The Knock at the Door

by Ryan Manion

  I’ve heard this concept, this inevitable part of human nature, referred to as “the hedonic treadmill.” Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure, so you can imagine what the inventors of that term were getting at when they introduced the image of a treadmill. We fervently chase the thing that will bring us happiness. A title, a relationship, a feeling. And if we’re lucky, we actually capture it. It feels just as great—maybe even greater—than we imagined. Wonderful.

  But humans are nothing if not adaptable. Our ability to adapt has ensured our survival on this planet. So like the good Homo sapiens that we are, we adapt to that feeling of joy. What was once pleasure and gratification is now just another day. And we search for our next high.

  If this sounds like the pattern of an addict, that’s because it is. On some level, we are all addicts. We’re all chasing the things that feel good to us—love, a sense of belonging, connectedness, purpose, achievement. And they’re inherently good things. It’s normal and good that we would want more of them in our lives. And we find these things in different places, of course.

  I found mine at the Marine Corps Marathon of 2007. If you were to graph my emotions for that year, you would produce an interesting line: a fairly stable, horizontal line of “contentment” for the beginning of the year; a drastic drop in April, when Travis died; then a gradual climb back upward toward happiness until the marathon, six months later.

  I was so grateful to have something to focus on that helped me put the pieces of my life back together after the loss of my brother. It was precisely the medicine I needed, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. But by winter, my line was dropping again. The decline in my happiness and well-being was persistent, steady, and, interestingly, almost undetectable.

  I, of course, knew my life had been far better when Travis was in it, but I was managing, wasn’t I? After all, I was getting up, going to work, being a mom. I was running errands and knocking out personal goals. I was socializing and even laughing and finding joy here and there. By any external barometer, I was improving. I was wounded, no doubt, but I was happy.

  But grief is very much an internal battle. It’s not kind enough to play by the rules, and it certainly doesn’t register on any emotional barometer. It can be deceptive. And believe it or not, so can you. In fact, I would wager that no one can deceive you as effectively as you can deceive yourself.

  We are able to survive only because we are able to adapt, right?

  Grief, pain, sadness—these feel like disadvantages. They threaten our survival, so naturally we shed them. We convince ourselves that they’ve gone away. This is precisely what I did. And it’s amazing what I managed to hide from myself, and for how long.

  My emotional slope continued to creep stealthily downward. For several years. It continued right under my nose until Christmas night of 2012, when I reached rock bottom. But the seeds of my deterioration had been planted several years before.

  December 25 is the date reserved for the annual Manion Family Christmas Party. This party dates back to when my father was a child. As a young man, my father’s father started the tradition, and every year since, it has been a sight to behold.

  After my grandfather stopped hosting the party, my great-uncle Nick and my great-aunt Marilyn organized the festivities. Then shortly after I graduated from college, my parents began hosting the event.

  It was a big deal. No less than one hundred of our closest family, friends, and neighbors would gather at my parents’ home in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. For a few hours, pandemonium reigned. There were teenagers coasting down banisters, children erupting into spontaneous games of tag between rooms, tipsy aunts and uncles sharing old stories with each other, and enough food, dips, cookies, and pies to keep us all busy for hours.

  At a certain point in the evening, right when we couldn’t decide if the warmth in our bones was from the crackling fireplace or the third glass of wine, Mitch Miller’s rendition of “Must Be Santa” would blast through the speakers and one of my uncles, dressed as Santa Claus, would come down the stairs carrying a sack full of presents he had “forgotten” to deliver the night before.

  I remember, as a child, being the envy of all my friends when I would share with them that Santa came to my house every year on Christmas night. Even today, as this tradition continues, I love nothing more than watching the joy in the eyes of my children and young cousins.

  This tradition was a staple, and it simply wouldn’t have felt like Christmas without it. But for one year in particular, 2006, it almost didn’t feel like Christmas with it. That was the year we learned that Travis would be deployed for a second time to Iraq. He would be leaving on December 26 from his base at Camp Pendleton in San Diego.

  It felt almost sacrilegious to host a party with all our loved ones that Travis couldn’t attend. He had come home a few weeks earlier but returned to the West Coast just a couple of days before Christmas. I was grateful to have had that time with him, but I still felt upset that he was going to miss this year’s party. My feelings toward the holiday party had become more bitter than sweet. My mom, however, wasn’t having it.

  “Of course we’re having the party this year,” she told me when I voiced my concern.

  As with most things, she was unwavering, emphatic, and insistent. She got to work preparing dishes, making shopping trips, and cleaning the house for the party. In addition to our usual tree that year, she went out and bought a smaller, artificial tree and covered it with mementos of Travis: Marine Corps and patriotic ornaments, little photos, and red, white, and blue decorations. She wanted to remind everyone that men and women were still fighting overseas and that we mustn’t forget them during this season of well-wishes, generosity, and peace. It was a wonderful tribute to a brother and son who would never again attend a Manion Family Christmas Party.

  Four months later, he returned home in a flag-draped coffin.

  The Manion Family Christmas Party of 2006, when we were blissfully ignorant of the painful loss we would soon come to know, was—to my mom’s credit—one of the best. That patriotic tree, which reemerges every Christmas now, exemplifies my mother’s spirit. She could stare down fear and worry, almost daring them to make a move.

  Janet Manion was tough, optimistic, and focused. She made every decision with self-assurance, as if to spite any concerns or doubts that she may have been harboring. The anxieties, the worries—they were there, of course. They had to be. She simply would not allow them to triumph over her. She had Herculean willpower. For years after Travis’s death, my mother continued to be the picture of stalwart strength. She ached in a way that only a mother who has buried her son can, but she never let it keep her down.

  It was especially disorienting for me, then, when I learned a few years later that my mother—this pennant of courage for our family—had only eight months to live.

  We got the news in 2011, four years after Travis’s death. We were already burdened with heavy hearts, but we were together. And frankly, up to that point, we had been managing okay. My parents were spending time in Avalon with me, my husband, and our children. One day, my mom mildly injured her wrist while playing with my little girls on the boardwalk. I took her to the doctor for what we both expected would be a fairly innocuous visit.

  No such luck. The scan of her wrist led to more scans and a surgery, which revealed that Stage 4 lung cancer had spread throughout her body.

  Eight months later, a few days before the fifth anniversary of Travis’s death, my mother joined him in heaven. In only five years, my only sibling and my mother had died. My family of four had been reduced to two.

  I was devastated. No marathon was going to make this loss any easier to bear. I had no idea where to turn for help, and I simply couldn’t stomach the thought of picking up the pieces once again. I hadn’t even collected them all the first time.

  In the months after my mother’s death on April 24, 2012, I turned to the methods of coping that had become familiar to me: I threw myself into my
work and into my family’s busy schedule. I set small goals—losing weight, reading, running—anything to keep waking up every day and moving. It had worked before, hadn’t it? It could work again, I figured.

  I was wrong.

  There have been times, in the deepest and most tumultuous moments of grief, when my need for constant activity and focus hasn’t served me. In fact, there have been times when being strong, pushing myself to the next milestone, and channeling Travis’s discipline and focus have hurt me.

  Grief is a savage and shrewd beast that isn’t easily tamed. As soon as I found a method of fending off my grief that worked for me, it caught on and found a new mode of attack. Staying goal-oriented and tough-minded got me only so far. Then, the year my mother died, on Christmas night of 2012, it came to find me in my home.

  As the holidays approached, that mysterious combination of excitement and dread once again bubbled up inside me. At this point, I had two little girls in school and I manufactured the most convincing smile I could when they brought home holiday-themed art projects. All I could think about was their uncle Travis and grandmom Janet, who wouldn’t get to watch them grow. It was the same bittersweet feeling I’d had the Christmas that Travis deployed for the last time, but this time it was back with a vengeance. I couldn’t believe that it would be the first Manion Family Christmas Party we hosted without my mom at the helm. My husband, Dave, who sensed my morose sentimentality and worried where it might lead, gently suggested we take the year off.

  “What? No. Of course we’re having the Christmas party this year,” I responded. This time it was my turn to feel frustrated. And just as my mom had done six years prior, I got to work.

  As late December approached, I felt like my old self again. Or at least I convinced myself that I did. After all, my behaviors and expressions were right where I wanted them to be. I was crafting shopping lists, connecting with friends and family, making cookies with the girls, hanging lights, and prepping the house. A few months earlier, I had read somewhere that we should always aim to “Be like a duck”: “Remain calm on the surface, but paddle like hell underneath.”

  Though I wasn’t fully aware of it, that was my mental state at the time. My thoughts were almost always racing furiously: a clutter of to-do lists and daily accomplishments that would ultimately reach a fever pitch in the grand masterpiece that would be that year’s Christmas party. And I was fine with that. It was like being twenty-six miles into a run again, positioned at the base of Iwo Jima Hill and prepared to enjoy the second wind that would carry my legs up. I wanted to feel that high again.

  And like clockwork, just as I hoped, the feeling came.

  On some level, I knew I was still grieving the losses of my brother and mom, but on a much more conscious level, I believed that I had it all figured out. The party was a wild success. I couldn’t have been prouder. After everyone had left, I threw the last beer bottle away; when it hit the inside of the can, it sounded like victory.

  I can’t believe I pulled it off, I thought sleepily. Mom would be proud.

  All I could think of was the warm, soft bed upstairs. My body was like lead. And when I heaved it onto that glorious mattress, I smiled proudly to myself that I had kept my mother’s legacy alive. I closed my eyes and calmly waited for sleep to envelop me.

  But sleep didn’t come.

  Something much nastier arrived in its place. I felt like I received a direct punch to the gut and my eyes immediately sprang open. I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe. Pressure was quickly building inside my chest and my mind was on fire with anxiety. It was the most terrifying panic attack I had ever experienced.

  “Dave, you have to get me to the hospital,” I managed to get out. “I think I’m dying.”

  I will be forever grateful for what my husband said next.

  “No, you’re not. Stop, Ryan. Just relax and go to bed.”

  You might think I’m kidding, but I’m serious. My husband always knows what to say to me when my emotions reach a fever pitch. If I had sensed even the slightest bit of concern in his voice, I know the situation would only have escalated. At the time, however, as you may imagine, I did not appreciate it.

  I immediately set off into a flurry of accusations that, thankfully, I can no longer remember. Probably something about him not loving me, something about him not understanding—and I’m not proud to admit this, but there may have been some I hate yous sprinkled in for good measure.

  Dave, the peaceful warrior that he is, remained unfazed and steady. He continued to speak rationally and firmly. It was probably only a few minutes, but they felt like my last. When the intense feelings of anxiety disappeared, and my breathing slowed into a natural rhythm, I had an internal Come-to-Jesus with myself. Clearly, I was not okay.

  It was a difficult admission, but I’d managed to stave it off for five years now. It was about time I face the music. Sleep didn’t come easily that night. I was shocked that I had reacted this way after what had seemed like such a perfect evening. I had dealt with some minor anxiety before, initially when Travis was deployed and then immediately after his death, but nothing like this. This was positively debilitating.

  For the next several months, I was a ghost of my former self. The identity I had painstakingly built for myself after Travis died had shattered. On December 24, 2012, I identified as a tough, capable, resilient woman. I was a marathon runner. I was a dedicated mom and a supportive wife. I had taken over as executive director of the Travis Manion Foundation, the organization my mother had formed to honor my brother. I led a talented team, and people looked to me for guidance and leadership. And I gave it to them. But December 25 was a different ball game. I was gasping for air and cursing out my exceedingly calm husband.

  For months afterward, I was terrified to drive and wouldn’t go more than ten miles from my house. I woke up every morning hoping and praying that this would be the day the anxiety would go away. I would force myself to drive to work, but would sit outside my office in my car, hands gripped firmly on the steering wheel, because I couldn’t work up the courage to walk in. I was smoking again, and crying in the shower, and regularly feeling seized by anxiety that I simply couldn’t shake off. If this is what life is going to be like from now on, I thought to myself one day, I’m done. I can’t live like this.

  I knew that I had to do something to help myself or my situation was not going to change, so I started to see a therapist to work through the mental agonies that I had not worked through before. No one but my husband and my best friends Amy and Krista knew what was going on. The calming presence that Dave provided was always a blessing. But something about commiserating with Amy was deeply helpful in putting me back on the path to recovery. Two years earlier, she had lost her husband, Brendan. If there was anyone with whom I felt I could be completely vulnerable, it was her.

  I called her one day, overwhelmed and furious. “My therapist diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder today,” I shouted into the receiver. “Can you believe that shit? I don’t have PTSD!”

  To someone who hasn’t shared my upbringing, this kind of reaction may sound nonsensical, bordering on insensitive. In my world at that time, ailments were of the body only, not of the mind. And on the off chance that they were of the mind, they could be healed by the body.

  “Go for a run, Ryan,” was my dad’s recommendation for solving most of my problems. We didn’t put nearly the stock into mental well-being that we did into physical well-being. I am often told that I have a bit of an “icy” demeanor. Showing emotion is not something that comes naturally to me. In fact, crying in front of people makes me feel wildly uncomfortable. Amy, on the other hand, is one of the toughest women I know, but her sweet, mild-mannered nature makes her appear unassuming to most.

  She has a beautiful way of showing her vulnerability and has no problem crying in front of others. Maybe it is because, when she cries, she looks like a princess—with delicate tears running down her cheeks. I, on the other h
and, am what some would affectionately call an ugly crier. It felt good to sound off to Amy. She always knew what to say when my emotions were ramping up.

  “Oh, that’s okay, Ryan,” she told me. “My therapist told me the same thing.”

  At that point, we both chuckled, and it dawned on me that there was likely some truth to the diagnosis. Naming my problem didn’t do much for me. But sharing it with someone else sure did.

  During the following six months, I started to regain my confidence, humor, and peace. I was slowly reclaiming myself. Life slowed down; I focused on my mental health. That did not mean I threw physical challenges out the window. Quite the opposite. I began to understand what my dad meant when he told me to “go for a run” when I wasn’t feeling myself. Exercise has a tremendous positive effect on the mind.

  This time around, though, I paid attention to the moments when I was feeling anxious or unlike myself. I wasn’t pushing toward some far-off, crazy physical goal. Rather, I was using simple exercise as a tool to help with my mental state. The previous five years had been marked by endless, furious motion: always moving to a new target, striving toward a new ambition, crushing my body and exhausting my mind to reach some meaningful goal. I don’t regret that approach to grief in the slightest. It was what I needed. It was the method of dealing that was most aligned to my personality, and in many ways it served me.

  Until it didn’t.

  And when I finally allowed myself to slow down and face the beast that had risen up in front of me after the Christmas party of 2012, I gained a perspective I would never trade. I had found the courage to be transformed by my grief. I knew it was going to be a long road from there, but for the first time in years, I wasn’t allowing myself to be deceived. It was a tremendous turning point.

  It didn’t stop me from pushing myself toward tough goals or making impulsive commitments, of course. Such acts are still very much a part of my life. Thankfully, I’ve since found humor in that tendency. In fact, my characteristic “fearless ignorance” made an appearance on the tenth anniversary of Travis’s death. And once again, it was accompanied by a lesson I seem to have to relearn constantly.