The Fear

Let me tell you about The Fear.

I recently re-read A Million Little Pieces by James Fry. I'm not one for plagiarism, but a section of the book put to words what I've been feeling. If you've never read this book (or watched Oprah) it's about a character named James who is in rehab at 24 years old for alcohol, meth, pills, coke, but mostly crack. His life is hell. Here is a passage:

I've always felt these things. I don't think there are any words that describe them exactly, but they are a combination of rage, anger, extreme pain. They mix together into what I call the Fury. I have known the Fury for as long as I can remember. It is the one thing that has been with me throughout my entire life. I am starting to learn about how to deal with it, but until recently, the only way I knew was through drinking and drugs. I took something, whatever it was, and if I took enough of it, the Fury would subside. The problem was that it would always come back, usually stronger, and it would require more and stronger substances to kill it, and that was always the goal, to kill it. From the first time I drank, I knew drinking would kill it. From the first time I took drugs, I knew drugs would kill it. I took them willingly, not because of some genetic link or some function of some disease, but because I knew they would kill the goddamn Fury. Even though I knew I was killing myself, killing the Fury was more important.
I look at my Parents.
I don't know why, and I don't know if it matters, but whenever you are near me the Fury gets worse. Whenever you have tried to control me or baby me or take care of me or stop me, the Fury has gotten worse. Whenever we talk on the phone or hear your voices, the Fury gets worse. I'm not saying you're to blame for it, because I don't think you are to blame. I know you did the best you could with me and I know I'm lucky to have you, and I can't think of anything in my background that would have caused it. Maybe the Fury is genetic, but I highly fucking doubt it., and I won't accept disease and genetics as the cause of it anyway. It makes it too easy to deflect the responsibility for what I have done and what I have done knowing full well I was doing it. Each and every time, I knew full fucking well, whether it was take a drink or snort a line or take a hit from a pipe or get arrested, and I made the decision to do it anyway. Most of the time it was to kill the Fury, some of the time it was to kill myself, and eventually I didn't know the difference. All I knew was that I was killing and at some point it would end, which would probably be best for everyone involved. For whatever it's worth, I feel it now, sitting here with you, and I'll feel it tomorrow morning when I see you again. I will feel it next time we speak, and the time after that and the time after that, and if there is an explanation for why I am the way I am or for who I am, it is that there is a Fury within me that is uncontrollable without drinking or drugs.
[I skip some text here - C ]
My Mother and Father stare at me. My Mother looks as if she's going to cry, and my Father looks pale, as if he has just seen a terrible wreck. My Mother starts to speak, stops, wipes her eyes. My Father just stares.
Joanne [the counselor] speaks.
Not discounting other factors, I would say there may be some validity to your theory, but I am curious where you think this Fury comes from.
I don't know.
She looks at my Parents. There are tears on my Mother's face, my Father still stare. My Mother speaks.
Why didn't you tell us this before?
What was I supposed to say?
Do you hate us?
I shake my head.
What did we do?
You didn't do anything, Mom. This isn't your fault.
She wipes her face. My Father stares.
I'm so sorry James.
Don't be sorry, Mom. I'm the one who should be sorry.
There is a long silence. My Father looks at Joanne, speaks.
Could this feeling, or set of feelings, have been brought on by a Medical Condition?
Did James have a Medical Condition as an Infant?
He had ear problems.
Were they diagnosed and treated?
My Mother speaks.
We didn't know.
How did you not know?
My Mother looks at my Father and she takes his hands. She speaks.
We didn't have much money when the Boys were first born. Bob was a Lawyer, but most of his salary went to paying off his school loans. Bob Junior came out healthy and he was a happy child. He was very quiet and very calm. When James was born, he was the opposite. He screamed and screamed and screamed, and no matter what we did, we couldn't get him to stop. It was awful screaming, long and loud and piercing, and I can still hear it in my memories. We went to the Doctor, and we got the best one we could afford.
The Doctor told us that there was nothing we could do, that James was probably just a vocal child. We went home and the screaming continued. I'd hold James, Bob would hold James, we tried giving him little toys and feeding him more, and nothing worked. Nothing could make him stop.
The tears started flowing. My Mother grips my Father's hand, my Father watches her as she speaks. I sit and listen. I have never heard about my screaming before, though it does not surprise me. I have been screaming for years. Screaming bloody fucking murder. My Mother cries and she continues.
It went on for almost two years. James just screamed and screamed. Bob started doing well at his Firm and got a raise, and as soon as we had some extra money, I took James to a better Doctor. As soon as he looked at him, he told me James had terrible infections in both his ears that were eating away his eardrums. He said James had been screaming for all that time because he was in tremendous pain and that he had been screaming for help. He recommended surgery, and just before he turned two, James had surgery on both his ears, which was the first of seven surgeries that he would have on them. Obviously we felt terrible, but we didn't know.
The tears have turned into sobs.
If we had known we could have done something.
Sob.
But we didn't know.
My Father holds her.
He just screamed and screamed and all that time we didn't know that he was screaming because he hurt.
My Mother breaks down, burying her face in my Father's shoulder and shaking and trembling and quivering. My Father holds her and he patiently waits for her, stroking her hair and rubbing her back. I sit and I stare, and though I have no memory of what she's talking about, I do remember the pain. That's all that remains. The pain.

My Fear is that something like that will happen to Audrey, Gina and I. My Fear is that her not sleeping at night is due to something other than "it's just a phase" and we aren't helping. My Fear is that she's going to grow up with her own version of the Fury and turn to self destructive means to kill her Fury. Because of something I'm not doing. My Fear is that before she's even old enough to remember what's wrong, I'm letting her hurt in a way that's going to effect her life and who she becomes. I don't want to sound melodramatic, but my Fear is that by not fixing whatever is making her not sleep at night, I'm going to set the stage for Audrey to become a crackhead.

Our Doctor has told us that Audrey is fine: she's just going through a phase. But James' Doctor told his parents that he was just a vocal baby. I know it's normal for a parent - especially a first timer - to worry about their parenting abilities. But this doesn't feel like worry.

This is my Fear.

I hope that at the three-month mark Audrey starts sleeping at night instead of taking 2-hour naps during the day and then wanting to play from 11:30pm until 9:00am, especially since Gina goes back to work in a couple of weeks, and I hope that this isn't a symptom of something more serious. I hope that I'm not ruining my Daughter.

Welcome to my Fear.

Excerpts taken from
A Million Little Pieces
By James Fry

pages 303 through 305