All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [125]
By morning, I was utterly worn out. I decided this was unsustainable. I could not live without adequate sleep. I marched to the foyer and, seeing Erica there, said, “Hi, look, yeah, I am just gonna go to a nearby hotel, grab some sleep. I am sure a few hours will make a big difference. I don’t need my whole suitcase, I’ll just take a day bag, and I’ll be back later. Thanks.”
She stared me down.
“A.J., it does not work that way. If you walk out that door, you are taking your stuff with you, and you aren’t coming back.”
Silence.
“Come in here,” Erica said.
I was led into the treatment team’s staff room, where their long morning meeting was well under way. The entire gang, or what felt like a coven, was assembled around a paper-strewn table, with client cases opened, charts on the wall. It was like walking into a genius’s laboratory, where obvious creativity and skill kinetically charged the air.
Erica may have said something to explain why she’d brought me to nerve center. I think I feebly built my case for sleep. But what happened next was what really mattered and was another of those life-changing moments.
“Ashley, what are you so afraid of?”
I was amazed to hear the confession, the incredibly vulnerable truth, come out of my mouth.
“I am afraid I am going to lose my mind.”
There. I said it.
The energy in the room changed. The very air became gentle. There was a palpable softness.
An array of eyes looked knowingly at me. People who had been where I was, who were now somewhere much further down the recovering road, nodded their understanding.
“We will never let your mind go somewhere we cannot bring you back from,” Erica said.
Although my chest clamped and I had no idea what they were saying would look like, I accepted their promise. I walked out the door, rejoined my peers, and proceeded to work very, very hard on my treatment plan for forty days and forty nights, sleep or no sleep.
I took ownership of a middle chair on the glassed-in porch, facing the garden and the creek. I spread out my paper, pens, and other tools. I wrote during every free minute, answering the questions of my now numerous first step preps (if step one is to admit I am powerless over something and my life is unmanageable, a “first step prep” is informally known as step zero: “This shit has to stop”), my auto, and all the subsequent assignments I would receive. I attended, and actually enjoyed, every group: process, Twelve Step, cognitive, behavioral, spirituality, experiential, and art, among others. I found the work fascinating, in spite of being painful, and found that when I was deeply engaged, either by listening to my increasingly loved and valued peers or by doing my own work, I didn’t feel tired. I gave my all to the work.
One night in art group, we were asked to draw the body part that gives us the most hassle and then process out loud why we dislike or feel shame about that part of ourselves. Clearly an exercise designed for disordered eaters, I nonetheless had no trouble identifying the body part that grieved me most: my brain. I drew one, and in a creative, messy-but-still-somehow-makes-sense series of designs and statements, I shared that I knew my brain was my greatest asset (especially when used in conjunction with my good and tender heart) and that among other things it was a smart one that allowed me to experience great beauty, joy, and pathos. But too often at this stage of my life, my brain was racked with difficulties, consumed nonstop with trying to manage anxiety and emotional pain, sorting out multiple channels of static like a radio knob being spun back and forth across the dial, never tuning in one strong, clear channel. I knew there was plenty of hope for my brain, but this wonderfully strange thing I drew visually reflected the chaos and darkness too often in it.