My First Anxiety Attack
It's been a cool gloomy summer day out here in New England....and that coolness seems to have jarred something loose in my memory that I never really totally understood...but today, all the years of collected insights seemed to have hooked up with memory and something finally makes sense...
It was a cool gloomy day like today, around 20 years ago, that my boyfriend Ron and I had a huge fight. I can't quite recall what it was about, but I know that I was hitting some nasty frustration in my life--afraid that I'd never accomplish anything with my writing and that I wasn't ever going to be famous. "Well," he said in a tone meant to be consoling "maybe you're not meant to be famous. Maybe you're meant just to be a housewife."
Just a housewife! Just a housewife! "how can you say that to me?" I screamed at him.
He had no idea what hit him. He probably thought he was taking some pressure off of me....but what I heard was a threat...
And I remember not being able to breathe and my vision tightening into a tunnel. I remember being so upset I wanted to scream and run and couldn't. I wanted to hit him, or hit anyone who got in my way--but I was frozen...my head started to pound as if it were trapped in a tympany and my ears hummed and buzzed like bees were in my brain...
I called mental health services, and someone talked me off the ceiling. They identified it as anxiety brought on by what he said, and asked if I wanted to set up an appointment to see someone.
I spent years trying to figure out what it was that set me off--why I didn't want to be a housewife...and never did...
Today, as I was sitting here at Steady Eddie's, calmly reading, all the pieces fell into place--like someone making that last turn on the Rubick's Cube that got all the colors to line up...
For some reason I started to remember things about my Mother that impressed upon me the horrors of homemaking...and then the memories of our next-door neighbors, the friends I had as a child, and all their mothers also started to click into place....
Our neighbor Dorothy was married to Fran, who was an alcoholic and sat in the yard drinking all day until he had a massive stroke and died. She was very tall, had no teeth, and wore men's "casual loafers" because women's shoes didn't fit her and calico dusters because regular women's dresses didn't fit either. She was kind, but strange in a way I could never put my finger on. The other neighbor, Ruth, was petite and pretty with a nasty little miniature Doberman and a thin, fit husband. But we never talked with them, and she always looked very angry. Other women on the block who stayed at home were varying levels of "fat and frowzy" or worked out of the home. The ones at home weren't all that happy and only the ones who worked at "the bank" seemed to like their jobs....
I remembered my Mother being a slave to her house. She would wash windows on cold days in October and March and complain how her hands hurt. They were always red and irritated and the nails painfully split and broke often. I remember her hanging out wash in the middle of winter and cooking a roast pork in the middle of summer. Often, the smell of bleach hung in the air--either from the laundry or from cleaning. Her chores never seemed to end, and her only life seemed to be lived through the soap operas she remained addicted to until she could not longer understand them.
My friend A's mom was pretty, but also pretty bitchy. You might be too with two headstrong boys and a princess of a daughter who always escaped punishment once daddy got home. A's mom and her aunt (they were sisters) would sit in the kitchen having coffee and in fine Italian fashion, bitch about everything while all us kids ran in and out of the house...A felt I was supposed to be her slave because she ruled all the kids (being the oldest girl of the oldest sister) and after awhile I thought she was too much of a bitch to keep being her friend.
C's mom and dad had what looked like a nice relationship, and C's mom did interesting things, including make pottery (both mom and dad shared that hobby--sometimes we'd find her at her wheel in the studio) and they golfed together too. They were normal, more or less--but C and I stayed friends for only about a year.
We never went over my house. I was always afraid my mom would start talking about the neighbors or something...
M's parents were pretty normal too. Like C's parents, they'd do things like dance together or kiss and have "date night." M's mom was a proofreader for a textbook printer, and her dad was some mid-level executive. They were regular church goers, very involved in a number of community activities...
but we didn't stay friends all that long either.
La's parents were weirdly racist, and her dad beat the tar out of her mom, her brothers and her. La often had bruises, and left home after she got pregnant at 17. She was better off.
Te's parents were polished professionals. What her family was doing living in White Trash Town never made sense to me. Te's parents had "friends" that they often went out with "for drinks" on fridays or saturdays, leaving Am in charge of her brother G. But we were 15 at that time--so no biggie. Te's mom had a guy friend named Alan, and her dad had a woman friend named Rhoda. We kids later found some odd magazines under Te's parents' mattress. One had a naked couple on the cover, and consisted of ads, some of them circled. Te recognized the names of some of her parents friends in the ads, and we figured that they bought the magazine because their friends were listed in it--you know, they wanted to keep it as a memento...
Much later, I figured out that it was a swingers magazine...
I had two friends named D. One D was learning disabled, but her parents ignored that. Her mom worked full-time and was very pretty, but didn't care all that much about D--just always asked her why she was so fat and why she ate so much. The house was always dark, and D spent most of her time alone in her room while her dad drank and her mother went "out."
The other D's mom spent all her time in the basement. She came upstairs to sleep on the couch, then, after making D breakfast, would go back to the basement. She collected string and tin foil and polished bottles. D's Dad had a mistress, and on the weekends would get all dude'd out, leave a telephone number with Debbie, and split.
We were 16, but D's dad had been going "out" for a very long time.
Vee's mom spent her time staring out the front window, and getting mad at everyone. I used to wonder why Vee would, during conversations, always talk low, say "I gotta go" and hang up suddenly. I found out later that she and her sister were forbidden to use the phone. Vee's mom was very pretty too, had been a great beauty in her day (contest winner, I think) bought herself nice clothes and took very good care of herself--while making her daughters wear stuff from the Salvation Army and treating them as if they were her slaves. She got angry at Vee's wedding because we weren't telling her how what a beautiful Mother-of-the-Bride she was...
The only one who could control her rage was Vee's Dad. Even then, sometimes he couldn't stop her. He had the bumps to prove it.
Most of the women I knew growing up who were "just housewives" were angry, bitter, sometimes physically unkempt, and often mentally ill (unacknowledged and untreated) in some way or another. The women who worked had slightly better lives, but they weren't always the best mothers and some even had strange little secrets. So when my boyfriend told me that my fate, if not to be famous, was to be "just a housewife," I wanted to end it right then and there while I was pretty, young and cool, before it all deteriorated into some white trash nightmare of ugliness, loneliness and insanity.
More importantly, and what I didn't understand at that time, was that I wasn't really looking for fame per se but achievement and recognition. I could never articulate this to any therapist, or boyfriend, or husband because I had never really seen it in action. I didn't know its main mechanism was a Good College Education. All I saw for any length of time were the extremes--the Pit of Despair and the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
I didn't understand and distrustful of the people whose lives looked normal. How did they get there? There had to be a secret somewhere. Nobody could be *that* normal.
Yet as I grew up in The World (which, in many respects, has been kinder to me than my immediate family) and met so many fascinating people whose names I never read in magazines or newspapers, I learned there was a lot more to life than the two polar opposites...and that a middle ground might be attainable. I couldn't quite figure out how to attain it, because I couldn't pinpoint exactly what I was seeking...
Until I got the Good College Education.
What I discovered I was seeking and continue to seek is Achievement and Recognition. The fame of the Rich and Famous was always, in the back of my mind as unrealistic and unattainable as the Despair was very real and very attainable. I didn't want a boyfriend, no matter how much he loved me, to be the one to tell me that I was doomed to one fate until I found the reality of the middle ground.
I don't know if I'm at the middle ground, or dancing on the edge of it with all the crazy things I do. What I am sure of, though, is that I am far enough away from Despair that I don't need to fear being a housewife. I don't have to fear that if I move in with a man that I am sacrificing everything else and will ultimately end up in a living death. I've gained enough of a sense of Achievement to know that I won't be swallowed up. It's my choice to keep Achieving and to have a household. No one can stop me from balancing a life in that middle ground, now that I've got myself far away from Despair.
My life is a car--a big old Cadillac with bullet fins, tuck-and-roll upholstery, and a mother-of-pearl paint job. With my smarts, I've put together enough chits to have earned a gas card with a six-figure dollar amount. Now, let's see how far I can drive this baby...
It was a cool gloomy day like today, around 20 years ago, that my boyfriend Ron and I had a huge fight. I can't quite recall what it was about, but I know that I was hitting some nasty frustration in my life--afraid that I'd never accomplish anything with my writing and that I wasn't ever going to be famous. "Well," he said in a tone meant to be consoling "maybe you're not meant to be famous. Maybe you're meant just to be a housewife."
Just a housewife! Just a housewife! "how can you say that to me?" I screamed at him.
He had no idea what hit him. He probably thought he was taking some pressure off of me....but what I heard was a threat...
And I remember not being able to breathe and my vision tightening into a tunnel. I remember being so upset I wanted to scream and run and couldn't. I wanted to hit him, or hit anyone who got in my way--but I was frozen...my head started to pound as if it were trapped in a tympany and my ears hummed and buzzed like bees were in my brain...
I called mental health services, and someone talked me off the ceiling. They identified it as anxiety brought on by what he said, and asked if I wanted to set up an appointment to see someone.
I spent years trying to figure out what it was that set me off--why I didn't want to be a housewife...and never did...
Today, as I was sitting here at Steady Eddie's, calmly reading, all the pieces fell into place--like someone making that last turn on the Rubick's Cube that got all the colors to line up...
For some reason I started to remember things about my Mother that impressed upon me the horrors of homemaking...and then the memories of our next-door neighbors, the friends I had as a child, and all their mothers also started to click into place....
Our neighbor Dorothy was married to Fran, who was an alcoholic and sat in the yard drinking all day until he had a massive stroke and died. She was very tall, had no teeth, and wore men's "casual loafers" because women's shoes didn't fit her and calico dusters because regular women's dresses didn't fit either. She was kind, but strange in a way I could never put my finger on. The other neighbor, Ruth, was petite and pretty with a nasty little miniature Doberman and a thin, fit husband. But we never talked with them, and she always looked very angry. Other women on the block who stayed at home were varying levels of "fat and frowzy" or worked out of the home. The ones at home weren't all that happy and only the ones who worked at "the bank" seemed to like their jobs....
I remembered my Mother being a slave to her house. She would wash windows on cold days in October and March and complain how her hands hurt. They were always red and irritated and the nails painfully split and broke often. I remember her hanging out wash in the middle of winter and cooking a roast pork in the middle of summer. Often, the smell of bleach hung in the air--either from the laundry or from cleaning. Her chores never seemed to end, and her only life seemed to be lived through the soap operas she remained addicted to until she could not longer understand them.
My friend A's mom was pretty, but also pretty bitchy. You might be too with two headstrong boys and a princess of a daughter who always escaped punishment once daddy got home. A's mom and her aunt (they were sisters) would sit in the kitchen having coffee and in fine Italian fashion, bitch about everything while all us kids ran in and out of the house...A felt I was supposed to be her slave because she ruled all the kids (being the oldest girl of the oldest sister) and after awhile I thought she was too much of a bitch to keep being her friend.
C's mom and dad had what looked like a nice relationship, and C's mom did interesting things, including make pottery (both mom and dad shared that hobby--sometimes we'd find her at her wheel in the studio) and they golfed together too. They were normal, more or less--but C and I stayed friends for only about a year.
We never went over my house. I was always afraid my mom would start talking about the neighbors or something...
M's parents were pretty normal too. Like C's parents, they'd do things like dance together or kiss and have "date night." M's mom was a proofreader for a textbook printer, and her dad was some mid-level executive. They were regular church goers, very involved in a number of community activities...
but we didn't stay friends all that long either.
La's parents were weirdly racist, and her dad beat the tar out of her mom, her brothers and her. La often had bruises, and left home after she got pregnant at 17. She was better off.
Te's parents were polished professionals. What her family was doing living in White Trash Town never made sense to me. Te's parents had "friends" that they often went out with "for drinks" on fridays or saturdays, leaving Am in charge of her brother G. But we were 15 at that time--so no biggie. Te's mom had a guy friend named Alan, and her dad had a woman friend named Rhoda. We kids later found some odd magazines under Te's parents' mattress. One had a naked couple on the cover, and consisted of ads, some of them circled. Te recognized the names of some of her parents friends in the ads, and we figured that they bought the magazine because their friends were listed in it--you know, they wanted to keep it as a memento...
Much later, I figured out that it was a swingers magazine...
I had two friends named D. One D was learning disabled, but her parents ignored that. Her mom worked full-time and was very pretty, but didn't care all that much about D--just always asked her why she was so fat and why she ate so much. The house was always dark, and D spent most of her time alone in her room while her dad drank and her mother went "out."
The other D's mom spent all her time in the basement. She came upstairs to sleep on the couch, then, after making D breakfast, would go back to the basement. She collected string and tin foil and polished bottles. D's Dad had a mistress, and on the weekends would get all dude'd out, leave a telephone number with Debbie, and split.
We were 16, but D's dad had been going "out" for a very long time.
Vee's mom spent her time staring out the front window, and getting mad at everyone. I used to wonder why Vee would, during conversations, always talk low, say "I gotta go" and hang up suddenly. I found out later that she and her sister were forbidden to use the phone. Vee's mom was very pretty too, had been a great beauty in her day (contest winner, I think) bought herself nice clothes and took very good care of herself--while making her daughters wear stuff from the Salvation Army and treating them as if they were her slaves. She got angry at Vee's wedding because we weren't telling her how what a beautiful Mother-of-the-Bride she was...
The only one who could control her rage was Vee's Dad. Even then, sometimes he couldn't stop her. He had the bumps to prove it.
Most of the women I knew growing up who were "just housewives" were angry, bitter, sometimes physically unkempt, and often mentally ill (unacknowledged and untreated) in some way or another. The women who worked had slightly better lives, but they weren't always the best mothers and some even had strange little secrets. So when my boyfriend told me that my fate, if not to be famous, was to be "just a housewife," I wanted to end it right then and there while I was pretty, young and cool, before it all deteriorated into some white trash nightmare of ugliness, loneliness and insanity.
More importantly, and what I didn't understand at that time, was that I wasn't really looking for fame per se but achievement and recognition. I could never articulate this to any therapist, or boyfriend, or husband because I had never really seen it in action. I didn't know its main mechanism was a Good College Education. All I saw for any length of time were the extremes--the Pit of Despair and the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
I didn't understand and distrustful of the people whose lives looked normal. How did they get there? There had to be a secret somewhere. Nobody could be *that* normal.
Yet as I grew up in The World (which, in many respects, has been kinder to me than my immediate family) and met so many fascinating people whose names I never read in magazines or newspapers, I learned there was a lot more to life than the two polar opposites...and that a middle ground might be attainable. I couldn't quite figure out how to attain it, because I couldn't pinpoint exactly what I was seeking...
Until I got the Good College Education.
What I discovered I was seeking and continue to seek is Achievement and Recognition. The fame of the Rich and Famous was always, in the back of my mind as unrealistic and unattainable as the Despair was very real and very attainable. I didn't want a boyfriend, no matter how much he loved me, to be the one to tell me that I was doomed to one fate until I found the reality of the middle ground.
I don't know if I'm at the middle ground, or dancing on the edge of it with all the crazy things I do. What I am sure of, though, is that I am far enough away from Despair that I don't need to fear being a housewife. I don't have to fear that if I move in with a man that I am sacrificing everything else and will ultimately end up in a living death. I've gained enough of a sense of Achievement to know that I won't be swallowed up. It's my choice to keep Achieving and to have a household. No one can stop me from balancing a life in that middle ground, now that I've got myself far away from Despair.
My life is a car--a big old Cadillac with bullet fins, tuck-and-roll upholstery, and a mother-of-pearl paint job. With my smarts, I've put together enough chits to have earned a gas card with a six-figure dollar amount. Now, let's see how far I can drive this baby...
Note: names and letters for names do not reflect the actual names of various friends. neighbors are long gone.
posted by Tish Grier at 9:33 PM
2 Comments:
What you describe could be word for word how I feel about being a mother. Convincing myself that I don't have to give up my life in order to procreate has been difficult.
hi Laura...
I think what I've felt, and what you're feeling, are what *a lot* of women go thru--we just don't want to admit it sometimes. How many women admit to "fear of commitment?" That's supposed to be a man's problem. But it hits us too, and for many different reasons.
whatever choices we make, we should make them not because of the issues we have, but out of understanding those issues and whether or not we have the strength to work them thru.
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