The Varnished Untruth

by Stephenson, Pamela

  At that point in my psychological career I fully understood post-traumatic reactions, and most people seemed to be suffering from them – including me and the kids. The aftershocks were frequent, strong and terrifying, and since the main quake had weakened many buildings and structures, we were always afraid that subsequent tremors would cause them to collapse completely. Freeways had already crumbled and we didn’t feel safe on the road or at home. If a truck drove by you’d think it was another quake rolling in – they sound rather similar, with that low, ominous rumbling. Heavens, even a Joe Cocker track would make us ‘Drop, Cover and Hold’.

  Several friends lost their homes in the quake, and our house was a shelter for waifs and strays for several months. In particular, my friends Michele and John moved in with their two children. Michele was a primary school teacher and a fantastic mother, so that turned out to be a wonderful chance for me to observe her interaction with her children up close and learn from her advanced skills. See, I just never had the maternal confidence I should have had. My heart was in the right place and I worked hard at being a good mother, but I was always second-guessing myself. People who’ve been parented well can ask themselves in any given situation: ‘Now, what would my mother have done?’ But, in my case, it wasn’t good enough simply to avoid emulating mine. No, I needed practical advice and good modelling, and Michele – as well as Martine, of course – certainly provided that.

  I just can’t imagine how it must have felt for Michele and her family when their entire apartment building collapsed in the middle of the night. In the aftermath of the main quake, many local buildings were condemned, while lots of people voluntarily moved out of their homes and camped in open spaces (in Beverly Hills they set up tents on their tennis courts!). The fear of being killed by your own home collapsing on top of you while you slept – even from an aftershock – was omnipresent.

  So, you would say you and your children were all suffering from post-traumatic effects?

  No question. We were hypervigilant – alert to the possibility of another shock – and very on edge generally. It was hard to sleep and we all had nightmares. I didn’t want to leave the children even for a minute but I had to work. My therapy office became flooded with people needing trauma treatment.

  I had been practising psychotherapy – at first under supervision – since I gained my Master’s degree in 1992, but at that point I was still quite a way from being fully qualified. If you’re going to seek help from a psychologist, it really has to be someone you can trust – right? You want to be sure he or she will be consistently competent, provide exactly the type of treatment you need, and not tell your secrets to their manicurist. Fortunately, the State of California shares that point of view. People think of California as a laid back, ‘anything goes’ type of place – and in certain fields that may be the case – but not so in psychology. The State has rigid and highly demanding legal and ethical requirements for psychologists, and tough criteria for licensing – including incredibly challenging exams. In the UK the rules are not so stringent but, in order for me to become a licensed professional in California, I had to jump through many, many hoops. Once I obtained my PhD in 1994, by passing all my exams plus writing and defending my doctoral dissertation on ‘The Intrapsychic Experience of Fame’ (what happens in the mind when a person comes to public attention), I had to start studying all over again for the licensing exam. The latter was in two parts: firstly you had to receive a high score in a written exam that covered every branch of psychology – clinical, industrial, research, statistics, social, and so on; and then there was an oral exam, in which highly experienced psychologists grilled you face to face on your ability to assess, diagnose and treat a patient. And, on top of all that, I had to complete 3,000 hours of supervised clinical practice, which takes most people between three to five years.

  Frankly, it’s a good thing that these requirements must be met; having legal and ethical rules (such as guarding patient confidentiality and never having sexual contact with a patient) written into law – with jail punishments for non-compliance – is an excellent way to protect the public. Nevertheless, it took me six years or so to complete my studies and receive my licensing qualifications; and that was considered fast. It was such a relief when it was all over. I felt enormously proud and grateful.

  Billy and many other people in my life – including my children – congratulated me and seemed genuinely pleased about my achievement. On the other hand, my mother was very snooty about the fact that I had attended a graduate institution rather than an Ivy League university, while my father once snorted that he thought psychology was a ‘soft science’. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lord.

  But Dad never knew I graduated. Six months before I finished my PhD he suffered a massive heart attack – his second. The first more minor one had occurred in the eighties, when my father was getting into a boat on the beach in Rio de Janeiro. Perhaps the sight of all those near-naked, butt-shaking women was more than he could handle.

  But this second attack was serious. My mother telephoned me to say he was on life-support in the UK (where they were now living) and I’d better jump on the next plane. I knew what she meant – obviously he was not likely to survive – but my psyche kept forming a rebellious question: why? Why should I jump on the next plane? To do what? Say what?

  Within two hours of torment over what to do, I had developed a severe toothache.

  Surely a psychosomatic response? When a person cannot use words to describe how she is feeling, the body will often act for her . . .

  Yes, I suppose so. Isn’t it amazing how the body can do that? My dentist informed me that I urgently needed a root canal and began the process. ‘Of course, you must not fly,’ he warned me. Hah!

  Interesting – and what torturous ambivalence you must have felt . . .

  ‘I wish I could be there,’ I lied to my mother, ‘but my dentist has forbidden me to travel. It could be dangerous – and very painful.’ ‘You’re going to miss seeing him alive,’ she said. ‘We can’t keep him on life support forever. We’re going to have to switch him off.’ The full meaning of this sunk in slowly, but the immediate harshness was shocking. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘but, well, I’m really stuck here. Billy is in the UK, though. I’ll get him to come.’ I felt bad for offering Billy as the scapegoat, but it turned out he didn’t mind at all. Actually, he has a strange fascination with death and will travel half-way around the world to attend the funeral of someone he hardly knows.

  Next time I called, Billy was ensconced by my father’s bedside. ‘You should speak to him before he goes,’ he said, sounding just a little reproachful. ‘He’s barely conscious but he may hear you. Have a go. I’ll hold the phone up to his ear.’ Before I had a chance to protest, there was a terrible silence, except for the irregular, pressured breathing of a seventy-eight-year-old man to whom I was being forced to say goodbye. ‘Bye, then, Dad,’ I said awkwardly. ‘And thanks for . . . um . . . thanks for . . .’ I couldn’t think of anything much so I just said, ‘for the great education.’ That was it. I was numb. Baffled. Hurrah for Sharon, who was beside me explaining I didn’t have to feel guilty about not being at his side, not caring, not anything.

  What a very difficult time for you . . .

  They turned him off shortly afterwards. My father passed away on 21 July, with the rest of the immediate family – and Billy – at his side. Of course, once he had died, my tooth stopped hurting and settled down enough for me to travel.

  Well, that was to be expected . . .

  Yes. Billy met me at Heathrow and took me to the hospital. ‘I watched him fight for his life,’ he said reproachfully. ‘It was awful sad. He’s in there.’ He pointed to a door off the chapel and I entered alone. The corpse of an old man I once knew was lying in the bed with his eyes closed. This . . . THIS was . . . my father? I gazed at him for a long time, expecting to feel something. But nothing came. Oh, I had lots of questions. ‘Why didn’t you love me?’ was the first one. ‘Instead of kic
king me out, why didn’t you help me?’ and ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me I was Maori?’ But it was all too late. His face seemed softer in repose. He was greyish, and I began to notice small details – his large ears with hair growing out of them, his brown nose, his fat, furry cheeks. He looked . . . oh my God, I never noticed this before . . . but he looked exactly like . . . a wombat!

  All of a sudden, I began to shake. Just a little at first, in waves, but eventually those waves all joined up and my whole body vibrated with frightening power. Then sounds began to come out and at first I didn’t recognize them. The feeling I was having was so unexpected, so alien in this situation, I couldn’t have labelled it at first. I hope you’ll understand this, but it wasn’t sadness. And it wasn’t tears. It wasn’t shock. It was mirth. Yes, it’s terrible to admit, but I started laughing. Uncontrolled, all-consuming hysteria overtook me. I became louder and louder – to the point where I was afraid Billy and other people outside would hear me – but I couldn’t stop. I was aching, doubled over, powerless to stem the continued vibrations in my body. Tears squirted from my eyes more plentifully than if I’d been crying. It was so wrong, so bizarre, so . . . incredibly satisfying.

  Grief takes many forms . . .

  Oh, but was I grieving? I’m not sure. I had no conscious sadness. I finally left the room with a smug, secret knowledge. Once again, I had been dreadfully bad; I had performed the ultimate, disrespectful act in the presence of my own dead father. But, unlike our first painful ‘goodbye’, this time it was I who was in control. I set the tone. I walked away of my own accord. At last, he was powerless to accept or abandon, to love or hate me. I was free.

  So. Go on. Now tell me I’m nice . . .

  Chapter Twelve

  IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD

  It was one of those moments when my fragile but essentially trusting self suddenly became engulfed and silenced through the eye-expanding treachery of a deliberate ambush. I have been trained to be ready when another human being physically attacks me, but only under proper hostile conditions – not verbally, in the comfort of a BBC couch, before a live studio audience on The Graham Norton Show. In November 2011, I had been asked to appear to promote Strictly, and dutifully prepared a short comedic act in which I would instruct the affable host in a couple of rumba steps. The plan was simple: I would wiggle a short routine, Graham would mince obligingly, and the audience would fall about – job done.

  But first, I had to sit on the couch while a man who was the star of another BBC programme – a reality thing called The Apprentice, in which people got fired – came on to promote it. I had previously seen the American version with Donald Trump, but I learned that my fellow guest – a man called Lord Sugar – was his UK counterpart. I soon discovered how inappropriate his name truly is. Having pretended to be friendly before we went on air, this man suddenly launched a vicious, public attack on me for being a psychologist. He not only denigrated me and my profession, but he also spoke disparagingly about ‘middle-aged women’ who return to studying – especially psychology – belittling my achievements by saying that psychologists bought their degrees at Sears. I really don’t know what was eating him, but I was so shocked by his vitriol that I could barely respond.

  His attack complete, Sugar departed, leaving me stunned and speechless, with an acute sense of failure, fury and regret – thinking of all the brilliant things I should have said. Fortunately, the next guest was James Blunt, a man whose sweetness, sensitivity and talent makes him the very antithesis of Lord Sugar. Graham began chatting to him, and made a nudge-nudge-wink-wink reference to the use of James’s surname in Cockney rhyming slang. At that point, James turned to me and said, ‘By the way, I thought Lord Sugar was a real James Blunt to you!’ Bless that man. But I was left with a sick, shameful feeling of having been publically abused without properly standing up for myself. And I still don’t understand why . . .

  Pamela, when Lord Sugar was saying disparaging things about psychology, whose voice were you hearing?

  Ahhh. Yes. Projection. In that moment he became my critical, rejecting father.

  Correct . . .

  OK. I hear you. But he was still a right James Blunt.

  Pamela, I’m wondering . . . What happened in the aftermath of your father’s passing?

  The children flew over with Martine and attended his funeral. Over the years, I hadn’t been keen for them to spend much time with my parents, fearing that it would not be healthy for them. I had seen some signs that justified this, for example, when my father came to see Daisy and noticed that she was walking – albeit a little later than most children do – and he exclaimed, ‘Ah! Progress! That’s what I’ve come to see!’ That comment alone led me to ensure such cold, unloving expectations were never perpetrated on my children again.

  My mother and sisters were a tad frosty with me, to say the least. Well, it was understandable. But I felt strangely comfortable taking my rightful place as the Black Sheep Bad Girl Alien the Bane of My Parents’ Lives. It would not have been authentic for me to have been anything else. But the star turn of the funeral was Billy, who had been asked to speak a passage in Maori tongue, for Pete’s sake! He was now my mother’s Golden Boy, I suppose because he had turned up at the crucial moment and done what was supposed to be my duty. I was almost annoyed at the irreverent King of Comedy. Would I have been able to be so nice at his father’s funeral? No. But it was difficult to explain to my husband that I would have happily turned my back on the whole Stephenson affair. I had to show Billy gratitude, because he had sweetly and lovingly really tried to do the right thing by me and my family; but, in reality, I found the whole charade quite irksome. And if you’ve never heard a Glaswegian haranguing a dead body in the Maori language, well, I just wish you could have been there!

  Had you ever told your husband about your family history, how you really felt about your parents?

  Yes – but fairly sketchily, I’m afraid, and I regret that now. Anyway, back in LA, I pitched myself into facing my final round of study, and eventually became licensed as a psychologist. I set up my own private practice (previously I had been doing therapy within a colleague’s practice) and continued to help individual adults, children and teenagers, as well as couples and families, heal from mental health problems and make sense of their lives. I thoroughly enjoyed the work. Certainly, I often found it very difficult, heart-rending and stressful, but it was always rewarding to witness the resilience of the human spirit and watch people heal.

  Now you’re sounding like a grown-up – perhaps for the first time since we began. Did you feel in some ways at this point in your life – especially now your father had passed away – that you’d finally reached full adulthood, or at least psychological maturity, yourself?

  Let’s hope so! Nice to finally come of age at forty-five! My father’s death cleared a lot of gremlins from my psyche – so much so that I almost began to miss them. In fact, six months afterwards I wrote:

  Now that all that pain has gone, I find myself searching for it. It was my friend; I lost myself in it – at least I was feeling. Now I’m trying to recapture it . . . through memories, music . . . any trigger back to that dark place . . .

  It is common for healing to be experienced paradoxically as loss . . .

  Mmm, it took me some time to be able to celebrate my recovery. But at least my own healing immediately informed my ability to heal others – and, in turn, I felt I very often learned from my patients.

  We all do . . .

  Yes. Powerful work. Strangely enough, I also found doing psychotherapy to be very . . . creative. After all, you’re in a room with another human being, with all their preconceptions and resistances, designing an approach that will help lead them out of all that pain they’re in. I sometimes feel it’s not such a switch from comedy. Human observation and interaction, but without the laughs. Strangely enough, I eventually came to realize that comedy itself can be enormously healing for an audience – especially
when it’s performed at my husband’s high level. He’s always getting letters from people who say he has helped them recover physically, psychologically, or both. Well, he also gets letters that start: ‘Dear Mr Connolly, I’d like to assist you in mounting a ballistic missile platform on your car so we can take over the world . . .’ but that’s a whole other matter.

  Did you miss any aspect of working in comedy yourself?

  No. Well, I suppose, I still do miss actually performing – such a very quick route to a natural ‘high’. But that brief euphoria was replaced by the more gentle, longer-term sense of satisfaction at being able to help people, of seeing their lives change for the better. And I was so often enormously moved and inspired by my patients, witnessing what they faced in their lives, their courage. For example, when I first started practising I was afraid of seeing people with terminal illnesses. I was worried about having to watch them die and how that would make me feel. But, from the very first time I saw someone ‘to the door’, I realized how incredibly rewarding such work could be. Human resilience – what an amazing thing that is!

  You yourself had worked hard to achieve peace and psychological health, so you knew it was possible. That placed you in an excellent position to lead others to a similar place . . .

  Mmm . . .

  And even just making a career change – that’s something many people would like for themselves but are afraid – you were now in a position to guide them . . .