Raging into the night

In the grips of mania I worked and struggled to maintain my grip on reality. Eventually the longest stretch I could sleep was about 2 hours and those hours could be anytime of the day or night.

Why the feverish pace? After a couple of years of abdicating leadership in my small law practice to an associate, I found myself unable to meet my monthly financial obligation. Worse than that I had clients demanding that I refund fees for non-performance. Something was seriously wrong. I had to change the whole thing!

Six months of home schooling had made it clear that the whole “mommy as teacher” thing was not working out. Each day was filled with learning AND conflict. For my son to have his relationship with his mom restored, homeschooling had to end.

Three years of effort to develop and rescue the property where we live had come to a default in mortgage payments. My friends were about to lose their inheritance. I was about to lose my home. Financially, there is no way I can provide the money for the rescue.

But most pressing, in terms of my state of mind, was my unleashed and roaring anger. After 46 years I was in touch with the source of my years of undifferentiated and undirected rage. I knew that unless I resolved this festering source of blackness that I was not going to ever “grow up” and become healthy.

My take on the situation: I need to cuss my mom out, cry about my losses, and forgive her. To assist in that process I needed professional help and I found it from Henry, my African, Adventist pastor, counselor. However, it looked as though I might never get to therapy so that I could get the work done!

My wife was scheduled to leave for Tucson to be near her family as her father underwent open heart surgery to repair a damaged valve in his heart. The mere fact that she was leaving town added to my anxiety. Ben had only recently started in the local public school. The dogs needed regular feeding. Keeping up on the housework seemed to be a never-ending task for my wife. And, I am in the middle of a nervous breakdown!

My solution: I started getting up early in the morning every day. I finished the dishes from the prior day and cleaned the kitchen. I started a fire in the fireplace. I started the bacon so that it would be coming fresh from the stove when my wife and son were invited to the table. These simple tasks became my spiritual discipline. The domestic rituals calmed my mind and my soul, if it was only for a couple of hours a day in the early morning hours.

The week before she was scheduled to get on her plane my wife injured her back. it was a simple enough injury, a twist while moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer. The doctors’ solution: bed rest and pain medication. Just what I needed, an early preview of what things were going to be like while she was away caring for her mom and dad.

I can’t describe the flashback post-traumatic psychological symptoms I was experiencing as my wife, laid up in bed, taking pain medication was unable to handle her regular household duties. I moved an extra mattress to a favored spot in front of the television in our living room. I made sure she had access to her medication and water. I cared for her, my son Ben, the dogs and the house. In my spare time I worked to deal with my problems at work.

I had my hands full. On a Tuesday night, about a week before Loretta’s scheduled flight, it all came crashing down around me. I hit the recliner at about 7 o’clock in the evening. My plea to Loretta and Ben: Just let me sleep, please! Loretta took on the task of getting Ben to bed and I staved off the sleep deprivation by sleeping!

A couple of hours later, around 9 p.m., I heard Loretta talking to herself about whether or not she should go to be with her folks. She was suffering from the back injury and wasn’t sure she could physically handle what would be asked of her. She also didn’t know how she would handle the emotional swirl that comes with a visit to her folks.

From my stupor, I heard her and said, “Don’t go…” With my voice barely above a whisper I had spoken the cry of my heart. My emotional core was flashing back to the way I felt after my mom had attempted suicide. “What,” Loretta said, “what did you say?” Louder, this time: “Don’t go…” “I don’t understand,” she says. Now I am on my feet, out of the recliner, standing over her make-shift hospital bed and shouting, raging: “Don’t go!!!” “What do you mean?” “Can’t you understand me, I am speaking English!” I roared, “Don’t go!!!!!!” “You never said that before,” she said. “I’m saying it now!!!! Don’t go, I can’t handle it, I need you here!”

In that moment, I spoke from my truest intent and against my greatest fear, that my wife would leave me and never come back. It was all mixed up with the cry of my heart, unexpressed as a child and teenager to my mom, “Don’t go, Mom,” “Don’t kill yourself!” I need you, to stay and be my mom.

The next morning, Ben played back what he could hear from his bedroom down the hall, complete with emotional overtone and I knew that we were in deep, deep trouble. The cycle of abandonment, neglect, with its overtone of anger and rage was beginning to effect our son. I needed to grow up quick. I needed to break the cycle. What were the chances that would happen!