Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [75]
I heard and understood what she was saying. But even the knowledge that she was right couldn’t motivate me to try to get help for my condition.
At the end of my three-week engagement at the Landmark, all I wanted to do was go home to Los Angeles, so I raced through the desert at eighty miles an hour. But once I arrived back home, I felt empty, lost, and hopeless, unable to communicate much with Michael or feel close to him anymore. Even Matthew, sweet and loving, failed to mitigate my despair.
Gene had booked me to appear at a nightclub in Puerto Rico, then in a series of Caribbean clubs. Although I didn’t want to take the work, I knew that I had no choice. Again, if I didn’t work, who would?
Then I developed a really bad cold, and that cold saved my life. I consulted my doctor, and to my puzzlement, he asked me to hold my hand out.
I did and saw that it was shaking.
Up until then, I had truly believed that I was fine, but now I was compelled to face the truth that I was not.
The doctor told Michael that I couldn’t work and that it was imperative that I stay home and recuperate. So I did.
But instead of rallying as expected, I plunged into a deep, deep, deep depression. I was clearly in the throes of a classic postpartum depression, except that I didn’t have a baby to care for.
Instead, I’d spend hours just sitting in a chair, looking at seven-year-old Matthew, my beautiful little boy, and asking myself why I wasn’t happy. I was unable to laugh; I was unable to concentrate on television or on anything else. Sometimes it seemed to me as if I knew exactly what it must feel like to be insane.
My doctor finally diagnosed me as suffering from delayed shock and prescribed me pills to fight it, but they just made me feel even more numb than I had felt before.
Michael and I would meet friends at our favorite ice cream parlor. I’d always loved ice cream, but now, while everybody else had a scoop, all I wanted was a cup of coffee.
I felt nauseous most of the time. I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I just had no energy, no interest in anything. My big mistake, of course, was that I should have had counseling, but in those days the very thought of it was anathema to me.
At that crucial stage, Michael and I also should have had joint marital counseling, but that, too, was out of the question. In retrospect, I wish we had.
Instead, Gene came to my rescue with an offer for me to do a musical in the round in Phoenix. Michael asked me if I thought I could do it. I wasn’t sure, but I decided to give it a shot anyway, on the condition that he and Matthew come with me. I knew I couldn’t be alone anymore, and I was so very relieved when Michael agreed.
However, when I started learning the script, I was disturbed that once again my brain didn’t seem to be working as well as before. It was as if I had a barrier there that stopped me from concentrating. I was terrified that I’d forget the words or the dance steps on opening night.
By some miracle, I got through the show without a single hitch. I stayed in it for about three weeks, then went straight back on the road again, doing my nightclub act.
Meanwhile, the rift in my marriage to Michael was growing increasingly wider. As I said before, we should have gone into counseling, not only to cope with our baby’s death but also to deal with the growing disparity in our careers and earning power.
Ironically, Michael was filming Police Story when I made my decision to end our marriage. That decision was hard and painful, and even now I often question whether it was the right one.
Today, Michael and I have long since found happiness: me with my husband, Jon, and Michael with his wife, Beverly. But I still regret our divorce, because the repercussions it would one day have on Matthew would turn out to be cataclysmic. Had I been able to look into a crystal ball at that time, I would have stayed in the marriage until Matthew was an adult. But I didn’t.
It was my decision alone. Michael and I did try to talk about our marital problems, but every time we talked, the chasm between us