Getting It Through My Thick Skull (9 page)

I didn’t want to lie to my father-in-law, of course, but I did it. I was covering for him, enabling him, but at the time I didn’t think of it in those terms. I wanted to be a good wife and help my husband out. So I did what he asked, hating myself for lying.

The arguments between us became more and more heated. I didn’t fully understand what I was dealing with. I certainly didn’t have much sympathy. The word “rehab” wasn’t tossed around much back then. In fact, there was no such thing as “rehab.” There were 12-step programs in basements, and that was about it. For the life of me, I could not understand what his problem was. It wasn’t about us anymore—we had a child to raise. Why couldn’t he just grow up?

“Stop, just stop! I quit, why can’t you?” I would yell.

“You’re right, you’re right, okay, I really am done with it. Promise.” He was always contrite, and he always swore he would quit.

But apparently he couldn’t, and he was also tired of the endless arguing, because soon the disappearances started. The first time started very innocently. Joey called me from work to say he had to finish up a big job on a car. “I’ll be home late, so don’t wait up for me. Give Pauly a kiss for me. I love you.”

I put the baby down to sleep, enjoyed a couple of very welcome “me” hours, then fell fast asleep. I woke with a jolt around 4:00 AM, realizing Joe wasn’t in bed next to me. I checked the living room, thinking maybe he was on the couch. I looked out front to see if his car was there. No Joe, no car. I rang the auto body shop, but no one answered. I paced the floor and worried that he’d been in an accident. But deep in my heart, I knew. He was coked out somewhere and was too paranoid to come home, so I didn’t call his parents or the police. I paced some more and worried. Just as the sun rose, I heard his car pull up in the driveway.

I ran to the door to meet him. “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried! I called the shop, and you didn’t answer!”

“I was there, honey. I just didn’t hear the phone. I got so tired that I fell asleep in one of the cars and just woke up a few minutes ago. I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to worry you . . . I thought you’d be sound asleep. You waited up all night for me? How sweet! Do you know how much I love you?” And he wrapped his arms around me in a big, comforting hug.

I was relieved to see him alive and unhurt, but I had to ask, “Were you out all night doing blow?”

“Absolutely not!” he answered firmly, looking me straight in the eye. “I told you—I was working and fell asleep!”

But then it happened again . . . and again. The disappearances started happening every few weeks or so, and I could not imagine what had gone wrong with my marriage. “I’m just running over to the shop for an hour,” he’d say after dinner—then fail to come home for two days. I failed to comprehend that I was dealing with an addict. In my mind, someone who did lots of cocaine every day was an addict. Joey could stay away from it for weeks or months at a time, so I was sure he wasn’t really “addicted.” Then he’d binge until he worried that I really would leave unless he quit. He’d stop again, we’d have a few relatively calm months, and then the whole cycle would play itself out again.

Boy, could he ever lie! He would look me right in the eye and spin the most preposterous stories about where he was, what he was doing, and why he looked and acted so odd. His manner was more convincing than the lie itself; he had an answer for everything, never skipping a beat or getting flustered by my pointed questioning. Sincerity seeped from every pore, constantly assuring me how much he loved me and that I was the most beautiful, understanding woman in the world. He was a master manipulator, playing on my need to be a perfect wife and mother.

Wanting to believe my husband, hoping for the best, I refused to face the fact that he was a liar. I loved Joe, we had a beautiful son, and I was in this marriage for the long haul. I thought I could help him. I thought I could fix things. Bottom line: I just couldn’t leave, though there were times when I really believed I’d had enough. More than once, he’d come home after a three-day binge, and I’d have my mind made up. I simply could not raise a child and deal with his drug use and disappearances. Usually, I was driven to hysteria by the time he came in the door, but sometimes I was oddly calm. “Joe, I can’t live like this anymore. We are going to have to get a divorce,” I would say, and mean it.

“Oh, no, no . . . you can’t leave me, I love you . . . I swear, Mary Jo, I’ll never do it again.” These rare showdowns really scared Joe. He would write the most beautiful, heartfelt letters, bring me expensive jewelry, and make a million sinceresounding promises. He swore it would never happen again. I wanted to think that, this time, he meant it. And he was so convincing that I bought his story—every time.

CHAPTER 4
GOING BONKERS
IN BALDWIN

O
ur relationship wasn’t all unrelieved misery and worry. Life could run along smoothly and happily for months. That was the crazy-making part, the reason I stuck it out during the bad times, because the good times were fantastic. We took family vacations to the Bahamas and Florida, hung out with our friends and their babies, doted on Paul, sang to each other along with the radio as we drove around town, and laughed. We laughed all the time! Then one night without warning, he’d disappear, make me frantic with worry, eventually return, and beg my forgiveness. Soon enough, he’d wear me down, talk me into staying, and “behave” for a few more months—at one point for such an extended period that we agreed it was time to have another baby. It was a dreadful dance, one familiar to anyone who lives with an alcoholic or drug addict, and we both knew all the steps.

When Jessica arrived in March 1983, I now had two babies— three, if you counted my husband. If anything, Joe’s binges were becoming worse. The pressure of living with a cocaine addict while pretending everything was fine sent my anxiety levels off the charts. One day, I headed to the store to buy Jessie some diapers. Both kids were parked in the shopping cart, and as I walked the aisles of the familiar supermarket, which I visited twice a week every week of my life, a wave of nausea swept over me. I suddenly found it hard to breathe and started gasping for air. The world turned black at the edges as my vision narrowed. I began to panic and broke into a cold sweat. I was so dizzy that I was sure I was going to pass out, and all I could think of was what would happen to my babies if I lost consciousness, not to mention how embarrassing it would be.

I’ve got to get out of here!
was the only thought in my head.
Now!
It was an all-consuming urge. My brain was literally screaming,
Run! Go!
I grabbed the kids, abandoned my cart, and ran out of the store. Once I got outside, I felt normal again within three minutes. I packed the kids back into the car and sat there wondering,
What the hell just happened to me?
The most debilitating wave of sheer terror had come from nowhere and taken over. I had never felt that scared in my entire life. I gave up on shopping and drove home.

Of course, I had to go back to the store the next day to get the diapers, but once I parked in the lot, I couldn’t force myself out of the car. The fear of another attack kept me rooted in the front seat. If it happened to me again while I was in the store with the kids, what was I going to do? I agonized for half an hour, then gave up and drove home. The voice in my head that constantly monitored my behavior was taunting me full blast.
What kind of mother are you? You can’t even go into the store and buy diapers. What a dope!

The fright had been so overwhelming that I felt like I was going to die. I almost would have preferred to die rather than live through an experience like that again. The anticipatory anxiety of having another attack was horrible. I could not make myself go into that grocery store. Not that day, or the next, or that week. The wave swept over me again the following week after I’d sternly told myself to pull it together and screwed up all my courage to enter the hardware store. Once again, I found myself shaking, sweating, and gasping on the sidewalk.

Still, I tried to keep up appearances. Nobody knew that Joe was disappearing for days on end, nobody knew I had excruciating panic attacks, nobody knew that my life was falling apart. I was too ashamed to tell anybody; that old feeling of not living up to expectations kicked in, effectively sealing my mouth. It took all my energy just to keep daily life moving along. I was holding all my problems inside while playing the role of happy, devoted wife and mother. It was killing me.

Joe’s father and brother had a pretty good idea of what was going on with him because they saw him every day . . . or didn’t, when he didn’t bother to show up for work. His brother Bobby in particular had his suspicions, especially after things started to go missing in the shop—money, car parts, tools. But Joey could look him straight in the eye, tell him a story, and make him believe it. Joey was Bobby’s kid brother, the good guy, the prankster, the lovable rascal. Joey knew just how to handle his brother. His father, meanwhile, ignored Joey’s erratic behavior and hoped for the best, handing out his regular paycheck every week as he’d always done. All of us were enabling Joey, but we didn’t think of our behavior in those terms. It was family, and we all wanted to help.

Paul was enrolled in a nursery school, and part of being a parent there meant helping the teacher one day a month. When my day came, I forced myself to get to the school and inside the classroom. But right in the middle of handing out juice to ten preschoolers in the bright, toy-filled playroom, I felt the now-familiar wave engulfing me. I stammered to the teacher that I wasn’t feeling well. “I’m going to pass out,” I told her.

She sat me down and tried to help. She was kind and understanding, but eventually she had to call Joe to come and get me. I was not capable of driving. I broke down on that car ride home. “You’re making me crazy, Joe. I can’t take this anymore. I’m going out of my mind. I am literally cracking up!” Grim and stone-faced beside me, for once Joe had nothing to say. He was well aware of how his disappearances affected me. He could easily see that I was sinking, and knew that his behavior had everything to do with it.

He didn’t stop disappearing on binges, but he picked up the slack—he had no choice. Joey took care of the grocery shopping and errands for me when I couldn’t make it out the door during the day. He didn’t complain, but that only made me feel worse. My self-esteem was steadily eroding, and this gave the scolding voice in my head plenty more to say.
Your husband is God-knows-where doing drugs, and you can’t even take care of your own children!
It was a dreadful, downward spiral that soon left me almost completely housebound. I found excuses to have family and friends come see me instead of going out. The planning, fibbing, and hiding my condition exhausted me even further.

In my mind, I thought that maybe having the kids with me all the time was the problem behind these attacks. That was my main fear—passing out or becoming incapacitated while they were in my care. So I asked my mother to come babysit so I could do some Christmas shopping alone. She knew nothing about my anxiety attacks or how days and days passed when I was unable to leave the house. A good five years into my marriage, I was still very much invested in being the good, responsible daughter, wife, and mother. I dreaded my mother’s disapproval. I looked fine, so she assumed everything was fine. There was no way I could tell her what was really going on.

I parked my car in the Toys “R” Us lot and gave myself a pep talk.
The kids aren’t here. You can do this!
I told myself.
You’ll be okay.
I got myself into the store and filled a cart. Everything was going fine. And then it started again. Panic engulfed me. My heart started pounding, I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was about to faint, throw up, and pass out all at once. I abandoned my cart in the store and ran out to my car.

I would have done anything to keep this secret from my mother, but for the life of me I could not get out of that car and go into that store again. I sat in the parking lot, weeping, pounding the steering wheel in frustration, knowing that my mother was about to learn that her daughter literally could not function. For two hours I sat there ashamed, crying my heart out, willing myself to go back into that damn store, check out, and get the presents home. But I couldn’t. Finally, defeated, I drove home to face the music.

My mother could see that something was wrong the minute I walked through the door.

“What’s the matter, Mary Jo?”

“I had to leave the store, Mom. I couldn’t stay. I have these panic attacks that come over me. I don’t know why, but I’ve been getting them a lot. I get so scared that I have to run outside.”

She was concerned, not at all judgmental. “My goodness, how long has this been going on?”

“A long time,” I choked out. “Probably six months or a year. Mom, it’s really bad.”

“Well, honey, it’s hard with two little ones. It’s exhausting. Maybe you need a checkup?” My mother, who could at times be quite critical, was supportive and sweet, but the shame of living with a drug addict wouldn’t allow me to tell her what was really wrong. I felt like a ten-year-old who was hiding candy under her bed and immediately started backpedaling.

“Yes . . . I’m just overtired . . . I’m sure I’ll be fine tomorrow. But, sure, I’ll get a checkup.”

Being exposed, even to my own mother, had been mortifying. I vowed to fix myself somehow. It started with a trip to the local library—an ordeal in and of itself. “Freaking out,” I wrote on scrap paper. “What’s wrong with me?” I brushed aside the librarian’s offer to help and headed straight to the card catalog. I looked up “anxiety” and “panic.” I pulled a pile of medical and self-help books off the shelf and read up on panic attacks. They were totally in my head, I learned. I wasn’t really going to have a heart attack or die; it only felt like it. Talk therapy and drug therapy were the recommended treatments. It was a relief to know, in clinical terms, what was happening to me and that I hadn’t completely lost my mind. Still, I wasn’t ready to admit my troubles to anyone. I redoubled my efforts to pull myself together.