Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing (12 page)

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Authors: Stormie Omartian

BOOK: Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing
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“I can’t wait that long. I’m leaving on a three-month singing tour in two days. I need the operation right away.”
“This is a setup, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing that he thought I might be a setup for the police.
He remained thoughtful and silent for a moment, then said, “No, I can’t do it.”
“Please,” I begged him. “If you won’t do it, send me to someone who will. I’m desperate. I have the cash.”
The doctor remained firm in his decision and left the room.
Later that afternoon I got a phone call at my hotel. The voice on the other end of the line said, “Do you need a doctor?”
“Yes. Please, can you help me?”
“I have a doctor who will do it. Twelve hundred cash.”
“I’ve got it. How soon can it be done?”
“I’ll pick you up at three o‘clock.”
Suddenly I felt scared. “This is a real doctor, right?” I questioned. “And he’ll put me to sleep and I won’t feel any pain?”
“Of course,” the voice mumbled and hung up.
At three o‘clock a short, stocky, balding man came to my door. He was nervous and constantly mopped his sweaty forehead with a dirty white handkerchief. I got in his car and we drove a short distance to an obscure, low-class motel near the center of town. We entered through the back door and took the elevator to the second floor. He had a room key and we quickly entered one of the rooms. Until now I had thought this operation would be a breeze like last time, but as we entered the sleazy motel room I knew I was wrong.
“Where’s the doctor?” I panicked. “Where’s the anesthesiol ogist? Where’s the equipment?”
“Shh! You gotta be quiet. People will hear you.” He snapped. “The doctor will be in as soon as you’re ready. Let me see the cash.”
I gave him the money.
“Take off all your clothes from the waist down and lay face up on that chest of drawers.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” I said. “Where is the doctor? I want to see him first.”
“Look, do you want the operation or not!” he spoke gruffly.
Seeing no alternative, I did as he said. The man then put a blindfold tightly around my eyes and tied a gag over my mouth. “You must not see the doctor or make any noise,” he explained. “These operations are extremely dangerous now. The police are cracking down. We can’t give you anesthetic because we must move fast if there’s any problem. Believe me, this is the best way.”
I was numb with fright as he tied me to the top of the chest of drawers. No anesthetic? My heart pounded wildly. I didn’t know this man. He could take my money and leave me there. Then I heard the door open quietly and someone else enter the room. The two of them whispered briefly and I could tell the other person was a man. Soon I heard the clanking of surgical tools.
Then the real nightmare began. The first man placed himself across the top half of my body while the “doctor” began the work of the abortion. As he scraped and cut, I began to cry. I gagged and retched and experienced the most excruciating pain of my entire life. It seemed endless. I groaned so loudly that the man placed the full force of his chest over my face to stifle the sounds. I was afraid I might smother. Finally there was one excruciating cut on the inside of me that felt like it must have severed the baby from the uterine wall. It was beyond any pain I could possibly have imagined. A few seconds later it was over, and the doctor left the room immediately.
The man untied me, took off the blindfold and gag, and the phone rang. He answered it, but I was in such pain and shock that I didn’t notice what he said. I slid off the chest and stumbled toward the bed for my clothes. Nausea, sobs, and pain racked my whole body.
The man hung up the phone, turned to me, and said angrily, “Clean up this mess. The police are downstairs and the place is swarming with FBI agents.”
Just as he said that, I threw up all over the bed and my clothes. Vomit and blood covered my legs. The man, full of disgust, ran to clean up the mess around the chest of drawers. What had been cut out of my body lay in bloody paper towels on the floor, and he wanted that evidence against him destroyed. “Finish cleaning up and flush everything down the toilet,” he instructed as he fled from the room.
I did not want to be found in this condition either, so as sick as I was, I picked up all the blood-soiled paper towels and followed his instructions. With terry towels from the bathroom I wiped the blood and vomit from my legs, the bed, the chest of drawers, and the floor. I cleaned off my clothes as best I could and hurriedly put them back on. Tears mixed with sweat, mascara, and vomit ran down my face. I was still convulsing with sobs.
The man came back relieved. “There was a kidnapping downstairs. It has nothing to do with us. I’ll finish cleaning this place; you go fix your face and hair.” A few minutes later he drove me back to where I was staying.
In contrast to the last abortion, when I felt relieved to be alive, this time I felt depression, failure, and disgust. It had been so ugly.
Two days later I flew to the East Coast to begin the singing tour. My bleeding continued for weeks, and eventually I had to enter a hospital for an operation to stop it. But the pain of the memory never stopped. Every time I saw a baby I felt it all over again. I mourned and felt an emptiness unlike any I had ever known. I wasn’t the same after that. Mentally I began to spiral downward.
Would there ever be any end to the hopelessness I felt, or was I doomed to this kind of painful existence for as long as I lived? Where could I find the answers? Who could help me?
CHAPTER EIGHT
MOTHER AND MENTAL ILLNESS
“And so you see, Dr. Foreman, that’s when I began to drown myself in my work. It’s the only thing I can count on even though I can’t always depend on myself to do a good job. I thought marrying Rick would bring me some security, but I’m suffering more than ever.”
I looked at the kindly gentleman who had listened to my story unfold over the last few months. He helped me understand much of what had happened, and now I could see where my fears came from and how they controlled me. Talking with him was a wonderful relief, for no matter what I told him he never made me feel like I was crazy.
Neither of us, however, could understand the origin of my mother’s hatred and why she treated me the way she did. Yes, she was mentally ill, but that doesn’t necessarily result in cruelty and violence. Now that I had told my story I had an unshakable desire to find out more about her.
“Dr. Foreman, I want to go back to Nebraska and talk with my mother’s family. I’ve got to know how she came to be this way.” He thought it was an excellent idea. Rick didn’t care what I did, since there was nothing left between us but indifference on his part and resentment on mine. My absence was a relief for both of us.
I flew to Nebraska and talked with my mother’s father, her two sisters, Jean and Delores, plus other aunts and cousins. It was difficult putting all the pieces together because everyone remembered the past a little differently. I had been told that seven members of a family will give seven different accounts of the same event. It certainly proved true in this case. One thing that was consistent was that everyone cried as they spoke of my mother and the past. The tragedy of her life could not be overlooked.
I didn’t tell anyone my purpose for being there. How could I add to their hurt by saying that Mother had abused me and now I was trying to rise above the scars? How could I say that my life was falling apart and I was seeing a psychiatrist to help pull it together? The words “psychiatrist” and “insane” were closely linked in some people’s minds. I knew I wasn’t crazy, but I did have serious doubts that I would ever be normal. My only hope was that I would learn to cope. Revealing my problems to the family could only be a hindrance to that end. I was determined not to let anyone learn the truth.
After a week of questioning I was able to somewhat piece together Mother’s life. Although it was apparent that she was not abused as a child, her life was definitely scarred by trauma. She was born Virginia Faith Campbell, the middle child of three girls. Her place in the family was typical of many middle children—lost in between. She was beautiful and well-liked but also stubborn, lazy, and obstinate. Her bright and lively personality made a good impression at social gatherings, but on a one-to-one basis with certain members of the family she was cruel and cold. During the Depression people were concerned with survival and not the emotional balance of a family member, so her undesirable character traits and strong will usually went unchallenged.
When she was 11, Virginia had an unpleasant encounter with her mother, who was nine months pregnant at the time. Apparently her mother verbally rebuked her for something she had done. Virginia insisted that she was being unjustly accused, stomped her feet, and talked back saying, “You’re wrong! I didn’t do it!” She was sent to her room, where she silently wished her mother dead. A few hours later her mother went into labor, and at the hospital she died in childbirth along with the baby. As children frequently do, Virginia felt responsible for what happened and believed her mother’s death was both a punishment and a rejection of her. Uncensored guilt and unbearable grief led to deep emotional scarring from which she never recovered.
The shock of the death overwhelmed Virginia’s father, and the burden of caring for his three daughters was more than he could handle. The girls were separated and passed around among different relatives and friends. Because of that, Virginia felt isolated and alone. This was during the Depression, and having an extra child to feed and clothe was not always considered a blessing. Virginia believed that the various foster parents she stayed with favored their natural children over her in affection and material goods. Whether true or not, she believed it, and the perceived injustice instilled her with anger and bitterness.
She became attached to one certain family in which the other young girls were attractive and possessed qualities that she greatly desired. Virginia tried to emulate them and did her best to make the whole family like her. But just as she was allowing herself to have strong feelings for each member, the father of that family killed himself. No one knew the reason for the suicide, but Virginia once again assumed that it was because of her. “I’m responsible for all the deaths in my family,” Mother had once told me gravely. I now understood why she thought that way.
Gradually it became too hard for Virginia to cope with the real world. She believed she was responsible for the deaths of two of the most important people in her life, and because she was at an age where she was unable to understand or verbalize her feelings, rejection took root. With everyone around her forced to deal with serious problems of their own, there was no one to help her. So she invented a world she could deal with and understand, where she was the center. In her creation she did no wrong, but was persecuted unjustly. Unable to cope with the mountain of guilt she faced daily, in the world of her own making she was blameless.
During her late teenage years, Virginia contracted a severe case of scarlet fever and came close to death. When she recovered, certain family members observed that she was never quite the same. Her emotional instability became more apparent and her already changeable personality exhibited hot and cold mood swings that defied logic. She tried desperately to get out of the small town where she lived and attend college or study music, but there was no money for that, and in addition her father strongly opposed it. This frustration added to her growing bitterness and insecurity.
As a child my mother had been put in the closet a few times by her father as punishment for minor infractions. Even though those incidents were infrequent and of short duration, she was severely indignant and vocal about her dislike of it. She was jealous of both her sisters and had mentioned to me many times how she felt they had consistently received better treatment. Because of that she was especially cruel to her younger sister, Jean, and put her in a closet a few brief times for punishment.
After hearing these stories, I began to feel sorry for my mother. She was someone to be pitied instead of hated. She had been trapped by her environment and the circumstances surrounding her life. A stronger person might have worked through the problems, but she survived the only way she knew how to, and her mistreatment of me was part of that survival.

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