This is the thirty-eighth edition of The i’Mpossible Project: A series where anyone can share a personal story of inspiration or an event in life where they overcame tremendous odds. Everyone has a powerful story to tell and something to teach the world. (See HERE for guidelines on how you can write for The i’Mpossible Project.) Here we have Marilyn Fowler with "The Journey Back."
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I opened my eyes to blinding overhead lights, confused by my hospital room surroundings. This isn’t heaven, I thought. I put my hands to my face, felt my body. I was alive. Yesterday my friend followed me home from my waitress job and grabbed the empty bottle of pills from my hand. The Emergency Room staff took me right away. As the tube slipped down my throat I thought I was dying. But I was still there. Thirty-nine years of one failure after another with nothing to show of value except my three beautiful children, and now I couldn’t even kill myself successfully.
I had checked my life insurance policy. There was enough for my mother to finish raising my teen-aged children. They had become hers anyway. Because of her strong sense of insecurity, she drew them away from me to satisfy her need to be needed. And they went to her for everything now. So why was I spared to go on?
I half dozed and thought about my father and how I loved him. I was six-years-old when he died, and my world became a strange, lonely place where I never belonged. My mother instructed to be a good girl, which meant absolute obedience, expect nothing, and never bother anyone with my problems. Smile and be pleasant. Anything less was considered selfish and shameful. And a few words from her could produce enough soul shattering guilt to render me compliant with anything she wanted. Growing up I wandered through three stepfathers, and later through my two broken marriages, with no place to go on my own.
But now it was time to go home and start over. I went back to my usual routine, and finished seeing my children grow up. That was worth living for. But the horrible depression and panic attacks consumed me, and two years later I was desperate for help.
I entered the psychiatrist’s office without a clue as to what was ahead, but this was the first step on my journey toward renewal and meaning for my existence. Dr. J allowed no medication, and he used ruthless tactics to move me to healing. I resisted, but he pushed and prodded me into ultimately releasing the pain, despair and guilt I had suffered inside for so many years. When I finally left after two-and-a-half years, I didn’t know what I would face, but now I had the strength to face it.
I expected changes in my own life, but didn’t expect the change that came between my mother and me. It just seemed to happen. I began to see past her behavior to the scared child within who was abandoned in an orphanage when she was ten years old, her need to care for her younger siblings to find purpose in her life, her need to be needed. And I understood. Then I was able to be patient but still protect myself from her manipulation. And I loved her. We never spoke of our differences, but I think she knew and welcomed the change.
At age forty-seven, I returned to school, took all the psychology courses I could and earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Work, and later my Master of Science in Social Work. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker/Psychotherapist I had many years of wonderful, rewarding work with thousands of patients whose pain I understood from my soul. I can’t express the gratitude I felt when I saw the light come back into their eyes and the smiles on their faces. I had been spared. And so had they. What greater blessing is there in life?
Because I had not given up, no matter how painful, and I sought the help I needed, I found my life. Sometimes, when we think it’s over, it’s just beginning. And the rainbow around the bend is waiting for us if we help it happen.
Marilyn Fowler is a retired Licensed Clinical Social Worker/Psychotherapist. Her professional experience includes Team Leader, then Director of Mental Health Services in the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville, Florida; working on in-patient units, coordinating mental health services in five nursing homes, and in private practice for a number of years. She teaches a class at the University of North Florida on The Influence of Childhood Messages on Adult Life, she belongs to the Chat Noir Writers Circle, and she writes a self-help blog: www.marilyngf.blogspot.com
Her memoir, Silent Echoes, was published three years ago, and her stories have appeared in several magazines and a book entitled, When God Spoke To Me. She is now having fun working on a fictional story, with a video on You Tube (Me and Granmama in the Hill Country Chapter 1) reciting the first chapter in costume using southern dialect.
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Why is this "The i’Mpossible Project?"
Inspired by Josh Rivedal's book and one-man show The Gospel According to Josh: A 28-Year Gentile Bar Mitzvah. Gospel (non-religious) means "Good News" and Josh's good news is that he's alive, and thriving, able to tell his story and help other people.
On his international tour with his one-man show, he found incredible people who felt voiceless or worthless yet who were outstanding people with important personal stories waiting to be told. These personal stories changed his life and the life of the storyteller for the better.
Josh's one-man show continues through 2015 and beyond and he is looking for people in all walks of life, online and offline, to help give them a voice and share their stories with the world.
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