by Naomi Judd
As I took the dresses off the hangers, I wondered if I should just put them in a bag and give them to someone who could use them. Or, perhaps the fans would like to have them. After all, I would never have the opportunity to wear them again. The concerts were behind me now. Still, it seemed inconceivable that I would never tour by bus again. The magical journey had ended. Someone had turned the spotlight out.
Now, as the empty tour bus turned to lumber back down our long driveway toward the main road, I stood alone, watching it go, as the bitterly cold wind lashed my hair across my face and rattled the cardboard box in my arms. I couldn’t even try to hold back the tears. I wasn’t sure I could make it back into the house. I felt as though the joy that the world had given me so much of through performing for the past year had evaporated before my eyes, leaving me a deflated woman without any sense of purpose. It’s said that when you leave Shangri-la, you turn old and gray. I had lost my identity.
When I finally made my way back inside, I crumbled onto the kitchen couch in the same way marathon runners sometimes collapse after the finish line. I was emotionally exhausted. I don’t know how long I sat there, except I remember it going from daylight outside to a pitch-black, moonless night. I didn’t turn on a light, but I did turn on the TV. I found an old episode of Law & Order. I scrolled through the cable guide and saw there was a nonstop string of Law & Order reruns all evening. Without even getting up for a drink of water, I put my feet up on the box I had packed on the bus and watched one episode after another until Larry got home from his rehearsal. He wanted to know why I was sitting in complete darkness. I would have answered him, but I had no explanation. So I muttered, “Shhh. Chief Dodd is telling Benson to expect changes. It doesn’t look good.”
Larry put on the kitchen lights so he could see my face. He looked at me in silence for a minute. It seemed as if the plot I had described might be playing out in my real life. Expect changes, Naomi Judd. And it doesn’t look good.
A few days later, I still didn’t have the energy or ambition to unpack. My costumes lay bunched up across the upstairs railing, my stage shoes were scattered on the floor, and I had kicked the cardboard box to the side of the kitchen couch. This was not like me at all. Larry called our longtime friend and part-time house manager, Angie, to come over and help to straighten up our disorganized home. She is a true southern gal. I could see the shock on her face when she saw me again. Angie took one look at me and proclaimed, “You are in a bad way, girlfriend.” I supervised what needed to happen from the couch, apologizing between my tears that I couldn’t help her. Angie gently hugged me and set a box of tissues nearby.
Larry encouraged me to have some social interaction, to meet up with a friend or two in our village at a café, hoping I would abandon my protective nest on the couch, but I had no interest in doing anything. I didn’t have enough energy to be out in public and I certainly didn’t want anyone to know I was sinking deeper day by day into despair.
From spending years on the road, the women I considered my friends were my fellow performers. I felt very fortunate to have been on the country music scene with a generation of women artists who were kind, funny, and generous enough to extend a hand of friendship to newcomers. The one-of-a-kind Dolly Parton became my friend. I share a bond with Reba McIntyre, and we have spent time at each other’s homes. Martina McBride and I developed a friendship and she also has visited me. In turn, I was thrilled to see the quality of upcoming talent like Carrie Underwood, who fell in love with the property where I live in Tennessee. I sold a few of my acres to her so she could build her own family home and become my neighbor.
Undoubtedly, my best friend in the country music world was Tammy Wynette. She and I shared a common small-town history: divorce, moving to Nashville with children in tow and not a penny to our names, having a golden opportunity to audition for a record producer in person, and then having preposterous dreams become a fabulous reality. We recognized our bond the day we met. After that, we would talk a few times a week on the phone at night, before she would go to bed at nine thirty. She had chronic pain from many health issues and more than twenty-six different surgeries and was addicted to strong painkillers, even though she had bravely sought treatment for the addiction at the Betty Ford Center.
I believe Tammy was a victim of the trust she placed in her last husband, George Richey, to take care of her and make sure her medications and dosages were correct. It seems her faith in her twenty-year marriage was misplaced and it cost Tammy her life.
On a chilly spring night, Richey called our house at 1 a.m. He told me that Tammy was in the ICU at Baptist Hospital in Nashville and was “really bad off.” She was asking to see me. Still in my pj’s, I broke the speed limit getting to the hospital that night. She could barely speak, but I lowered the bed rail and crawled in to lie beside her and hold her hand. Some days later, after returning home, she died on her own couch from an overdose of painkillers.
You can read for yourselves the public opinions of Tammy’s children and their suspicions about George Richey’s role in their mother’s death. Even though the lawsuit against him was eventually dropped, I stand by Tammy’s three girls. They knew their mother was in trouble but felt helpless because she was vulnerable to the will of her husband, who was infatuated with and then married Tammy’s “personal secretary,” a woman who had tried to befriend Wynonna and me, appearing by our tour bus after shows. I never liked her and always felt a deep suspicion about her motives.
Legendary Tammy Wynette left us at age fifty-five, but I feel, in my heart, she would be here still if she had been under someone else’s care. I often think of Tammy and wonder, if she had had more close friends watching out for her, whether her story would have ended so tragically. One of the most prophetic things Tammy said about her own life’s tribulations was “The sad part about happy endings is there’s nothing to write about.”
I still longed for my own happy ending. I saw the wisdom in Larry’s suggestion about social interaction. I agreed it would boost my chances to return to a happier life if I established a circle of women friends. My village is full of interesting and lively women and I decided it was time to make an effort to form friendships with some of them. I invited a number of likable women I had met in recent years to come over for an evening get-together. Two women are accomplished oil painters who sell very well; another runs the village newspaper. I invited a professional photographer and a backup singer, along with an interior decorator and a store owner. The small group also included women who owned a yoga studio and a landscaping business, and two wise women who have mastered life’s vicissitudes. I didn’t explain much about the gathering in the invitation, except I that I hoped to establish a group bond, like the one in the movie The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I asked all of them to wear clothing that flowed and I dressed up in a Mother Nature costume with flowers and small branches and leaves in my hair.
We gathered in the “great room” of my house, where I had a roaring fire in the massive stone fireplace and finger food snacks. Besides asking them to dress a certain way, the only other thing I requested was for each woman to bring a picture of herself at age ten. We sat in a circle and I asked each of them to share with the rest of the group what their hopes and dreams were at age ten and what they felt about those dreams today. There were quite a few laughs and even some tears as the women recalled their ambitions and their disappointments.
I wanted to have a group of close girlfriends so this was our first Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood–type ceremony.
I studied the picture of myself at age ten. I was a child who was very likely to strike a pose, hands on hips, with a movie star tilt to my head. I dreamed of a colorful and expressive lifestyle, much different from the one in which I was being raised. I didn’t know how I would achieve my dreams at the time. I only knew I had to, somehow, survive. The other women commented on my determination and courage in achieving all I had. I tried to joke by saying that “we all have
days when the toilet backs up, and I discovered, years ago, you have to have a plunger and learn how to turn off the water.”
Even if I appeared successful to my new friends, I could no longer feel the pride I once had in my accomplishments. The little girl in the photo was still in me, but her hands-on-hips defiance wasn’t going to work in dealing with the emotional pain I was experiencing.
After hearing my story, the women declared that my new spiritual sisterhood name would be “Wisdom Seeker.” Each of the other women was given a new sisterhood name such as “High Priestess” and “Grand Poo-bah” as they ceremoniously rode the elevator down from my second floor and made an entrance into the great room. I passed out oversized colorful scarves that we ceremoniously wrapped around our shoulders. I had everyone jump to her feet as I thumped out a rhythm on a set of Native American drums Larry keeps in his recording studio. We danced with great abandon, like happy kids, holding our scarves over our heads.
It was the best I had felt since returning home from the tour. I was surprised and touched at how willing these women were to play along. Our inner child had definitely come out to play. At the end of the night, we hugged and pledged our sisterhood to each other in good times and in bad. We shared our phone numbers and set up a chain reaction phone grid for whoever needed help. One sister would phone the next and down the line to arrange a time and place to meet for the sister who was in need. We all agreed on the significance of having a female support system.
Larry seemed enormously relieved by my contented mood when we went to bed that night and was hoping that my blues had waned. I was feeling pleased that my sisterhood idea had worked out so beautifully. As I dozed off I was planning a second get-together in my head. Four hours later, I was jolted awake, feeling as if someone had dumped stinging wasps all over my arms, face, and neck. I couldn’t breathe in deeply. My heart was racing with adrenaline. I shook Larry’s shoulder and told him that something was really wrong. He checked my face and arms and said they looked fine. He tried to help me to calm my breathing by having me inhale more slowly. I burst into anxious tears, feeling I was about to die. Larry put his arm around me, but I couldn’t stay still. I had to get up and pace. After three or four hours of walking the floors, I could finally sit down once I saw that dawn was breaking over the horse pasture.
Later that morning, one of the women called me to say what a great time she had. She was so happy to have this new group of friends. I tried to respond with enthusiasm, but it had drained away after the hours of anxiety. It was now apparent to me that no amount of playacting or sorority atmosphere was going to ward off my painful memories or the persisting anxiety. No dancing with abandon to a drumbeat could control my pounding heart during a panic attack.
I began sinking deeper and deeper into despair over the following days. The only thing that felt almost as bad as the depression was the tremendous shame about it. After all, I was living the life many people dream of having: international fame, a great marriage, wonderful friends, and a gorgeous farm with acres of property. I had authored bestselling books and shared my ideas on how to live a happy and optimistic life. I was especially convincing on how a woman can feel great as she ages.
I felt like a fraud. I had now gone for more than three weeks without putting on makeup and barely brushing my hair. I would change out of one pair of pajamas and into another, never putting on regular clothes. I rambled through the days in exhaustion from countless sleepless nights and tear-filled hours of emotional and physical pain. In the morning, I might manage to make it downstairs for a cup of coffee. That alone would make me feel exhausted, so I would lie down on the couch and stay there for hours. Larry started to bring in carryout food, since I wasn’t looking in the refrigerator. I couldn’t even seem to find the initiative to make toast in the morning. I would leave the carryout food untouched and surf the TV channels, hoping to find yet another episode of Law & Order. There was something in the dramatic events of that show that took me away from the prison of my own thoughts.
Every evening, as I was brushing my teeth before bed, I would feel the anticipation of another nightmarish panic attack happening again after just a few hours of sleep. Though I tried to ignore it, the fear would seep into my thoughts.
Larry and I would try to watch a fun late-night show together from our bed. He would hold my hand tightly, but eventually he would doze off and I would feel his hand go limp in mine. Then my trepidations would kick up to high intensity. Would it happen again? The fear of the panic attack became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more distress I felt at the possibility of panic, the more it completely consumed me. I believed I was the only person on earth who had ever had panic attacks this bad for so many days.
Chapter 4
Potato Salad on the Hood of the Car
After one long night of walking the floors with my heart racing and gasping for a full breath, I huddled on the kitchen couch in the dark, where Larry found me. He sat down next to me and told me he had something on his mind, something that had been building up for a while. I looked into his eyes, which seemed full of defeat. This is it, I thought. My misery is driving him away for good. Is he leaving me?
“I don’t recognize you anymore,” Larry confessed. “I don’t know how to help you.” He held my hands in his and made me look him in the eye. I didn’t want to hear what he would say next. I held my breath as the worst-case scenario raced through my head. If he tells me he’s leaving, then what? I’ll be alone. I’ve always been terrified of being alone. It’s my greatest fear.
My beautiful farm became my prison. Sometimes I didn’t step outside for weeks.
Larry’s voice stayed firm and calm, “You’ve had a complete personality change. You’ve got to get serious professional help.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or anger. There was comfort in knowing that he would stay with me. And then I felt a deep concern that my own husband was telling me that I was losing my mind. Was he right? We trust each other implicitly. Was this how it would be now? Was this depression driving me crazy? I wasn’t ready to admit defeat, even though I could no longer recognize myself, either.
I tried to convince Larry that it was a passing phase, caused by the trauma of losing my career, and I would soon be myself again. I reminded him that I had trained and worked for years as a nurse and I would certainly know if I needed professional help. I had been around many patients who suffered from all types of maladies. I could tell Larry had serious doubts, and I was trying my best to pull off some good acting, since my own doubts were at least twice as strong as his.
I was known for surviving the death sentence decreed upon me by specialists in hepatitis C treatment. My attitude was, “Oh yeah? I’ll show you.” I determined that I would find the answer to my predicament, and find it naturally, mind over matter.
Now it seemed my mind had taken over the matter in my brain in ways that were becoming uncontrollable. But I wasn’t ready to wave the white flag. I was still convinced that I could fight depression on my own and had no idea that struggling with this serious illness without medication and other help would lead to what is known as “panic disorder.”
The holidays were approaching, but my usual festive spirit was nowhere to be seen. My daughter Ashley was completely devoted to her ongoing worldwide humanitarian work and she was often traveling out of the country. When she called from foreign countries, I would control my voice to sound as normal as possible. I was glad she couldn’t see my face. Wynonna seemed to be 100 percent wrapped up in her exciting dating life with her new boyfriend Cactus and blending the lives of their teenagers. I knew she was booking concert dates for 2012, and was busy resuming her solo career on the road and in the studio. I had not heard her beautiful voice in what seemed like a terribly long time. My days seemed to grow longer. I anticipated that I would soon be myself once again, yet, in truth, I felt like I was falling into a dark, endless abyss, alone. I didn’t attempt to connect with Wynonna, because I had no words for wh
at was happening to me or why. How could I explain it when I was becoming a stranger to myself? In my vulnerability, I wanted her to reach out to me first, but I also wanted to give her the space to process for herself. My emotions were multilayered and complicated. As Wynonna clearly stated in her January 2015 televised interview with Dan Rather, who asked her about her family relationships, she was tired of being “reactive instead of proactive.” In retrospect, it appears that “proactive” in Wy’s definition meant that she couldn’t be around those she felt “reactive” to, which would be me.
One chilly December afternoon, my well-meaning group of sisterhood girlfriends convinced me to go antiquing with them. I could barely generate a single ounce of enthusiasm about the excursion. I was as uptight as a banjo string. Still, I had the thought that it would help to foster Larry’s hope that I would soon be back to acting like my ol’ self again. I could see an increasing shadow of worry on his face.
He has told me many times that one of the reasons he fell in love with me more than thirty-seven years ago was that I always knew what I wanted to do and how to get it done. That seemed to be one of my character traits that resonated with almost every person in my life. When Wynonna and I toured almost continuously between 1984 and 1991, I was the decision maker. I would almost look forward to the next challenge. Everyone from the bus driver to the backstage crew would turn to me to solve problems, from what to do for an earache to how to handle a technical emergency like the sound board blowing up.