Darkness Visible - William Styron's Memoir of Madness

During my visit to California earlier this month, my friend Ardith gave me this book Darkness Visible published by William Styron in 1990, in which he recounts his personal struggle with his most serious bout of the mental illness known as depression which took him to the brink of suicide in 1985.  I am grateful to Ardith for this gift and to William Styron (born in Newport News, VA in 1925), who found words I could not find to convey the tortuous progression of the disease which I now realize I have lived with most of my life since my teen years. Styron's mother died from breast cancer in 1939 when Styron was a young teen, and his father, a shipyard engineer, suffered from clinical depression.  He explains how these two events in his young life contributed to his depression. 

I have extracted several passages from his Memoir which helped me to understand my own bouts of depression, especially the most severe ones that caused me to be hospitalized in 1973 and again in 2010 when I had to take a 12-week medical leave of absence from work. I have also set down these passages for each of you, my close friends and family, as a way to help you better understand what chronic depression really feels like from one who is experiencing it.  I was diagnosed with last year and will have to live with for it for the rest of my life. "Chronic depression" is different from "clinical depression."  Though chronic depression is always with me, it is not a show stopper as were the two episodes of severe clinical depression I have referred to above.  I also write in case you or someone you know is struggling with this disease.  Encouragement, kindness, compassion and a sense of humor all help.
I am grateful at the time of this writing that I am stable due to the outpouring of the kindness of friends, medical intervention and on-going therapy as well life-style changes I am attempting to implement one at a time and which the "Old Judith" doesn't like one damn bit and in fact fights with "New Judith" who has hope for a better and more satisfying life experience and believes now (as a result of a recently powerful dream) that she has within herself the resources she needs to make those changes possible.  Old Judith would much prefer to continue to sleep on the weekends and let the dishes pile up, the cat box remain unchanged for days on end, and the garbage not set outside at its scheduled pick-up time. She would prefer to stare at the ceiling or watch endless hours of mindless TV.  New Judith has good days and bad. She knows she must do her own personal daily due diligence that includes keeping in touch with her daughter and friends, daily prayer and meditation, proper diet, sufficient rest, and exercise to maintain health so as not to fall victim to relapse.

I have experienced every single symptom that Styron so eloquently describes.  My mornings are the most difficult as I wake up shaking with anxiety.  As the day wears on, I am better and able to concentrate at work, but I move much slower than I used to. I ask each of you for your continued kind and loving support.  I ask that you read these excerpts from Styron. I have purposely chosen not to read his books. I saw the movie, "Sophie's Choice," which troubled me for months.  Although I have been blessed with years of therapy by the best therapists in Richmond -- even 2 years of psychoanalysis in the '70s -- therapy, including group therapy, hasn't made me well.  It has given me insights into my own behavior and attitudes and relationships and helped me see my life's experiences differently and more positively.  I remember my Mother had bouts of depression and I was sexually abused as a child from about age 2 to age 16 when I threatened to run away from home.  I don't know if those early childhood experiences are the root of my depression, but I have integrated those experiences through forgiveness into my life and they are part of who I have become today. I experience periods of great joy and gratitude and happiness as I reflect on the multitude of blessings in my life.

In this Memoir, Styron writes that the word "depression" is a wimp of a word to describe "the howling tempest in the brain" which is what clinical depression resembles and which remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode.  If the pain were readily describable, most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience." (p. 17)

"'The blues' which people go through occasionally and associate with the general hassle of everyday existence are of such prevalence that they do give many individuals a hint of the illness in its catastrophic form." (p.7)  Depression can be "as serious a medical affair as diabetes or cancer. The most honest authorities face up squarely to the fact that serious depression is not readily treatable.  Unlike, let us say, diabetes, where immediate measures taken to rearrange the body's adaptation to glucose can dramatically reverse a dangerous process and bring it under control, depression in its major stages possesses no quickly available remedy:   failure of alleviation is one of the most distressing factors of the disorder as it reveals itself to the  victim, and one that helps situate it squarely in the category of grave diseases... There are decent popular works which intelligently point the way toward treatment and cure, demonstrating how certain therapies--psychotherapy or pharmacology, or a combination of these--can indeed restore people to health in all but the most persistent and devastating cases; but the wisest books among them underscore the hard truth that serious depressions do not disappear overnight.  All of this emphasizes an essential though difficult reality:  the disease of depression remains a great mystery... Most people who begin to suffer from the illness are laid low in the morning, with such malefic effect that they are unable to get out of bed. They feel better only as the day wears on." (p. 11)  "Some of its most famous and sinister hallmarks [are] confusion, failure of mental focus and lapse of memory." (p. 14)

"Never let it be doubted that depression, in its extreme form, is madness.  The madness results from an aberrant biochemical process.  It has been established with reasonable certainty...that such madness is chemically induced amid the neurotransmitters of the brain, probably as the result of systemic stress, which for unknown reasons causes a depletion of the chemicals norepinephrine and serotonin, and the increase of a hormone, cortisol.  With all of this upheaval in the brain tissues, the alternate drenching and deprivation, it is no wonder that the mind begins to feel aggrieved, stricken, and the muddied thought processes register the distress of an organ in convulsion....  With their minds turned agonizingly inward, people with depression are usually dangerous only to themselves.  Soon evident are the slowed-down responses, near paralysis, psychic energy throttled back close to zero.  Ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained. (p. 47)

"Depression afflicts millions directly, and millions more who are relatives or friends.  It has been estimated that as many as one in ten Americans will suffer from the illness....  It strikes indiscriminately at all ages, races, creeds and classes, though women are at considerably higher risk than men...  Despite depression's eclectic reach, it has been demonstrated with fair convincingness that artistic types (especially poets) are particularly vulnerable to the disorder--which, in its graver, clinical manifestation takes upward of twenty percent of its victims by way of suicide.  Just a few of these fallen artists, all modern, make up a sad but scintillant roll call:  Hart Crane, Vincent van Gogh, Randall Jarrell, Virginia Woolf, Arshile Gorky, Vachel Lindsay, Sylvia Plath, Mark Rothko, John Berryman, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, William Inge, Paul Selan, Anne Sexton--the list goes on.  When one thinks of these doomed and splendidly creative men and women, one is drawn to contemplate their childhoods, where, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the seeds of the illness take strong root." (at p. 35)

Styron describes his depression as a suffocating gloom.  Though he was not alone, his wife "Rose was present and listened with unflagging patience to [his] complaints, [he] felt an immense and aching solitude.  [He] could no longer concentrate during those afternoon hours, which for years had been [his] working time, and the act of writing itself, becoming more and more difficult and exhausting, stalled, then finally ceased.  There were also dreadful, pouncing seizures of anxiety." (p. 45)

"One psychological element that has been established beyond reasonable doubt ... is the concept of loss.  Loss in all of its manifestations is the touchstone of depression--in the progress of the disease and, most likely, in its origin.  At a later date [he] would gradually be persuaded that devastating loss in childhood figured as a probable genesis of [his] own disorder; meanwhile, as [he] monitored [his] retrograde condition, [he] felt loss at every hand.  The loss of self-esteem is a celebrated symptom...along with any self-reliance.  This loss can quickly degenerate into dependence, and from dependence into infantile dread.  One dreads the loss of all things, all people close and dear.  There is an acute fear of abandonment." (at p. 56)

"There is no doubt that as one nears the penultimate depths of depression--which is to say just before the stage when one begins to act out one's suicide instead of being a mere contemplator of it--the acute sense of loss is connected with a knowledge of life slipping away at accelerated speed.  One develops fierce attachments.  Ludicrous things--[his] reading glasses, a handkerchief, a certain writing instrument--became the objects of [his] demented possessiveness.  Each momentary misplacement filled [him] with a frenzied dismay, each item being the tactile reminder of a world soon to be obliterated." (p. 57)

Styron reached that "phase of the disorder where all sense of hope had vanished, along with the idea of a futurity; his brain, in thrall to its outlaw hormones, had become less an organ of thought than an instrument registering, minute by minute, varying degrees of its own suffering.  The mornings themselves were becoming bad now as [he] wandered about lethargic, following [his] synthetic sleep, but afternoons were still the worst, beginning at about three o'clock, when [he'd] feel the horror, like some poisonous fogbank, roll in upon [his] mind, forcing [him] into bed.  There [he] would lie for as long as six hours, stuporous and virtually paralyzed, gazing at the ceiling and waiting for that moment of evening when, mysteriously, the crucifixion would ease up just enough to allow [him] to force down some food and then, like an automaton, seek an hour or two of sleep again." (p. 58)

"There is a region in the experience of pain where the certainty of alleviation often permits superhuman endurance.  We learn to live with pain in varying degrees daily, or over longer periods of time, and we are more often than not mercifully free of it.  When we endure severe discomfort of a physical nature, our conditioning has taught us since childhood to make accommodations to the pain's demands--to accept it.  Except in intractable terminal pain, there is almost always some form of relief; we look forward to that alleviation, whether it be through sleep or Tylenol or self-hypnosis or a change of posture or, most often, through the body's capacity for healing itself, and we embrace this eventual respite as the natural reward we receive for having been, temporarily, such good sports and doughty sufferers, such optimistic cheerleaders for life at heart." (at p. 61)

"In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent.  The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come--not in a day, an hour, a month or a minute.  If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow.  It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.  So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying--or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity--but moving from pain to pain.  One doesn't abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.  And this results in a striking experience--one which, borrowing military terminology, is called the situation of the walking wounded.  For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devastation would be lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting.  His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained.  However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations.  There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship.  He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown, and, God help him, even smile." (at p. 62)

The night came when he made the irreversible decision to end his life.  He was watching a film and heard "a sudden soaring passage from the Brahms Alto Rapsody. This sound, which like all music, indeed, like all pleasure--[he] had been numbly unresponsive to for months, pierced [his] heart like a dagger, and in a flood of swift recollection [he] thought of all the joys the house had known: the children who had rushed through its rooms, the festivals, the love and work, the honestly earned slumber, the voices and the nimble commotion, the perennial tribe of cats and dogs and birds. All this [he] realized was more than [he] could ever abandon, even as what [he] had set out so deliberately to do was more than [he] could inflict on those memories, and upon those, so close to [him], with whom the memories were bound.  And just as powerfully [he] realized [he] could not commit this desecration on [himself].  [He] drew upon some last gleam of sanity to perceive the terrifying dimensions of the mortal predicament [he] had fallen into.  [He] woke up [his] wife and soon telephone calls were made.  The next day [he] was admitted to the hospital." (p. 64-66)

"Many psychiatrists, who simply do not seem to be able to comprehend the nature and depth of the anguish their patients are undergoing, maintain their stubborn allegiance to pharmaceuticals in the belief that eventually the pills will kick in, the patient will respond, and the somber surroundings of the hospital will be avoided.  Dr. Gold was such a type, it seems clear, but in [his] case [he] was convinced that [he] should have been in the hospital weeks before.  For, in fact, the hospital was [his] salvation, and in this austere place he found the repose, the assuagement of the tempest in [his] brain, that [he] was unable to find in [his] quiet farmhouse." (p. 68) 

"This is partly the result of sequestration, of safety, of being removed to a world in which the urge to pick up a knife and plunge it into one's own breast disappears in the newfound knowledge, quickly apparent even to the depressive's fuzzy brain, that the knife with which he is attempting to cut his dreadful Swiss steak is bendable plastic.  But the hospital also offers the mild, oddly gratifying trauma of sudden stabilization--a transfer out of the too familiar surroundings of home, where all is anxiety and discord, into an orderly and benign detention where one's only duty is to try to get well.  For [him] the real healers were seclusion and time." (p. 69)

Styron remained in the hospital for 7 weeks.  When he was finally released he wrote:  "...Although I was still shaky, I knew I had emerged into light.  I felt myself no longer a husk but a body with some of the body's sweet juices stirring again.  I had my first dream in many months, confused but to this day imperishable, with a flute in it somewhere, and a wild goose, and a dancing girl." (p. 75)

"By far the great majority of the people who go through even the severest depression survive it, and live ever afterward at least as happily as their unafflicted counterparts.  Save for the awfulness of certain memories it leaves, acute depression inflicts few permanent wounds.  There is a Sisyphean torment in the fact that a great number--as many as half--of those who are devastated once will be struck again; depression has the habit of recurrence. But most victims live through even these relapses, often coping better because they have become psychologically tuned by past experience to deal with the ogre.  It is of great importance that those who are suffering a siege, perhaps for the first time, be told--be convinced, rather--that their illness will run its course and that they will pull through....  It has been shown over and over again that if the encouragement is dogged enough--and the support equally committed and passionate--the endangered one can nearly always be saved.  Most people in the grip of depression at its ghastliest are, for whatever reason, in a state of unrealistic hopelessness, torn by exaggerated ills and fatal threats that bear no resemblance to actuality.  It may be required on the part of friends, lovers, family, admirers an almost religious devotion to persuade the sufferers of life's worth, which is so often in conflict with a sense of their own worthlessness, but such devotion has prevented countless suicides. (p. 75-76) 

"The psychiatric literature on depression is enormous, with theory after theory concerning the disease's etiology proliferating as richly as theories about the death of the dinosaurs or the origin of black holes. The very number of hypotheses is testimony to the malady's all but impenetrable mystery.  As for that initial triggering mechanism--what [Styron] calls the manifest crisis--can [he] be satisfied with the idea that abrupt withdrawal from alcohol started the plunge downward?  What about other possibilities--the dour fact, for instance, that at about the same time [he] was smitten [he] turned sixty, that bulking milestone of mortality?.... These matters interested [him] less than the search for earlier origins of the disease.  What are the forgotten or buried events that suggest an ultimate explanation for the evolution of depression and its later flowering into madness?... After [he] had returned to health and was able to reflect on the past in the light of his ordeal, [he] began to see clearly how depression had clung close to the outer edges of [his] life for many years.  Suicide has been a persistent theme in [his] books--three of [his] major characters killed themselves.  In re-reading, for the first time in years, sequences from his novels--passages where [his] heroines have lurched down pathways toward doom--[he] was stunned to perceive how accurately [he] had created the landscape of depression in the minds of these young women, describing with what could only be instinct, out of a subconscious already roiled by disturbances of mood, the psychic imbalance that led them to destruction.  Thus depression, when it finally came to [him], was in fact no stranger, not even a visitor totally unannounced; it had been tapping at [his] door for decades." (77) 

"The genetic roots of depression seem now to be beyond controversy.  But [he was] persuaded that an even more significant factor was the death of [his] mother when [he] was thirteen; this disorder and early sorrow--the death or disappearance of a parent, especially a mother, before or during puberty--appears repeatedly in the literature on depression as a trauma sometimes likely to create nearly irreparable emotional havoc.  The danger is especially apparent if the young person is affected by what has been termed 'incomplete mourning' -- has, in effect, been unable to achieve the catharsis of grief, and so carries within himself through later years an insufferable burden of which rage and guilt, and not only dammed-up sorrow, are a part, and become the potential seeds of self-destruction." (p. 79) 

"The vast metaphor which most faithfully represents this fathomless disorder, however, is that of Dante, and his all-too-familiar lines still arrest the imagination with their augury of the unknowable, the black struggle to come:" (p. 82) 

In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wood,
For I had lost the right path.

(p. 84-85)  "For most of those who have experienced it, the horror of depression is so overwhelming as to be quite beyond expression, hence the frustrated sense of inadequacy found in the work of even the greatest artists....  If our lives had no other configuration but this, we should want, and perhaps deserve, to perish; if depression had no termination, then suicide would, indeed, be the only remedy.  But one need not sound the false or inspirational note to stress the truth that depression is not the soul's annihilation; men and women who have recovered from the disease--and they are countless--bear witness to what is probably its only saving grace: it is conquerable....  Whoever has been restored to health has almost always been restored to the capacity for serenity and joy, and this may be indemnity enough for having endured the despair upon despair."

"And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars."

[Note about this author in case you want to read any of his works: Styron wrote Lie Down in Darkness (a story of a dysfunctional Virginia family, published in 1951 at age 26), The Long March (a short novel published in 1958), Set This House on Fire (a novel about American expatriates on the Riviera published in 1960), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967, narrated by Nat Turner, leader of 1831 Virginia slave revolt), Sophie's Choice (1979, told through eyes of young writer from the South, about a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz and her troubled Jewish lover in postwar Brooklyn), This Quiet Dust (1982), and A Tidewater Morning: Three Tales of Youth, 1993. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, The American Book Award and several other medals of honor. He graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in English, married a young Baltimore poet, Rose Burgunder, in 1953. He lived in Europe for an extended period and died of pneumonia in 2006 at Martha's Vineyard. He was 81.]

VA Man's Abuse Story Moves Legislators To Act

Posted January 29, 2011
Article written by Dena Potter of the Associated Press

This is an amazing story.  You can Google "Dena Potter" and the title of article and it will pop up for you to read.  It has taken 30 years for the Virginia General Assembly to pass this much needed legislation extending the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.  It took the unrehearsed testimony of a 67-year-old man to reach their hearts.  (Apparently, rehearsed speeches from alleged victims don't carry much credibility since most legislators are lawyers and lawyers are excellent at "rehearsing" their clients before testifying.)  What is most amazing is how easily their hearts were turned - in an instant - after hearing Wayne Dorough's story.  I hope to find Wayne and to meet him too.  I have found Dena Potter.  She lives right here in Richmond, Virginia and works out of an Associated Press Office on Main Street. 

I gave up on the Virginia General Assembly years ago and never thought I'd live to see the day that victims of sexual abuse would actually be able to file civil suits against their abusers before the statute of limitations expired.  Formerly, victims only had 2 years after they turned 18 and most survivors, including Wayne Dorough, take many years before they are able to press charges or come to terms with the abuse and heal from the emotional and psychological scars.

I plan at least to write the chief patrons on the bills to thank them for listening to Wayne's story and for enacting this new law.

2011 Virginia General Assembly Passes New Law for Sexual Abuse Victims

Legislation passed by Virginia House and Senate and heading to the Governor for his signature: 
Statute of Limitations:  Victims of Sexual Abuse will have 20 years to file civil suits, instead of 2 years.

Summary as Passed:

Torts; sexual abuse; limitations period.  Extends the limitations period for actions for sexual abuse committed during the infancy or incapacity of the abused person from 2 to 20 years from the time of the removal of the infancy or from the time the cause of action otherwise accrues.  HB 1476 passed unanimously!  Same as bill introduced in Senate - that bill passed Senate with amendment (38 yes, 2 no).

See Code of Virginia Section 8.01-243 is amended and reenacted as follows:...

That Section 8.01-243 of the Code of Virginia is amended and reenacted as follows:

1.   D.  Every action for injury to the person, whatever the theory of recovery, resulting from sexual abuse occurring during the infancy or incapacity of the person as set forth in subdivision 6 of Section 8.01-249 shall be brought within 20 years after the cause of action accrues.

Co-Patrons in House of Delegates:  Vivian E. Watts (D) and David B. Albo (R)
Patron of Senate Bill:  Frederick M. Quayle (R)
Significant Senator speaking for the bill:  Senator John S. Edwards (D)

Tools to Build a Strong Recovery Bridge

The following is a list of tools I found and have been trying to use to build a strong recovery bridge back to sanity from show-stopping chronic major depression.  If you are reading this and have been or are now depressed, know that depression is a serious and baffling illness that affects mind, body and spirit.  The good news is that it is treatable so have courage and don't give up. If you persevere, you too can survive depression and come to a place of peace and joy if you make it a daily practice to use the tools that you find work for you. There is no guarantee that you will never be this severely depressed again but you can rely on your tools to pull you through.

Acceptance. Action. Affirmations. Attention. Awareness. Belief. Choices. Commitment. Compassion. Concentration. Counseling. Courage. Effort. Exercise. Faith. Family. Forgiveness. Friendship. Goal Setting. Gratitude Lists. Hope. Humor. Inspirational stories of recovery. Joy. Kindness. Laughter. Listening. Meditation. Meds. Mindfulness. Monitoring thoughts. Motto: One Day At a Time. Music. Nature. Patience. Peace. Pets to love. Perseverance. Physicians who care. Poetry. Positive Thoughts. Prayer. Reading good books. Service to others. Silence. Singing. Support Group. Study. Therapy. Trust. Rest. Visualization. Willpower. Work. Writing/Journaling. Yoga.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. -- T. S. Eliot

Undoing Depression

Twelve General Principles for a Program of Recovery

from Chap. 20, Undoing Depression, Richard O'Connor

1.  Feel your feelings. 

Depression is an effort to avoid feeling to insulate myself from painful emotions.  By trying to avoid only unpleasant emotions, I miss out on good feelings to and become numb and develop Acadia. I cannot control how I experience my feelings but I can control how I express them.

Our most intense joy, our must intense pain never lasts, while depression can last a lifetime. p. 313

2.  Use your mood journal regularly.  

Knowing what made me feel bad is the first step toward recovery.  I have 3 choices in any given situation:  I can alter it, avoid it or accept it.

3.  Practice Mindfulness. 

Regular mindfulness meditation practice can reprogram my brain and reset the thermostat within me so I can stop obsessive worrying and experience  more happiness than ever. My mind, brain and body can work together to make me slow down and pay attention to the joys of life that I am missing.  I will then make better decisions which will help me gain greater satisfaction with my life.  I will be able to see the world and myself objectively, without the distortions of depression.  Consistent mindfulness is not easy to achieve. It is a goal to strive for through mental discipline.

4. Keep practicing.

Only by practicing new behavior -- including internal behavior like stopping obsessive thought patterns or deliberately changing my perspective--repeatedly, day after day, even when it seems like I am not going anywhere, can I build a healthy brain. Just  thinking about getting better isn't enough.

5.  Rise above depressed thinking. 

I can use the Daily Record of Dysfunctional Thoughts to help me identify my depressed thinking habits. I will identify my Inner Critic and stop listening to her.  I can remind myself that is  is a voice left over from childhood.  It is not me nor the truth about me.

6.  Establish priorities.

Review my key values.  Make a serious effort to stop procrastination and follow my priorities.

7.  Take care of yourself.  

Work on feeling proud.  Each day jot down 3 things I have done to feel good about. Pay attention to small pleasures.  Find opportunities for feeling flow - getting out of the preoccupation with clock time. Practice concentration. Make deliberate effort to focus on task at hand. Learn to relax: take a yoga course  Exercise 3x/week.  Eat healthy, delicious meals.

8.  Communicate directly.

Practice extroversion: reach out to people.  Don't give up and withdraw from conversation when you don't feel you can get a point across.  Practice metacommunication.

9.  Look for Heroes.

Find people you admire and strive to be like them.  Help them with their work.  When our models are people we respect, we respect ourselves.

 10.  Be generous.

Cultivate a true spirit of generosity.  Volunteer in the community. "Fake it till you make  it." Be courteous and thoughtful of others.

 11. Cultivate intimacy. 

Let down your mask.  Let your true self breathe.  Let your loved ones know your fears, doubts, inadequacies.

 12. Get help when you need it.

Identify signals and warning signs that tell you when you're slipping into depression. Set up a support system in advance--therapist and psychiatrist, support group you attend regularly.

Living according to these principles is not easy.  It requires a total commitment to change.  You must devote a lot of time to continuous self-examination and practice new skills to replace the old habits of depression. Be patient.  You'll have to practice new skills for a long time to change the brain patterns.

Mental Health Defined

True mental health comprises healthy but realistic self-esteem, a basic liking for one's self that recognizes both abilities and limitations. This self-esteem has its roots in the experience of being loved as an infant, owes something to the child's innate endowment and temperament, and is affected by the fit between the child and the parents' abilities. After maturity, [a mentally healthy adult] isn't threatened by the usual ups and downs of life.

Undoing Depression, Richard O'Connor, p.301

Isolation in Community

Depression is a disease that hits us both as individuals and as a society.  See Undoing Depression, Richard O'Connor, PhD, p. 303
(see also http://www.undoingdepression.com/)


Some common causes for depression are

•Dangerous or unsafe environment in family
•Being neglected from close one in early life
•Traumatic experiences late in life
•Loss of job
•Death of loved one
•Financial problems resulting in extreme stress
•Poor self-confidence
•Side effects of some other medicine
•Frequently feeling physical illness
•Feeling homesickness
•Hormonal changes always affecting mood
•Frequent drug or alcohol use.

However, another cause leading to depression is social isolation in community. The author asserts that depression is tied to the many cultural changes in our society today that have contributed to a decline in our sense of community. Visiting among neighbors has dropped drastically in the last 50 years. For example, before air conditioning, homes were built with front porches where family members gathered in the evenings and neighbors stopped by to visit. Once homes were air conditioned, families moved inside, eliminating the evening front porch socializing.


Changes in how we spend our time have damaged family life. It is rare that both parents are home at the same time since both parents have to work. Only 5% of families have a mother at home to care for the children after school. Each year, Americans work 3-1/2 weeks longer than Japanese, 6 weeks more than the British, and 12 weeks more than the Germans.


There is also little human interaction daily at our places of work.

Just at the time when social scientists have demonstrated that intimacy, community and trust are the basic elements of  human security and happiness, those elements are in danger of  disappearing from our society. These social changes get into our brains just like trauma and abuse do.  Stressful jobs lead to a marked increase in major depression and anxiety disorders in previously healthy people.  Instead of a cooperative world where your life's value is defined by how well you contribute to your community, we  have a competitive society that tries to measure your value by your income and possessions. Instead of a world of social  ties and ritual that provides security in virtually every aspect of your life, we have a world of me-first.  Instead of a sense  of   belonging to a community, we have the anxiety of unemployment  and homelessness.  For the past 25 years in both the U.S. and Europe, rates of anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders have been accelerating  every year.  In 2006, Americans spent an estimated $76 billion a year on antidepressants.  Now health authorities  predict that soon depression will be the world's second largest public health concern. p.298 

To help shake us out of depression individually and collectively, Dr. O'Connor recommends that each of us can get involved on a personal level to make a contribution to the larger good in a way that challenges our comfort. p. 303

Traveling Turbulent Times

Copyright © 2010 Judith J. Bentley


In 2010 I was slow to recognize I had fallen into a serious depression.  It was as if I had been watching a light gradually fade at the end of the day until I was suddenly in the dark. I had thought of myself as a writer and had held onto the hope of finishing my memoir but had not written anything on my blog since February.  It was August when I began to notice my mind wasn't working right. I didn't have any desire to write anymore.  I struggled to keep up with all that was happening around me.  I became easily overwhelmed with daily tasks I could formerly complete with ease. I lost some of my filtering abilities and experienced sensory overload frequently -- the sights and sounds of the world became too difficult to process.  They wore me out. I blamed myself for my inability to make decisions.  My memory was impaired, and I felt mentally and physically exhausted.  My mind and body had slowed down to a crawl.  All I wanted to do was sleep. If I could just sleep, I thought, I could avoid the intense mental and physical suffering I felt every day--the strong emotions of hopelessness, worthlessness, a profound sadness and a feeling of being abandoned and alone along with the intermittent crying spells, headaches, backaches, muscle spasms and insomnia --getting to sleep and staying asleep -- all of which compounded the depression making me feel tired all the time.  I would drag through the workday, looking forward to 5:30 p.m. when I could go home and shut out the world's noise.

Unable to function well in my daily normal routine, I became confused, frightened and anxious. Fear manifested in panic episodes. My body would shake and sweat.  I had lost my former self-confidence even to manage mundane tasks.  Dishes piled up in the sink, the bed remained unmade and the cat box litter was left unattended.  At times I was so paralyzed by fear I was unable to get out of bed.  I was afraid of what others would think of me now that I was seriously depressed, afraid that my daughter, friends and family would no longer want to have anything to do with me once they found out. But I could no longer wear the mask of business as usual.  It just took too much energy and energy was now in short supply.  I felt disoriented, lost in my own life.  I lost my appetite and would go some days with only 1 meal.  I had lost interest in things that used to bring me pleasure too.  My piano sat silent in the living room, just another object that took up space.  Boxes of beads in the backroom gathered dust along with unfinished jewelry projects.  Yards of fabric purchased to be cut and sewn into quilts were now destined to be given away along with how-to quilting books to be donated to my quilting guild.  A digital camera I had bought in anticipation of a photography class was still in its box. I ventured out of the house only for doctor appointments, groceries and mail.  I had stopped going to church on Sundays and asked to be put on inactive status in my Red Hat Chapter.  I didn't feel safe anywhere except in my bed under the covers.

It seemed as if I were different from the people around me.  I felt inadequate, defective, not good enough. I wondered how I had made it through college and graduate school as well as two years as a Virginia law reader and used procrastination as a defense against my feelings.  I told myself maybe tomorrow I'd get around to the tasks I kept putting off.  I became very critical and judgmental of myself and felt sorry for myself that I was no longer the woman I thought I had been.  I wondered why I had become so severely depressed, why I had to suffer when others around me seemed to be continually productive, happy and joyous.  I couldn't feel any joy.  I felt dead inside.  I was a walking dead person.  I began to have thoughts of death because I couldn't think of any other way out.

Then a sudden memory startled me.  What I was now going through I had experienced once before in the summer of 1973 when I was hospitalized for clinical depression at the Williamsburg Community Hospital.  My father had finagled his doctor to admit me without a physician's referral.  Without such referral and not knowing the full extent of my symptoms, the doctor began a series of tests --a muscle biopsy (cut a slice out of my right calf), a bone marrow (stuck a needle in my chest between my breasts) and blood tests as well as an EKG -- the results of which were that he could find nothing physically wrong with me even though I had unrelenting crying spells and was so weak I could hardly walk without holding onto a railing.  I had entered the hospital thinking I had some terminal illness which the doctor would soon diagnose.  Though his beside manner wasn't exactly up to any compassionate standard of care, his prescription for recovery he spoke hastily before exiting the room, "You need to take your head to the dry cleaners."

I was 28 years old and divorced from my first husband, a seminary student at Emory University in Atlanta.  I was also an English teacher in the public schools of Fulton County and had been accepted as a contributing writer to the Breadloaf Writers' Conference in Middlebury, Vermont, the most prestigious writers' conference in the nation founded by the poet Robert Frost.  The doctor consented to allow me to attend the conference that August.  I was able to write and to talk with and listen to other writers, some of whom were guest authors who had won the Pulitzer prize. The inspiration of that experience rescued me from depression so that I was able to return to my teaching position that Fall.

As I recalled all the details of that hospitalization, I not only felt frightened: I was terrified that unless I could soon develop a strategy or game plan to overcome this bout of crippling depression, which seemed to be a repeat of the 1973 episode, I would likely end up in the hospital again, risk losing my job, and become unemployed; and at age 65, I could not afford such an impending and inevitable collapse.  It was 2010 and though I had had brief episodes of depression during the past 37 years, usually during the winter months, I recovered fairly quickly.  But like the 1973 episode, I was stuck, stranded in the desert of depression and feared I was shutting down again.

First Things First...

The first thing I felt was urgently needed was to find others who had survived debilitating depression and had lived to tell about it.  From them I could learn how to cope with depression and what tools to assemble to recover.  I began to read from books I purchased at Barnes and Noble written by "experts" on overcoming depression -- those PhD's, MD's, psychiatrists and therapists who themselves dared to describe their own journeys back from the distress, despair and isolation that depression brings into one's life.

Things to Consider...

To those who have never been there, it's difficult to explain how devastating it is to realize that depression's  shadows are once again drifting in to darken your world. The blues sneak in so silently that you're almost always caught by surprise.  And even though you try to tell yourself it's not happening, you instinctively know that depression has somehow tripped you up again.  You have to conjure up the strength to reach deep inside yourself and find the needed resources to cope with this unseen enemy.  Even if you've prepared yourself for such occasions, fighting back is tough, and if you haven't prepared yourself, it can seem impossible. --Richard Rybolt, 75 Ways to Beat Depression, 2005, p. 107.


What may be crucial to healing is first to do nothing.  To do nothing is the essential practice of Buddhism.  It is an act of surrender. I can look with compassion at what is happening to me as I move through this depression. Because depression is an illness of the mind and body, the path out may be difficult and may take me a while to find.--The Zen Path Through Depression, Philip Martin, 1999, pp. 1-4.

Gleanings from The Zen Path Through  Depression

Impermanence
My refusal to see and accept the impermanence of all things, to attempt to find something lasting where there is nothing lasting to be  found, is the cause of much of my suffering. In depression I have the chance to practice impermanence. In my life there are no safe harbors, no anchors to hold onto, except the present moment. I am willing to acknowledge that all things go away and will end.  I can listen to and observe the impermanence in my life. Zen, pp. 14-15.

Death
When I see death everywhere because of my depression, my task is not to lose heart--not to give in to the allure of death, but to continue to live with an open heart, to live in this moment with faith and courage.  I recognize that I am here only for a short time.  I can live one day at a time and love other human beings who also are fragile.  In depression, I have the chance to taste death, to see the reality of death which gives life its mystery and bittersweet taste. Zen, p. 19.

Fear
Fear is the worry that in some future moment I will not have what I want or will lose what I have.  I anticipate or imagine a frightening or uncomfortable situation and become afraid.  Panic attacks result from the fear of being afraid.  I need to become aware of my feelings of fear and  thoughts surrounding them.  I  can break the cycle of fear.  When fear comes up, I can simply make it the object of my calm attention and notice what it feels like and where it is located  in my body.  If I can stay present in the moment that I am afraid, that moment is the safest place to be.  Zen, pp. 23-26.

In the strength of your attention, in the solidity of your quiet sitting, nothing can hurt you right now. Zen, p. 26.

Doubt
Some days I doubt if I will ever feel better, if the efforts I am making will do any good long term. I must become willing to reside in the midst of enormous doubt and let it be all right. 
To live in doubt is to live in mystery, to let mystery be large and vital in our lives. Zen, pp. 28-30.

Grief
In  depression I feel grief all around me.  There is a lack of energy, a painful heaviness, a sadness and grief which are the body's longing  for  permanence.  If I  can approach grief and sadness without fear, I can  tap into the suffering of all beings. Depression gives me the chance to move back into my body, to feel all that I have been missing.  The real pleasure lies in feeling mindfully the sensations of doing  just this one activity wholeheartedly. Zen, p. 31.

Desire
In depression I try to avoid the pain I feel and cling to whatever might give me relief, but the  process of avoiding pain keeps me dissatisfied and ultimately keeps me from being fully present in my life.
Zen, p. 35.

Escapes
To be in pain simply means to be alive, to be a feeling human being. It is a necessary first step to accept the pain of depression and stop trying to run from it. I choose not to run away but to stay with the depression, to pay attention to my thoughts and feelings, to face my life with awareness and compassion. If I persevere, I will find that I can survive the pain and finally come to a place of peace of joy, even while the pain is still there. This gives me hope for the future. Zen, p. 37-39

Anger
I can meet my anger with loving attention, to see past it and find what is under it.  I can be aware when anger is present and how it affects my thoughts and actions.  When I look at my anger calmly and directly, I notice it doesn't remain for a long time but arises and disappears without my attaching to it.  I can allow it to come and go. I can take the energy of anger and direct it toward positive action for healing.
Zen, pp. 46-47.

Judging
When I  am depressed, my mind becomes preoccupied with judgments and comparisons.  I feel I should be able to overcome my depression--if not through strength of will, or affirmations, or positive thinking, then by getting help from others.  But despite all my best efforts, there are times when my depression simply  does not improve, or improves only slightly.  Depression brings me face-to-face with the fact that there are many things over which I have no control, no matter how hard I try.  In my depression, I can start to heal by accepting that a great part of my becoming  depressed, as well as much of getting over it, may not be within my control.  Depression allows me to see that through the judgments I make of myself and others, I create much of my own suffering.  In so doing, I let myself off the hook and stop taking the blame.  Zen, pp. 42-43, 53-54.

Control

Control often means resisting the way things are or believing they should be different. As I let go of my attachment to having things a certain way, as well as my belief that my life should go in a certain direction, I can let go of my desire to control. I can then participate in my life rather than be a frustrated observer. I can then save myself a great deal of effort and energy - two things critical to maintaining my sanity and equilibrium in my depression. I can focus on things that will make a difference. Zen, p. 54.

Time
In depression, time changes its quality--movement, speech, thought all slow down.  It is difficult to perform physical tasks due to the  slowness and heaviness  filling the body.  It becomes clear that the "normal" world is based on speed and aggressiveness.  Slowing  down in depression gives me an opportunity to explore my world.  I have time simply to be rather than do.  If I am attentive to the  value of moving slowly, I find there is time to do all that each moment calls me to do.  I can deal with each moment as it presents itself.  In depression I may find I have times of greater happiness and purpose when I simply relax, let go of control, and open to the moment.  I can then take in all that I am given as a gift. Zen, pp. 49-54.

End of Suffering
An end to my suffering is possible by cessation of greediness, grasping and clinging and by observing how my thirst arises.  If I stop searching so hard for pleasure and let my life be what it is, I can experience my life as it is. To stop  suffering, I have to allow  pain into my life.  This will be a slow process but one that can help heal my depression.  I can move out  of the fear weighing down.  I  don't need to feel inadequate.  I can affirm that I have everything I need.  Zen, pp. 56-58

Joy
Life is more than just survival  and avoidance of pain. I need to remember that my goal is to move away from pain and death toward joy and life.  I can find many tools to help me.  I have people I love who love me.  I can make use of  all tools available to me.  I can find the joy and purpose that has always been there for me to uncover. Zen, pp. 59

Freedom
Depression can feel like an imprisonment, like solitary confinement when I feel cut off from everyone. My imprisonment does not come from outside but from within.  It is something I create rather than something imposed on me.  I am the only one with the power to free myself. I can find a new freedom, the result of clearly seeing my limits and place in the world.  I can then move into greater interdependence  with all beings and greater responsibility to all beings.  I can stop hiding in this small life I have created where I feel safe and leave my prison behind.
Zen, pp.60-61.

Seeing without Blame
Blame is a barrier to true understanding and intimacy with my life.  Blame will not help me.  Blaming myself or others only leaves me feeling more worthless, unsatisfied and angry.  I can set aside blame and look at what is, rather than why it is.  I can stop trying to understand everything and stop trying to escape from my feelings and pain.  I can accept not knowing where my depressions comes from or why it came again.  I can just be with what is happening to me and discover nothing is as horrible as it seems when I accept it and not try to run from it.  Just seeing things as they are is enough.  I may find that an answer comes to me simply by looking at how things are.  I can learn to see what is  truly effective, what works, and what may be making  matters worse.  I can then begin to take action toward healing from depression.
Zen, pp.62-65

My Heart
Depression lodges in the heart where some of the physical symptoms manifest.  My heart is broken and needs mending. When I am anxious, my heart is fast-beating.  When I feel hopeless, my heart is tired.  When  I feel sadness or grief, my heart hurts with pain. Depression creates an imbalance in my heart and mind.  The mind that I have depended on now fails me. I have difficulty making simple decisions and remembering details. I feel slow in my body and my mind makes me feel stupid. 
Zen, p.66

Meditation
Through meditation as I begin to be less impressed with my thoughts, I feel my emotions more intensely-- the grief and sadness over the past, all the moments of my life that are now behind  me, all the mistakes I have made and the hurts to others that I have caused. In meditation I have the opportunity to practice compassion and kindness toward myself and others.  I can practice acceptance of my emotions and listen to what they have to tell me.  I thus develop empathy as I open my heart to my own grief and the greater grief of the  world.
Zen, p. 67.

You can let your thoughts come into your mind--just don't invite them to stay for tea. -- Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Zen, p. 47

I Am Enough
When I am depressed, I feel inadequate, insufficiently equipped to deal with my own life.  I feel that I don't deserve to be on the planet and wonder  why I am here just occupying space.  I have also felt alone like I don't belong anywhere.  I need to affirm that I have everything I need, that I am already perfect as I am.  In seeking the truth about myself as a soul living a human existence and connected to all other beings on the planet, I can nourish the seed within me of awakening from depression.  I can practice meditation, enjoy laughter, work with others and make my best effort each moment.  I can offer help  to a friend or co-worker who is also experiencing depression. I can act in ways that acknowledge my connection with others and the sacred nature of all beings.  I can leave behind my feelings of unworthiness and see that I do belong here and I am enough.  I can begin to find new freedom in my life.  I am alive, I matter, I can make a difference in the lives of others.  I have the basic right to exist. I  let the knowledge of my belonging and goodness, of being enough, to fill up my heart.
Zen, pp. 70-72

A Path Through Depression
There is no one answer or series of steps that, when followed, will solve my problems forever.  But I can find my way back into my life--a path that is a way of  being in each moment with myself.  I am willing to look at what is called for in this moment, to stand in the midst of uuncertainty about what will heal my depression and look at all my actions and choices in the light of practicality. I choose to move toward joy, compassion and service and turn from suffering and isolation. I will practice mindfulness and concentration.  I will make use of the tools of right seeing, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right effort and right livelihood.
Zen, pp.77-79

Highland Springs - 1949-1955

PKs and Playmates

One day when I was four years old, I woke up in a strange house.  My parents had moved the family from Hamilton to Highland Springs where we would live for the next six years.  Pop was a Methodist minister and the house we lived in on Holly Avenue was called a parsonage because that's where the parson lived.  It was owned by the local church but the parson's family got to live in it along with the parson.

Holly Avenue was one of the cross streets intersecting Nine Mile Road, the main road through the town.  I still want to know who decided to give each cross street the name of a tree, bush or plant.  Coming into town you would pass Ash, Beech, Cedar, Daisy, Elm, Fern, and Grove Avenues before you got to Holly Avenue, and then beyond Holly Avenue were the Avenues Ivy, Juniper, Kalmia, Linden, Maple, Oak, Pine, Quince, Rose, and Spruce.  We lived two blocks from the church on Holly Avenue in an old two-story framed house that had been painted white but had become dirty with age and needed to be repainted.  It didn't get a new paint coat while we lived in it.


It must have been exciting to live in Highland Springs in the 1890s when the streetcars ran up and down the main road connecting the big city of Richmond to its suburb, but there were no streetcars when we arrived in 1949.  Sometimes a circus would come to town and there would be parades. 

I don't remember my sister in Hamilton probably because she was spending most of her time in her crib or just learning to walk, and I hadn't waked up good enough yet to the world around me to notice her. In the two photos I found of myself taken in Hamilton, I was sitting on the front porch or standing alone in the yard and not smiling. By the time we settled in Highland Springs, she had mysteriously arrived, and I was happy to have a playmate. She was named after my mother and took her first and maiden name, Kathryne Creighton, but everyone called her by her nickname Kacky the sound of which I hated. We must have agreed on the disagreeableness of her nickname and came upon the idea that we'd call each other by our initials, KB and JB. There was nothing the adults could do about it. The initials have stuck to this day.  

The front of our house sat close to the road and was the first house on the left side of the street after you passed the post office and barber shop.  Gone were the hammock, porch glider and green grass of the Hamilton front lawn replaced with dried up and worn out dirt and a towering maple tree that provided shade.  Bushes ran along the front porch. 

On the right side of the street at the corner of Holly and Nine Mile Road was a pharmacy and a parking lot.  Adjacent to the parking lot was a medical office building.  Beside the medical building and directly across the street from us lived the Cavedos in a red brick house. 


Since we were PKs (preacher's kids) new in town, we were each others sole playmates except for the Cavedo children, Marilyn and Linda.  They played  hop-scotch and jump rope with us and invited us over to play with them often.  Marilyn was about my age and Linda was KB's age so we made a great foursome.  Sometimes we'd pair off in the ditches on either side of the street and throw rocks at each other.  We thought that was great fun. 

Chester and the Chicken Coop

Mr. Cavedo liked to hunt and he took with him on his hunting trips his big reddish brown hunting dog named Chester.  Chester never did bother or frighten us.  I sure was glad about that.  The Cavedos also had a chicken coop in their backyard.  Marilyn and Linda asked us if we wanted to start up a secret society.  We said yes and the four of us held our secret meetings in the chicken coop without much of an agenda, but it was fun just being together, pretending we had important business that needed attending to.  Mrs. Cavedo, who worked at the telephone company, would let us gather eggs in the chicken coop and deliver them to her. 

Sometimes she let us visit Marilyn and Linda in their home. I remember being in their parents' bedroom once though I don't know why I was there.  On the nightstand beside Mrs. Cavedo's side of the bed was a Bible.  Our parents didn't have a Bible on their nightstand.  Our father kept his cigarette butts in an ashtray beside his bed.  The Bible was saved for reading from the pulpit during Sunday morning services.  Since he was also the Reverend, he kept a lot of books about the Bible called concordances in his study.  He probably read those to help him prepare his sermons. 

Every morning before we could eat breakfast, since he was the Reverend, he read The Upper Room, the Methodist daily devotional.  We sat in our chairs at the table watching our food get cold on our plates while he read.  There was always a Bible passage at the end of the reading followed by a prayer.  Then he would pronounce the blessing and we could finally eat.  It seemed like some things adults did just had to be endured.  

The Commander-in-Chief

In Highland Springs I became aware that I also had a brother my parents had brought with them from Hamilton.  There he was -- Gilliam Dickson Bentley, Sr. ("Dick")-- and he was already 9 years old.  He was a loner, playing outdoors by himself with his plastic toy soldiers lining them up against the side of the house in two parallel lines. He'd arrange his armies so that they were positioned to fire on each other.  They were tiny green toy soldiers with guns and he was their commander-in-chief .  He didn't have any buddies and since he wasn't interested in his baby sisters as playmates, he often stayed outside for hours playing with his toy soldiers.  One day years late, raging battles would be waged inside his head with voices telling him people were going to die so that he felt compelled to amass an arsenal of guns that would have to be confiscated.  I think he had a harder time than we did being a preacher's kid mainly because he didn't have a brother and his name was only slightly different from our father's name so he had to carve out his own identity by himself.  KB and I had each other.  He only had his toy soldiers. 

I don't have much of a memory of my brother during those years in Highland Springs mainly because he didn't seem to be around much.  I have often wondered what he did during those pre-teen years.  I remember him talking about happy summers he had spent on Uncle Nowlin's farm.  I never met Uncle Nowlin.  He was the husband of one of my father's sisters. I'm glad my brother has some happy memories of his childhood when he lived with Uncle Nowlin.

Horse and Hammer- two close calls

My sister and I had our occasional fights over various sibling  rivalries, the causes of which I cannot remember.  I do remember one summer day I got so angry at her that, without thinking a thing about it, I found a hammer and whacked  her on the head with it hard.  One Mother explained to me that I had really hurt my little sister, I felt terrible afterward for a long time.  It was the first time I remember being consumed with a fury that would spring up apparently without much provocation and cause me to act in ways I would later regret. I think I took my sister for granted until the day I almost lost her for good.


A parade came to town and KB wanted to take a picture of the majorettes so Mother let us go unsupervised by ourselves to watch the parade.  Standing on the side of the road, KB was holding a Kodak box camera looking into it ready to snap the photo of the twirling majorettes when suddenly a horse got spooked by the loud band music behind it and reared up on his hind legs with his front legs flailing in the air until they came down on her, flattening her on the ground beside me and knocking her unconscious.  I thought she was dead because her eyes were wide open starring straight up at me and she didn't move or breathe.  I screamed and hollered until some man scooped me up and got me in his car and took me home trying to calm me down. He kept saying, Now, don't tell your mother that you sister is dead. She's going to be all right.  I didn't know who he was or why he was trying  to get me to tell Mother something I didn't believe.  As soon as he let me out of the car, I flew inside ahead of him, screaming and crying to Mother, KB is dead, KB is dead! He was able to explain what had happened to Mother and reassure her that her daughter was not dead but had been struck by a horse and was being taken to the hospital.  He seemed to know all the details.

I was frightened as I sat in the back seat and my parents drove to the hospital.  I was allowed into the room where KB was so I could see for myself that she wasn't dead.  I was told that she had a pretty bad concussion and that's all I remember.  It's a hard thing for a 5 year old to take in that her little sister could die before she even got a chance to be grown and there would be nothing she could do about it.  I wouldn't have a sister anymore and I'd be lonely like my brother.  I was coming to realize that the world wasn't a safe place and terrible things could happen at random that didn't make any sense.


If KB was preoccupied or not interested in playing, I had to entertain myself.  One day I decided to see how far I could jump off the front porch that sagged and was held up by two white columns.  I fell smack into the boxwoods along the edge of the porch and nearly impaled my genitals on one of them.  A large maple tree and another tree with long slender pods that dropped to the ground and looked like brown string beans were the only trees in the front yard.  I liked to break open the pods and suck out the sweet insides.  They tasted like molasses.  In the left side yard were massive old oak trees.  On the opposite side yard, lilies of the valley grew against the house. I used to lean down close to their tiny white faces and inhale their sweet delicate fragrance that smelled like perfume. An outdoor faucet provided plenty of water to make our mud pies. There was a well there too where kittens had fallen in and were rescued and brought in at night from the cold soaking wet.  I remember one night seeing Mother in the kitchen holding a tiny kitten in a towel and feeding it warm milk with a syringe. 

The turtle and the cherry tree


The right side of the house was sunny and had the most grass and was my favorite place to play.  I used to climb up the limbs of the cherry tree and when the cherries were ripe, I'd steady myself with my legs wedged between two limbs and feast on the juicy ripe berries, spitting the seeds to the ground.  One summer afternoon as I was happily engaged in cherry picking, my father and brother came outside and stood below the cherry tree.  KB has since told me that she was there too and saw what I saw but I don't remember her being there.  My father held up a little turtle he had captured for my brother's inspection.  He flicked his cigarette lighter and held the flame under the little turtle, laughing as the turtle's legs flailed wildly about in the air.  My brother was laughing too as they watched the  turtle squirm helplessly in my father's hand.  I had seen my father, a Methodist preacher, intentionally torture a helpless creature he had captured for his amusement.  I identified with the little turtle in that moment and realized I had about as much chance of getting away from my father as that turtle did until my father decided he'd had his fun with his prisoner and let him go.  As I watched the turtle hobble off seared and scarred, I felt relieved that the turtle was still alive and could get away and maybe one day, I could get away too.  Climbing the cherry tree didn't interest me much after that.

Running Away


The garage at the back of the house where Pop kept his handyman tools and Nash Rambler was the site where KB and I dreamed of running away from home.  We'd pack our suitcases and drag them into the garage where we'd scheme our secret getaways.  Sometimes we'd even carry them with us down to the woods two blocks away.  There I could dream of living in Africa with Albert Schweitzer, a medical doctor who loved and took care of sick children.  Soon it would get dark and we'd get hungry and have to drag our suitcases back for supper and warm beds.

Summertime Is for Canning


In the summertime, Mother would do a lot of canning from her backyard vegetable garden.  She'd sit on a step at the screened-in back porch and shell butter beans and sweet peas and snap Kentucky Wonder beans and let KB and me help.  Mother's pantry on the back porch was stocked to the brim with her dry goods and all the fruits and vegetables she had canned during the summer. We could eat all year long just about from the food she had put up in her pantry.  I remember eyeing all the jars lined up on shelves filled with food that would eventually wind up on our plates.  She canned watermelon rind pickle which I loved because it was crunchy and sweet,  made cucumber pickle, and filled quart Mason jars with canned peaches and string beans, sweet peas, black eyed peas and tomatoes. 

Snowball

It was in her pantry that our white Manx cat Snowball had hidden the kittens she had given birth to.  Snowball fearlessly defended her territory against the neighborhood dogs.  If any dog mistakenly put his paws in our yard, he lived to regret it.  We'd see him galloping out of the yard and down the street, yelping all the way with Snowball riding his backside, her claws firmly implanted in his flesh.  

Mrs. DuBois



Mrs. DuBois, who we decided was the meanest old lady in the neighborhood, lived next door to us and despised our cats, including Snowball, whose habit of jumping  the fence and snooping around in her yard caused Mrs. DuBois to threaten to kill Snowball if she ever caught her in her yard again.  She made sure to tell us that if we weren't good, the old ragman who pushed his rickety green cart down the street each week collecting newspapers and soda bottles to recycle would abduct us, cut us up, take us to Richmond in his cart, and sell us at the open air market for ten cents a pound. We believed her too and it scared the living daylights out of us.




The Doctor Is In


Mr. and Mrs. DuBois had a grandson living with them.  He was several years older than KB and me -- I'm thinking about 9 years old -- when one afternoon he invited us over to play doctor in his tent set up in the yard on the far side of the house.  We didn't know what that game was but he  said we had to take our panties down so he could  examine us and we complied.  After he had examined me, I sat in the swing in the yard while KB took her turn.  Mrs. DuBois must have been watching  from her window because no sooner had I got into the swing than she came out of the house and I was afraid she would catch KB in the tent with her panties down.  I have a hazy memory of the sequence of events but I have a vague memory of feeling frightened and ashamed because Mrs. DuBois was ordering us to go home like we had done something bad with her grandson and I think she must have told Mother what happened too but I'm not sure about that.  Anyway, we never went over in her yard to play with  her grandson again. 

I couldn't understand why Mother couldn't spend more time with us as we were growing up.  She always seemed so busy with the household chores and preoccupied by her duties as a minister's wife. She also taught chemistry, biology and math every weekday at the local high school. In spite of all this, she managed to find time to make some of our own clothes, especially new Easter dresses, and later when we were older she taught us how to sew. Mother was a fantastic seamstress and even made our winter coats with inner facing and lining --all on her Singer sewing machine.  If Mother couldn't get around to making our clothes, she'd buy them at Lerner's or some store that sold clothes inexpensively and sometimes we'd get hand-me-downs donated by church members for the preacher's kids. A corduroy skirt with Lady and the Tramp imprinted around the hem made me cringe, but I had to wear it anyway. To this day I can still see that horrible skirt.


Today I know that Mother was an amazing and smart hard-working woman determined to raise three rambunctious children and be a professional working woman outside the home as well as meet her duties as a preacher's wife.  Only a third of married women in the 50s worked outside the home and this was before the women's movement had begun.  The prevailing socially conservative message at the time was that a woman's place was in the home, preferably in the kitchen and the bedroom.  It is clear to me now that Mother was in her own quiet way bent on having a full life on her own terms.


That full life included boyfriends.  I remember one of them was a man named Mr. Mosher, who taught math at the high school.   He used to call her at night after work and want to talk and when he would call, Pop would  announce loudly so Mr. Mosher could hear and we could too, Kitty, your boyfriend is on the phone!  Everyone called my Mother Kitty though that wasn't her real name.  Mr. Mosher's efforts at courtship, if that is what it was, didn't last  long with Pop making fun of Mr. Mosher every time he called.  I don't know if Mr. Mosher ever came to the house but Mother's other boyfriend did and  he even went to the beach with us once.  He was a magician with a deep base voice and he was tall and slender.  I don't know where Mother found the likes of him, but I knew he liked Mother alot and apparently she liked him so he would visit  her and pretend to like us kids too.  I thought he was kind of  yucky especially when he was with us at  the beach and he sat at the water's edge with his private parts hanging out of his swim trunks.  I was glad when he stopped coming around to see Mother.


To maintain her full lifestyle, Mother always had a maid to help with the housework and once KB and I were old enough, she divided the housework between us which we had to finish each Saturday before we could go outside and play.   

Some People Are Just Ignorant

My first playmate besides KB and the Cavedos was the daughter of my mother's maid. One Saturday morning when I was about 5 years old, we were happily playing on the parsonage porch when old Mrs. DuBois came down the street with a bag of groceries under one arm. She took one look at my playmate and me and yelled, You shouldn't play with a nigger! Frightened and upset, I ran inside to tell Mother what Mrs. DuBois had said. I didn't understand why Mrs. DuBois called my friend a nigger. I didn't know what that was. Mother just calmed me down and replied, Don't pay any attention to her. Some people are just ignorant. When I returned to my friend on the front porch, I looked at her as if for the first time and realized we had different skin color. Hers was dark and mine was white. It was Mrs. DuBois that first introduced me to southern racial prejudice and made me feel somehow dirty and ashamed for playing with my mother's maid. Unbeknownst to me, however, my Mother gave me a great gift--she chose not to pass on to me the prejudice she surely had grown up with in South Carolina where her wealthy parents had black field hands and house maids. Later Mother let me know that Mrs. DuBois was a Christian Scientist. I had no idea what that was and Mother didn't explain it, but she said it like it was a peculiar thing for anyone to want to be. Thus, she did pass on to me her religious prejudice that somehow there was something not quite right or at least suspect about you if you weren't Methodist or at least Baptist. She allowed that it was okay to Baptist since there were some Baptists in our family on both sides, but it was preferable to be Methodist in any case.

What Five Cents Could Buy in the 50s


I must have been about 5 and KB about 3 when Pop decided we could each have a weekly allowance of a nickel.  In 1950 for a nickel you had an endless array of choices at the local five and dime -- a chocolate candy bar like a Milky Way, Three Muskateers or Hershey's bar with almonds, a Sugar Daddy sucker, 5 penny candies like Mary Janes or Tootsie Pops or red hots, long strings of licorice, a roll of Life Savers, a roll of Necco wafers, a pack of chewing gum (my favorite was Juicy Fruit)--or over at the High's Ice Cream store across the street on Nine Mile Road you could order a single scoop of chocolate ice cream or two popsicles stuck together--cherry, orange and grape were my favorites.  My first major life decision was what to buy with my weekly allowance. 


Directly across the street from the parsonage was a professional building.  The Cavedos lived next door on the left and on the right stood a pharmacy that faced Nine Mile Road but had a back door for easy access to the pharmacy's assortment of chewing gum and candy.  Sitting on the counter was a gallon jar of dill pickles.  It soon occurred to me that I could get more mileage out of one of those dill pickles in that jar than I  could out of a candy bar because I could suck on it and chew it a little at a time but I  would inevitably devour a candy bar almost before I could get the wrapper completely off because it tasted so good and chewing gum soon lost its flavor so I often salivated over the jar on the pharmacy counter until the clerk reached in with some tongs and pulled out a dripping wet dill pickle as large as my left hand, wrapped it in a sheet of nearly clear thin paper and handed it to me with a napkin in exchange for my sole nickel allowance.

This Hurts Me More Than It Does You

The fact that we'd have to wait another whole week before we'd get another allowance presented us with our first dilemma demanding  immediate attention.  It didn't take long before the idea of squirreling away our favorite candies from that five and dime store seemed a perfectly natural and reasonable solution.  After all, why should we have to wait for another week after the dill pickle had been consumed when there were rows and rows of candy set out in the open and right at eye level for any 5 year old who might decide to visit on any sunny afternoon except Sunday and all one really had to do was reach up and grab a few when the clerk wasn't looking and tuck them in a pocket?  And why did the store owner put  all that candy out there anyway in easy reach if it wasn't meant to be snatched up by little hands that had already given away their weekly allowance for a dill pickle?  It just didn't seem fair that we would have to deny ourselves for a whole week what we could easily enjoy with a little gumption and ingenuity. 


Somehow Mother soon caught on that we had carted home way too much candy for five cents, and we had to fess up that we had taken it from the five and dime without  paying for it.  Having to confess to being thieves and taking what did not belong to us was bad enough -- and was one of many occasions to come when Mother had us select appropriate switches before standing us side by side with our panties pulled down to our ankles and reminding us that this hurts me more than it does you. She always liked to say that, but I didn't believe her.  I don't think KB did either.  What was really humiliating was that she made us go and apologize to the clerk at the five and dime and admit what we had done and promise never to do it again. 

The Secretary


I'm not sure the lesson took as it should have since we continued to get our weekly allowance and the craving for candy didn't leave us.  Mother made up for it by baking batches of cookies, cakes and pies and Pop contributed by buying half gallons of ice cream that we could consume at one sitting. 

If all else failed when a sugar craving hit, there was Mother's mahagony secretary with several cubby holes where she kept her important papers.  On the bottom of the secretary were several drawers stuffed full  of old photos and miscellaneous receipts and documents.  At the top were two glass doors that could be locked with a key she kept in the key hole.  Among the items on the shelves behind the glass doors was a candy jar with peppermints in it.  No  sooner had I spied the candy jar than I figured out a way to climb up in a chair while Mother was in the kitchen washing dishes or doing laundry and ever so carefully turn the key, open the glass doors, take the top off the candy jar and reach in and grasp a prized peppermint. I wasn't pilfering the five and dime anymore.  I had found something even better -- Mother's secretary.

Holidays


My favorite holiday in Highland Springs was Halloween because that was the one  time when Mother would allow us to eat as much candy as we could haul home from our night of trick or treating.  On Halloween  night we'd dress up in scarry costumes and go door-to-door collecting candy handed out by our neighbors and all we had to do was say trick or treat when a neighbor opened her door. KB and I would come home each with a grocery bag full of every kind of candy sold at the Five and Dime and we just couldn't believe our good fortune--it was free!  We'd dump it all in a big pile on the living room rug  and feast until we had our fill.  I loved the caramels, tootsie rolls, Mary Janes and M&Ms the most.  There were little tiny plastic  bottles filled with different flavors of juice that were so good too.  If Mother caught us eating chocolate or any other candy any other time that she had not specifically sanctioned, she would make us drink Milk of Magnesia and she managed to catch us  more times than I care to remember. 


Christmas was my second favorite holiday.  Pop would buy a live tree and we'd decorate it with strings of popcorn.  We opened our presents on Christmas Eve night after supper.  Mother would make identical nightgowns or bathrobes for KB and me so we wouldn't be jealous of what the other sister got.  Mother often made identical outfits for us to wear to school or church too which made some folks think we were twins, but I was 18 months older than KB and I didn't think we looked much alike.  I still don't.

Rolling Free

I got roller skates for Christmas one year.  They fit onto my shoes by tightening them with a skate key.  I loved skating down the sidewalk on Nine Mile Road all the way to the high school several blocks away.  I'd skate around the front of the school and in the parking lot before turning around, feeling of the breeze blowing against my face and hair, happy that my feet, legs and arms, all in perfect syncopated motion, could keep me balanced and upright.  Later when KB learned to skate too, she and I would go to the local skating rink and join other neighborhood kids, holding hands in a line as we rounded the rink.  I  got to be really good on skates, amazed at how easily my body maneuvered in motion.  When I was skating or playing with my sister or the Cavedos or my friend who was the daughter of my mother's maid, I felt free and happy in my own world.

Pot Luck


Because we were preacher's kids, we had to go to church alot and not just on Sundays to Sunday School and church but on Wednesday nights too and there were always revivals that would last all week.  The best part of going to church were the church pot luck suppers that occurred throughout the year for one reason or another and the brunswick stew the men of the church would  stir up in big round black pots out on the lawn every Fall.


And in the summer time, there was Vacation Bible School that was held for a whole week.  I didn't like being dragged to church all the time, but Vacation Bible School was fun because we got to play games outside like London Bridge is Falling Down and A  Tisket A Tasket A Green and Yellow Basket.  It was during Vacation Bible School that I met my first boyfriend, Kenneth Ensley, who lived on Kalmia Street.  He had dark curly black hair and cute freckles and there was something about him that felt like an electric shock when I would get close to him, especially  when we held hands and sat side by side on the church pew in the sanctuary.  The tingling sensation all over my body was so intense that it almost hurt.  I think I pursued Kenny more than he pursued me because I would go over to his house more than he would come over mine.  Maybe my parents had something to do with that.  I was sad when his family moved away to Burkeville.  I never got to see him again and I have always wondered what happened to him.  I've even tried to find him on the Internet without any luck.  I  didn't have another boyfriend until I was in junior high school and that is a mighty long time to be without a boyfriend.  A child can have strong feelings for someone. Grown-ups call it puppy love.


Useful Scars

I entered first grade in Highland Springs at Stonewall Jackson Elementary School.  My teacher Mrs. Shands wanted each of us to be able to distinguish our left hand from our right.  I was upset because I couldn't tell which was which and went home anxious to for Mother's comfort.   She had an answer ready for me.  When she asks you which hand is your left hand, just remember to look at the scar where the dog bit you in Hamilton. That was my first lesson in the usefulness of scars.


[first grade - safety patrol- air raid drills - Mrs. Shands - reading]
report cards

[grandparents]


I didn't get to see or meet my Grandfather Creighton because he died two years before I was born.  Years later after I had finished college and grad school and was encouraged by a psychologist to go to law school, I learned from my Mother that her father had been a lawyer in South Carolina before he heard the call of God on his life and felt compelled to become a Methodist minister. How many years he was in the pulpit after he left the practice of law I don't know, but Mother said that one day he did or said something that his congregation didn't approve of and they asked for his resignation to which he replied, To hell with you all. I'll just go back to practicing law, and that's what he did. He had been married before and my Grandmother Creighton was his third wife so Mother had half-sisters by his previous marriages. KB remembers a great story Mother told her about "the sisters" and what Mother thought of them, but I'll let her tell it.



[get KB to recount story here]