There's More to Life Than This: Healing Messages, Remarkable Stories, and Insight About the Other Side from the Long Island Medium

by Caputo, Theresa

  When my peers became mouthy teenagers, things began to change. Between the ages of about twelve and fourteen, I began to feel less comfortable with what was happening around me, mostly because of how people reacted to my observations. My family was still blasé about stuff I said, but when I’d casually ask if a friend saw or felt something, they’d be like, “No, that’s weird, there’s nobody there. Nobody hears or sees things the way you do!” What once seemed normal now wasn’t, so I decided to block my experiences out altogether. I didn’t say a special prayer to make Spirit stop or anything; I just didn’t acknowledge Spirit’s attempts to communicate with me. Keep in mind, this was before every TV channel had a ghost-hunting show and John Edward was a household name. People didn’t talk about this stuff. Nobody, including me, could’ve guessed what was really going on. It was never part of a comfortable, mainstream conversation.

  By the time I was sixteen years old, I was lucky that I hadn’t lost a lot of loved ones, but this also means that I didn’t have recognizable Spirit visiting me. When Nanny, my father’s mom, died, I was devastated. We were very close, and everyone missed her a lot. After she passed, my dad’s older sister, whom we call Auntie, had a psychic come to Nanny’s house. I didn’t know why at the time, but I now think it was to get in touch with her. I didn’t want to go, and I felt a little afraid—mostly because I didn’t know what a psychic really was or did. But I knew I’d feel safe at Nanny’s house, so I went anyway. And for the first time in a long time I didn’t block Spirit.

  I felt Nanny’s energy and soul near the window, and my family kept asking me why I was by the drapes when everyone else was at the kitchen table. They also asked me whom I was talking to, though I don’t remember what I was saying. (It’s similar to how I can’t recall most of what Spirit says after I channel for others.) After a minute of this, my family had to interrupt me in their usual, teasing way. They kept it lighthearted and didn’t freak out.

  “Theresa, who are you talking to?”

  “I’m talking to Nanny.”

  “Sure you are. Nanny’s dead.”

  “I know she’s dead, but I’m talking to her.”

  Auntie and my cousins might have been confused but didn’t make it a big deal. I was known to blurt out crazy things, but was this any stranger than having a psychic over for coffee? They were clearly open to spiritual conversations that I hadn’t considered yet.

  When I think about this memory now, I can physically smell Nanny’s house and see everything in it—the plastic-covered furniture, marble end tables, her sparkly dining room chandelier, a painting of The Last Supper, and those gold drapes. It was very gaudy Italian. And as I tell this story, I get a vision, like a quick filmstrip, of Nanny standing at the stove, smoking her cigarette all the way down to a really long ash that’s dangling over a bubbling spaghetti pot. She’d let that cigarette burn until only the filter was left, and yet the ashes never fell into her gravy. She loved her jewelry, and in my memory, she’s wearing all these diamonds. Like me, you know?

  After my little encounter with Nanny, I went back to completely ignoring Spirit. My uncle Julie died during my senior year of high school, and around that time, my anxieties began to get much worse than they’d been. I developed random phobias, many of which had to do with feeling claustrophobic. The night terrors had long past, but I still had restless sleep habits. Instead of waking up screaming, I’d jump out of bed, feeling like I couldn’t breathe to save my life.

  Then Along Came Larry

  My eighteenth year wasn’t a total disaster, though. That’s when I met my husband, Larry! When Auntie had the psychic over that first time I saw Nanny’s soul, he told me I was going to meet someone much older than me with a beard and mustache. Back then, I thought the psychic was being a wacko, since I was dating someone at the time and didn’t even like facial hair. But two years later, I met Larry, and you better believe he had a beard, mustache, and was eleven years older.

  It was love at first sight. Larry had this awesome hair that was tight on the sides, fluffy on top, and long in the back. He was also a sharp dresser and had a nice body. He looked like a clean-cut biker! He says I was a cute little sparkplug who made jokes and lit up a room. Larry worked for his family’s business, an oil company, and I worked part-time in the customer service department. I never went to college because I was too afraid to leave my family and comfort zone. I dreamed of becoming a hairdresser or legal secretary, but that meant commuting into Manhattan for the good jobs, which was way too overwhelming for me—trains, elevators, skyscrapers, traffic jams . . . that was not my world.

  Larry tells me he used to look forward to coming to work to see what I was wearing, because I was in my Madonna stage. I used to wear skintight pants, big belts, a fishnet top that draped off my shoulder, and fingerless gloves. Like in that movie Desperately Seeking Susan! But just because I was distracted by love doesn’t mean my anxiety went away. I tried hard to suppress it, but that only made things worse. I didn’t want Larry to think I was crazy, and I was still occasionally wondering if I was. Sometimes I saw figures or heard things, but at this point I was in such denial that I was fully convinced my mind was playing tricks on me.

  I decided to see a therapist, who, session after session, basically said there was nothing wrong with me. I’d tell him, “Ben, there is something wrong with me. I don’t feel right.” He’d ask me all about my childhood, and I’d explain that it was idyllic. My friends and family now? Great. Dating? Fun and exciting. Work? Fine! The best cause we could find for my chronic unease was that I came from an anxious family, so maybe this kind of thing was genetic. But the guy couldn’t give me one good medical or psychological reason why I felt as severely bad as I did.

  I couldn’t keep my anxiety attacks and laundry list of phobias from Larry for too long, especially when we were in the car or other enclosed spaces. I seemed to feel my worst when my mind was at rest. If we were on the Long Island Expressway during a traffic jam, I’d get a frown-y look on my face knowing that I was about to freak out. Then I’d scream bloody murder, and even if the car was moving, I’d beg and plead with Larry to pull over so I could get out right away. I even did this on double dates with other couples in the car! My anxiety was not shy. The panic attacks would eventually pass, and it helped that Larry always kept his cool. He didn’t know what was causing me so much stress, the same way I didn’t, but I’m just glad he didn’t get spooked and leave.

  Larry and I got married when I was twenty-two. Right away, I’d startle him in the middle of the night. I’d wake up yelling, jump out of bed, and run around the room yelling his name and crying for help. Then the moment would pass, and I’d come back to bed and forget it by morning. I talked in my sleep too. I never let Larry pull the covers over our heads, not even as a joke. Once he threw a blanket over us when we were watching TV, and I began screaming. He never did that again. But hey, Larry knew anxiety came with the package, and he loved me just the way I was.

  In Sickness and in Health

  My husband says that although I made us take the hospital stairs instead of the elevator when I was in labor with our son, Larry Jr., I was unusually calm and in control during childbirth. I was twenty-three when our first child was born. My anxiety went up and down after, but I generally felt better, now that I had the new responsibility of taking care of a child. I could even travel okay.

  Ever since I was a junior in high school, I was always ashing a cigarette with my manicured fingertips. I never drank or did any type of narcotic, but smoking was my vice. I stopped when I found out I was pregnant with our son, but two or three years later, I went back to smoking when those familiar stress levels snuck back. I thought smoking cigarettes would relax me, even though it seemed to make my chest feel heavier, which only increased my anxiety.

  I stopped smoking again when I got pregnant with Victoria, had her at twenty-seven, and went back. My anxieties became horrific. The worst they’
d ever been. I can remember a horrifying incident at Disneyworld when I hadn’t traveled in a while. We got to our hotel room with the kids, and I immediately started freaking out. My mom and aunt had to take the train from New York to meet us and calm me down. As if having a severe panic attack weren’t bad enough, I also took it out on my husband. He says I needed a scapegoat. The kids had never seen me that bad and looked terrified to watch their mom unravel in front of their eyes.

  In December 1999, I became deathly ill for no reason. Now, I am not a sick person, I don’t do sick. Even when the kids were young and brought home nasty germs from school, I rarely caught their colds or flu. But this was the weirdest thing. I was getting ready for a wedding one morning and I was fine; then suddenly out of nowhere, I had a 104-degree temperature. My dad literally carried me to the doctor’s office. I was on my back for two weeks, which was hard since my son, Larry, was nine and Victoria was five. My husband was a big help as usual, but it’s not like I had the luxury of staying in bed. I don’t even remember the first delirious week of all this. And during the second, I just lay there. I couldn’t walk, eat, or go to the bathroom. I also couldn’t smoke.

  In hindsight, I believe God was detoxing my body during this time. Drugs, smoking, narcotics—all that stuff funks up your aura and mucks up your energy. And smoking, specifically, turns your aura gray. I stayed away from cigarettes when I got better. This doesn’t mean I was a joy to live with. I remember Mom saying to me, “You’re such a bitch without nicotine. Go back to smoking!” You know what I said back? “God’s making me stop!”

  That rationale came flying out of my mouth. I checked myself. Where did that come from? Why would I even say that? That’s when I knew quitting was an act of God, because those words didn’t come from my brain. And with that, I haven’t touched a cigarette in thirteen years.

  When I channel Spirit, I do it from a place of the highest good, and that requires my body, mind, and soul to be healthy and pure. Looking back, I wouldn’t have been able to develop my abilities if I continued to fuel my body with anything negative, like cigarettes. But at the time, all I knew was that God wanted me to stop smoking. Certain foods began to make me ill too. Doritos and Wendy’s made me feel dizzy and light-headed, like I couldn’t focus. I hallucinated when I ate MSG. When I was pregnant with our son, Larry and I were walking out of a Chinese restaurant and had one of those surreal conversations that reminded me of when I was a kid.

  “Hey, did you see that dog in the car?”

  “What dog?”

  “Don’t you hear him barking?”

  “Hon, there’s no dog.”

  “It’s a husky. He just winked at me!”

  I later learned that Siberian huskies are considered to be very spiritual dogs, since they’re so closely related to the wolf, which Native American tradition says is the highest spiritual teacher in the animal kingdom. I suspect the MSG helped trigger my vision because it’s a chemical, and when people alter their chemistry, it can do some crazy stuff to their soul.

  A Serendipitous Encounter

  At twenty-eight, I was a hot mess. I’d just stopped smoking and my anxieties were nonstop. I didn’t want to leave the house and was in a constant panic that something bad would happen if I did. My therapist called this “anticipatory anxiety,” which is when you anticipate future events in a way that causes you to feel anxious, and that interferes with your ability to function in everyday life. The thought of going to work, the butcher, or a birthday party made my mind reel.

  One night, Mom had a candle party—like a Tupperware thing, but with scented candles—and I decided to go at the last minute. She lived next door, so this I could do. Mom’s friend Pat Longo is a spiritual healer and works with people who have physical or emotional ailments, including chronic anxiety; she also teaches classes about living a balanced, positive, and fulfilled life that includes meditation and healing. Like me, Pat also decided at the eleventh hour to go to Mom’s event. All these last-minute decisions don’t say much for her parties, do they!

  I told Pat about my anxieties and how sick I’d been, and though I’d known her for years—her son and my brother grew up together—she had no clue about the anxiety I suffered as a child, and certainly nothing about how I sensed Spirit. She put her hands over my head and began to channel healing energy from God. For three weeks after, I felt so calm that I wanted to do it again. But when I called to make an appointment, Pat told me I didn’t need another healing, that there was nothing for her to mend within me. She asked if I wanted to take her spiritual awareness class instead to give me some perspective and balance in my life. She suspected Spirit communication was causing my distress, but didn’t tell me that right away.

  Whatever Pat did to me made me feel better, so I decided to go for a class—why not? I also trusted her with my well-being because my family had known hers for years. If Pat were some random spiritual healer, I wouldn’t have been able to believe in her or her evaluation of me. I put on a good face for friends and family, but I was still fragile on the inside and wouldn’t have felt safe with just anyone. I also knew I’d feel secure in Pat’s classes because my mom had taken her course a few years before. She was actually one of Pat’s first students, though she only went to learn more about feeling positive and healthy from the inside out. My dad and us kids used to rib her, like, “Oooh. You’re going to your voodoo class tonight.” Pat says Mom was starting to touch the surface of her own abilities by the end, but she put her spiritual energy into working with the church instead of developing them any further on her own.

  After that first night in Pat’s class, I got sidetracked and didn’t go back for, um, a year. When I finally did, the classes were held on Wednesdays, and every week there would be a downpour. One of my phobias was driving in the rain, so I cut class for that whole first month. But in my heart, I wanted to make this work, so I practiced driving in thunderstorms, up and down the block. I was ready to go back to Pat’s the next month, though it continued to rain every Wednesday.

  I think Spirit made it rain to help me break through my fear, on my way to honing my gift. This shouldn’t surprise me; it always rains during milestone events! There was a monsoon during my son’s baby shower and my daughter’s Communion, and Hurricane Hugo hit on my wedding day. It wiped out St. Thomas Island, and my honeymoon was canceled. Even when I taped The Tonight Show a few years ago, which was intimidating and such a big deal for me, it poured cats and dogs. Leno’s producers assured me that it never rains that much in LA in October, and wouldn’t you know, the minute I was done shooting at five p.m., the sun came out.

  I’m a What?!?

  “You’re a medium,” Pat told me during class one night. A lot of people were discovering their own gifts, and this was mine. “You have the ability to speak to dead people. If you can learn to control the energy around you, you can learn to control and understand your anxiety better.”

  This was the first time I’d ever considered that my anxiety and all that stuff I saw when I was a kid, and forced myself to ignore, could be related. Who knew there were real, physical consequences to blocking what I’d been seeing, hearing, and sensing?

  Pat explained that one reason ignoring Spirit gave me anxiety is that I channel Spirit through my chakras. Ideally, it enters through the crown, or head, chakra, flows through my entire body, and then releases through my words. But when Spirit was trying to deliver a message, it would channel through my crown, and I’d block it in my chest, which would cause my heart to race or give me those crazy palpitations. My chest would also feel heavy and compressed, as if an elephant were napping on it. I don’t even know much about all the chakras, just that I need to keep the crown chakra, third eye, throat chakra, heart chakra, solar plexus chakra, spleen chakra, and root chakra aligned and balanced so I don’t freak out.

  Pat also said the type of channeling I do was causing me to have panic attacks. There are lots of ways that mediums
experience Spirit. A “clairvoyant,” for instance, mostly sees visions, and a “clairaudient” primarily uses her hearing sense. Pat explained that I’m “empathic,” which means I feel Spirit most, and use my other senses to fill in the blanks. For instance, a message might begin with me feeling very restricted in the throat area, which means there is a soul that would like to tell me that they passed via a death connected to the throat, that they were unable to communicate prior to their passing, or they did not get to say good-bye (one symbol for me can mean a lot of things—more on that later). But if I felt my throat close without knowing that this was Spirit’s way of delivering a message, all I’d know is that I felt like I was choking, which triggered a panic attack.

  So I’d be having a normal conversation with someone at the grocery store, say, and all of a sudden I’d feel like I couldn’t breathe or that I was being strangled. I now know that’s Spirit trying to communicate with me, but fifteen years ago, I was just like, I have to get out of here! As I said earlier, this could happen even when I was asleep. As soon as I removed myself from the situation or woke up, I was good, but it was a quick fix. I also thought some places felt better than others because I had random anxieties, but it was really the energy changing in each spot, often based on Spirit’s presence. As for the phobias, I think they’re usually about associations, quiet moments, or past lives. I may have either felt Spirit in that exact place, or a similar one, which is why anticipating it made me nervous. My Catskills camping memory contributed to my tent phobia, and riding in cars or being silent in an elevator forces me to sit still without distractions, which is when I’m most open to Spirit. During a past-life regression, I also learned I was a prisoner on a ship during a torrential storm, which explains why I’m afraid of rain. I could go on, but I’ll spare you all my phobias and explanations! Suffice it to say, all these situations made me feel out of control, and so all of these things caused me to panic.