Day 8 Writing and Cats Are Good for the Soul

 

I started keeping a diary when I was about 11 or 12. It was a little pink book with a few lines provided for each day of the week. I used it mostly to write up a little synopsis of my two favorite soap operas: “Dark Shadows” and “One Life to Live.” Sometimes I would note something that had happened daily but hesitated to do much of that.

I also wrote creative stories, filling composition books with my scribblings. I was writing a story about a family with an evil stepmother. My mother thought it was all right to read the story because I left the notebook out. She was outraged, thinking that the stepmother was really her in disguise. She was right about that but continued in such a rage that I was nervous about writing anything else.

With this little pink diary, I found that the few lines they provided for each day of the week were not enough. I filled it out fast and so, with my allowance, I bought a larger-sized diary. I’d moved on to junior high and had a positively miserable year. It started all right. I had been placed in the highest track, which was supposed to lead to an earlier high school graduation.

The trouble started with an English creative writing story. We were supposed to write a fairy tale.  I wrote about a talking cat with a magic flying carpet that flew around the world. The cat met and befriended everyone she met in the world. It was quite unlike the stories the other students wrote. I guess I was socially immature for my age. The teacher asked me to read my story and while she was charmed, the rest of the class howled with laughter. To them, I’d written a babyish story and they wouldn’t let me forget.

I wrote about the daily torments and how I hated to go to school. Writing released a lot of the anger and hurt I felt inside but I wondered what my parents would think if they read this new diary. I began to hide it in different places to keep it safe from Mom’s prying eyes.

I was writing so much I soon filled that book too. These little diaries were pretty but not nearly large enough to fill my thoughts. I bought a three-ring notebook. That would be big enough and, not only that, but my parents also wouldn’t be suspicious about the purchase. Three-ring notebooks were part of a student’s school supplies.

I felt so much freedom. I didn’t have to confine myself to a few lines for each day of the week. I could write freely for pages and pages, or I could write nothing at all.

Writing in a journal is so cathartic. I felt apart from others to begin with because my parents were Deaf. They also drank too much. There was domestic violence in our house. Sometimes when they would fight, Dad would hit Mom. Sometimes they battled each other. I would hide in my room, locking myself in with my cat. I would write and write.

Mom had an undiagnosed mental illness, possibly bipolar. Her moods would fluctuate between calm, annoyance, and uncontrolled rage. She would turn on my brother and me and hurt us. I wrote about all that too. My journal and my cat were my therapists. I hid the notebook well, changing its hiding place often.

Not so very long, that notebook was filled and so I bought another one. Over the years, I must have gone through six or seven notebooks.

One year, we’d convinced Mom to see the doctor about her depression and rage swings. She went to our family doctor; there was too much shame in consulting with a psychiatrist, which is who she really needed. The doctor prescribed a drug called Sinequan. I don’t recall that it helped.

What I do recall is that after one of my parents’ fights, I had trouble rousing her one morning. Then I found an empty pill bottle on the floor. Frightened, I looked around her night table and found a note. The Note.  I ran downstairs to tell my father and then got on the phone to call for an ambulance. Dad hung up the phone. He didn’t want anyone to know what was going on.

After getting the emergency operator off the phone and while Dad was upstairs trying to rouse Mom, I called the doctor. He first asked, “What do you want me to do about it? Call an ambulance!” I suppose he must have heard the fright in my voice because then he advised, “If you can, get her up and walking.”

I went upstairs. Dad and I dragged Mom out of bed and then walked. At first, Mom was barely conscious but then, thank God, began to awaken. Once she was alert enough to brush us off, I ran downstairs to call the pastor of the Deaf church. I was beside myself.

The pastor said, “Pack a bag and get out of there. Come down here to the church.”

The first things into my suitcase were all my journals and then a few clothes. The suitcase was very heavy, but I hauled it to the bus stop and caught the next bus to that church. The pastor and his mother were waiting for me and, when I explained why my bag was so heavy, they couldn’t help but burst out laughing. They didn’t realize that those journals were the most precious things (next to the cat) that I owned.

Speaking of cats, all of my precious ones have been a part of my life since babyhood. At first, the cats were my mother’s. When I was about 8, I began bringing them home. My mom liked cats too and so she never told me ‘no’ when I asked to keep them. Petting them and listening to them purr always soothes my soul. Don’t get me wrong, I like dogs too. I am just a cat person and over the years have become a crazy cat lady.

I still write journals and stories but not with pen and paper. Rheumatoid arthritis has invaded my fingers so that it’s difficult to grasp a pen or pencil for long. Everything I write is done on my laptop now.

Do I still have my handwritten journals? Alas, no. I shared them with my first husband, Rich, in the 1980s. He cried. He said, “I don’t want you to have these memories for you to fall back on. I want to make new, good memories with you.” He asked if we could throw them away. I’d been rereading them and was experiencing what was later called PTSD. I wanted to feel better and so I said yes. We drove to a dumpster and threw them away.

Sometimes I regret that. Sometimes I don’t. I still remember a lot of what happened anyway, even without the raw and emotional words to remind me. What I do know is how valuable they were to me at a time I needed them most. And I currently have four cats.

I am participating in the American Cancer Society’s challenge to write for thirty minutes each day in May. I do a lot of writing and I can meet this challenge. I plan to make a blog entry each day with what I’ve written.

I wanted to participate in memory of loved ones who fought cancer bravely but succumbed:

My brother-in-law Jeff

My sister-in-law Ann

My dear friend Kay

My Uncle Bob

My Uncle John

 

I also wanted to help raise money to support research and a cure for those currently fighting this vicious disease.

My Facebook to the fundraiser is here.

I Am Not In Step With My Companions

I have been an advocate for almost all my life.  I don’t like it when anyone is put down for any reason.  I hate racism and bigotry.  I feel compelled to stick up for kids, people with disabilities, and people who are disparaged because they are “other” for whatever reason: religion, skin color, sexual preference.  The reality is that I’m really different.  I am other too.

I remember that when I was little and lived on Long Island, I didn’t feel different except that my parents couldn’t hear.  I used to have the magical thinking that everyone’s parents were like mine, speaking with their voices outside but signing inside.  When I was about 6 or 7, I was rudely clued into the fact we were different when neighborhood kids chanted outside my bedroom window “Cassie’s mother is deaf and dumb!” I was furious and hurt but also was surrounded by a large loving family. 

My Grandma was my first hero.  She loved me unconditionally and was a comfort to me.  I felt mostly protected, accepted and loved but began to carry that little bit of “I’m really different” with me.

Once we moved to Maryland, I lost connection with family and friends.  The biggest loss was a daily connection to my precious Grandma.  In Baltimore, the neighborhood kids grudgingly allowed my brother and me into their circle but never let us forget how different we were.  Our parents were constantly accused of being spies because their outdoor voices weren’t intelligible…not like other hearing parents’ voices.

My parents discovered a Deaf social club and that is when the drinking began.  My brother and I had experienced DV from our mother all along.  She had an undiagnosed mental health problem with mood swings and rages.  With the drinking and battling that went on with my parents, home became a place where my brother and I walked on egg shells.

Now I felt so apart from others, I began to withdraw.  I did not form any close friendships because I didn’t want to bring a pal home to an unstable situation.  I also found it hard to put trust in people.  That is still an issue with me to this day and probably the major reason I’m so different.  I have friends but keep them at a distance.  I don’t confide secrets the way I’ve seen in films about friendships.  I keep things light, safe, and even further at a distance: my friends are all online, living in other states.

When I was about 11 or 12, I discovered the gothic soap opera “Dark Shadows.” I was one of the kids who’d run home after school to make sure I was there in time to watch the show.  I became hooked on it because of Barnabas Collins, the self-tortured vampire.  The first reason I connected with Barnabas was because of the dreadful secret he was hiding from everyone.  Later on, he was cured and became my hero because of how much he cared for and helped other people.  I began to see him as an imaginary big brother. Barnabas became my second hero.

The third hero was my 11^th grade English teacher, who saw something in me and reached out. Privately, she confided that her father was a Korean War veteran who’d come back changed and had become an alcoholic.  Her home life was chaotic.  Then she asked about me and my home life.  I wanted to tell her.  I wanted to so badly but that “don’t tell” rule was too strong.  I went red in the face and felt the beginnings of a panic attack as I stuttered that I was fine and my family was fine.  I saw understanding in her eyes and then she said she would always be there whenever I wanted to talk.

I never opened up to her but she was my hero because she reached out to me, a kid in need.  She cared.  That meant so much to me.

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of therapy and attended a lot of twelve step meetings.  I learned so much about myself and my issues.  I learned that some of my coping mechanisms were dysfunctional and how to change them.  The meetings online and in person are a source of comfort to me because I feel as if I’m with people who “get” me and I “get” them. If I was to bond with anyone in deep friendship, it would be someone from one of those meetings. However, we all keep things anonymous and even with people who “get” me, I’m anxious about totally opening up.

I’ve let down my protective wall a lot but I still keep people at a distance, even the friends of over 30 years.  I have come to the conclusion that it’s so ingrained and emblazoned in me it’s just become a part of me.  I like who I am now but that is my one regret.

This is my favorite poem: 

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,

Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Let him step to the music which he hears,

However measured or far away.

Stephen Crane