To a Quiet Place

Ashwagandha is another medicine I can’t take.

I tend to have backwards effects from all kinds of medications. I’m told that this is a symptom of my autism. I have to wear a bright orange bracelet in the hospital before surgery, warning nurses not to give me any Valium or Ativan, because the calming benzodiazepines make me paranoid and anxious. Melatonin makes me go into a dreamlike state, but then I startle awake without drifting off. Benadryl works sometimes, and other times it makes me panic. Ambien works occasionally, but often just leaves me staring at shapes appearing on the wall. Valerian makes me panic. 5-HTP worked beautifully for about a week, and then caused night terrors so severe I was afraid to take it again. When I was on progesterone for my PCOS it made me terribly sleepy, but the nightmares were so severe I was afraid to lie back down.  I hadn’t taken Ashwagandha before, but last night I saw that it was an ingredient in another herbal sleep tincture I wanted to try. I’d heard good things about ashwagandha. I took the tincture and went to bed.

I balled up in the quilts like a great big burrito, under the frosty gusts from my window air conditioner.

I said that prayer I’ve been saying so often lately. “Jesus, I’m very afraid of you. I’m sorry I failed you so horribly. I’m sorry I failed Adrienne so horribly. All I want is for you to see how badly the Church hurt me and not blame me for my failure. All I want is for you to take me to a quiet place where we can talk, and I can find out who you are. I want to learn how to love you again.”

I started to relax– that wave of false relaxation I get from so many herbal medicines. I tried to think of soothing things to help myself drift off. I pretended to be a Tolkien elf in Rivendell, looking up at the stars. I pretended to be some irritating English boarding school child who had found her way into Narnia and then to Aslan’s country. I pretended to be a queen from a fairy tale in a great big curtained bed in the middle of a lofty castle. I imagined winning millions of dollars, buying my house from the landlord, buying the haunted house next door and demolishing it to make an apple orchard. Fuji apples, perhaps, or honeycrisp. Imagine the Heavenly smell in springtime. I’ll bet Jimmy’s Boy and his parade of neighborhood friends would like to help me pick apples in the fall.

The relaxation turned to free association. Thinking of picking apples made me think of the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden made me think of the serpent and the Fall of Man. Of God clothing His wayward children in fig leaves so they wouldn’t be ashamed.  That made the Father sound so kind, even though He’d expelled them from Paradise.

And then I imagined a quiet place where I might talk to Jesus. A green forest by a river. I know just the river. It runs past my favorite hiking trail. I was sitting in the shallow part of that river, enjoying the river running over my pajamas, looking up at a tunnel of beautiful warm green foliage, admiring the way my hands and arms looked green with all the filtered light. And Jesus was with me, and He wasn’t angry. He was loving the light with me. He was the light.

Thinking of my favorite hiking trail made me sad, because I lost the whole summer: first to to that terrible two-month bout of colitis and also to Serendipity’s dead cylinder.

I still didn’t have a down payment together to pay for a new car. Jimmy is still hopeful that his friend from the dealership with the ugly blue Nissan would make a deal with me, in exchange for a thousand dollars, Serendipity to scrap, and a payment plan. Two thousand dollars, he says, and I could probably have the pick of the lot. That Nissan or that Honda or something else. I’ve got friends offering to help with the payment plan part. If only I could get that down payment together before the leaves turn. Just to see that green tunnel of living things once more before it dries out for the year. Just to play in the river even though I’ve missed swimming in the lake. Then I can hike and enjoy fall, if I’ve gotten to see summer leaves just once. But I’m running out of time.

The free association abruptly turned to panic. Running out of time. Running out of time. Running out of time. A thousand dollars, or two thousand for the pick of the lot. Two thousand plus what we’ll be behind when the landlord cashes the rent. The rent was late in mid-August, so we’ve only got two more weeks for the next rent. More like three thousand dollars, three thousand two hundred,  then, or I’ll be living in the car because I’ll lose the house I came to love. No, more than that, because Adrienne has asked for a whatcha-ma-call-it for her birthday this month. A Nintendo? No, you idiot, not a Nintendo. You just called a totally different game system “Nintendo” just like your parents used to do when your brothers saved for a PlayStation in the nineties. That’s it, a PlayStation.  A PS4 and one adjective. What was it? Slim? A PS4 Slim? If you can’t remember then that means you’re turning into your mother, calling all video games by the wrong name. You failed Adrienne, and  if you can’t get the PS whatever-it-is you’re a pathetic middle-aged crone who ruined your child’s thirteenth birthday and she’ll never forgive you. Jesus won’t forgive you either, because you haven’t been to Sunday Mass more than once in the twelve weeks since the car broke down, and the one week you got a ride you watched Mass through a window because the hymns gave you a panic attack. What kind of failure of a Catholic are you that you can’t stay strong and go to Mass? John of the Cross didn’t become a lapsed Catholic even though they locked him in a closet for nine months. If you ever get to Heaven, John of the Cross will roll his eyes and go stand on the other side of the room to get away from you. You’re not worthy. If you were worthy, none of this would have happened to you. Do you think Mother Mary would have let this happen if you were worthy? 

There was the horrible night Adrienne was born, and the rape. There was that bizarre confession, to the priest who made me repeat a long prayer forgiving my rapist– the priest who himself turned out to be a rapist. There, further back, was Father Scanlan, back before Adrienne was conceived, back before I was even married, praying those Deliverance Prayer sessions to make my anxiety go away because he thought demons were causing my mental condition. I’ve always remembered him kissing me on the forehead and stroking my cheek. I didn’t like to think of him pressing my head to his heart and stroking my hair as he said the prayers of exorcism in my ear. I hadn’t remembered that detail until lately.

Father Scanlan told me I was different than most of the people who had been to him to have their demons exorcized. He said the Lord had preserved my sweetness in a way that wasn’t common, even though I was so oppressed by evil spirits. He said the things that happened to me had happened for the greater glory of God. I should come back and see him often, because he liked me. I was special. I had something very special.

He was an expert cult leader, so I’m sure he said that to everyone who went to him. But I didn’t know that at the time. I really believed I was special, and going to be a saint. I was so pleased that, even though I’d been so lonely and human beings never liked me, God had chosen me to be a saint. And here I was, a failure. God lied.

The panic kicked me in the gut with a steel-toed boot.

I was out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom, heart pounding in my ears, angry, hurt, ashamed– mostly ashamed.

I went downstairs to the kitchen and had a snack a great deal bigger than my dinner.

It was four in the morning when I went back upstairs.

I took two of those old fashioned four-hour Dramamine, the motion sickness pill. Those work very well for insomnia, if I don’t take them very often. I never take them so late at night, because they make me so drowsy the next day. But just then I was desperate.

I curled up in my nest of blankets again– my phone next to my ear, playing a podcast I’d already listened to twice. Too much quiet is a bad thing when you’re panicked. Quiet is only nice if your mind is quiet as well.

I tried not to think of my favorite hiking trail, but I did think of Jesus. I thought of him sitting next to me in the dark.

I drowsed off shortly after the podcast ended.

I woke up at nearly noon, groggy, still anxious.

The sun was streaming in, and the birds were singing in the garden. The air was heavy with the merciful promise of rain after this terrible droughty summer.

“Jesus, I’m so afraid of you. please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry I failed you. I don’t want to be near the Communion of Saints, but I’d like to learn to love you again. I hope there is a place in the next life for the people ruined by the Church, and I hope it’s more like a hospital than jail. I’d like you to take me to a quiet place.”

I’ll get there somehow.