Excerpt: The Girl Who Was Burning So Brightly

I just want to start by saying that I’m not really sure what I’m doing. Or if it will do any good. But my therapist Cassie said she thought it might be good for me. Since I sometimes have trouble talking about things, she thought for some reason that writing them down would be easier. So … I guess I’m supposed to write it and then either Cassie will read it or I’ll use it to help when we talk.

Cassie’s different from the other therapists I’ve seen. And believe me, I’ve seen a lot. I didn’t see anyone for a while, not after Dr. Madden and everything that happened while I was seeing him. But then it became obvious that I did need to be able to talk with someone. I was falling apart again. But I didn’t have my safety net. I was terrified, but I knew that was what I wanted. It’s what I’d told Dan when I left. I needed to be able to hit the ground. When he was always there to catch me, I never learned what the ground felt like. And as terrifying as it was, I needed to hit the ground. To know that I could make it on my own. Only then could I look at my relationship with Dan and see if …

But I needed someone to help me. Just … someone who wouldn’t force medication into me. I’ve tried it. And tried it. And tried it. And…ok, sometimes it did help. But mostly … mostly it just made things not real. I mean, I was there, but I wasn’t.

Ironically I found Cassie through Dr. Madden’s office. I’d promised him when I walked out of his office the last time that I would think about what he was saying and I would try to get help. I’m not sure I meant it at the time, but when I realized I did need someone to help me, I wasn’t sure where to go. Dan had always handled finding the doctors. So I called Dr. Madden and told him a little about what was going on. And he recommended Cassie to me.

She’s a doctor, but she said to just call her Cassie. I guess with my history of doctors she thought it might help to not have to say ‘doctor’ all the time. I still wasn’t sure about things when I met with her the first time, but she’s been great about letting me take my time warming up and getting used to her and to the idea of therapy again. I’d told her I really didn’t want medication, but she said that to really work on things it would be better if I had something. That sometimes you have to have the medication to calm down enough to be able to make any progress. No one had ever explained it to me that way before. They just threw prescriptions at me, and following directions ~ theirs and Dan’s ~ I took them. Until I flushed them all. That’s what sent me to Dr. Madden. He was willing to try talking alone, but that didn’t work and … Well, I’ll get into that later.

I guess that’s why I let Cassie talk me into taking a couple of things. So I do have a couple of prescriptions. One’s pink and one’s blue. Kind of funny if you think about it. A pink pill and a blue pill are supposed to mix together to make purple and make me ok and able to deal with things. And I guess it’s helping. I haven’t tried to …

Well, I guess it would be easier if I started at the beginning, huh? Ok… I’ll do my best. My memory still comes and goes sometimes, and sometimes when it’s here it’s fuzzy, but … Here goes.

(and this next section comes later in the novel)

*several weeks later*

Yeah… Um… That writing didn’t happen. I sort of refused to write for a while. And I used every avoidance technique I could think of. And apparently it’s no more Ms. Nice Therapist for Cassie. She kind of yelled at me this last session because I haven’t been writing.

Like at all.

Not about the stuff she wants me to write about. Not about what’s been going on in my life. Nothing.

To say she was really pissed is kind of the understatement of the century. She let me have it.

I wouldn’t really say she used a guilt trip. Well, unless you count my own guilt getting triggered a guilt trip. Wait, I think that is what a guilt trip is, right? Someone saying stuff that makes you feel guilty. Only I still don’t think she was intentionally trying to make me feel guilty. She was really just like “Diana, you need to really think about what you want. You are in charge of your life. You. Not me. Not Natalie. Not Gabe’s memory or ghost or whatever. Not any therapist in your past. Not the medication. And not Dan. YOU are in charge of your life. You’ve been making progress, and as your therapist, I don’t want to see that progress end. But I’m not going to make you do anything. I’m not holding your hand to paper and I’m not going to drag you kicking and screaming into my office. But know that when you’re in here I am not going to baby you either. No kid gloves. In my professional opinion, that’s been a big part of the whole problem. Too many people have babied you ~ not the least of which is Dan.”

I cut her off then. That totally was not fair. Dan loved me. He always had. And he stayed with me, stuck by me no matter what. Damn it, we said the words “for better or worse” and even if I wasn’t totally and completely sure about them, Dan was. He meant them. I know because he said so in the last big fight before I left. The time I confronted him about keeping information from me as my memories were coming back. But I honestly don’t know how he’s done it. How he’s stayed with me and all my crazy shit for all these years. I don’t know why he didn’t walk out the door a long time ago.

Even he can’t really explain it. He says it’s just how he is. How he’s hard wired. Or some random new agey shit like that. He said that giving up on me never occurred to him. Not once. Not even that day…

That day when he found me laying on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. A pool of my own making.

OK, see, I’d been seeing Dr. Madden for a while. Since I had flushed all the pharmacy of pills Dr. Fine had put me on that were making me something like a Stepford wife. I got tired of it and flushed them. And everything went…

Wait. Stop. That’s getting off where I was going with all of this. I mean, not that I had any particular topic I was supposed to be writing about this time. “Just get your ass writing again.” That’s a direct quote from Cassie as I was leaving her office the last time. And I guess my subconscious wants to go there. To that day.

Like I was saying, I’d been seeing Dr. Madden for a while. He was trying to treat me without drugs because I didn’t want them anymore. I’d had enough. Somehow he actually convinced me to try hypnosis. He said I was making progress. And maybe I was.

Dan wasn’t so sure though. I’d get home from the sessions in tears. But I couldn’t talk about everything going on in my sessions, no matter how much he asked me to and no matter how much I might have wanted to. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to let go of him. Until…

Until he ~ Dr. Madden ~ asked me one day if I wasn’t ready to go home and pack up Gabe’s room. And maybe spend some time with Natalie. And I realized on that day that I was.

Or I thought I was anyway.

Things were going ok. Dan brought me a couple of boxes and said that it was a good thing. But not in that snarky way some people would have said it. Not like “Thank God this is almost over.” He said it like he meant it. Like he knew how hard it was for me. Like he was acknowledging the step I was taking in doing this or something. I could see it in his eyes. He asked if I wanted help. Said he’d call out from work for the whole day. But I said no. I knew I needed to do it on my own.

Now, looking back, I wonder if things would be different if I’d said yes. And how they’d be different.

Anyway…

It was the day of Natalie’s piano recital. Her last one as a high school student. She’s a genius. Literally. She skipped second grade. That’s why she’s younger than her classmates. She’s 16. She’s… Well, I’ll tell you more about her later. I really think I need to write this out now or I may never get it out.

So like I was saying, Natalie’s last piano recital was that afternoon. I picked that day to clean out Gabe’s room because I had a deadline that day. I couldn’t take my time and get bogged down in memories or depression. I picked that day so I would stay on what I was supposed to do and work quickly. No lingering. Dan had brought me a couple of boxes on his way out the door for work. He kissed me good-bye and said that this was a good sign, a good step. He said that he would see me in a few hours. He was going to come home and pick me up and then we were going out for lunch and then over to the school for Natalie’s recital. Everything seemed like it was falling into place. Finally.

I started out doing ok. I folded up all the little blankets and sheets. I packed away the mobile. I packed away his little teddy bear. I even made it through the dresser… All his little baby clothes. Honestly? I was almost done.

The plan was that Dan was going to take the crib apart and we were going to get a truck and take all the stuff down to the shelter that serves homeless families. Donate it. They always needed stuff. And it seemed like the right thing to do. We weren’t going to have any more children, so why hang onto the stuff anymore?

Dan kept talking about how we’d turn the room into an office. It could be mine, or he would take it if it was too much for me to be in there with all the memories and we’d redo his. The ultimate plan I think was for me to go back and finish up my degree. And then who knows… Maybe try to do our own thing. Maybe see if I could get hired on with Dan’s firm. Maybe I’d discover something else I wanted to do. It seemed like a wide open world of possibilities. No matter what, Dan cannot let go of his hope that I’ll be alright in the end.

But anyway, I really was honestly doing fine. At least I was until I got to the music box. It’s the one Dan gave me when I was pregnant with Gabe. My first pregnancy gift. He’s had it custom made with the first song we ever danced to. It’s broken now. But that’s another story too. Even then, even packing up the music box I might have been ok. If I’d just left it shut.

But no. Just like Pandora couldn’t leave her box closed, I had to open mine. I had to her the music.

And then he appeared. He being Gabe. He’d been appearing to me, talking with me for a while. Even Dan didn’t know how long. Even now I honestly don’t know if he was really there like a ghost or if he was just a figment of my mind, something I felt like I needed to hold on to. You know, like if I just needed to see him so badly I just conjured him up. Dan always said he couldn’t see him, always claimed there was nothing there in the direction I’d be looking. But I’ll probably never know for sure about that.

So Gabe appeared ~ or came in ~ or whatever it was that he did. He was all dressed up in a tux. Like it was his prom or something.

Oh. Yeah. Guess I should mention that even though Gabe was a baby when he died ~ only 18 months old ~ I remember him older. Like the 18 year old that he would be if he was still alive. Don’t ask. I can’t even try to wrap my mind around that one.

We ~ Gabe and I sang together and danced around the room. It really was like his wedding or something. You know, the dance with the groom and his mother and the bride and her father? Or like he was leaving for good.

And then, when I was almost ready to say good bye, he started talking about this place he knew where there wasn’t any pain. Where every day was sunshine. He said he could show me. We could be free there. We could be together. The clouds would disappear and I’d be free from everything. He held out his hand and asked me to go with him.

And I took it.

He led me to the bathroom and… And I saw the box that held Dan’s razor blades. He never got into the electric or disposable thing. He would change out the blades as he needed to. I looked at the box and it seemed so easy. So simple. The answer was right there in the box. A cut or two and it would be over. I wouldn’t have to live with all the pain anymore. Wouldn’t have to make Dan and Natalie live with my pain, with never knowing from one day to the next what I would be like. The cloud that covered my head would leave the house. They could be free and so could I. All the pain would be over.

I don’t even think my hand shook when I reached for the box. It didn’t shake when I reached in and picked up one of the small shiny rectangles. I held it in my hand and looked at it. It was so smooth. So cool. I watched the light reflect off of it for a moment, and then I put it against the skin on my wrist.

It only hurt for a second.

I’d gone deep, but not deep enough. I pulled the blade out of the cut and watched the blood swirl over the metal. Watched it appear on my skin and run down my hand. Watched a few drops hit the floor.

And then I repositioned the blade and cut again. Still not deep enough to cut the major vein. But enough to bleed. Maybe if I made enough little cuts…

Three more cuts on my right arm, and then I started in on my left.

I only made four major cuts on my left arm before I passed out. I know because I can count the scars. Nine between my two arms. Five on the right, four on the left.

I don’t know how long I was lying there bleeding out before Dan came home. I’m still here, so it obviously wasn’t too long. I can vaguely remember hearing Dan’s voice calling my name, and then talking with someone I can only guess was the 911 operator. I have a vague memory of feeling his arms around me. Of him begging me to hold on until the ambulance got there. Until we got to the hospital.

He didn’t leave the hospital waiting room until he could see me. And he didn’t leave my side until much later that evening. I was groggy with whatever they gave me to sedate me, but I remember him being there. I remember him stroking my hair back from my face. Tenderly kissing my forehead. Looking deep into my eyes and promising me that I’d be ok. That we’d be ok. He never let me apologize. He never blamed me.

Sometime that evening, he remembered Natalie’s recital. It was the first one that at least one of us hadn’t been to. He kissed me, said he’d go find her, and he’d see me in the morning. I’m fairly sure he only left because he knew at that point that I was going to live ~ and that I couldn’t hurt myself any more. Otherwise he probably would have just called her cell phone and given her permission to stay with Henry. Told her what was going on. But that I was ok. To stay with Henry. That’s Dan… Always protecting us.

But he did leave to go and find her. Talk with her in person and tell her what was going on. And what he and Dr. Madden had decided ~ but he had to convince me of. That the only chance of saving my life was to give me ECT. Electro convulsive “therapy”.