by Carol Selick
It had been a little over a year, and I was still seeing Bruce Pasternak twice a week. I’d called him to cancel my Monday appointment and fill him in on the drug bust. Now, back in the waiting room, I stared out the window at the dark, cold, cloudless sky, waiting for our Thursday appointment. I had some bad news to tell him and wasn’t looking forward to our session.
“My friends got busted, but I got busted by my parents,” I blurted out.
“What do you mean, Carol?”
“They’re not gonna pay for therapy sessions anymore, and if I don’t get something going with my music by next summer I have to move home and go back to school.”
“What made them decide this?”
“The bust. At first, when Melanie and I told them what happened, they didn’t say very much. My mother looked like she’d been crying and my father looked like he was trying not to lose it in front of Melanie. But yesterday morning I got a call from him at 6:30.”
“What did he say?”
“He wants to stop paying for therapy. He doesn’t think you’re helping me make good life decisions. Like I said, he wants me to move home and go back to school in the fall unless, as he put it, a miracle happens and I make it in the music business.”
As I sat waiting for Bruce to process what I’d just told him, I thought back to the day my father brought me to Rider to start my Freshman year. It was a very conservative school. All the coeds were walking around in shirtwaist cotton dresses with perfect little front pleats and pastel floral patterns. I was in bell-bottoms and a tie-dyed tee shirt. I could tell my father wished I could be more like the shirtwaist girls. That’s when he turned to me and said, “I’ve dreamed about this day since you were a child, Carol. The day you would be a college coed and become an adult. I never pictured you looking like this.”
I told him I liked the way I looked. But that didn’t make him or me feel any better. I had disappointed him. Little did I know this was only the beginning.
“What are you going to do?” Bruce asked, jolting me back to reality.
“I’m gonna concentrate on promoting my music until next summer, but this may be my last session with you. Without my father’s help, I can’t afford to come here,” I said through my tears. “Are you crying out of sadness because you have to stop seeing me, or frustration brought on by your father not understanding?”
Was that a look of sadness on Bruce’s face? An emotion hidden behind his cigar smokescreen? Would he possibly miss me as much as I knew I would miss him?
“I guess a little of both.” I was crying harder. It felt like I was saying goodbye to my best friend.
“Your father doesn’t understand that therapy takes a long time. There are patterns formed in childhood that are hidden and deeply embedded in your psyche. Not to mention trust issues and parental interactions which need to be analyzed. It’s a slow and deliberate process. I think you have been making progress. Would you agree?”
“Yes, but I can’t convince my parents.”
“What if I reduced my rate to something you could afford yourself?”
“I don’t know what to say. That would be amazing!”
“I think you’re at a crucial place in the therapeutic process. I want to see you continue. All that I ask is that you don’t tell anyone about our arrangement.”
I couldn’t believe my ears! Bruce Pasternak, one of the top analysts in New York, was cutting me a break. Now if I could only get a break in the music business….
“There is something I do agree with your father on. You might want to think about the people you are associating with and the men you are drawn to. From what you’ve told me about your experiences with the first drug bust and the rape you narrowly avoided, you’ve been very lucky. When you start to pull yourself out of the mud and get healthier, you may have to leave some friends behind. They will try to pull you back in there with them. Think about it. I’ll see you Monday.”
My mind was reeling as I walked out of Bruce’s office and headed for the bus stop. Maybe he and my father were right. Maybe it was time to change the type of people I hung out with. I couldn’t give up my girlfriends—they were way less neurotic than me, and I was the one who introduced Melanie to the hippie life, not the other way around. My other two college roommates seemed to be doing just fine. Marsha was happily living with her man in Boulder and working toward a degree in Education, and Bonnie was living out her travel dream somewhere in Africa. As for Nina, she was in grad school, and even though her man thing was pretty wild, she always gave me good advice. No, it wasn’t my women friends, it was the men I chose to get involved with who were pulling me down.
The whole way home on the crosstown bus, my mind was plagued with questions. Why did I give in to temptation and go back with Joshua, after the way he’d hurt me? This time he’d found another way to break my heart and it was way more dangerous than cheating on me. I could have gone to jail. Was I willing to ruin my whole life for a man? A song title came to me: “Back in the Arms of Heartache.” Yeah, that was it! That was the blues song I was going to write, not one about my man being in jail, like the song that Joshua gave me. My new song was going to empower women. More important, empower me.
By the time I got home, I had some of the lyrics in my head. I feverishly wrote them in the notebook I kept on top of the piano. It was one of the fastest songs I’d ever written.
Back in the Arms of Heartache
The energy between us grows stronger all the time.
You are my strongest weakness, the tie I can’t unbind.
I’ve tried so hard to give you up, replace you with a stable love.
And though I keep on trying, I find myself
Back in the arms of heartache, making the same old mistake.
Lovin’ in reverse ain’t nothin’ but a curse, and what makes matters worse—
When you tell me that you love me, I can see it in your eyes.
Then you turn around and leave me and I’m taken by surprise.
I’ve got to fight against my fate, bouncing between love and hate.
And though I keep on trying, I find myself
Back in the arms of heartache, making the same old mistake.
Lovin’ in reverse ain’t nothin’ but a curse, and what makes matters worse—
Why does everyone I meet not measure up to you?
My life would be much easier if I found someone new.
I’ve got to stop the circle, stand firmly on the ground.
Release this old emotion, get off the merry-go-round.
I know it’s just a numbers game ‘til love takes hold of me again.
And though I keep on trying, I find myself back in the arms of heartache.
After I wrote it, I felt as if a weight had been lifted. Bruce believed in me. From now on it was all about my music and I wasn’t gonna get side-tracked by boy-men, outlaws, dreamers, rebels, and schemers. Besides, I had enough song material for at least three albums!
22
GUILT TRIP
And time will come when you’ll start believing
In your own strength, the way that people do.
You’re so afraid ’cause the child is leaving,
But you fight your fear, ’cause you know ‘round here
Grown-up children can’t survive.
A few days after my wake-up call I got a letter from my father. He must have been upset when he wrote it and feeling a little guilty for coming down on me so hard. He was trying to reach out to me. Now it was my turn to feel guilty for upsetting him about the bust and my hippie lifestyle.
Dear Carol,
I am truly sorry. I assure you again and once more that my actions were initiated from the purity of a father’s love and heart, and not from the darkness of some devilish, psychological scheme.
However, it remains quite evident that we are goin
g through hells of pain, indecision, and insecurity. How much longer anyone of us will be able to endure this only God knows. The trust and faith lie with you; whether you’ll be able to muster the strength to take some positive steps in order to persevere and emerge victorious, or give in to the same forces which have brought you to this turmoil of weakness.
The question remains of how a person who is endowed divinely and earthly with all the elements of success, seems to, almost as if in a deliberate way, avoid success? Why should the great fountain of youthful energy misdirect itself into the channels of unrealistic pursuits?
The great assets are still with you – they are far too many to enumerate. Yet, constant paradoxes of intentions seem to overwhelm them and at times even destroy them.
For example: You have a beautiful voice, which you cherish, you have healthy lungs, yet you have allowed yourself to become addicted to a poisonous inhalation that drains you of voice, breathing, life, power, and money.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Carol, I do love you, we all love you and cry out for you. We are all reaching out our hearts to help you. Don’t turn your back on our truth, our beauty.
Phew! That letter was hard to read. On one hand, he was building me up by telling me that I had everything going for me to become successful, and on the other, he was taking away my confidence by telling me I was weak and making bad decisions. No wonder I needed a shrink! I brought the letter to my next session.
“You seem very upset by the letter you just read me, Carol.”
I nodded and threw a big wad of tissues in the wastebasket. I’d been crying so hard my voice was shaking. I searched his handsome face to get a clue about what he was feeling. The warmth and kindness in his eyes betrayed his usual practiced, expressionless look.
“I feel really bad that I’m upsetting my parents.”
“Your father is sending you mixed messages.”
“Yeah, he builds me up and then he cuts me down. But it still hurts.”
“You’re an adult woman now, Carol. You’re making it on your own and not asking your parents for help. Give yourself some credit.”
“Then why do I feel like such a fucking loser?”
“You and your father have a complicated relationship. Something is going on unconsciously that’s blocking you from succeeding. We talked about one aspect of it in your last session. You seem to pick people who put you in dangerous situations.”
“Mostly the men.” I wasn’t going to let him put down my girlfriends. They were more together than I was.
“Have you ever heard the term “survivor’s guilt?”
I nodded my head.
“For example, you told me about the rape in Washington, but we never explored how you felt about your roommates getting raped and not you.”
I took a deep inhale on my cigarette and shuddered as I thought about how close I came to being gang-raped.
“I asked myself, ‘Why me? Why was I spared?’ a million times.”
“That’s an impossible question to answer. There’s no logical explanation for it. What helped you get past it?”
“Well, I tried to help my roommates by packing up our apartment and listening to them talk about it. They were so strong and determined to get past it, that it helped me. And something weird my father told me about that night affected me. He told me the night of the rape, he prayed to his mother to watch over me. I was named after her—- my Hebrew name is Chiah Sora. She was killed in the Holocaust. He told me that same night, she came to him in a dream and asked, ‘Can’t you do something for her on earth?’ Isn’t that eerie?”
“Was your father in the Holocaust?”
“No. My father came to this country before the war, but his parents and five out of his six brothers and sisters were killed. My Uncle Leo was the only one who survived the camps.”
“How must your father have felt when he found out that practically his whole family had been wiped out and suffered unimaginable horrors?”
“He never talked about it.”
“Exactly. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t experience survivor’s guilt. Many people directly affected by the Holocaust consider it a taboo subject to talk about with their children.”
“How does that have anything to do with me?”
“We can discuss this at your next session. I’d like you to spend some time thinking about your family history relating to the Holocaust. See if there’s anything you can remember.”
“I’ll try. See you Monday.”
As I left Bruce’s office, I felt a heaviness throughout my whole body. I walked past the upscale boutiques on Madison Ave. and past the perfect mannequin-like women walking their miniature French poodles and felt a sense of unreality. What had happened to my closest relatives was unimaginable. But, somewhere in my soul was a karmic wound buried so deep, that I didn’t allow it to enter into my day-to-day consciousness.
Something inside of me resonated with what Bruce was saying about survivor’s guilt. There were missing pieces of my family history that could be influencing my life now. I wanted to break the silence and unlock the secrets of the past, no matter how painful.
When I got home that night, I didn’t feel like thinking about anything. I made my favorite comfort food, macaroni and cheese, watched some I Love Lucy reruns, and got into bed. I was getting used to living alone, but tonight I was feeling needier than usual. It would have been nice to have someone to cuddle up to.
The next morning I made a pot of coffee and got out a notebook so I could write down any memories about the war and the Holocaust. Uncle Leo and Aunt Roz lived outside of Boston, and we used to visit them every summer. I remembered a lot of laughter and good times. I enjoyed playing with my three girl cousins, and my Uncle Leo had a zest for life. He never spoke about what he had gone through in the Holocaust. The only reminder was the number tattooed on the inside of his forearm.
One night, when I was around twelve, I woke up to the hushed sound of voices in the living room at my aunt and uncle’s house. I tiptoed toward the stairs and quietly sat down on the top step. My uncle was telling a story about being a boy in Poland before the war.
“We were all living in one room,” my uncle said, speaking in hushed tones. “It was horrible. We had no food. Very late at night, I would take a bicycle I kept hidden in the bushes, and ride to the farmlands. If the Nazis had caught me, I would’ve been killed, but I had to feed the family. They were starving us to death. When I got to the peasants’ houses, I traded trinkets, anything to get some food. I was lucky that I never got caught and that no one turned me in.”
I crept back upstairs. It sounded so scary and so secretive! My uncle was very brave! I waited until we came home from Massachusetts to ask my mother what had happened to Uncle Leo. I sensed that my father wouldn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to get into trouble for eavesdropping but I needed to know the truth. I thought my mother might tell me since it wasn’t her brother. I hoped that she’d understand why I was listening in on the stairs that night.
On a hot July evening, a week or two later, my mother and I were sitting in the driveway in front of our two-car garage, on our plastic outdoor lounge chairs. We were waiting for my father to come home. We had just finished dinner. My mother and I always ate before my father got home, except on Sundays, when we all ate together. I looked forward to our Sunday dinners. Sometimes we would get cold cuts from the Jewish deli and my father would quiz me on current events. He made a game out of it and it was fun.
Tonight our street was unusually quiet. There were no kids playing softball in the road or neighbors taking an evening walk in the twilight. The day had been a scorcher and the air was hot and heavy. It was just the two of us, me, and my mother. That’s when I asked her what the grownups had been whispering about at Uncle Leo’s.
“What did you hear?” my mother asked me. She looked surprised.
“Something about Poland and a bicycle and Uncle Leo getting food for the family.”
“Yes, your uncle was very brave. The Nazis wanted to get rid of all the Jews in Poland. Uncle Leo survived because he was young and strong and the Nazis used him as a laborer. Even when he had a fever he had to keep on working or he would’ve been killed.”
“When did Daddy come here?” I knew part of the answer but wanted to know more.
“His Aunt Mary and Grandma were already in Boston. They begged Daddy’s family to leave Poland but his father didn’t want to go. He had a good business and no one believed that the war was going to happen. So since Daddy wasn’t getting along with his father, his mother asked Aunt Mary to send for him and bring him to America.”
“What happened to the rest of the family?” I knew they had been killed in the war, but didn’t know the details.
“I’ll tell you, but promise me you won’t talk to your father about it. He doesn’t like remembering. It’s too hard.”
“I promise. I won’t say anything.” I felt closer to my mother at that moment than at any time I could remember. She was trusting me with a family secret, and I wasn’t going to let her down.
“When Uncle Leo first came to this country, he didn’t talk about the war. A few months later, your father and I went to visit him in Boston. It was summer and we were staying in a small motel outside of the city. Uncle Leo came to the motel and we were sitting around the pool when your father asked him what had happened to his family.”
“Did he tell him?”
“Not right away. Uncle Leo said it would upset him too much, but your father begged him.”
I took a deep breath and waited for my mother to continue. Her voice sounded a little shaky as if she was trying not to cry. I hoped I wouldn’t start crying.