, and the fact that Dr. Padgett was willing to answer sincerely and not chastise me for my stupidity reassured my newfound sense of relationship constancy. The question wasn't for the benefit of the thirty-year-old woman who posed it but for the child that resided within her.

  “A part of you wants to run away from therapy, wishes that it could be over, wants to push it along and have it all done with,” he said. “But another cannot envision it ever ending.”

  Why does this man always have to spoil the most tender of moments by saying things I didn't bring up, things I absolutely don't want to hear?

  “I guess,” I answered coldly, not wanting to accept it, but not wanting to argue the issue either.

  “It's okay, Rachel,” he reassured me. “It really is. Growing up can be scary. The notion of adult responsibility can make a teenager wish she were a little girl again.

  “But a good parent realizes that even though this girl can drive a car and hold a job, even though she's reached a state of maturity where she is physically capable of having a child of her own—emotionally that teenager still needs the parent to be a parent. The parents don't throw the child out; the child reaches a point where she is ready to move off on her own. A good parent is pleased when this time comes because it is evidence that the child has grown up, not because the parent wants to be rid of her.

  “You might not be able to envision it now, but a time will come when you need me a lot less than you need me right now. It won't mean that you love me less, but you'll want to move on to the next chapter of your life. There'll come a time when you'll be better off on your own without me than to stay in therapy.”

  I felt like Judas at the Last Supper, righteously and vehemently denying Jesus's prediction of the imminent betrayal.

  “No, I don't think so. No way,” I stammered.

  “I'm not going to abandon you, Rachel. I'm not going to leave you. No, exactly the opposite. You are going to leave me someday, when you're ready.”

  I could not even imagine the prospect of leaving him. A jolt of anxiety shot through my stomach.

  “I don't want to think about that, Dr. Padgett,” I said. “And I don't see how it's relevant here at all. Why are you bringing this up now? Do you want to push me out the door? Is this some kind of a message or something?”

  “I'm not pushing you out the door.”

  “Then why are you bringing this up?”

  “Because, deep down, you fear it. It's a catch-22. If you don't make progress, you feel there is no hope. But if you do make progress, you fear growing up—you fear leaving this.”

  “The fact is, Dr. Padgett, I know I can leave anytime I want,” I replied, holding in the rage that was starting to build.

  “You can leave out of anger; you can leave this process before it's finished. We both know you can run. We both know it wouldn't be in your best interest to leave abruptly, before you get what you need.”

  “Maybe I'm not getting what I need here,” I pouted, knowing it was a lie but saying it nonetheless. “Maybe this is all a hoax, maybe it's hurting me more than helping me, maybe you're a fraud!”

  “You just can't see the gray right now,” he sighed. “Black and white. You can only see two outcomes. You leave here angry, or I leave you against your wishes. But you can leave here someday, very satisfied, wanting to move on. It will be your decision.”

  “You know, your timing is absolute shit! There's no reason to even discuss this until the time comes.”

  “The purpose of therapy is not to keep you here forever. It's not to make you dependent on me. That would be exploitation. In many ways from the very first session we've been working toward the day when therapy would no longer be necessary for you. If I didn't believe that, I'd only be hurting you, not helping you.”

  “So,” I asked incredulously, “what it boils down to is that the purpose of therapy is to end it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I'm supposed to totally trust you, get closer to you than I have to anyone else in my life, tell you everything, share all my feelings, take down my walls, so that one day I have to say good-bye? I can't think of anything more cruel, more painful.”

  “It's the furthest possible thing from cruel. Of course there's some pain to it. There's a lot of pain right now in thinking about it, actually, because you're far from being ready to leave, far from getting what you need.”

  “I hate good-byes,” I vowed. �
�I don't want to say goodbye. I don't even want to think about it.”

  “Good-byes are painful, I'll grant you that. But it's a bittersweet pain. Sure, it hurts. But there are positive feelings in terminating too, if you do it when you're really ready and not before. New hope. New freedom.”

  “It hurts too much!” I was beginning to cry, the fear of leaving Dr. Padgett sweeping over me. “I don't see how you can bring this all up so casually. I can barely make it over a weekend without you. When you go on vacation, I can barely survive until you get back, and here you are, talking about saying good-bye for good. Maybe the thought doesn't hurt you; you've got dozens of patients besides me; you'll just fill in the slot with another one, but it almost kills me.”

  “Who's to say it won't be difficult for me too?” he asked gently, his deep brown eyes looking into mine. “Of course it will be a sad day for both of us, but a positive and hopeful one too.”

  “You mean it's hard for you to say good-bye too?”

  “Just like a parent,” he nodded, “watching his daughter drive off all packed up for college. So proud of her to have made it to this point of independence and yet at the same time sad with the pain of missing her and having to come to grips with the reality that his little girl has grown up.”

  I pondered the thought for a while, recalling Jeffrey's first day of kindergarten, Melissa's first day of preschool. The two of them had been scrubbed and combed, Jeffrey in his tiny, blue uniform shorts and shirt, Melissa in a little dress with an apple on the pocket. After helping them strap brand-new book bags on their little shoulders, I'd snapped a dozen Kodak shots of their shining faces. But under those beaming smiles was a reluctant look of fear that silently begged for reassurance as they'd waved good-bye, ready to file into the school behind their teachers. To enter a new world where I would not be privy to their every interaction. Waving back to them with a confident smile that said “Everything will be okay!” I could see contented relief on their faces as they turned to walk through the doors of the school.

  Then I'd been alone with all the other mothers who had waved those same confident reassuring good-byes. Amid the burden of endless diaper changes and late-night feedings, we had all wished for this day. And yet, now that it had come, we had the same bittersweet feeling Dr. Padgett had mentioned. We'd felt proud that our little ones had reached this state of growth and yet a bit empty, lonely at the prospect that their lives and ours would never be quite the same again.

  “It must be hard on you sometimes,” I said, “having to get so close to patients and having to say so many good-byes.”

  He nodded in agreement, then added, “But it's the most satisfying work I could ever imagine doing.”

  I had often wondered why Dr. Padgett chose to subject himself to such abuse, to witness such agony, day in and day out. But it was clear that it was a decision he never regretted. He was one of those fortunate people who had found a way to make a living in a way that truly fulfilled him, a way that made the world a better place.

  Whatever his reasons for choosing psychiatry instead of cardiology, whatever his reasons for having chosen me as a patient, I knew that his choices were my good fortune.

  Chapter 18

  Christmas of 1992 meant another two-week break from sessions as Dr. Padgett took a vacation. I struggled along in his absence, pouring my thoughts every night onto a dozen yellow legal pads, attempting to fill that hollow spot that yearned to see his face and hear his calming voice.

  In the meantime I tried to immerse myself in the hectic rush and ritual of the Christmas season. Last-minute shopping. Baking cookies for family and friends. The Christmas Eve choir concert. Attaching the final bows on the presents at two in the morning. Being roused Christmas morning by an exuberant Jeffrey and Melissa before the sun even rose.

  And extended family get-togethers.

  It was the last of these rituals that I feared the most—a heavy dose of family dysfunction heightened by the stress of the season. The flowing wine and whiskey eggnog loosened my family's lips to speak harsh words that stung like hornets. Except for the previous Christmas, a point in between hospitalizations when all agreed I wasn't up to the task, Tim and I had been the official extended-family Christmas hosts. This year, as I busied myself preparing the turkey, fresh rolls, and casseroles with the help of Tim's mother who'd come into town for the occasion, I vowed I would not let my family get to me.

  Despite our location in a declining urban neighborhood and perpetual drafts through ancient windows that could never be completely sealed, ours was an ideal house for Christmas. With its oak staircase, high ceilings, pine woodwork, and original hearth, it exuded Norman Rockwell and old-fashioned Christmas traditions.

  I had timed the meal to perfection, inviting everyone to come at 5:30 P.M. with the intention of having dinner on the table at six. My father was always a stickler for promptness, and my parents rang at precisely 5:30.

  At quarter past six, however, they and Tim's parents were still the only guests. No one else had bothered to call.

  It was a Marsten family Christmas all right—people showing up when they got around to it, without a hint of consideration or mention of apology. The meal grew cold, my father drinking wine and talking politics with Tim and his dad, my mother and Tim's mom in the kitchen. My mother droned on in an endless litany of name-dropping and wealth references for the benefit of Tim's mom, interspersing the occasional caustic comments about sons- and daughters-in-law who, of course, were entirely to blame for her children's inexcusable tardiness.

  “I remember when we sent Rachel to Europe,” my mother was saying. “You remember that, don't you, Rachel? Rachel had just graduated valedictorian and went with a group of her high school friends. Who was that one girl, Rachel? I just can't remember the name—her father was chief of surgery at St. Anselm's—what was her name?”

  “Jenny,” I answered flatly. What's your point, Mom?

  “That's right, Jenny,” she said, then turned aside to Tim's mom. “Jenny graduated second in the class. Her parents were kind of snobs and a little bit bitter about it, but Jenny and Rachel got along pretty well actually.”

  Tim's mom politely nodded. Like her son, she was a terrific listener with infinite patience.

  My mother knew as well as I did that Tim's parents didn't have much money. His dad was a mechanic who worked long hours in his own shop in a rural part of the state, making enough to get by but certainly not enough to even dream about trips to Europe and expensive prep schools. Tim's mom was a part-time teacher in a rural school district. This recital of wealth and stature was another of my mom's backhanded attempts to underscore the fact that she had not approved of her youngest daughter's marriage to a small-town man who did not possess a college degree.

  What she didn't realize was that money and status did not impress me or Tim's mom. What Tim's parents lacked in financial resources, they made up in the obvious love and closeness that had filled their home. Tim's mom had also graduated valedictorian of her high school class, but she was too polite to mention it. Instead, with a patience that astounded me, she simply listened with what appeared to be genuine interest.

  “There was Jenny,” my mother continued, “and there was that little blonde girl, you know, the one from the basketball team—Rachel was captain of the basketball team. Oh, who was she? Her dad was CEO of the utility company, pretty down-to-earth for having that much money—although his wife was pretty much of a bitchy snob, kind of thought she was better than anyone else. Come on, Rachel, help me out on this one.”

  “Lisa, Mom,” I said, barely able to contain my impatience. “It was Lisa.”

  At that moment the doorbell rang. My second-oldest sister, Sally, and one of my brothers, Bruce, had arrived at the same time, families in tow. Truly I'd been saved by the bell. With four more adults and their three small children now in the house, her story would have been lost in the din anyway.

  Everyone exchanged hellos and handshakes but no hugs. Our family
wasn't much for hugs.

  Having turned off the oven, uncertain when I could serve the dinner and not wanting to choke down dry turkey, I turned it on again. Soon my oldest sister, Nancy, and my brother Joe showed up with their families. The house was now crowded, humming with the low roar of simultaneous chatter and the squeals of young cousins running about the house.

  “So you don't even have dinner on the table yet?” asked Nancy, who had arrived last. “It's 6:30. I thought you told us we'd be eating at six. I figured dinner would be on the table. Frank got called in to the hospital this morning. He hasn't had a thing to eat all day.”

  Damned right, I told you dinner at six. And you were supposed to be here at 5:30. Nope, she's not gonna wreck this Christmas; she's not gonna do it.

  Both moms were helping as I rushed to speed up the meal I had been forced to slow down. There were ten other adults in the house. But besides Tim, who was making sure that everyone was comfortably seated and had a drink in their hands, no one else lifted a finger to help. Nancy, Joe, and Bruce had parked themselves at the kitchen table, making sarcastic remarks about my cooking skills—a running family joke that was getting rather stale to me.

  “Rachel,” my other sister, Sally, was standing in the doorway. “Is soda all you have for these kids? You know we don't let our kids drink it; it's pure sugar. Don't you have anything else here?”

  Yep, Sally, my kids drink soda with every meal. It's just right to wash down the cake and candy dinners they have every night.

  “I dunno,” I said, exasperated. “Maybe I have some juice in the refrigerator.”

  Sally just stood there in the doorway, her hands now on her hips, impatiently waiting for something.

  “What do you need, Sally?”