Читать книгу Trapped In Between - Marilyn Elaine Lundberg Lundberg - Страница 6

Attending high school was similar to junior high school; the only difference was that I was now a few years older. Patrick Henry High school was a mile in the opposite direction, and again no buses. Most mornings I got a ride from my dad, and I would walk home alone after school.

I clearly remember the first day going to my tenth grade history class. My history teacher was also the coach of the schools’ football team. On the first day of class he grinned and said for us to not think of his class as a history class, but more of a speech class. He announced that we all would be giving lots of speeches, and the big one would be ten minutes long. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How was I going to get through this? How could I get away? Could I transfer out of his class? It seemed like some teachers enjoyed making me miserable!

The following day, in this same history/speech class the teacher told us to take out our pencils. A boy in the front row with bright blond hair said that he had lost his pencil. The teacher’s face got real red, and he grabbed this boy by his shoulders, and threw him against the blackboard. He landed on his butt, and then crawled back to his chair and desk. The student was speechless as was the whole class. I never saw this boy at our school again.

Because of that incident, I was terrified of this teacher. I was sitting in the row of seats that was the farthest from the door, and all I wanted to do was run and hide. My mind was spinning and I didn’t know how I was going to get through this year of school, and do the speeches that he now required of me. On top of that, this guy had an anger issue!

The same day as the above incident, I had my first panic attack in the school lunchroom; I didn’t know what it was at the time, but learned the name panic attack later in life. I was sitting in the lunchroom with a few acquaintances, and out of nowhere some people started pounding their fists on the lunchroom tables, and then everyone joined in. The sound was deafening! Someone started to chant happy birthday to the beat of the pounding, and it was thunderous to my ears. I was in the middle of the lunchroom and I felt trapped, and the blush in my face rose up and someone yelled, “It’s her birthday,” as they pointed to me. At that moment I felt like I was in a dangerous situation, my heart started to pound real hard, I was sweating, trembling, got a sick stomach, dizzy and a feeling of unreality came over me. My whole body felt as if it were whirling out of control. I had the thought that I was going to die if I didn’t get out of that lunchroom.

I ran from the cafeteria and sought refuge in a bathroom stall, with the door securely locked. I didn’t know what had happened inside of me, but I felt my body had just betrayed me. Seldom did I return to the lunchroom, and when I did revisit, I sat at the end of a table close to the door where I had a quick escape route. I told myself that I needed to be in control, and never let that thing happen to me again.

I didn’t buy hot lunches anymore. Instead I ate my bag lunches in the lavatory stall for my safety. I was fearful that it would happen again, and I associated the lunchroom, eating and being cornered by people with that fearful episode. That body explosion in the cafeteria was horrifying, and I would do whatever it took to never experience another one in my lifetime.

Due to the terror of the panic attacks, oftentimes I didn’t feel there was a safe place to eat, so I began skipping meals. Sometimes I chose to not eat all day. There was something very powerful about not eating, because I had control over what would go into my mouth or NOT.

I also had a friend that asked me if I had ever been thin. I was probably about 105 pounds and five foot three so I was in no way heavy, but this girl thought I was obese. I am guessing this gal weighed about seventy pounds soaking wet. She was skin and bones with no curves at all, kind of like a stick. She could nibble on a Butterfinger candy bar all day long, and be absolutely stuffed. I began to question the way I looked, and thought maybe she was right, maybe I was too fat. I decided to lose some weight and suffered slightly with anorexia.

I probably lost ten pounds or so, but it was peculiar because everyone said I looked better. So I received encouragement from others when I lost weight even though I didn’t need to. The real problem for me was the fear of panic attacks, and as a result I skipped lots of meals and lost weight and was praised. With panic attacks you feel that you have no control in your life, but with anorexia you gain control, because you choose when and if you will put food in your mouth. It was crazy logic, but I wanted to have control somewhere in my chaotic life. If I control the amount of food that I eat at home, and in the lunchroom, or if I don’t eat food at all, I then had control over something important in my tumultuous life.

Eating at a restaurant was another big problem for me which occurred every Sunday after church, or if my parents had company over, but that was rare. I would oftentimes use the excuse that I wasn’t hungry, but in fact I was generally starved. I skipped lots of meals just to not be seated at the table with other people. In the back of my mind I knew that at any minute another panic attack might be looming, and I wanted to be ready to run for the hills.

There was also another weird feeling that would occasionally come over me during this period of my life. It was a dreamlike state mainly at night, but sometimes during the day. It often happened as I was venturing out on my dangerous walks at night, or when I was in the car in the evening. The best way to explain this experience is to say that my body would all of a sudden not feel real, and I would ask myself if this was a dream or is it real, a dream or is it real, over and over again. It would last for a few minutes, and then I would snap out of it. When this queer feeling came over me, I would freeze, because it was very scary, and I felt like I was losing my mind. There never seemed to be a reason why this experience appeared, it just showed up whenever. I wondered if Mom ever had this happen to her.

Another concern was when people watched me, it made me very uncomfortable. I felt judged and nervous when other people would look at me. There had been so many years of Bucky beaver remarks, and teasing about blushing that I panicked in social situations for no good reason, because I was nervous about a possible insult, or panic attack coming my way. I didn’t like people to watch me or look at me, ever.

Looking back, I wish that I would have gone to the school counselor or pastor, and told him or her everything that was going on inside of my mind and body. If I would have shared about my depression or crazy thoughts about being a prostitute, maybe someone could have understood and helped me. I just had a strong feeling that I was different from everyone else around me.

I guess I had a fear that the counselor would label me as crazy, and so I chose to keep all my business secret. Maybe I was walking down the same road as my mom, I didn’t know what was going on with me, but I knew I needed someone to help me figure it out.

Another situation that I was dealing with at this time was a TMJ problem. When I was sleeping I would clench my teeth together all night long. The nightmares caused this problem and the orthodontist made me a mouthpiece to keep my teeth from touching, but I would bite right through the plastic and he repeatedly had to make me a new one. In the morning it was impossible to open my mouth, and I was unable to eat solid food, but I could usually drink through a straw. The muscles in my jaws ached all the time and on a few occasions my jaws locked up and I had extreme pain. I also found myself automatically clenching my jaws during the day when I was feeling anxious and overwhelmed, which was most of the time.

I also experienced severe pain in my abdomen on a monthly basis. My monthly cycle was not at all regular, but when it did come, it came with a vengeance! The pain in my stomach was so severe; it brought me to my knees with tears. My cycle would last a very long time and was extremely heavy. I again wondered if other girls had this over the top, unbearable pain like me, but I never knew for sure.

My orthodontist was doing a great job on my teeth, and in the eleventh and twelfth grade I began to have a few good days. My teeth were getting straighter, and I was feeling prettier. Occasionally the boys would notice me in a good way, which was refreshing. All the problems were fluid, and could change from good to bad in an instant. I could be a little bit happy and then very disturbed the next minute.

Sports had such a wonderful impact in my life while I was in high school. There wasn’t a large selection of sports for girls back then, but they did offer badminton and tennis for us. I was on the traveling badminton team, and I was usually in the number one or two singles spot for our school. I fortunately was able to focus totally on the sport I was playing, and never experienced any panic attacks during the badminton matches, but dealing with people before and after the match was difficult for me. It was easier for me to deal with people one-on-one, but a group setting made me very nervous. Playing sports helped me to feel so much better about myself, and raised my self-esteem. I was so very fortunate to have had sports in my life.

In the eleventh grade I met a boy at church that I thought I would like to get to know. My teeth were now straight, but I was still wearing the goofy braces. Believe it or not, I got up my courage one day and asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance at high school, and he said yes. I had fun and we continued seeing each other through the eleventh and twelfth grade. He was the only boy I ever dated. Getting to know him was rather difficult because his parents were very strict, we could see each other twice during the week and if we went to a church function that counted as one of our dates. One outing could be no more than five hours, and the other get-together was a maximum of one and one-half hours. We mainly got to know each other on the telephone.

He was a loner like me and we seemed to hit it off quite well. It was kind of us two against the world sort of relationship. I had always dreamed of being married and I adored children. I saw a glimmer of hope that all these good things could happen to me. I imagined that once I graduated from high school, moved away from home and parents, got married, and had children, all my problems would go away and my life would be so much happier. I could maybe be like one of the joyful people that were all around me.

Going steady with my beau was uplifting for me. I belonged to someone who cared for me and he made me feel special. I wasn’t feeling so much like a square peg in a round hole anymore. There were moments of almost feeling normal, then the darkness would come back and wrap its arms around me. I never felt like I invited the darkness in, but it was always secretly hiding around the corner, ready to engulf me.

At the beginning of my senior year my dad bought me a car, a 1963 Ford Falcon with a stick. She was aqua, and quite a beauty. This car had been the loaner vehicle at the garage where Dad worked so it was in good mechanical condition. I was hoping for a VW bug, but Dad said that no daughter of his was going to have a foreign made car, so that was the end of that discussion.

I signed up for the work program the beginning of my senior year and was accepted. In this program I only had to be in school for three classes each day, and then I would go to work, or go home on days that I was off. This program was awesome for me; I was able to get away from the four walls of the classroom that had always made me feel confined. I told the program director that I wanted to be a social worker when I grew up, so I asked for a job that would complement that position. I thought that if I was a therapist, I could perhaps figure out what was truly wrong with me and fix myself. The closest job that they had for me was nursing, so as a senior I started to work at Swedish Hospital as a nurses’ aide.

One of the three classes that I had in my senior year was a health class. We studied all of the different mental illnesses and I found that very intriguing. When we came to the definition of paranoid schizophrenia, I knew that was what my mother suffered from. The definition described her exactly. I thought, “I have to get Mom to a doctor so he can prescribe the medicine that she needs, maybe she could get better.” I had great hopes of helping her. I was never able to learn about my own particular problems in class, but I was confident that the day would come when I would discover all the answers to my own questions.

In the middle of the twelfth grade I got the idea to take a year of my life and volunteer for the Peace Corps. Maybe, I thought, if I get far enough away, I could leave my problems behind me. Perhaps all that was plaguing me could be healed if I helped other people with their problems. On the days that I worked as an aid at Swedish Hospital, I felt great. There was something special about caring for the sick that uplifted my spirit, and made me feel useful and appreciated.

This Peace Corps idea stirred around in my mind until close to graduation, I even filled out the application and all necessary paperwork. One day I shared this idea with my boyfriend and he took the papers from my hand, read them and tore them up. I was saddened by his reaction, but at the same time I thought he was showing me how much he loved me, and didn’t want me to leave.

At the close of twelfth grade my teachers asked me frequently where I was going to go to college, and what my plans were for the future. My grades were very good and my teachers had voted me into the National Honors Society, but even though I wanted to be a social worker, I just could not get myself to apply for a college, and sit trapped in another classroom situation for four more years. That seemed like an eternity to me. I wanted desperately to move on to college and get a good education, like so many of the others, but with my backpack of problems, I just didn’t know how to go about all that. My parents had set money aside for my education, it was all available for me, but I was too nervous to follow that path. I was very disappointed in myself and felt like a failure. I decided my future would be to get married, have kids and stay at home where I could be a great mom and feel sheltered from my problems, and the world.

I found a tiny apartment about two weeks before graduation, and moved out of my parents’ house on Oliver into my own place. I couldn’t deal with Mom’s mental illness any longer, and she didn’t seem to want help. I needed peace in my life, and it felt good to not be at home anymore around the craziness that I had endured for so long. My parents were sad that I moved out, but they understood, and passed on some hand-me-down furniture for my apartment, which I was grateful for.

Graduating from high school was an important turning point for me. I was elated that I wasn’t locked up in a classroom anymore. Tremendous pressure was removed from me when school was forever over. Working at the hospital was easier than school, and I found it rewarding. I loved to listen to the patients, and help them in any way that I could.

At first I was assigned to the surgery floor and most people came in, received surgery, recuperated, and left the hospital healed. I had a fantastic head nurse who sort of put me under her wing, and gave me wonderful feedback regarding how I was doing at the hospital. One day she took me aside and told me that she was very impressed with my work ethics. She said that she was happy that I spent quality time with all the patients, unlike most of the other staff who goofed around talking to each other at the nurses’ desk. She told me that I would make a great RN, if I chose that direction in my life. I felt so good hearing the compliments and thanked her. She was a great mentor to me.

I still had the laundry list of problems, but at the hospital I was on my feet all day, working hard, getting exercise, and there were fewer moments where I experienced the trapped feelings compared to school.

I continued working at Swedish hospital for a couple of years, but things were not going as well toward the end. I was moved from the surgery floor to the cancer floor where all the patients came to die. Every day I watched the young and the old get sicker and sicker until they passed away. You couldn’t help but love them, even though we were told to not become attached.

One day I looked up and down the long hallway where I worked, and could remember the name of a friend or patient in each of the rooms that I had cared for, and later died. I couldn’t do it anymore. Asking an eighteen-year-old to care for hospice patients is demanding and became too much for me. I was required to clean up the deceased bodies before they were sent to the morgue. They were dying every day, and I couldn’t do it anymore.

I searched the paper for something different, and found a job with a company that hired people for temporary positions. I applied as a secretary and began to make money in that way. I was able to set my own schedule, and accept or reject work when it came my way. I finally felt that I had control in the work place.

An interesting phenomenon began to happen around this time. I had also experienced it a few times in high school. It sounds strange, but I was sometimes able to sense peoples’ pain. I was a people watcher, guess I have to attribute that to always watching my mom’s scary expressions, but I could sometimes see the pain in peoples’ eyes. They might be smiling, but that was not what their eyes were telling me. I would sometimes say, “Are you okay, you look a little sad” and they would spill their problems to me. I guess I felt safe, or they thought I understood. Sometimes I would know ahead of time what the problems were, so it was a confirmation when I heard the words from their own lips.

I always wanted to be available to people that were suffering. I wanted to help myself, but I also had a desire to help others at the same time. I wanted to be a compassionate person, maybe there would be something I could do or say to help them. I found out that most of the time I just listened, because that is what they needed most. Helping people, in return, helped me to feel better.

After I moved out of my parent’s home, I never went to church again. I had been in church my whole life, but now that I was in control of the decisions, I decided to no longer go. I knew about God from Sunday school and sermons at church, but He was a character in the Bible, He was not real to me. I was also upset with Him for allowing me to struggle all these years. I will take that a step further, I was furious at God for ignoring me and allowing me to suffer. I thought, a real God would have helped me, cured me and rescued me from all the pain that I had been drowning in.

A living God would have given me a beautiful childhood like peers of mine who didn’t seem to have a care in the world. If there even was a God, I felt that He had betrayed me, and turned His back on me. I remember a picture that I had seen of Jesus going after the one lost sheep, and leaving all the others behind. Why hadn’t Jesus come for me? Why had I struggled so much and why was I so sick?

I was convinced that I was on my own in this world and any healing that was going to happen to me would be of my own making. I needed to read the right books, eat the right food, and someday I would figure out the reason I was peculiar.

The problems continued to mount. I still had the grade school problems and junior high school problems. Now in high school I added panic attacks, slight anorexia where I ignored body signals of hunger, TMJ and severe monthly pain that put me in bed each month.