Lyin' Eyes Ch. 06

Laura's Story:

I stand in front of my mirror, staring wonderingly at me. I am as I've always been, if the image is to be believed. I'm still 5'5" tall; I have the same shoulder-length brunette hair, and green eyes. My complexion is still creamy smooth, though I'll be thirty years old this Fall. Those faint little freckles are still there across the bridge of my nose. When I take this dress off, I'll see the same 36C breasts I've had since Alyssa was born. The left one droops the tiniest bit...it's a tad lower on my chest than the right. Mark has always said he can't see it. Both of them were perfect to him. I wish they were but I know different. My hips sweep out from a narrow waist in a gentle arc. Mark used to love to sweep his hands down my sides and over the curvature of my hips and on down my thighs. He used to like to just watch me walk around. He said only a beautiful woman could glide over the floor, swaying the way I did. He doesn't say that anymore.

I don't know who I am these days. I look in my eyes in the mirror and try to see but they show me nothing. I cannot explain to Mark how much I hurt because I have caused him such deep pain. The shame of sleeping with another man is constantly on my mind; I can't shake it. If there were some way of explaining to my husband, my love, how I truly feel, I would do it. He won't listen to me though. I'm afraid I've hurt him too much.

We haven't talked much since that day when Mark walked out of the doctor's office--just briefly, and about things to do for, or with, Alyssa. I don't know what to say to him anyway. Doctor Jamison says I need to let my guilt slide away but I don't know how to do that. I am guilty...guilty of cheating on Mark, and Alyssa too. My God, the memories of what I said to him the last night I was with that Brian haunt me day and night. I can't sleep without hearing those awful words again. I don't deserve a man like Mark. He's right to have pushed me away the way he has.

********

I can't explain how those long months when I was seeing Brian seem so unreal to me. It was as if I had pillows for shoes--the ground didn't feel solid under my feet, except that...at the same time, in my head, I saw me walking down the edge of an endless razor blade. It was like if I made the slightest misstep, I would cut my feet to ribbons...and I would fall...and then I would die. That was how I saw my life.

How do I explain the fog that filled my mind for so long? I couldn't think. I couldn't reason. When Mark talked to me, all I heard were incomprehensible sounds that were lost in the screeching noises already filling me. I wanted to hear him but I could not.

It's so very hard to remember the things I did. I try; I need to comprehend them so I can get better but there's nothing to hold on to. Everything that went on in those days...in the months; they feel like they happened to someone else...except I was there...watching me do them. Doctor Jamison nods when I say these things. She says she understands what I talk about, but she can't really. No one can. Sometimes, it's like I will explode and all the pieces of me will fly apart to lay scattered on the ground. I don't know where all this will end. I think I will end some day and then things will be peaceful again.

********

It's been three months now...three months since Mark and I talked to Doctor Jamison in her office. I'm better now. I'm not afraid anymore when Doctor Jamison wants to put me into what she calls a light trance. She can do that very quickly now. She doesn't snap her fingers or anything like that stuff you see on stage, but I can focus so much better now and she can ask anything she wants. I'm not embarrassed by anything she might dredge up anymore. She's found so much and later, when she brings me out of it, she makes me discuss whatever she talks with me about when I'm under.

Sometimes, when I just talk about it outside of deep relaxation, it goes away like it never was actually there to begin with. I don't understand how that can be, but Doctor Jamison says not to worry about it; it's just my mind dealing with whatever it was and resolving it. She says that's why she brings those issues up. It's so I can consciously face them and put them away like clothes I no longer want to wear...clothing I don't need any longer.

It does feel good to set them aside. I feel fresh and clean again...but the hurt always closes back in when I think about my little girl and my husband. "Baby steps," Doctor Jamison tells me. Big problems don't get solved easily, she says. It takes time and lots of work.

There are times Doctor Jamison has to help me deal with a problem in a different way. Like with my father and mother...Doctor Jamison talked them into coming down here from Albany for a week. It took all I had to face my father and tell him how bad he made me feel when I saw him come out of Aunt Ruth's room with his shirt outside his pants and stuff. I told him that when I saw Aunt Ruth in that black camisole, kissing and hugging him...I told him I wanted to hurt him when I saw that. Didn't he know it was wrong? I asked him why--but I really was screaming at him. I made my father cry. I never saw him cry before.

I yelled at my mother too. Why did she let him do it? Didn't she ever think how horrible it made me feel, knowing my mother was a cuckquean but not able to do anything about it. Why didn't she do something?

I didn't really realize how old my Dad and Mom were getting to be until I watched them cry in front of me. I couldn't take it. I kneeled down between their chairs and wrapped my arms around both of them. I just wanted them to love me and to love each other. We cried together and then Doctor Jamison talked quietly with all three of us for a long time. Mom, Dad, and I talked until we were all exhausted.

Mom told me how she found out early on she just had no sex drive at all. She told me she just couldn't get past the indignity of the sex act, the total exposure of one's self, the sweat and messiness. She said when she had me was one of the few times she got beyond all that and made wonderful love to Daddy. She said she was sorry but there'd been nothing she could do about it.

She'd been the one to suggest my Daddy go elsewhere. Her sister had been widowed the year before, and was a lonely woman. It had seemed like the ideal fit; her sister had always had a lively libido and was suffering without her man. Daddy was a healthy male and effectively had no woman. Mama told me everyone had been very careful at first but it was hard to make sure of where I was all the time. She was so sorry I had found out.

Daddy was too. He got down on his knees and held me while he begged me to forgive him. I told him I did, and it was the truth. It wasn't a huge brick wall I was running headfirst into anymore.

Doctor Jamison talked to Mom and Dad a few hours a day for the rest of that week. When they left to go home, they both looked a lot happier than I've seen them in too many years. Mom was hanging on Dad like she was a newlywed--like I used to look when Mark and I walked together.

********

I'm stronger now. It's been almost six months since Doctor Jamison first put me under hypnosis. I see things so much clearer. There are so many things that I did, said, and felt which I now see were so incredibly stupid. I can't imagine how I let myself get into those situations, for one thing. Why in the world I let myself get talked into going out drinking with those girls...I just don't know.

That was the start of it, I think. Doctor Jamison gave me a list of books to read and it was a revelation to me. Alcohol takes a woman and turns her inside out. Like one of them says, it's the most effective date rape drug in the world. It deadens the thinking processes and lowers inhibitions to the point of non-existence. Heavy drinking is such a self-destructive thing to do too. It makes the body react hard in order to throw off the poisons and it alters the body's chemistry.

Doctor Jamison has helped me figure out I was drinking hard so I could make myself numb and not have to deal with the things I was feeling. It didn't work. It only made me more vulnerable to Brian. It made it easy for him to get me to sleep with him even though I really didn't like him. I knew he was one of those men who think every woman is a "score," and who feel nothing for the woman as a human being. I knew he was a scummy thing to begin with and I knew it every time I let him do things to me.

Doctor Jamison and I think that I was degrading myself to bring myself down to where I figured I would be equal with my Mom and Dad and Aunt Ruth. They were the all of my life for so long. I guess something inside me was saying they were the best I could be and so I tried to be them. It wasn't working; I knew better from being around my dear husband and daughter. That was why it was tearing me up. It was hard breaking that conditioning but I'm here finally.

We also found out that a part of me thought Alyssa was a rival for Mark's affection. That was stupid but it made me feel resentful whenever she and Mark were around me. Doctor Jamison, and a specialist she called in, say it appears to have started when Alyssa was born...well, a little after. Many people call it postpartum depression...which is really just a depression that happens right after childbirth. I don't know why all that emphasis is put on it because it's not fair. Anyway, I never got close to any postpartum psychosis, thank goodness. There was never a moment when I wanted to hurt myself or my baby.

What did happen was that I was just so tired, exhausted all the time, but I couldn't sleep either. And I was so moody all the time. I thought Mark didn't love me anymore but I didn't know why I felt that way. He never did stop holding me and telling me how much he loved me. But it was like I was so remote from him and everybody else too. It didn't help that I had all those things in my head about Mom and Dad either. I was a mess.

I wanted to be a good mother but I was so sensitive, I couldn't nurse Alyssa without crying from the pain. When I started getting irritable to boot, well...Mark took to giving Alyssa her formula and changing her more often than I did and walking around with her in his arms when she fussed. I don't think I got up a single time at 2:00 AM for her feeding; it was always my baby girl's wonderful father. I know now how special that was. Girls I talk to say they'd have given their left foot if their man would have done that even once or twice a week when their babies were small.

Doctor Jamison says my hormones probably got messed up too. I know I didn't want Mark to touch me for the longest time. When I did, he didn't notice at first and it took forever for us to get back together. Even when we did, it seemed like I was still kind of holding back but I'm not sure I have memories of that or whether I just recognize it in retrospect. Then I let that idiot Brian seduce me and things went all crazy for me...or it went all crazy and I let Brian do things to me...I don't know which. I'm comfortable thinking about it that way. I know it's not very...precise...but it doesn't bother me and Doctor Jamison says that's the important thing.

********

I get so mad at myself sometimes. How could I have been so stupid? Most of the things I did back when I was drinking and running around with that Brian don't make any sense to me, looking back at them. It's been eight and a half months since my husband and I sat down with Doctor Jamison to talk about my first session under hypnosis--"deep relaxation hypnotherapy" is what Doctor Jamison likes to call it. She gets irritated sometimes because she says any hack can hypnotize someone on a stage. But it takes a professional to be able to help people with their problems using those techniques.

She's helped me with methods of hypnotizing myself and taught me how to pull hidden thoughts out of my subconscious mind when I feel something bothering me. She has also helped me figure out the signs when something is bothering me. It's really very easy and it's so frustrating I didn't know how before I messed everything up so bad.

Sometimes the shame of what I did with that Brian almost overwhelms me. Whatever they did among themselves, my Mom and Dad...and Aunt Ruth also (she helped mold me too)...well, none of them raised me to behave like a hussy. Certainly they were never so obvious in what they did. Doctor Jamison and I have figured out part of me was rebelling at what I was doing. We found out that I was escalating...her word, not mine...anyway, escalating my drinking and promiscuity so Mark would find out and stop me. That was so self-destructive and so demeaning at the same time, I can't believe it. Not only that, I knew darn well that one of Mark's companies was a large-scale investigative agency. I was going to be caught one day, no matter what I did. Being stupid about it just hurried it along.

We haven't found out yet why I picked that path to stopping myself from the cheating lifestyle I'd fallen into. Doctor Jamison has to keep reminding me the subconscious mind doesn't process information in a linear...that's her word again...a linear fashion like when I'm awake. That sucks, but all this therapy is making me so much more aware of myself...I know I will never again find myself slipping down into such a downward spiral. I know too much about myself and how to watch myself now.

I can share what I learn with others too. Last week, I started working with the rape hotline downtown and I think Shirley...she's one of that gaggle of girls who used to go out drinking with me...I think she is going to get some counseling for her drinking problem. I told her I would take her to an AA meeting and get her a sponsor and everything. She burst out crying, she was so grateful to find someone who cared just the least, little bit. I felt so good that I could help her. I'm going to stay with her the whole way. Me? I tried to sip a little wine the other day and it almost made me sick.

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Christmas has come and gone--almost a year since I first learned about hypnosis. I see Alyssa two or three times a week. Mark lets me see her anytime I want; all I have to do is call him. It's not like living with her and my husband, but it's better than nothing. She'll be five in a few months. She's growing up so fast, and I'm not there.

Doctor Jamison and I have very little to talk about anymore when I go to see her. I feel so animated and excited just to be alive all the time now. I really feel good about myself. I know I did so many bad things but it's like another Laura did them. I'm not the same woman who was so stupid that I drove my husband away...not any more, I'm not. I'm restless a lot lately. I haven't made love to my husband for so long. I want him so terribly much. I won't be whole again until I'm back with him and my baby.

I talked to Doctor Jamison about it. I said I didn't think Mark loved me anymore and I didn't know what I could do about it. She asked me what gave me the idea he didn't love me and I told her how cold he was sometimes and how he wouldn't let me too near him or talk to him privately and stuff.

She sniffed...she does that when she wants to act superior and all that...but I just stick out my tongue at her now. We only do that behind closed doors when no one can see us. She's closer to me than my mother was for so long...but even that has switched around.

Mom called me the other day and was so happy on the phone. She and Dad were going on a cruise to Jamaica...to get reacquainted, she said. I was amazed. It seems Doctor Jamison's treatment, and some follow-on counseling back home, has awakened something in Mom she never expected. We cried for the longest time but it was a good cry.

Well, anyway...I told Doctor Jamison I wanted to get my husband back but I didn't think I could. He didn't seem to care. After she got over her sniffing attack, she asked me if Mark had ever had his lawyer finish off the divorce. Mark had not done that, but I put that off to probably his lawyer saying it wouldn't look good to divorce a wife who was in therapy.

Doctor Jamison almost sniffed again but she didn't. She asked me if she'd ever asked me for a dime to pay for all her valuable time we'd used up in the past year. She told me Mark could have stopped the therapy any time he wanted to by not paying for it, but he hadn't done that either. I knew that, but I hadn't focused on it like Doctor Jamison did. It made me think. She asked me when the last time was that Mark hadn't let me see Alyssa and, of course, he hadn't. She said I should think about those things. They didn't sound like what a man would do if he wanted to shut me away.

Then I said I didn't think Mark would want me back since I'd been such a vulgar hussy and so mean to him and Alyssa. She snorted this time. I told her that was very impressive and we laughed about that. I think the world of Doctor Jamison. She's so cool and calm and everything all the time.

She told me that Mark was a lot less concerned about the sex than he was about the deception and betrayal of our wedding vows. His pain was more about me abandoning the marriage than it was anything physical. I hadn't meant to do any of it. I knew that in my heart. If I'd been in control of myself, I wouldn't have done any of the things I did. It makes my skin crawl when I think of the cheap hotels we went to, the dives where we drank and danced until all hours of the night...and the sex.

The sex bothers me a lot. Except for that six months or so, I've never allowed any man but Mark to even kiss me, other than a little peck on the cheek or something. All that's completely separate from the pain I caused Mark and my baby. I'm so terribly sorry about that too but I don't know how to apologize anymore than I already do anytime Mark will let me.

Doctor Jamison asked me if Mark would come back to counseling with me. He undoubtedly had a lot of anger he needed to come to terms with, she said. She said if Mark knew I had found myself again...if he could be convinced I'd lost myself for a time but I was recovering now...then he should be willing to work on the marriage instead of getting out of it. I told her the last time I'd tried to talk to him about coming back to work with me and her, he hadn't even replied to my question.

Doctor Jamison asked how long it had been and I had to think. It had been months. She said that a lot can change in just days, much less months. She also said Mark might be looking for a sign from me that I wanted to work with him to save what we had together, or better yet, find a way to move past what had split us and forge a new togetherness. Then I had to go because her next appointment had arrived.

All that made me think. I found little things that stuck out in my mind about the way Mark wasn't really cutting me off nearly as bad as he might have. I caught him one time watching me as I walked away after I dropped Alyssa off. I thought...well, I may have been reading something into an expression that could also have been one of pain and suffering.

I think I'll call him tonight. He's always home by 6:00 PM because he's taking care of Alyssa full time. After dinner, they play games or watch Disney Channel or read books or something. He's always in a good mood then. I think I'll call him and see if he will consider coming to some of my therapy sessions...maybe just to be there and see how I'm coming along. Maybe it will mean more to him. I hope it will.

I want my man back. I want to be his wife and lover more than anything else in the world. If he will take me back, I know I'll be making my baby girl happy again because she'll have a full time mother again. First, I want my husband back. I'm going to fight to get him back. I will make him see I'm his woman.