Defying the Verdict Page 8

  Meanwhile, back in New Britain, Pastor Geddis, chaplain at New Britain General Hospital, secured a bed for me at that facility. Penny remained in New Britain, awaiting my arrival. She called Leslie and relayed this information so she could pass it along to my father. I pieced the commitment debacle together over the years based on Penny’s and Daddy’s recollections. My dad, who later expressed being disappointed by Penny’s absence in Middletown, never saw Leslie, only her mother. I doubt Mrs. Jones knew anything about the New Britain hospital arrangement.

  My dad remembers a Mrs. Olson, who talked soothingly to him and got him some milk to drink as he waited for his baby to be transported to the psychiatric institution. He was unable to summon the calm he had exhibited when my grandmother was ill. He returned to Baltimore the following day. Alone. Maybe things would have been different had I gone to New Britain General Hospital.

  I was given an injection of Haldol to sedate me for my trip to Connecticut Valley Hospital, formerly Connecticut General Hospital for the Insane. Wesleyan students knew it as CVH. Though it was the other beautiful campus in Middletown, nobody wished to end up there. When I awakened at CVH, I was lying straitjacketed on a table in a pool of my own urine. When I gained consciousness earlier, I had fought the techs and needed to be restrained. I was restrained again the following day when my fight reflex kicked in again as a nurse tried to administer a Haldol injection by needle. This second time, I retained control of my bladder. For the next several days, refusing to take medicine by mouth, I was held down and given injections in my buttocks. I finally relented and received medication orally.

  Hearing of my whereabouts, my former roommate Michelle traveled to the hospital from New York. Her mother was a nurse, but I do not know how she recognized I was experiencing a negative reaction to Navane, the psychotropic medicine being administered to me. I was having difficulty speaking and I was drooling. In her characteristically authoritative manner, she told the nurse that administration of the drug Navane would need to be discontinued. The doctor stopped the medicine at her insistence. The hospital staff had seemed oblivious to the side effects the drug caused.

  One of the social workers at CVH identified herself as an Apostolic minister. When I had become calmer, she would sometimes take me to wards where she was assigned. I’m certain she was praying for me.

  Penny visited every day but one, when it was bitterly cold. My pastor and several of the saints visited as well. Unlike many other fundamentalists living in the United States in the early 1980s, Bishop Geddis saw bipolar disorder as an illness, not a demon that needed to be cast out. Before I went back to Baltimore after the CVH commitment, Bishop Geddis had reasoned, “This is an illness that needs to be treated. If you had a toothache, you would go to a dentist, wouldn’t you?” His encouragement did not erase my personal shame. I secretly categorized myself as crazy, but it was mildly comforting to know someone I respected did not.

  THE SECOND WEEK of my commitment, when I was coming down from my unwelcomed high, I remember being allowed to walk alone outside in the afternoons. I would repeat Isaiah 40:31 to myself: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk, and not faint.” I had to believe God was going to release me from this waking nightmare.

  Penny wrote me a letter during my confinement that included the line, “Come on back to reality, Ri.” Eventually, with divine assistance, I did.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL

  UNLIKE DEPRESSIONS I had suffered, mania terrified me. The improvisational behavior I had recently exhibited lacked the control of classic theatrical improvisation. I was used to being directed by a brain that processed my actions before I performed them. While manic, I did whatever came next without making certain it was grounded in reality, and that was crazy. This was especially frightening for me because my self image was largely based on intellectual achievement and self-control. Other than Bishop Geddis, no one around me seemed to understand my symptoms as manifestations of an illness.

  After I was forcibly medicated out of the unwelcome high, a doctor at CVH recommended I take lithium, a naturally occurring salt on the periodic table, in a concentrated dose to quell the mania. While considering his advice, I met a young woman at the hospital whose behavior seemed extremely erratic, even while taking lithium. Not knowing it takes time for the medication to work effectively, I decided lithium was not for me and refused the drug. Unfortunately, as a twenty-two-year-old adult in charge of my own medical decisions, I didn’t seek outside counsel. After fifteen days, when my mood stabilized, I was discharged with instructions to take a multi-vitamin. Two female workers at the facility admonished me, separately, not to come back to the facility, as if being at a looney farm was my choice.

  After my refusal to be medicated, I left Connecticut Valley Hospital thinking I was probably insane but hoping the episodic mania had been an anomaly.

  Penny picked me up from the institution and drove me to my apartment. When I met with Dr. Coughlin, who I hadn’t conferred with in person since my return to Wesleyan in 1978, she told me I needed another semester off to allow my mind to rest. That would put me a full year behind my entering class at Wesleyan. Not happy about being a slow finisher, I appeased myself with the assurance of returning to graduate with the class of 1982. Because I had packed up most of my things and stored them at my pastor’s house in December, I only had to take my clothing home. I left my books in storage, but never retrieved them, not remembering where they were. Through the years I’ve lost a variety of possessions during manias.

  Penny drove me to the train station. As we said goodbye, she looked apprehensive. I was definitely not the bubbly woman she traveled cross-country with on the bus trip on which I read my Random House pocket dictionary recreationally. I assured her I would be back. At least, that was my hope.

  Before going home, I called my pastor’s wife to apologize for the ways my manic behavior had disrupted the peace in her home. A couple of years later, she wrote me a note asking me to forgive her if any of her actions had caused my condition to worsen. She assured me that was never her intent.

  When I arrived back home, I wrote in my journal, I am feeling so paralyzed that I have to force myself to do the simplest things, like getting up and getting dressed. My sister Valerie, who talks far less than I, called me everyday to make sure I had a conversation with somebody. Thanks to my six years of indoctrination by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, suicide was still off the table.

  When I felt well enough to speak to someone outside my family, I called Dee Dee to relate what happened. Rather than speak by phone, she invited me to visit at her home in D.C. While there, I had a conference with Bishop Wilson, our organization’s overseer, at their church. I imagined Bishop Geddis had already recounted my story. Bishop Wilson sat at his desk, with me seated in a chair opposite him. Establishing eye contact with me, he questioned, “What happened, Daughter?” Emotionally exhausted, I related how thoughts sped up in my head after he dropped me off at school, and I eventually ended up committed to a psychiatric facility for fifteen days.

  “I’m better now, not taking any medication,” I declared. After he listened to my tale of psychiatric imprisonment. I shared the conclusion I had reached for my future.

  Feeling no Spirit-filled saint should go through what I just had, I decided studying theater was destroying me; it was my mammon. I reasoned that abandoning theater was my solution. Knowing Jesus said no one could serve God and mammon, I refused to be an idolater. Back then, unaware of my confusion, no one explained mammon was the Greek word for money.

  Bishop Geddis discouraged worldly entertainment. He encouraged his flock to carefully monitor television viewing, referring to TV as “the one-eyed demon.”

  Having thought this new teaching through, I concluded, “If you can’t go to movies a
nd plays, and your TV viewing is limited, you certainly can’t pursue acting or directing, as you had planned.” So, wanting to be the best Christian possible, circa 1906, the spread of early Pentecostalism in the United States, I erroneously concluded God wanted me to forsake theater, the pursuit that had nourished my spirit.

  Bishop Wilson listened, respecting my right to make my own life choice. I do not remember him saying yea or nay to my decision. At this time no one, including me, understood theater was the thing God sent into my life to nourish my soul. I decided that although it was a fine pursuit for a Catholic, I needed to embrace the sober mindedness befitting my Apostolic lifestyle. This was an erroneous and harmful conclusion. However, no one in my Pentecostal world possessed the wisdom and understanding necessary to assure me that theatrical pursuits nurtured me. I replaced theatrical nurturance with spiritual anesthesia.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Nay, let them only see us while We wear the mask.”

  —PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

  TO EASE MY feelings of humiliation, I chose to treat this semester off as a sabbatical. If I was going to be the best Christian me, I needed to belong to a church congregation where I would have a temporary pastor. I became an adjunct member of Calvary Church of Jesus Christ in Baltimore, the church I first visited with Dee Dee in December 1979 at Bishop Wilson’s recommendation. Having no transportation to D.C., he believed Bishop Byron’s church, which was not a member of the New Born Church Organization, would be suitable for Christian fellowship whenever I visited Baltimore.

  Our neighbor Mrs. Dixon drove me to Tuesday night prayer service in late January. I was glad to be in a church that had corporate prayer, a service where everyone in the congregation spends an hour kneeling in prayer.

  I met with Bishop Byron and talked to him about my recent psychiatric commitment. He connected me to a sister in the assembly who worked in a psychiatric institution. She encouraged me to call her as needed. I was thankful for her insightful listening. During this sabbatical, these were the only people at United to whom I revealed my commitment at Connecticut Valley Hospital.

  This congregation was an outgrowth of Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I noted the doctrinal teachings of this congregation, comparing them to New Born in Connecticut. Saints were encouraged to develop faith in God, to pray and to fast at both congregations. In Baltimore, the sisters were prohibited from chemically straightening their hair, as mine was; their skirts were required to fall below the calf, while mine were over the knee. The colors orange and red were considered too loud for the saints, and red was my favorite color. Sisters wore no jewelry, not even wedding rings. In Connecticut, the sisters wore brooches and class rings. Wedding rings were definitely worn.

  Combining Paul’s admonishment that women cover their heads while praying with the scriptures that encourage saints to pray continually, sisters were instructed to wear head coverings constantly. Some of the older women wore turbans or scarves at all times, only removing them to wash their hair. This struck me as extreme and unnecessary.

  I asked Bishop Byron about movie and theater attendance; they were taboo here also. These saints were allowed to bowl and roller skate, which were New Born taboos. I remembered what Penny told me about each pastor setting parameters for his congregation. Should I try to comply?

  My friend Bill had moved from Connecticut to D.C. after earning his doctorate from Wesleyan in 1979. Having suffered a nervous breakdown pre-salvation, he empathized with me. We spoke by phone several times, and then he visited me at home. As we sat in the park behind my house, with my head covered, I told him about United. The preaching was fine and I loved the hymns we sang, but I could not understand the rationale behind the dress code for sisters.

  I asked him, “Bill, the Bible says if the Son makes you free, you’ll be free indeed. Why do I feel so bound?”

  We discussed my question, then he suggested, “Maybe this isn’t the right church for you.” Maybe it wasn’t, but I’d be leaving in August. At that point in early spring, I lacked the energy it would take to find a church.

  I went to the outpatient psychiatry department at Sinai where I met with a therapist for a couple of months. We discussed how I felt about my confinement at Connecticut Valley Hospital and whether or not I felt the mania would recur. I did not.

  I got a temp job at Johns Hopkins University. I started as a file clerk in the payroll department, then transferred to the accounts payable department to microfilm the university’s paid bills and research bill payment histories saved to microfilm and microfiche. It was as exciting as it sounds. I welcomed the monotony.

  On Sundays, I went to morning service, came home for dinner, and returned for evening service by bus. My sister Ernestine often accompanied me, like a family bodyguard. One Sunday in early March, I suggested we turn around and go back home rather than walk to the bus. Feeling overwhelmed, I thought, This isn’t working. It might be time for me to give up on salvation. If I went home at that moment, I would have abandoned the Apostolic faith. As if she could read my thoughts, my sister declared, “You’ll feel better if you go to the service.” Knowing she was right, we continued on to the bus stop.

  I enjoyed fellowship with the saints at Calvary for the next several months, without anyone uncovering my hidden mental instability. I made a couple of friends who provided the human connection I needed within the congregation. I was unwilling to face the undeniable stigma associated with my illness. During my Baltimore tenure, I endured preachers insisting that born-again believers did not suffer mental illness. They reasoned that mental illness was a sign of demonic possession, sighting the demoniac of Gadara who dwelled naked in the tombs cutting himself, possessed by devils before Jesus healed him. In their vernacular, “the demon of mental illness could never affect a blood-washed saint. Fasting and prayer would drive any demon far from you.” Fortunately, I had learned at New Born that a demonic spirit trying to repress me could never possess me as a possessor of God’s spirit.

  Was this the atmosphere in which I could discuss having a chemically imbalanced brain?

  One Tuesday night at prayer service, I knelt for a conversation with God. In my head, I prayed: Lord, if what happened to me in December is ever going to happen to me again, please kill me before it does. This was the closest I came to suicidal ideation.

  Thank you, School Sisters of Notre Dame.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Life itself is a drama in various acts”

  —ANONYMOUS, AS SHARED BY CHERYL STEVENS

  IN LATE AUGUST 1981, still alive, I returned to Wesleyan and my New Born church family, where I would not have to expend psychic energy guarding my secret. Dr. Coughlin readmitted me from my involuntary leave of medical absence to begin my senior year in Middletown.

  My new roommate, Jackie, and I shared a university owned apartment—a third floor walk-up—in a house on High Street. Both of us were members of New Born Church of God and True Holiness.

  Because I had taken two separate semesters of medical leave since entering Wes U in 1977, most students I knew well had graduated in May of 1981 or earlier. At this point, it didn’t matter. Since getting saved at New Born in November 1979, my interests had shifted away from on-campus life. My life was much different than it had been in the summer of 1979—unbalanced rather than peaceful.

  I knew people who went to college and morphed from straight-laced geeks without any social life to all-the-way live partiers. My transition was pretty much the opposite. I arrived at Wesleyan as the gregarious, improvisational theater performer who spiked the punch with grain alcohol for the freshman party I organized at the Malcolm X house.

  In the absence of campus sororities, a group of girlfriends and I launched a sisterhood we called I Phelta Thi. We created an anthem based on the refrain of the song, “Bustin’ Loose.” It went, “I feel like feeling a thigh / I felt a thigh.” As we chanted, we’d touch some random male student’s leg. All in good fun. As I sought more spiritual depth, I abandon
ed my free-spirited partying lifestyle. It wasn’t in sync with my newly learned concept of sober-mindedness.

  While living on High Street, I attended classes on campus during the week. I spent the greater part of my weekends at church, attending services on Friday nights, Sunday mornings, and Sunday evenings. I occasionally attended prayer on Saturday afternoon, as well. Our assistant pastor drove to the Wesleyan campus on Wednesday evenings to lead the in-depth Bible study I loved.

  As a result of those teachings, I learned the importance of studying and internalizing scripture in order to lead a fulfilled life. I also reabsorbed the necessity of looking for the good in others. After all, I was the young woman whose senior yearbook page included a Confucius quote, “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

  When I first began attending New Born regularly in September 1979, I learned the scriptural admonition, “Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.” The thought, this church schedule is a bit excessive, lingered in my mind, but I eventually accepted this regimentation as a necessary part of our congregational culture. Knowing a little more about holiness than I, Penny shared that each pastor set up rules to best serve the entire membership. I trusted my pastor’s judgment. I wouldn’t learn until many years later that some of our dogma was simply rooted in Pentecostal traditionalism.

  My family knew I had changed religious affiliation, but they had no idea how often I went to church. I didn’t tell them. My conversion was too soon after the Jim Jones debacle in which the cult’s leader convinced his membership to commit suicide en masse by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid. I didn’t want them to think I had joined a cult. Karen often encouraged me to “return to the faith of our fathers.” Knowing I often pursued new endeavors in two-year blocks, she figured I’d abandon this new religion soon.