Chapter 1

Beginning to Talk

"So, Brian, what brings you here?" Jon gently asked in an engaging tone. I was somewhat caught off my stiff guard by the sincerity in his voice which amazingly did not compromise his straightforwardness.

Adding to my discomfort of having a complete mental block in recalling the rehearsed answer to this inevitable opener was my frustrating attempt to get a glimpse of Jon so I could at least begin to size him up. My appointment with Jon Brett, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, had been reluctantly set up with three telephone calls. I quickly hung up on the first two calls before anyone at the other end had a chance to snatch the receiver. But my weakening resistance to reaching out to Jon was evident in that on the second hang up, I let the hot line ring five times as opposed to two times on the first try. Jon was actually my second choice as healer of the psyche, since I, with the utmost of discretion, found out that another relatively unknown and, therefore, top-secret psychotherapist in the community was totally booked up. I was not paranoid I had reasoned, I was merely being practical, a synonomous term for political. Newport, Rhode Island is a relatively small community and it seemed that everyone else knew everyone else’s business. Heaven forbid should one of those little old ladies, whom I couldn’t see if my life depended on it, should see me walking up the steps of 37 Powell Avenue. I suppose had I been caught slowly mounting those six steps, I could have passed it off as a professional consultation since I am one of them by virtue of sharing the same trade. But could I use this same baloney if that same old lady spotted my paranoid image clumsily mounting the steps week after week? I had heard some good things about Jon from a buddy who swore that he would not reveal my inquiry to a soul, so I had an unrealistic desire not to be too nervous in my initial encounter with him. After all, I, as a bona fide neurotic, had two extended series of outpatient treatment in Psychotherapy 101 and 102 with two other shrinks to keep off my resume, thus having a pretty good idea of what the therapy game is all about. With dismay I inwardly groaned over my illusion that the first two bouts of shrinkage at the vulnerable ages of 25 and 28 had without question been remarkably successful in transforming me into a tower of strength, a lean, mean psycho machine. I reflected with disgust that I must have missed the boat somewhere since here I was, at the more seasoned age of 41, pathetically sitting in Jon's office waiting for Round Number three. Is it true that three strikes and you’re out? They must allow a fourth strike for the handicapped. But if it’s only three strikes, then what? Plunging into the abysmal black hole of hell, or, even worse, the snake pits?

What brings me here? I thought to myself dumbly. Where in the hell was that prepared opener I had mentally gone over and over for hours? Damn, it had something to do with that awesome Paul Newman line in Cool Hand Luke, something to the effect of ”I think what we have here is a problem with communication”. I really loved that line that Cool Luke mimicked with that outrageous smirk plastered across his beautiful cocky face to the conniving redneck. That line symbolized total control to me. “Total control” I reflected with some shame as my mind, yet for another time, wandered off for a few seconds, “. . . the biggest problem in my screwed up life, the stupidest need to be in total control.”

Clearing my throat and mustering a "well-umm," I once again tried to size Jon up for a few more seconds. But being blind with only about 3 degrees of vision in my left eye made this rapid fire size-up that I used to be so good at impossible. Having to hand Jon an weird looking contraption called a FM system to amplify his voice about twenty fold didn’t help matters much either. This FM gizmo, basically a one way walkie-talkie system right out of Dick Tracy, was necessary to accommodate for my profound deafness. Without any mechanical aids, hearing aids, FM systems, whatever, I was lucky if I could hear five per cent of the outside world, roughly equivalent to the noise made by a flea walking across an elephant’s butt with sneakers on. That was only if sounds from the outer world were of a low pitch sound such as the rumbling roar of a dump truck. Thus, the low pitch sound of a husky male intoning in baritone was easiest for me, but heaven forbid, should a roaring rumbling truck be nearby as this would cancel everything out. Background noise during conversations, make no mistake about it, were sheer nightmares, pure and simple. In fact, Jon had to shut off a special noisemaker he used in order to prevent auditory voyeurs from hearing the juicy tidbits that are shared with shrinks at the rate of the speed of sound. He had no choice, however, as we both agreed that my hearing Jon took a definite priority over wondering if some pervert was tiptoeing behind the office door, a door most likely made with synthetic wood and having the soundproofing value of toilet paper. Jon did quip that perhaps he could leave on the noisemaker and just let me do all the talking, the method used by just about every Freudian psychoanalysts, but we, after all, were both shrinks, knew that goal directed therapy was far more effective and easiest on the wallet. So, sooner or later, Jon would have to say something and this obvious fact settled the score. The noisemaker was definitely history during my fifty minute hour.

If sounds were high pitched such as a fire engine siren, forget it. If anyone wanted to talk to me without benefit of my machinery, that person would have to stand shoulder to shoulder to me, lean up or down (depending on that other person’s height), put their lips right into my ear as if practicing mouth to ear resuscitation, and let out a flow of words with at least a 75 decibel volume. It doesn’t take an audiologist, otologist or even a brain surgeon to know that 75 decibels of sound is pretty loud, it’s just about next to the level of the infamous rebel yell used in the bloody Civil War battles. Most people are very surprised when they learn that I am this deaf, especially professionals. With this level of hearing loss, I am not supposed to speaking so fluently (never mind winning public speaking contests) nor am I supposed to be able to converse so well on the telephone. Several audiologists flat out stated that the reason I verbalize so well is because I must be post-lingually deaf, or lost my hearing a little later in life and after I had a chance to develop language skills. Inevitably, their awe and confusion accelerates when I tell these know-it-alls, sorry, but I was born deaf. One audiologist came right out and confessed he couldn’t figure why my verbal skills were so outstanding. He actually used the word ‘phenomenal’. I felt sorry for this guy, you could tell he wanted to have an answer for everything. The FM system, a gleaming metallic yellow box about the size of a pack of cigarettes with a foot long microphone jacked into it, must have made Jon wonder if I were either from Mars or the FBI headquarters in Quantico. It was sheer horror not only to hand him the microphone, but even more so to have to explain how the blasted thing worked. To cover up my anxiety, I usually point out the workings of freaky looking thing with nonchalance that was obviously overdone. God have mercy on me if the recipient of the FM should show any discomfort, my palms would sweat, and my skin would feel clammy as my hidden anxiety would betray me, revealing me as frightened as a cornered puppy. I was relatively new at this since I had only acquired this personalized FM system a year earlier, thanks to an audiologist who had learned of me through the professional grapevine.

Despite my suspicions, Jon actually did seem to be pretty laid back about being handed the miniaturized stage microphone, putting me slightly more at ease. However, my comfort about Jon’s display of his acceptance of the Phil Donahue mike was short lived, being replaced by a feeling of guilt about my suspiciousness. My inner shame was over wondering if he was just faking it to make me feel better. Everybody knows that therapists are great at playing charade, on adopting the calm therapist persona. That is, everybody knows about therapist role-playing except therapists themselves.

From the little bits and pieces I could see in my kaleidoscopic field of vision (thank God the overhead lighting in his office was good), my pinhole of a porthole to the world, perceptually biased by my desperate need for help, was leading me to see, however fragmented, that Jon was coming off as a pretty nice guy, a cool and relaxed dude. Having hesitantly stood up to be greeted by him in the waiting room, it was readily apparent that he was a couple of inches taller than me, about 6 feet or more in height, neatly dressed with a tie. After awkwardly being assisted to the headshrinking couch in his modest office, the first giveaway to me about his relaxed nature was that he wasn’t wearing a suit jacket with his shirt and tie. Prior to the heavy opener about what brought me to his office, we chit chatted with a bit of important small talk to break the ice. Truth always being vibrational to me, I could instinctively sense from the tone and gentleness in his sincere words that he was genuinely friendly, even warm in a way uncharacteristic for many men, at least guys I knew. His warmth softened my defenses immediately. When he threw his feet up on his desk, I felt even more at ease. I wondered if he stepped in dog shit once in a while like the rest of us. Wondering about the possibility of Jon embarrassingly stepping in crap once in a while brought on a powerful flashback to my teenage years. My old buddies from Lynn, Massachusetts used to brutally tease me about actually having a curse, being blessed with the uncanny ability to step in dog shit no matter where the brown stuff was. They even told me the curse was so bad they could tell I was walking down the street from half a block away, either because of the nauseating smell of squashed dog crap or, even more revealing, the hilarious sight of me awkwardly squatted on a sidewalk curb with a popsicle stick in my hand angrily scraping the shit out from the holes in the soles of my sneakers. I chuckled with this reverie, musing to myself about what great days they were, half-amused, half-sad, realizing that those days were long gone. The fact that Jon’s office was rather modest, certainly not lavish, made me feel a little full of myself as I was making a quick mental comparison of my more ornate office. I instantly felt a little ashamed of my competitiveness.

Christ, I don't know where to begin. I was prepared for the heavy opening question yet I was still mysteriously drawing a blank and this made me quite confused and uncomfortable.

"Any suggestions where I should start?"

"Anywhere you want," he said with a subtle grin that even I could detect.

I knew exactly what that grin meant. He was a therapist, and he knew that I was a therapist as well, and he knew damn well that my question was only going to be met by perhaps the most universal therapeutic opening signal, "Anywhere you want." I paused a few more seconds, muttering something incomprehensible even to myself, finally took a deep breath, but not quite ready to give up my resistance yet.

"I was hoping my involvement with you in therapy was going to be a quick fix since you're pretty expensive, and I have an idea this fucking divorce I'm going to be going through is going to cost me a pretty penny," I blurted out in annoyance.

"However long it takes, your quick fix will come quicker if you relax and speak from your gut," he replied spontaneously without the slightest hint of impatience.

It's always amazing to me how the greatest bits of truth were spoken with the least amount of thinking. I took another breath as beginning recognition of at least a partial surrender. Trust him, I demanded to myself, talk about anything ... the first thing from your gut that pops into your mind ... go for it, baby, just friggin’ go for it just like smoking through the big downhill of ’85 or, even better, blasting down the horridly steep KT-22 at Squaw. There was no holding back then and it paid off, so the same thing’s gotta happen here.

Therapy finally began.

"I'm just feeling down and confused," I muttered. "My wife and I are separated and I “I have this sickening feeling that I messed up my second marriage. When I make a half ass effort to tell myself it's not all my fault that the marriage hit the rocks, I still feel like a piece of warmed over crap because I can’t convince myself. Deep down, I know I had a lot to do with the vilification of the vows, if not most of it. Since this is my second blasted try at tying the nuptial knot, I brilliantly reasoned to myself that I just might want to get my rear end in the shrink’s office if I really want to get a better handle on my history of botched relationships."

"Tell me what happened to your marriage, Brian," Jon asked with directness, but with a tone of sensitivity so distinct that Hitler himself couldn’t have missed it.

With that directive, I launched into a lengthy and solemn monologue about my frustrating ordeal during Marriage #2. Although I initially believed I was speaking the absolute, objective truth in portraying the marriage to Jon, a subtle voice deep within me bubbled up into my consciousness, hissing its accusatory words that I was bullshitting all over again. This internal voice confused me. Was it the voice of my conscience or was it the voice of guilt? I knew the marital saga that I was woefully telling my new therapist, therapist number three damn it, had in fact been repeated many times to compassionate friends and even other suckers who'd be willing enough to listen to my self centered story in a desperate effort to stockpile the evidence to convince the gullible listeners that I was doing all the right stuff while she, of course, was doing all the wrong stuff. Damn it, I contemplated with a queasy knot in my stomach, why was I always putting so much energy into appearing to be right. Even more puzzling, why was it so scary for me to look wrong in the eyes of others rather than to simply smarten up and focus on dealing straight forwardly with the unavoidable problems that my life’s misfortunes had handed down to me?

I finally spoke of Marilyn, how she had caught my fancy in my fiancé’s back yard, when she and another friend of mine had come over to assist me in yet another frustrating search for Garth, my loyal Seeing Eye dog who had been wisely demoted to a room mate. Garth was a truly handsome male golden retriever, his good looks undoubtedly having gone to his head because he was also truly a hound with a completely uninhibited free spirit that suited his penchant for good looking girls very well. His leather harness in my left hand, I trotted behind him for direction and protection for several months before hair raisingly realizing that his instinct for guide-dogism was pathetically low. After almost becoming history from nearly being wiped out by an eighteen wheeler when he was distracted by a hot looking Newport lady rather than performing with total concentration while crossing the busy Memorial Boulevard and Bellevue intersection, I split-secondly decided that it definitely was best to take his guide dog stripes that symbolized the macho mutt as a heroic hound away, at least for a probationary period. The huge truck only a few precious feet away from me, its loud horn honking after hearing eerily screeching brakes, I decided right then and there on the same spot where the horny Garth had his tongue hanging out and drooling for the flattered lady that this dear dog was definitely not going to be the light for my darkened world. Accordingly and still smack on the spot, I decommission the lovable laugh of a dog, lowering his status to an unheralded housemate. As long as he got his spaghetti and meatballs on Prince Spaghetti night, he could have cared less. I was afraid to let him try the Chianti wine that I had with mine for I had a sneaking suspicion that he eventually would have insisted on that as well. This newly defined relationship between us with a different set of expectations for clearer boundaries actually worked out much better, his misinterpretation that his demotion privileged him to take off whenever the hell he felt like it being the only downside. Gallivanting Garth was without a doubt one of those carefree canines who abided by the motto "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit."

I went on explaining to Jon how I laid out more hysterical happenings about Garth to my buddy Joe and my new acquaintance, a Goldie Hawn look alike named Marilyn, in the back yard of a woman I had proposed to about four months earlier. With tear filled eyes and aching ribs, we couldn’t get our rear ends off our lawn chairs, telling even more side-splitters instead of begrudgingly looking for Garth. Although the pinholes in my windows to the world were misted by tears of laughter, it was still readily apparent that Marilyn was quite cute, in fact, a downright knockout. For frosting on the cake, I really ate up the way she coquettishly giggled with a hint of seductiveness at my one liners, even the corny ones.

I rambled on in the opening session of the third attempt to redeem my psyche mostly in attempt to control the course of the dialogue, revealing to Jon the nitty-gritty of the courtship between Marilyn and myself. Despite my limited success in dominating the monologue, I could not conceal the embarrassment when I hesitantly told him that we were married in Newport, New Hampshire by a justice of the peace after only two months of dating. The entire two months of our pre nuptial bliss were consumed by frolicking in Newport, Rhode Island, mostly at its beautiful beaches and the harbor side bars. To add drama to the ceremony, we were married the evening before I was to embark on a three week sojourn to New Zealand where I would be training as a member of the US Disabled Ski Team with my downhill racing guide in preparation for the upcoming Disabled Winter Olympics to be held in Sweden. Even before meting Marilyn, I had plans to go there shortly after Labor Day of 1985 and marriage or no marriage, I was not going to let this golden opportunity slip through my fingers. I did wonder, however, how I was going to explain to my racing guide Paul, from Winter Park, Colorado, that I had just been married the previous day, yet decided to honeymoon alone. Adding to my rising humiliation, Paul knew that part of my role as a family counselor involved marital therapy. He undoubtedly would think I was off my rocker or one heck of a therapist, one or the other, nothing in between. After having been ceremoniously celebrating one of my best buddy’s marriage to his endearing soul-mate, Marilyn and I were casually chatting about the subject of marriage the following Sunday morning, and we wondered maybe if something nice like that would happen to us one day as well. Taking the cue she stared directly into my blinded eyes and asked, "Would you really marry me sometime?" I froze momentarily, then thought: Relax, Hub, this woman probably is the right one. It's been ten years since your last divorce, ten years of messed up relationships that is. This charming cutie, even if a little flighty at times, just might be the right one for you. After all, I’m certainly not perfect. "Sure," I answered with a convincing effort, but deep down I knew I hadn’t really convinced myself. After I went into the kitchen for a glass of water that would quench my dry mouth, the aftermath of the intense discussion and augmented by yet another hangover, I returned to my living room where I found her without a stitch of clothing on and punching numbers on the telephone--she was finding someone to marry us before I left for New Zealand. I stood there mute, in absolute stunned silence, wondering if I had really heard what I thought I heard. Only you, Hubbard, I disbelievingly thought to myself when the confirmation of the bizarre happening finally registered in my not so brilliant brain. Only you could get yourself into shit like this. But amazingly, I said nothing, wondering if it could work out okay.

I continued to share my story with Jon. I told him of how we were married by the Justice of the Peace in New Hampshire a few days later, without witnesses, without wedding rings. I told him of how the ceremony seemed almost like a dream, unreal, and wondering why I was going through with it, especially after only a two months' courtship. I went on to report how I flew to New Zealand by myself after the impromptu marriage ceremony to train with my racing guide. How I believed that things were all right after I returned, until it became increasingly obvious to me after only about six months that this marriage was not all right at all. While I found Marilyn charming and humorous at times, I also slowly began to realize it was going to be very tough for me to cope with her obviously overbearing approach she seemed to take with her work as a holistic counselor. While I found her theories associated with holistic counseling making great sense at times, I quite frankly found her hammering down the throat approach to her work with unsuspecting clients bordering on the bizarre and very hard to take.

Often her zealous approach to her work intruded into areas of our lives, including socializing with our friends. I gave Jon an example of this. Once, while watching the New England Patriots football team getting bombed in a disastrous Super Bowl game in 1986, Marilyn insisted that we all stand, form a circle, hold hands, and send “victory energy” down to the New Orleans Superdome. Not only were we to send this special blend of winning energy, but we were to psychically package and have it special delivered only for the Patriots. I guess the Pats never got the mental Moxie, they still got bombed, in fact, things got worse for the Pathetic Patriots after our little Indian dance. When we pointed this out to our spiritual leader, she calmly said it didn’t work because we didn’t believe in the magic enough. My spontaneous reaction of an eerie combination of embarrassment and fright reached a peak when I realized that she was dead serious. I continued on in my fifty minute hour, telling Jon that I had problems coping with this holistic obsession even more when I realized that on the one hand she was preaching physical, mental, and spiritual strength, while on the other hand she had been smoking and drinking quite heavily. I was certainly indulging in my own vices, I told Jon, but I wasn’t going around preaching to people.

"How did you feel about the decision to get married?" Jon asked.

"Confused, strained, a little excited, some disbelief that this was all really happening," I responded candidly.

"Why do you think you went through with it if you had mixed feelings about it?"

"I really don't know, I think I felt a little scared to say no. I really can't blame her because she gave me an opportunity to back out the night before we drove to New Hampshire."

"I'm curious about something else, were there any relationship problems in your family growing up?" he asked without a trace of judgment.

Oh, brother, I thought while flinching reflexively, is this a loaded question or what. It will probably take a couple of sessions to fill in the details. As best as I could I feebly summarized having a sister five years older who had been divorced twice, a brother divorced once with his second marriage on the rocks, and my parents separating nearly 19 years earlier, resulting in my father's horrible suicide, by hanging himself with a thick black electrical cord in the cellar of our home.

"That's terrible," he said compassionately, "Were there any alcohol problems?"

I forced myself to muster up an awkward explanation that indeed there were, offering a brief sketch of my father's 20 years plus history of alcohol problems. This contributed to a tense, unpredictable family atmosphere punctuated by intermittent stormy arguments between my father, my mother, and for that matter, any one of the kids who cared to jump in and join the family brawl as well.

"What you're telling me so far doesn't surprise me," Jon stated matter-of-factly.

"What do you mean?" I asked curiously.

"There has been an increasing awareness and concern about children growing up in alcoholic and other dysfunctional families. You probably have heard in recent years about adult children of alcoholics, or ACOAs, and the difficulties these people have in managing their own lives as well as developing and maintaining intimate relationships," he stated.

The fact was that I was becoming aware. Clients who had grown up in alcoholic families as well as my own turbulent past led to professional readings that helped me realize how ACOAs tend to over-compensate and over-achieve, compensating for lack of control and lack of trust in their own lives and relationships. It was in fact these readings that began to give me more insight into some of my own problems and eventually encouraged me to land in Jon's office.

"How do you think your increasing disabilities, especially your worsening vision, fits into all of this?" he asked, again matter-of-factly. This question smacked me square in the face, knocking me well back on my heels.

"Oh, not too much," I responded a bit too hastily, but realizing immediately that we were definitely treading on unsafe ground.

"I think you're full of it," he replied half grinning, or at least what sounded like a half grin. "You can't see or hear for shit and you're going to sit there and try to tell me it doesn't really bother you that much or cause problems in relationships?"

Fighting the impulse to just get up and leave, I simultaneously realized--as if the realization were a conditioned reflex-- that any therapist who also was in his position would say the same thing; running away was not going to resolve the problem. I had run away too many times with too many people, whether those people were professionals or just plain and ordinary people. Gotta face it, Hubby-boy, I thought. Stick it out and sit on the hot seat, it's not going to kill you, I lamented wearily to myself. Nevertheless, I was feeling the familiar heat of the even more familiar anger rising up from under my collar and wondered how the hell this hot shot yuppie could possibly understand what it's like not to be able to see and hear. What the hell right does he have, I wondered with irritation, to probe into this forbidden area? Probably setting himself up for his own power trip by showing compassion and sympathy for less fortunate, sightless souls, something we clinicians referred to as compassionate one-upmanship.

But this familiar urge to flee was overshadowed by a stronger, even if eerily unfamiliar, desire to change some of my unproductive patterns. Realizing that I was forty-one years old and my womanizing and exciting life in the fast lane had led to too many mishaps which had become increasingly draining and tragic, I was getting tired of the way I had been operating. I had this strange, shadowy sensation that was blitzing across my brain like a shooting star that I had to stop running from the truth, even though I had no idea what the truth was, never mind understanding it. It was my firm commitment to face the truth whatever it was at that moment and my need to trust Jon, which laid the ground work for cold hard, true blue psychotherapy to begin unraveling of my unique, complicated, and often tormented life. Talk about the real McCoy in psychotherapy, the nitty-gritty, talk about gut-wrenching, teeth-gritting, blood and tears, skeletons in the closets issues--to painfully and soul searchingly create a new psyche, not just being a little boy going to the therapist's office every week on time, having a nice chat, a couple pats on the head, and neatly writing out his check for seventy dollars for the session. My decision that very moment to sweat it out in Jon's office rather than to split, that would be one of the biggest and most important decisions I ever made in my life. So this is how the story of my unique and, as referred to as many more than I care to acknowledge, my inspirational life unfolds.