A MIDNIGHT RIDE TO DESTINY
Driving through the sticky mid summer night, the woman was intent, hunched over the steering wheel. Beside her, moaning, crumpled against the seat, was her husband. Two young girls huddled in the back seat, sleepless and frightened. They had been told they were going to the Doctor's house. The tension in the car covered them all like a heavy blanket. Hurtling through the dark, winding mountain roads, exhaustion and fear held the girls in a state of numbness.
The Doctor's vacation house was deep in the New Hampshire Woods. He had agreed to see the sick man in the middle of the night. The girls knew that something had not been right with their father for what seemed like a very long time. They had seen him at home with twitches that scared them, and nervous habits that worried them. Once one of them had found him curled in a fetal position, crying. Now they knew that something was very wrong. To be going from the yearly mountain vacation they all loved, into some frightening unknown territory, must mean that whatever wasn’t good was really, really bad.
Tense in the best of times, the girls mother had told them nervously, that The Doctor was going to help Daddy feel better. They hoped Daddy would feel better--could feel better--but they had no idea of how that might happen. They hoped that this Doctor would know what to say or do to restore the Daddy they loved, and had fun with when he was well.
At his summer home, the Doctor ushered the girls' slumped father into the large room that served as his "office.'' Their Mother disappeared, with a cursory explanation, designed to wisk them off to the fringes of the situation. Frightened and in isolation, each with her own confused thoughts, the two had been settled onto lumpy day beds, placed end to end, on the Doctor's long screened porch. With no idea of what or how to speak about what was happening, the sisters were unable to help each other through hours that seemed to stretch into forever.
On that humid 1950's night I lay on the psychiatrist’s porch with my eyes glued to a scene I was not meant to see. I could not hear voices, or see much of the room the two men were in. As if it were a spotlight, the only light in the room circled the Doctor and patient, as they spoke on opposite sides of a large wooden desk. Outside the screen crickets composed the score to this silent drama. As reality and unreality strobed through my perceptions, I watched scene one, act two or three of my father's off and on again periods of depression.
The scene of my father and the now faceless, nameless doctor has for decades fascinated and haunted me. When I remember the image of my tired and wilted father sitting across from the Doctor, the picture is as clear now as it was blurry then. It is as if I am able to enter a time warp and I am still there. In the time crinkle of my mind, I see my adolescent self, peering into the room I had not been meant to enter. Light from the room l is diffused onto the dark porch, as if on a screen in a dark theater, affording a view of my father sitting on the patient side of the doctor's desk. Questions poured through my mind.
What was being said in that room? Could one person who was hurting as badly as my father was be helped by another person who claimed to be a Doctor? What could possibly make a man suffer so badly that he could no longer be who he was? What secrets would be told at a time like this? What could the Doctor person possibly say to alleviate the great pain my father must have been in? As I lay in the eerie quiet, there and not there, I devoted myself to answering these questions and finding out what it would be like to be on both sides of that desk.
Because of that night my career as a Psychotherapist has been a journey that has come from deep inside my core. I have craved the knowledge, but the work is always far more than an intellectual pursuit. In some mysterious way, during that night so long ago, when I dedicated myself to become part of that circle of healing, I began my search for knowing and understanding the the causes of and the comforts for human emotional pain.
Now, having often sat as both healer and patient, I am privileged to have knowledge of what is said in those rooms, where the world of pain and suffering melds with the world of hope and healing. It is sad to me that for many years (and I am not sure they are completely gone) going to a therapist for help meant that you were really crazy. However, if you were really crazy and didn't go, then it meant you were not really crazy. This has never made much sense to me. Indeed, I have formed a respect bordering on reverence for the process that can help restore sanity and serenity to the mind of another human being. We all have the capacity to suffer and the potential to find peace. I am comforted when I am able to join another person in finding and developing the resources and resilience that embody mental health.
I have been privileged to hold many secrets. I have been trusted to hear stories of human torment and misery, as well as tales of immense joy. I have been blessed to be the recipient of words of great wisdom; and I have been inspired with awe as I have witnessed the restoration of calm to a troubled mind.
My father's depression, and his commitment to his recovery have been his legacies to me; inspiring me to find a depth in my own life, as an individual and as a therapist, that I might never have otherwise found.
Have you ever thought about what has set you toward your own personal destination? Has there been a critical scene in your life that has led you to where you are now? Do you believe in destiny? What do you consider to be the forces that direct paths toward life's destinations? What difficult circumstances have you overcome that have helped to direct your life path? Perhaps you will find peace in discovering and honoring your own Life Lessons.