Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [80]
Once again a suicide attempt had blown the lid off the seething bubbling kettle that was my brain. And once again, the Voices placated, I was visited by a strange calm. It was in this calm that I decided to make another go at nursing school.
Suddenly and without any warning, I quit going to the day program at the end of August, and enrolled instead in Pace University's School of Nursing. I didn't want to go back to the school where I had failed before. I thought of this as a new start. Besides, Pace had a terrific reputation. I even decided I'd go directly into a special master's program they offered, but my entrance scores were too low. What a joke! I could hardly believe I was the same person who had graduated with honors from Tufts just five years ago. Tufts University? A real grind school? Impossible. These days I could barely put together two consecutive thoughts.
Still, my scores were good enough that Pace undergrad accepted me, and I began work with a vengeance. I used every bit of guts I had. I forced myself to concentrate. I pored over the lecture material, over and over again. I must have done something right. I passed the first semester with a C plus average. It wasn't my old A self, but at least I wasn't failing.
Still, the attempt was taking its toll. The effort of fighting back my symptoms was weakening me. The temporary calm was ebbing. I was holding back the Voices by dint of superhuman control. But they wouldn't be contained for much longer.
You can only hold your breath for so long.
19
Mark Schiller Chicago, November 1986
Every time I came close to bringing Sally home to meet my family, we broke up. Sometime near the scheduled visit, I would start to back off.
“You know, maybe we should start dating other people, just to make certain … ”I would begin. Sally would react in horror. What had she done? What was wrong? Then we'd have a big fight and storm apart. We'd stay apart until the danger of the visit passed, and then make up. Because my father traveled to Chicago often on business, Sally had met him. But we had been dating for almost a year, had pretty much decided to get married, and she still hadn't met my mother and I still hadn't brought her back home to Scarsdale.
I wasn't deliberately sabotaging things. It's just that I had been running away from home for so long, it was hard to run back. I finally had this nice life, a nice job and a nice girlfriend safely far away in Chicago. I didn't want anything to mess it up.
My mother finally did manage to meet Sally—but only when my parents took matters into their own hands. My mother flew out to Chicago with my father. When I showed up alone at the restaurant—announcing that we had broken up yet again—my father demanded Sally's number, phoned her himself and ordered her to get dressed and get downtown, and then yelled at us both for being so silly. The rest of the meal was uneventful, and the ordeal I had been dreading was finally over.
Now Thanksgiving was coming, and another ordeal was about to begin. Sally and I were about to announce our engagement. This time she really was coming home with me for the holiday. And I was scared.
For this time, Sally was about to meet Lori. And I realized that for a long time one of the things I had been running away from was Lori.
Growing up, I never felt I was good enough. I was a typical middle kid, I guess, always feeling like I never got enough attention.
Steven was the baby, and Lori was perfect. She was a straight A student. She was popular. She was a great dancer in the discos, a great writer. She had a great sense of humor. My parents just reveled in her accomplishments. My parents were always telling me what a great kid I was, and how bright and how accomplished. But it was Lori who was always getting all the kinds of attention that I wanted.
I was