EXERCISE 1:
\nAs an experiment, try rewriting one of your past assignments the way you would tell it to a friend. What comments and details would you use to try to keep your friend’s interest or to get a laugh? Are there parts of the scene that you would skip to avoid boring your friend? See what happens if you shorten or cut them.
\n************
\nI had just signed myself into the NS (our local mental hospital) last week and started the insulin shock treatments my doctor had prescribed. They are nasty, let me tell you!
\nAnyway, that\u2019s another story. The main thing I wanted to talk about was the visit from Mom and Dad. I hadn\u2019t expected them, and was in my room aimlessly going through my belongings. I was obsessing over the night that Dick walked out on me, when I noticed someone at my door. I looked up and was surprised to see Mom and Dad standing there. No one had mentioned that they would be visiting, and I was especially surprised to see Dad \u2013 he\u2019s never been one for hospital visits, let alone a mental hospital!
\nI noticed right away that they seemed uncomfortable. Dad was smiling nervously and fidgeting with his hat in his hands, but Mom\u2019s expression was almost defiant. I was puzzled \u2013 what\u2019s going on with her? She spoke up:
\n\u201cYour doctor tells us that you feel we don\u2019t love you because you\u2019re the middle child. We want you to know that we do love you and we care about what happens to you.\u201d
\nI was dumbfounded \u2013 first of all, I had no idea that they were meeting with my doctor. But besides that, I was shocked and not too pleased that my doctor had given them that information. After all, I\u2019m an adult, not a minor whose parents are still responsible for me. When Dr. Poole had initially interviewed me, he didn\u2019t want to talk about Dick leaving me (which was, after all, what precipitated this terrible depression).
\nHe just said \u201cForget about him. He\u2019s not worth it.\u201d
\nThen he went on to say that I had financial problems that needed my attention, and that\u2019s what I should focus on. He suggested also that I should have some assertiveness training, but he didn\u2019t carry on to say what that would entail. I don\u2019t really care for his manner, but he\u2019s the psychiatrist I was assigned to, and he\u2019s also an administrator of the hospital. That comment about me not feeling loved \u201cbecause I was the middle child\u201d not only sounds dumb, it shows me how much of what I actually said was arrogantly discounted by my doctor. His questions were centered on my childhood, and it seemed to me that he was looking for a quick diagnosis and locked in on my statement that I didn\u2019t feel as loved as my siblings.
\nWhen he asked me why I would say that, I responded, \u201cPerhaps because I\u2019m the middle child.\u201d
\nSo, to get back to what I was saying about Mom\u2019s declaration, when I didn\u2019t respond right away, Mom blurted out:
\n\u201cYour sister Nina is not your father\u2019s child. I was pregnant with her before I married your father.\u201d
\nI stood there with my jaw hanging open.
\n\u201cSo you see,\u201d my father injected, \u201cYou are my first child, and I love you.\u201d
\nI can\u2019t remember my exact words, but as I moved to embrace both of them, I know I must have expressed my love for them. Of course, my responses were slow due to the chloral hydrate meds I was on, and I cannot recall the specific words. What I do remember is feeling like I\u2019d been hit by ton of bricks! Finally \u2013 I understand it all!
\nYou may remember that I\u2019ve mentioned from time to time that she was always on me about not allowing boys to touch me \u201cdown there.\u201d So THAT\u2019S why she interrogated me so often and so sternly about what I was doing with my boyfriend. THAT\u2019S why she used to check the Kotex box every month to see if any had been used. THAT\u2019S why she went through my school books and my pockets and purse looking for evidence of\u2026 what? That old porch light flicking like a strobe seconds after my date and I arrived out front after the dance, the reports she received on a regular basis from her \u201cinformants\u201d around town\u2026 I always felt that my own mother thought I was a slut; that she was expecting me to get \u201cin trouble\u201d and come home pregnant!
\nSo, finally I know why my mother was so suspicious and distrustful of me. Thinking back, I realize that, to my mother, being an unwed mother was the worst thing that could happen to a young woman. And can you imagine how people in our small town condemned and ostracized her when she was an unwed mother herself? People were very narrow-minded and, let\u2019s face it, hypocritical about sex outside of marriage in the 1940\u2019s.
\nWhen I was a teenager and in the midst of my mother\u2019s neurotic watchfulness, I thought for sure that if I turned up pregnant, my parents would throw me out on the street. But not too many years later, imagine how shocked I was to see both of my parents lovingly supporting my younger sister when she became pregnant. Her fianc\u00e9 was attending university at the time, and she told him no when he asked her to marry him. She was afraid he would end up dropping out of school if they got married, so they waited until he was finished (and their daughter was 2 years old) before they were finally married.
\nMy Mom was prideful, and I know it was difficult for her to admit the truth to me. Perhaps she expected me to throw it back in her face, but I never would. I admire her for rejecting the father of her baby when he seemed reluctant to marry her right away. I think she was very brave to have her baby outside of marriage, and I also admire my grandparents for being so supportive of her, not to mention my father. Not too many men in those days would have been willing to raise another man\u2019s child, but he did. You know, I never once thought that he treated her any differently than the rest of us. We never questioned that she was our sister, even though it was mentioned from time to time that our sister didn\u2019t look much like the rest of us.
\n\u201cOh, that\u2019s just Nina!\u201d we always said. \u201cShe\u2019s just different, that\u2019s all.\u201d
\nIf only Mom had explained all this to me when I was younger. I\u2019m glad I know now, but knowing it doesn\u2019t change the way I feel about myself \u2013 I still feel that I\u2019m just not good enough.<\/p>\n
OPTIONAL EXERCISE:
\nWhat’s something you were afraid of when you were a child? Write a scene in which you show it from your childhood perspective.
\n************
\nI was still very much a child when I was in my early teens \u2013 na\u00efve, gullible, and very impressionable.
\nOf course I had heard of the \u201cNS\u201d (the nuthouse, insane asylum, loony bin, etc.), even driven past it from time to time with my parents. At that time, there was only the one building, a big dark brick structure built on a rise overlooking the harbour, but surrounded by huge old trees which made it seem secluded and sinister. Forensics patients were detained there right along with the rest of the \u201ccrazy\u201d patients.
\nThere were a lot of stories attached to this facility, some no doubt with a grain of truth to them, but I was told a story back then of a married woman whose husband had grown tired of her and had taken up with another woman. Now, he wanted to marry this other woman, but divorce was not considered respectable in those days, and he was a \u201crespectable businessman.\u201d One of his friends was a doctor, and this businessman confided in his friend about his wish to get rid of his wife somehow.
\nThe doctor friend enlightened the businessman about the process involved in committing a patient to the NS. All that was needed in order to deprive a wife of her freedom and lock her away, possibly for the rest of her life, were the signatures of her husband (lord and master) and one doctor on a document that the doctor would submit to the authorities.
\nSo the end of the scary story was that the wife was committed to the NS against her wishes, locked away for as long as her husband wanted her locked away. It probably wouldn\u2019t have taken long to drive her out of her mind. The husband, of course, walked away as free as a bird from all responsibility to his wife.
\nThis scared the absolute bejesus out of me. It was probably the first time I became aware of the inequities of being a woman. Women had the vote back then, of course, but that\u2019s about all they had in the way of equality. Even though they had worked in the factories during WWII, doing \u201ca man\u2019s job\u201d, once the men returned from overseas, women were gently (or not so gently) nudged back in the kitchens and bedrooms of their \u201cbetter halves.\u201d Suddenly, they were relegated back to traditional roles for women whether they wanted to be or not. Certainly, a lot of women were happy in those roles (under the direction of their benevolent dictators) and did not want to work outside the home. But I think there must have been a great many women who would have appreciated the independence women enjoy today. (Perhaps some of them had husbands who were not all that benevolent.)
\nAlthough I had not dreamed of being a wife and mother someday to the extent that some young girls do, I had just taken for granted that I would eventually be married. After hearing this horrible story, though, it occurred to me that not being married might be preferable in order to avoid the same fate, or something just as nefarious.
\nFast forward to my third marriage. My husband Ernesto was Bermudian and I had moved to the Island after we were married to live with him there. Talking about growing up on the Island, he one day had mentioned how he was segregated from the whites in the movie theatres as a child because he was of Portugese descent. I was appalled at this, of course, and as our conversation continued I related the story of the wife who was committed to the NS. I told him how much it had terrified me and made me afraid of being married. He was very sympathetic and expressed how awful it was.
\nOur marriage deteriorated quickly. Before I even suspected what was going on, the police did a raid on my husband\u2019s properties and seized marijuana and hashish they found there in large enough quantities for them to charge both him and his son with trafficking. Although I decided to stick by him, his moods rapidly became volatile without the quantity of drugs that he usually smoked, and we argued and things became adversarial.
\nAt the time I was being treated by Dr. Harding, a psychiatrist my MD referred me to for treatment of anxiety and depression. I was prescribed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication, which my husband vehemently objected to, claiming that his \u201cnatural medication\u201d would be so much better for me.
\nDr. Harding asked to me to bring my husband to meet with him, thinking that he could perhaps sway Ernesto from his rigid views about psychiatry and medications. The meeting was a dismal failure, which I had predicted, and which Dr. Harding later advised me he had doubted would have a successful result. After hearing my history with Ernesto and then meeting him personally, Dr. Harding informally diagnosed my husband with Borderline Personality Disorder. He was very concerned for my safety.
\nOf course, in short order things got violent and I moved to the women\u2019s shelter. Ernesto tried to contact me, but I was advised by the Women\u2019s Resource Centre not to take his calls or meet with him at that dangerous time.
\nOne day during my appointment with Dr. Harding, he told me about something curious that had happened a few days previously. Ernesto had called his office, wanting to speak with him. Dr. Harding\u2019s wife looked after his office and she took the call, saying that Dr. Harding would not be able to speak with him. He told her that he wanted to speak to Dr. Harding \u201cabout dear Gail,\u201d saying that he was very concerned about my behaviour and my mental well-being. He was quite solicitous in his conversation, a complete 180 degree turn from his demeanor in his meeting with Dr. Harding.
\nUpon hearing this, I was mystified and told Dr. Harding so. He was unable to come up with a motive behind Ernesto\u2019s call, and was thoughtfully rubbing his chin when I suddenly recalled that conversation Ernesto and I had about the wife who was committed to the NS. When I related this to Dr. Harding, his brow cleared and he exclaimed,
\n\u201cThat\u2019s it! He thought that he could talk me into having you committed to St. Brendan\u2019s mental hospital here on the Island!\u201d
\nI gasped. That exact thought had been in my mind, but as usual I couldn\u2019t credit my belief until an authority figure confirmed it to me. The feeling that reverberated through me was as if someone had struck a metal pole. The cold, calculating intent of someone who still claimed to love me jarred my soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EXERCISE 1: As an experiment, try rewriting one of your past assignments the way you would tell it to a friend. What comments and details would you use to try to keep your friend’s interest or to get a laugh? … Continue reading