Get Me Out of Here

by Rachel Reiland

  I had known the story since childhood. The lesson had become dull and rote, devoid of any real meaning to me. The words of the Creed, recited every Mass in the congregational monotone: he suffered, died, and was buried. And on the third day, he rose again. And on and on and on. I had recited them so often I could virtually do it in my sleep.

  He suffered. Oh yeah? Well, I've suffered too. I've suffered plenty. And I haven't risen, have I?

  The sad eyes of the crucifix were staring back at me, as if they were truly watching me. I'd never noticed before just how much sadness lurked in these eyes, the unspeakable pain that went beyond the pain of crucifixion. The gut-wrenching pain of betrayal.

  Jesus, too, had also felt the bitter pain and anger of betrayal as the same throngs of followers who had cheered him with palms jeered him at his crucifixion, and even his closest friends denied and betrayed him.

  Pain? Why didn't God spare you the cup, spare you the pain of betrayal? What kind of sick Father do you have anyway? You were supposed to be his Only Son—and just look at what he let happen to you! I feel for you, Jesus. I really do. Your Father screwed me over too. Left me hanging, an innocent little kid, to destroy me for the rest of my life. Some Father you have! I can relate.

  The eyes were still burning into me, reflecting my pain and agony. I was beginning to squirm in the pew, wishing that the young priest would finish so Mass would continue and I could be distracted from the disturbing presence of the crucifix and my thoughts.

  It was a homily prefaced with six major points, and the priest was just moving into the third one. We would be here awhile.

  Leave me alone, will you? Get your pathetic eyes off of me! Your Father abandoned you, just like he did me. Why do you still have faith? And where the hell were you for that matter? You're supposed to be God too. Omniscient. Omnipotent. And yet little children get abused every day. Where the hell are you? Where the hell is your Father?

  My body was beginning to shake as tears filled my eyes. One of the other sopranos put her hand on my shoulder, asking if I was okay. I nodded. I just wanted to be left alone.

  Mine were not tears of sadness, but of all-consuming anger and hatred. Had it been possible, I would have run up to the altar, climbed up on it, grabbed that crucifix, and torn it down. All of it was hypocrisy, a charade suckering in billions of people to believe in a God who, despite his purported power, let pain and suffering go on without so much as lifting a finger to stop it. How could I possibly sing to a God I now knew to be a complete fraud?

  I was tempted to run out of the place never to return, but, somehow, the eyes of the crucifix still had me under their spell. Transfixed, I couldn't move.

  No wonder I can't trust anyone. If I can't trust God, who in the hell can I trust? The last refuge for the meek, the humble, the poor in spirit, the downtrodden. Does God make life any better? No wonder I don't have faith. It isn't because God doesn't exist or you don't exist; it's because both of you do! And both of you are cruel hypocrites!

  Abusive scenes of childhood began to flash through my mind as I winced, my anger having turned to pain, sorrow, and desperation.

  Where were you, Jesus? Where was your Father? Where are you now? All along you could see what was happening. But you never stopped it. All along you knew. But you kept letting me go on, believing it was somehow my fault, hating myself passionately, tortured in a living hell. Couldn't you at least let me have some peace? Let me know it wasn't my fault? How could you have let me go on for so many years believing that?

  Out of nowhere the Footprints story came to mind, the poetic text of it hanging in my entry foyer, a carved plaque I had received for my First Communion many years ago.

  One night a man dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. As scenes of his life flashed before him, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand. He also noticed that at the saddest, lowest times there was one set of footprints.

  This bothered the man, and he asked the Lord, “Did you not promise that if I gave my heart to you that you'd be with me all the way? Then why is there only one set of footprints during my most troublesome times?”

  The Lord replied, “My precious child, I love you and would never forsake you. During those times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

  The single set of footprints. I knew them well. I had been alone and on my own, wandering in search of peace and comfort throughout my childhood and even now.

  But I'm here now, aren't I? Sitting in the middle of a group of people who have shown me more love and acceptance than I ever could have believed possible. How did I end up here? I have two beautiful children, somehow emotionally healthy despite all that has gone on, loving me with no questions asked. Loving me because I am Mommy.

  And Tim. Of all the self-destructive relationships I've been in, of all the risks I took, how did it happen that I became pregnant by a man who really cared about me? Who loves me, who has never left my side, never even considered leaving me when other men would have been long gone?

  And where had I turned when I reached the bottom that June day, when I was ready to die? The church! The Catholic hotline. Father Rick. It had been Father Rick's day off, but he was there at the rectory, wasn't he? And he got me to go to the hospital.

  It could have been any psychiatrist on call that day, but it wasn't. For some reason the medical director of psychiatry was on call, covering for somebody else. How is it that my crisis led me to a man like Dr. Padgett?

  Too many people have come into my life at just the right time, too many things have ended up okay to just be coincidence. And the tiny drops of love, more powerful than hate, have been the ones that have kept me going. They are the reason I sit here, a thirty-one-year-old woman, no longer emaciated, with two healthy children, a loving husband, surrounded by people who care, with my whole life ahead of me.

  The single set of footprints. I looked again to the crucifix.

  You carried me. All this time you carried me. Until, on a day like today, I would be ready to see that I've never really been alone. All those years when I thought you loved everybody else but me, you were carrying me, loving me, letting me get to this point.

  I was certain then, for the first time in my life, that I believed in God. I had not needed to trust in him or believe in him. He had carried me nonetheless. So this was what having faith felt like; this was what has kept people attending churches and synagogues across the world for millennia. This was why, in a culture that tries to downplay and even mock the notion of God's existence, faith in God has never died.

  My eyes were now streaked with tears. The woman next to me was hugging me as I shuddered in sobs. Now, however, they were tears of joy. At the age of thirty-one I finally knew what it felt like to have faith, to believe, to feel comfort in the notion that at least one being existed in whom I could trust. Someone who would never forsake me. Who, as promised, would always be there, even in the most troublesome times of trial and suffering.

  Mercifully the young priest brought his wandering sermon to a conclusion. A few in the congregation watched me, curious and confused by how anyone could have been moved by a homily as long-winded and dull as the one that had just been given. Everyone stood to say the Creed; it would only be a few minutes before I was supposed to sing my solo. The director came over to me, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you okay, Rachel? Can you do this?”

  I wasn't at all sure that, in my emotional state, I could manage to even get through the refrain without breaking down. I looked back at the crucifix, a prayer of sorts for the strength. “Yeah,” I smiled through my tears, “I'll make it. Everything's going to be okay.”

  “Is something wrong?” he whispered.

  “No. Actually, something is very right.”

  As I rose to go to the microphone, I felt a sudden burst of strength and calm.

  The Lord is my shepherd;

  I shall not want.


  In verdant pastures he gives me repose;

  Beside restful waters he leads me;

  He refreshes my soul.

  He guides me in right paths for his name's sake.

  Even though I walk in the dark valley

  I fear no evil

  For you are at my side

  With your rod and your staff

  That give me courage.

  You spread the table before me

  In the sight of my foes;

  You anoint my head with oil;

  My cup overflows.

  Only goodness and kindness follow me

  All the days of my life;

  And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

  For years to come. (Psalm 23:1–6)

  It was a new beginning to me, a proclamation of newfound faith known only by God and me. I had found myself in that area between numb detachment and total breakdown called passion, a voice on the emotional edge of tears, just on the cusp of breaking down and wavering, filled with soul and belief.

  When I was finished, I noticed tears on the face of the director, on the faces of a few of my friends in the choir, and on the faces of several people in the congregation. They had been touched, as I had been touched. Then I, too, cried—tears of joy and relief.

  “That was absolutely beautiful,” the director whispered as he hugged me, his eyes still watery. “You've never sung with so much passion before. It was inspiring.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “It's the first time I actually believed the words I was singing.”

  Chapter 25

  Thanksgiving dinners at Tim's parents' were as laid-back as Christmas dinners with the Marsten clan were arduous.

  I remembered the first time I had met Tim's parents. I'd been sitting nervously in the observation car of the Amtrak train with Tim, both of us wondering how we were going to break the news. Hi, Mom and Dad, this is Rachel; the one I told you about. I hope you like her. We're getting married in two months. Oh, and by the way, she's pregnant too.

  We'd planned a four-day visit, figuring that we'd take the first three days to let them get to know and hopefully approve of me and then spring the news. As it turned out, they'd been so open and easy to be around that we'd told them the very first day. Surprisingly they'd been delighted and had immediately welcomed me into the family without the slightest reservation.

  Despite the distance, Tim's parents had visited me in the psychiatric ward more frequently than my own parents, who lived only twenty minutes from the hospital. They'd stayed to help with the kids. Just as they hadn't judged us for getting married, they hadn't judged me for being hospitalized three times for mental illness.

  Tim's mom brought out the home-baked apple, pumpkin, and cherry pies. Everyone rose to get a slice or two. There were none of my father's disapproving looks and wagging fingers, his silent warnings about obesity that had made such festivities and overindulgence feel sinful.

  There were none of my mother's and sisters' litanies of guilt: “Oh, I really shouldn't” or “I need this like I need a hole in the head.” Pleasure without guilt—it was a foreign concept to me.

  Without question I was the thinnest adult in the room. I didn't know if overweight people in the country outnumber those in suburbia or the city, but I did notice these people didn't seem to be as bothered by their weight, or even as conscious of it, as my family and neighbors back home.

  Sunday came too quickly. None of us wanted to make the drive back. But urban reality beckoned. The kids had to go back to school. Tim and I had to work, and therapy had to resume.

  Monday morning, once Jeffrey and Melissa were off to school and Tim to the office, I slipped downstairs to the hidden scale in the basement. The moment of truth. I'd forgone breakfast and had stripped down to my underwear to tilt the scale in my favor. Grimacing, recalling the four-day feast of country cooking, I stepped on the scale. One hundred and twenty-seven pounds! It had to be a mistake. I tried again. The red digital display was stubbornly unchanged.

  Three more times, the same result. One hundred and twenty-seven pounds. Panic filled me, as well as all-consuming guilt and self-hatred. How could I have let myself go? I started beating myself up for every plate of seconds, every slice of pie, every butter-topped roll.

  It was a conspiracy. Tim, his parents, his relatives, Dr. Padgett were trying to get me fat. And I had succumbed to the trap, losing all self-control.

  What next? 130? 140? 150? 200? Would I continue to expand, to bloat, to become a slovenly sow? Not only crazy, but fat and crazy? I reached into the medicine cabinet for relief.

  Ex-Lax. The box said a dosage was one or two of the small, scored pieces of what looked but didn't much taste like chocolate. I couldn't wait for gradual results and opted instead to take four of them, vowing to lose the excess weight as quickly as possible. To never let it happen again.

  Dr. Padgett and I had not discussed the anorexia issue in quite some time, in part because I was no longer in the dangerous range, in part because he insisted that the underlying issues and not the eating disorder itself needed to be addressed. The past few months had been fairly calm as I had felt freer to open up. The one-sided battles had been fewer, as my sense of connection and constancy in the relationship had become more secure.

  That relative calm, I decided as I sat in the waiting room on Tuesday, was only because I had been oblivious to how fat I was becoming. Surely he must have noticed how big I was getting. But he hadn't said a word about it. He'd tricked me! I was seething with anger at his subtle conspiracy.

  I'd spent a frenzied hour at home, digging through my drawers and closets, trying on outfit combinations, then tossing them on the bed in disgust, searching for anything that would hide the awful fat.

  Dr. Padgett came out, clad in one of his shrink outfits, a tweed jacket-over-turtleneck combination that made him look like an over-aged beatnik, part hippie professor and part nerd. In lighter moments I would sometimes joke with him that his wife must not have been around to dress him.

  Today, however, I was struck by how thin and trim he was in comparison to my own budding obesity. Seething with jealousy, I became even angrier.

  With my arms crossed and eyes focused on the ceiling tiles, it was the beginning of another cold war of silence.

  Nearly ten minutes had passed before Dr. Padgett prompted me.

  “What's on your mind?”

  The spark to gasoline. I exploded.

  “I'm fat, damnit! Fat as hell! You wanted this, you sonofabitch, didn't you? You wanted me to be a pig!”

  “Rachel,” he said patiently. “You're hiding behind weight again. There's more to this issue than a number on a scale.”

  “Don't give me that crap! Do you have any idea how much weight I've gained in the last two years? Twenty-five pounds! I'm a goddamned pig. I'm disgusting!”

  “You aren't overweight, Rachel, and you know it,” he said. “How much do you weigh?”

  “You wanna humiliate me? Okay then, I'll tell you. One hundred and twenty-seven pounds. Are you happy?”

  I was in hysterical tears by now.

  “One hundred twenty-seven pounds at five-foot-six. That's normal. Probably the lower end of normal on the weight charts, actually.”

  “Well, it isn't normal for me. Those weight charts don't mean shit!”

  I pinched the flesh of my thigh.

  “See this, Dr. Padgett? It's fat. I hate it. I liked myself better before. I'd rather be dead than be this fat.”

  “In my opinion you look a lot more attractive now than when you were in the hospital. As a matter of fact, you looked best when I first met you.”

  “My God!” I cried in astonishment. “I was a complete pig back then. I weighed 135 pounds. It was because I'd tried to quit smoking. I'll never ever do that again. I'd rather drop dead of cancer than be that fat.”

  “Actually, 135 pounds was a good weight for you.”

  “I wish I still had the discipline,” I lamented, ignoring him. “I wish
I weighed what I did when I went in the hospital the third time. I never looked better than that.”

  “You looked like a ten-year-old then. A skinny ten-year-old.”

  “I looked like a model,” I corrected him. “I made it all the way down to a size three. Now I'm going to have to start stuffing myself back into a size eight again. Then what? Size ten? Size twelve? Plus sizes?”

  “First of all, you aren't wearing plus sizes,” he sighed. “Second of all, most of the models you see are grossly underweight. Besides, what size you wear isn't what this is about. This is about fear.”

  “Fear of what?” I seethed, burning him with a hateful stare.

  “Fear of extremes. Fear of black and white. Fear that unless you completely limit yourself, totally abstain from all pleasure, you'll immerse yourself in it and never be able to stop.”

  “What are you saying then?” I challenged him, the edge off my anger but still irritated. “That I'm afraid if I start eating, I'll never stop? I'll just keep stuffing my face until I weigh three hundred pounds?”

  “On one level, yes,” he replied. “You're afraid that if you begin to rediscover the pleasure of food, you'll lose all sense of control. You won't be able to enjoy it in moderation. But it isn't just food that makes you feel that way. It's all pleasure, all feeling.”

  “What other pleasure?” I asked him.

  “One of the reasons you're reluctant to let go and trust me, to get in touch with the strength of your feelings about me, is that you're afraid if you do, you'll smother me, drown me in your needs. Love me too much.”

  “Maybe,” I mumbled, too proud to openly agree with him.

  “And your sexual feelings of pleasure,” he continued. “They scare you too.”

  Not the sex thing. I don't want to deal with the sex thing. Who the hell do you think you are anyway, Padgett? What is this Freudian fixation with shrinks that they think everybody wants to fuck them?