I was only twenty eight years old, and dying . . . and no one cared. I couldn’t breathe! Panicking, I gasped for more air. I was suffocating, and was beginning to feel dizzy, for he was choking the life out of me. I began to hyperventilate, then the darkness took over and swallowed me up . . .

“No, that’s not what you said. I’ll tell you what you meant to say,” he shouted as he banged his fist on the kitchen table.

I was having another panic attack. These scenes were becoming more frequent and these attacks were now overpowering me, and were beginning to take control of my life, for I was in another no-win situation. At age twenty eight, and after ten years of an unhappy marriage, it was either fight or flight. I began to fight . . . fight for my life.

My husband and I were contemplating a divorce when we decided to seek a marriage counselor. My husband was certain that I was the culprit in the breakdown of our marriage, therefore he dropped out soon after the therapist had confronted him with his role in the breakdown of the marriage, thus we drifted further apart. Prior to therapy, I too felt I was the one who was responsible for our breakup, for he always had a certain knack of being able to keep the focus off of himself whenever there was a disagreement between the two of us. He succeeded in confusing me by maneuvering the conversation around and focusing his attention on me, becoming critical and judgmental with telling me that I was being unreasonable, selfish and inflexible. He would frequently manage to twist and interpret whatever I would say then lecture me on what he thought I meant to say. He’s not hearing what I’m feeling. His frequent sarcasm would cause me to feel that I seldom did anything right. Feeling responsible for the failure in our marriage, I continued with therapy, hoping to resolve the problems that had been plaguing our marriage. It was only when I began to focus on my feelings and needs, rather than attempting to understand my husband, that I began to obtain insight and take charge of my life. I was surprised that our marriage would deteriorate even further when I began to apply what I was learning.

All of my life I had molded myself to fit in, but I was now being more independent and assertive with asking for what I needed and wanted in my marriage. My husband did not like this new me and would continue to remind me that I was being selfish, controlling and inflexible. For ten years I vacillated between my old self and my new self. Growing up was hard to do, as the more I grew in my attempts to go forward with my life, the further we drifted. When I began to make steady progress, some of my friends and family also drifted from me, so I too drifted, drifted back into my old role and into myself and the black cloud. It was futile for me to continue with therapy because I kept backsliding. I was stuck . . . I was not ready to let go.

My hand was frequently groping for the door knob for I could visualize serenity on the other side. I would see myself lying alone on a white sandy beach, listening to the sounds of the ocean’s rhythmic waves gently slapping against the shore, and every so often there would be a seagull squawking in the distance . . . it was so peaceful. I wanted so much to be able to walk over to the other side, but whenever I would grab that knob to open the door, I found myself holding back . . . I couldn’t walk out the door. Something was keeping me from doing so. Why can’t I walk over to the other side?

My career as a nurse was partly due to Fred, my first therapist and my first guardian angel. He was the first person to enter my life who accepted me for who I was and where I was at in my life. He provided me with the positive feedback that I needed to help me see that my life was stagnant. He would frequently tell me, “You’re a fish out of water and you’ve outgrown your environment.” He helped me to see that I could have a meaningful life by helping me to channel what I held inside into something useful.

“The love and compassion that you feel for others would make you an excellent psychiatric nurse,” he would frequently tell me. He encouraged me to return to school.

I argued, “It’s been ten years since I graduated from high school. My children are six and ten years old, and besides that, I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

I graduated from David Hale Fanning School of Practical Nursing in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1973. Soon after, I began working as a licensed practical nurse at Hamilton Memorial Hospital, located in my home town. I had been working for six years and was receiving much gratification from being a nurse, but it was not enough, for the black cloud was always there, hovering above me. By now, it was huge and was suffocating me. It followed me everywhere I went, at home, and while I drove to and from work . . . and then it dawned on me, never while I was at work. I was a different person at work.

The black cloud was always waiting for me to end my shift, and would follow me home. I dreaded going home. This depression continued on and off for years. I felt stifled and smothered as a wife, and as a member of the Jehovah’s witnesses, a religious organization that we had become involved with four years earlier. My work was an outlet for my unhappiness, but it was not enough to completely get out from under this black cloud. I felt like a failure whenever I would find myself back in therapy. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I fit in or feel like I belong? What can I do to make people like me? Why can’t they just except me for who I am? These were some of the thoughts that I shared with my therapist after telling him, “Here I am again! I keep messing up.” Even my own husband would say that I was selfish and inflexible whenever I would express my own desires or opinions, and would accuse me of putting him down. Fred pointed out, “You’re not a failure. The healthy part of yourself is surfacing, and you’re becoming more aware. That’s why you are here. The sick one’s are still out there, and don’t feel they have a problem.”

Again, with Fred’s encouragement, I returned to school in 1979 after breaking my ties with the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. This fundamentalist religion, which I was a member of for over four years, did not benefit me or enhance my life for I found their unorthodox doctrines to be impractical, rigid and confining, leaving no room for individualism. I no longer enjoyed being a part of their organization, as they would suppress rather than encouraged their member’s to freely think and choose what was best for themselves. By injecting the fear of God, they took advantage of and manipulate their guilt prone members, like myself, to stay within the flock. They did not emphasize or encourage their members to pursue college or careers that could possibly take them away from the flock, even telling me, “The end will come before you see yourself graduate.” Their love and acceptance of me was conditional. There was a huge discrepancy in what they preached and how they actually lived their lives. I’m a great believer in actions speak louder than words. Meetings and preaching door to door were of utmost importance, more so than visiting and encouraging a sick member who was hospitalized. Their advice and examples of marital life were for women to be submissive to their husbands, and they would provide scriptures that emphasized submissiveness.

One evening, while we were having a bible study at one of the Elder’s home, I observed the dynamics of how he interacted with his wife. Wow! Is she submissive! I thought. He would snap his fingers and she would jump. I then began to notice the emotions and interactions between the majority of the congregation, and I found them to be shallow and superficial. There was more emphasis on recruiting new members than on retaining and up-building the members that were already part of their flock. Their pioneers in the field were given special recognition for the amount of new members they brought into the fold. I began to shy away from those whose door-to-door tactics depicted God as ruthless and unforgiving. I felt embarrassed to be know as “one of them” for this was not who I was.

One Sunday, towards the end of the meeting, one of the Elders made a request for donations to help a family whose husband was unemployed. Our house was in need of painting so we offered him a job to paint it, but he declined. I did not feel guilty for not offering a donation after he declined. Why would anyone want to work if they could get something for nothing? I was beginning to see the indiscretions and discrepancies.

As a caretaker, I habitually gave to others at the expense of myself. I exhausted myself in doing for others what they could and should have been doing for themselves. I had no one to blame but myself for I had allowed others to take advantage of me. One woman in the congregation had the habit of scheduling her visits just as we were about to eat dinner. Because of my difficulty with saying no, I would stretch our dinner for four into a dinner for six, so as to include her and her son. She would continue visiting well after our children went to bed. It didn’t seem to matter to her whether her son required a regular bedtime schedule in order for him to get up for school in the morning, or that I had to get up early to go to work. She was more concerned with what my children were doing or what they were watching on television, and always made sure to inform me that she would never allow her son to watch The Brady Bunch as the show encouraged under age dating. She would involve herself in discussions between my husband and I, reminding me that I should be submissive, while at the same time this woman couldn’t seem to manage her own life. She frequently neglected to keep enough gas in her car, and on more than one occasion would call to request our assistance to rescue her. My husband left it up to me to be the bad guy, and I finally had to tell her in a nice way that she had overstayed her welcome. I would have felt better if we had done this together, but there was no together, as we seldom saw eye to eye on decision-making matters. We were on a different wavelength. He would become upset whenever I would make a decision for myself that he did not agree with and accused me of undermining him, putting him down, and would then tell me that I was a negative and controlling woman, therefore I would conform and return to my old passive self. This was his way of maintaining the status quo in our marital relationship, and it was obvious to me that I needed to work on my self-esteem if I wanted to get out from under this black cloud.

Because of my decision to leave the flock, it was announced throughout the congregation that I had been dissociated, a term which meant that I had not committed an offense dire enough to be disfellowshipped, but that their treatment of me would be the same. I was to be shunned by all, including my husband and his family who remained as good standing members of the congregation. I would no longer be invited into their homes, nor would they come over to my home if invited. Their children would not be allowed to visit with my children in my home, but my children would be welcomed in their homes.

Living in a small town frequently exposed me to being shunned whenever I encountered their presence on the street, in the post office, and even at the local hospital where I worked as a nurse. The immense humiliation and rejection I had endured by those whom I once thought to be my friends and family was almost more than I could bear, especially at work. As a nurse, I was assigned to care for one of the Elders in the Kingdom Hall. My head nurse had informed me that he requested that I not be his nurse. I was okay with this, for on other occasions there were some members who actually requested for me to be their nurse. I will never forget who they were, for in my eyes and in God’s as well, they conducted themselves as true Christians.

I spent the next three lonely years being isolated from everyone, but I kept myself focused on continuing with my education, and returned to school to get my diploma as a registered nurse. My husband continued as a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and would take the children to meetings and bible studies. He would always accept their invitations, knowing that I would not be welcomed, and he would always bring the children, leaving me to fend for myself. One Sunday as he was about to leave with the children, he informed me that they would not be back until late afternoon as they were going door to door after the meeting. I expressed my disappointment and pointed out that this was my weekend off and I was looking forward to doing something together as a family. Being a bedside nurse in the hospital required me to work every other weekend.

He was sarcastic in his response. “Look Amelia, there you are by yourself on one side, and here we are on the other side. We’re the majority, so who’s right, you or us?”

There was no right or wrong, it just wasn’t for me. He no longer considers me family, I thought. I wasn’t important enough to be number one in his life for he would frequently put everyone else before me, never setting any limits with anyone who was putting demands on his time, except when it came to me. For years, even his customers at the jewelry store took priority. One customer even called our home at one o’clock in the morning to ask if he could return the engagement ring he had purchased for his girl friend. They were obviously arguing as I could hear her screaming at him in the background. Another customer called us on Christmas morning during a blizzard to ask if my husband could meet her at the store as she had forgotten to pick up her gifts that she had on lay-away. I could not believe the audacity of these people. One couple went as far as showing up at our new home just as we were moving in. The store was closed that day, but they couldn’t seem to wait until it re-opened the following day to return a ring that they had purchased. My husband became upset with me when I suggested that we get an unlisted phone number. He was infuriated with me when I went against his advice and did so anyway. This was my home also and I did not appreciate having these intrusions and lack of privacy in my family life, and besides, I needed my sleep in order to be able to function as a nurse. My husband could not understand why I did not feel about him the way his customers did. Maybe if he had treated me the same as he did his customers, I too would have worshiped the ground he walked on. But by this time it didn’t matter anymore, for I felt I was on my own. I had been living in my own home as if I was single, and was made to feel I wasn’t a part of his life. I was lonely, but I continued to pursue my dream and finally graduated in 1982 as a registered nurse at the age of thirty eight. While pursuing my career and obtaining my diploma, I had been working at the hospital every other weekend, but when I began working full time, I decided to purchase a car of my own. I was so excited and could easily afford the payments of one hundred sixty dollars a month. After all, I was making that working part time, but I was caught in a dilemma when the loan officer at the local bank would not give me a loan because according to him, I did not have a credit history or collateral. “Unless, your husband will be willing to co-sign for you,” he said.

My husband was not willing to co-sign. All this for a lousy six thousand dollar loan? By this time, at age thirty eight and with the help I had received in therapy, I was beginning to be more assertive and independent. I was no longer a mouse. I responded by pointing out, “I might not have been the bread-winner all these years, but I was the one who managed the budget and was responsible for paying all the bills. Have you ever received a late mortgage payment from me?”

The loan officer looked surprised, his lower jaw dropped as he glanced at my husband. He had no choice but to give me a loan, for I did have a credit history and collateral . . . my signature was also on the loan for our mortgage.

I began asking myself, Is this life all there is? Do I want to live the next twenty years of my life like the last twenty years? Absolutely not, but I had never been on my own since leaving home to get married at age eighteen. I had no single friends outside of my marriage. I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff, having to choose between a life of misery or jumping into a vast dark unknown and unfamiliar territory called the single scene at the age of forty.

Battling for my life had been long and tortuous. In1984, my husband and I had finally decided to call it quits. Shortly after, and in the midst of our divorce, our son Clay was killed. Everything came to a complete halt. We were devastated to learn of our son’s death that day. Our grief now became the priority, it bonded us together. One would think that his death would cement our relationship . . . it didn’t. The two of us did not have a relationship. Our bond as husband and wife had been severed long ago. As two parents grieving the lost of our son, our bonding was only temporary. This postponed any further decisions for almost a year. Our divorce was finalized in 1985, but this did not eradicate the dysfunctional relationship between the two of us. Once I became divorced, I soon found myself without the support of my married friends, including my own sister whose husband had forbidden her to socialize with a divorced woman. My youngest brother, Dan, remained neutral and always supportive, being there for me when I needed him. After being married for twenty-two years, it was difficult for me to let go. This new environment, being single, was frightening and unfamiliar to me. Even though he was seeing another woman, I continued to be involved with my ex-husband for another year. It was an un-fulfilling, on-again off-again type of relationship, no different than what I had in my marriage, but it was a familiar pattern, for this was what I was use to. My self esteem plunged even lower, along with my self respect.

Whenever I would confide in Jean, one of the nurses I worked with, she would frequently say to me, “Amelia, let go and let God.” I couldn’t . . . I wasn’t ready. Letting go would be like getting divorced all over again, with having to deal with more pain and the feeling that I was a failure, but most of all, I was afraid of being alone. It was frightening. I wasn’t sure if I could make it on my own.

Soon after talking with Jean, I had a symbolic dream. In my dream I saw myself sitting calmly in my living room. When a fire ignited in the upstairs bedroom which use to be Clay’s room, I continued sitting calmly on the sofa, not getting up to investigate. Then another fire ignited in the second upstairs bedroom which belonged to Patrick, my younger son. I continued sitting calmly on the sofa, and when a third fire ignited somewhere downstairs, I calmly removed myself from the sofa, and said, “It’s time to leave.” I walked across the room to pick up my memory book of Clay, the one I had made two months after his death. Tightly holding it close to my heart, I walked down the driveway and down the street without looking back, but in my dream I saw the house being engulfed in flames.

When I awakened, I felt calm and relaxed. My dream was telling me that it was time for me to let go, and to get on with my life, and to take the good memories with me and not look back. The following week, I decided to call a broker and I put my house on the market. I planned on moving out of the area and to get away from all that was familiar. I continued with my therapy sessions, went back to school and obtained a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and I even joined a gym to work on my physical self. I would continue to put my trust in God and pray for guidance, for I believed that God’s message came to me through my dream.

Oh, I occasionally do look back, but I don’t dwell on the past. And as for my friend Jean, when she felt I was in a better place to accept what I had not wanted to hear, she presented me with a gift. It was a small book written by Spencer Johnson, called The Precious Present. I continue to read it every now and then, whenever I feel the need, and especially when I find myself lingering in the past. As a psychiatric nurse, I have often utilized this little tool with many of my patients whenever they seem to be stuck in their past and afraid of moving forward with their lives. And Like Jean, I wait for that perfect opportunity to remind them to cherish each precious moment of their lives, for the present moment is all that we have. We can’t change our past, we can only learn from it, and the future will depend on how we handle situations in the present, what decisions we make, and which paths we will choose to take throughout this journey called life.

As for the black cloud , this too would no longer control my life, for I would soon find the key that would eventually unlock the door and release me from my prison, and lead me on a path which would bring me serenity. I was beginning to face the enemy within myself.