My colleagues quietly disapproved of my new role when I started the radio spots a few years back. It was the McDonald’s of therapy, after all—a few minutes on the air and I’m wielding life-altering advice? It was hard to tell if their judgment was based on their keen moral compasses or...envy. I shared office space with a few other clinical psychologists and an analyst whom I only saw in passing now and then. The curt nods and smiles I started receiving from Alan and Thomas in place of the once obligatory but genuine small talk we used to engage in told me all I needed to know about their feelings regarding my media presence. I did help people though, no matter what they thought.
Liam and I kept a condo in the city that we got away to now and then, and where I occasionally stayed when I was writing my book—a glorious brownstone built in the late 1800s with a sliver of balcony overlooking the busy street below. I remembered a woman staring at my mailbox then back up at me one afternoon when I stabbed a key into the box and flipped through a pile of junk mail in the shared lobby. As I tossed an oil change coupon into the recycling, she put together who I was.
“You’re Dr. Faith Finley.” She beamed ear to ear and began rambling about how she’d written into Dr. Phil four times but couldn’t get through and could I help her.
“I don’t usually offer advice in the lobby like this, and I’m heading...” I started to say.
“Of course. I’m so sorry. You’re headed out. You must be so busy. I’m Lettie.” She reached her hand out to shake mine. “It’s so nice to meet you. I can’t believe you live in my building!”
“Nice to meet you too, Lettie. How about you call into the show on Friday, and I’ll let the producer know to put you through,” I said.
“Oh my God. Really? Thank you! Yes!” She beamed.
She did call in to the show. Sadly, she had the same story I hear almost every week. It started with a flared temper and an apology, but her husband’s verbal abuse has turned into rage and physical altercations, and she doesn’t understand why she keeps going back.
I counseled her the way I would anyone in her position, and referred her to my book where there was a whole chapter on creating a safe plan to leave. The station even sent her a copy of the book after the call. A couple of weeks later she called back to report that she’d taken the advice and was singing my praises and thanking me on air, safely away from her abuser. So, I had proof I wasn’t just some sellout. I was making a difference in more lives than I could in private practice. Maybe it wasn’t the same, but it was still valuable.
It wasn’t just Lettie. The same week a woman called about her out-of-control teen and then reported, months later, that the recovery center I suggested for her was a miracle, and her daughter was sober and that she was like a different person. I remember calling the New Hope Recovery Center myself and coordinating with the mother after the call. It wasn’t fast-food advice, and I resented the implications otherwise. I tried to keep my defensiveness in check.
Mostly, I just received fan admiration, but it was the people in my practice—the people whose opinions I thought mattered more—that robbed me of my breath anytime I let myself think about the things they undoubtedly said about me out of earshot.
Liam would just say “Screw ’em. Jealous old dinosaurs. Clearly they didn’t read your book or they’d know how damaging passive aggression can be. You lay it right out for them.” I loved it when he’d try to defend my honor, no matter how nonsensical and unnecessary.
I would do anything. Anything in the whole world if we’d never hosted that party—if that night had never happened. Anything.
THREE
NOW
I’ve been walking in the cold rain longer than intended. It’s already dark and I’m out of posters so I duck into a tavern for a drink. We bought our house out here a few years ago. It’s only fifty miles outside of Chicago, but feels like a small town where you can’t escape seeing someone you know. As I slip in through the massive wooden door to the tavern, I’m grateful to be out of the cold and hope I don’t recognize anyone inside.
The light is soft and red, and the ancient carpet is dotted with black gum spots and outlines of stains from years of neglect. I’m comforted by the warmth and low light. I aim for the restroom first, but when I go in, I’m assaulted by stinging fluorescent light and the smell of bleach as a Shakira song plays too loudly through a distorted speaker. It changes my mood instantly from temporarily comforted to irritated, and out of nowhere I’m suddenly fighting an overwhelming feeling to break down sobbing—a feeling I fight back a lot these days—but I don’t. I go out and scan the place quickly, and when I don’t see any familiar faces, I belly up to the bar.
It’s been nearly seven months since the accident. I know I’m supposed to feel thankful that I’m up and walking again. It’s hard to do. The only thing I’m thankful for is that I’m more mobile, so I can better spearhead search initiatives for my husband.
Now that I can get around, I hope the darkest times are behind me—long stretches of nights unable to sleep, utterly confined by my fractured ribs and broken leg, dependent on a home health aide for nearly everything. I didn’t get to choose who they sent. Insurance just sent whoever, and I got Barb, a heavyset twentysomething who smelled like cigarette smoke covered up by drugstore body spray that left a charred plastic scent in every room she lounged in. That’s mostly all she did unless I needed help to the bathroom or getting something to eat.
She wore a Garfield T-shirt, stained, with a quip about hating Mondays while she played Candy Crush on her phone and wolfed down Arby’s smokehouse brisket and curly fries. Meal prep was on her list of skills, but she looked at the vegetables I had her buy like foreign objects. After serving me a silo of blue cheese dressing with a few leaves of lettuce, I had to coach her to simply throw a salad together. The fatigue from my injuries left me aching, and the depression I tried to fight, on a minute-by-minute basis, did not allow me any patience with the situation. I heard her call me a bitch once, on the phone, talking to a friend. I didn’t care. I would have if it were another time, but I was starting to wonder if I was capable of caring about anything ever again.
In the early mornings, I usually tried to sleep on the couch. Adult Swim, infomercials with knives that cut through bricks, and repeats of Jimmy Swaggart sweating into a handkerchief with a hand to heaven, distracted me just enough to keep me from ending up back in the hospital with a panic attack. I almost called for an ambulance one night a few months back, when an invasion of anxiety left me hyperventilating so severely my limbs went numb and I thought was having a heart attack. It’s something I’d heard all the time from patients, and I knew exactly how I’d approach this if it were someone else—what advice and treatment I’d proffer—but the grief would simply not allow me to react rationally.