They Know Not What They Do

By Carolyn Maull McKinstry, Birmingham, Alabama

As appeared in

I sat nervously in the waiting room of a psychologist. My husband Jerome’s plea for me to see a doctor had finally sunk in, yet not even Jerome knew the depth of my misery, how the sadness never went away, no matter how I tried to numb it with alcohol.

These feelings had been a part of me since I was 14, throughout high school and college, going on 10 years now. I kept to myself. Rarely did I talk to other people. I was afraid something terrible would happen if I got too close to anyone, even Jerome, our daughters and other family members.

I didn’t know where these feelings were coming from. That’s what made them so frightening.

I picked up a magazine and flipped through it. The pictures that stared back at me were white smiling faces. Their lives were nothing like mine. I had grown up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the height of the civil rights struggles. Our city had been nicknamed Bombingham, because of all the bombs that had destroyed black homes, churches and businesses.

My parents had done their best to shelter my brothers, sister and me. They may have talked with their friends about segregation and racism, but not with us. Daddy told us places we weren’t to go, like across the railroad tracks, and insisted my brothers escort me everywhere. I questioned why there were so many rules. But I didn’t know to be afraid, not then.

Church was the one place I was allowed to be on my own. We went to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church downtown. I’d met Cynthia, my best friend, there.

I remember being baptized at 13. When the pastor lifted me from the water I blinked and looked up into Jesus’ tender face in the stained-glass window above the baptismal font. It seemed as if he were telling me, “I’m here, watching over you.”

Now I wondered if that was true. No matter how I prayed, God hadn’t eased my suffering. Lately I slept only a few hours at night. By morning I was exhausted. I picked at my food. I lost a lot of weight. My hands were always breaking out in rashes. How could I go on like this?

Jerome was constantly asking me, “What’s wrong?” But I couldn’t put the darkness inside of me into words. We’d been married six years now, with two beautiful girls. Why was my head filled with thoughts of death?

Jerome’s job had recently transferred us to Atlanta, Georgia. The only person I’d met was our next-door neighbor. I found myself drinking more and more.

A week earlier I’d mixed a mid-morning drink and sat down in front of the TV, just trying to get through another day. The girls were outside playing. A commercial came on: “Are you confused about life? Need someone to talk to?” It seemed to speak directly to me. “Call this number. Counselors are waiting to take your call.”

I dialed the number. A woman answered. She was explaining the services they offered when Jerome came in. He’d forgotten some papers he needed for work. “Who are you talking to?” he asked. “It’s really early to be drinking.”

I told him I was talking with someone from a suicide hotline. “I just wanted someone to talk to,” I said. “I was lonely.”

“I think you need to see a doctor,” he said. I agreed.

My doctor referred me to a friend of his. I didn’t know initially that the friend was a psychologist. That’s how I ended up in a psychologist’s waiting room. A door opened next to me.