Chapter 37 The Climb #2
Dr.Garvey nodded again and then leaned toward Eve.
“Have you ever thought about the mental toll you took on when you cared for this man at the very start of your relationship?” she asked.
“You say you were fine at the time. Mentally sound. But think about having to walk around with an extra fifty pounds on your back for a year straight. At some point, you buckle under the undue weight, right? And then you add more. New job, new apartment, engagement, trying to conceive, marriage. That’s a lot, Eve.
These are all stressors, even if they’re things you want for your life. And especially if they aren’t.
“Add to that the devastating loss you experienced at seventeen years old,” the therapist continued.
The way she emphasized Eve’s tender age made her feel genuinely seen.
“You never got to properly process that. Now a miscarriage. And another. Eve, you have so much on your back, you can’t even stand anymore.
Going back to your metaphor—I have to ask, how do you expect to save someone else from drowning when you’re underwater yourself? ”
Eve’s first instinct was to laugh, in part to keep from bursting into tears, but foremost, because she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
She couldn’t believe how much of a comfort it was to hear her therapist explicate it so simply.
Giving validation to what she thought was true but always felt inept trying to explain to others.
At first, she really did hate addressing her so-called traumas.
In her last session, Dr.Garvey mentioned that significant adversity early in life—her pregnancy and everything surrounding it—could create a vulnerability to major depression later, as it sets the nervous system to overrespond to stress.
And after her previous experiences, particularly with Zoloft, Eve initially loathed being diagnosed with depression.
But frankly, it was nice to have a name for her mood swings, her listlessness, her general bad attitude sometimes.
Her panic attacks. To her surprise, therapy made her feel like she wasn’t crazy.
She’d started to understand why people did this to themselves.
“How…” Eve let out a heavy exhale as tears stung her eyes anyway, unsure what she even wanted to ask. She grabbed a Kleenex from the table beside her as she searched for the words. “How do I get rid of this ache?” she asked. “It feels like it bleeds into everything I do. It’s inescapable.”
Dr.Garvey sat back in her seat again. “What did you say about your parents when you first walked in here? How hard it is for you to move on when they won’t acknowledge the problem?”
“I am acknowledging the problem,” Eve said defensively. It’s me. Hi. When Dr.Garvey only stared at her, she shook her head.
“Think about what cycles you might be perpetuating instead of owning, Eve. Your parents made their mistakes. And you’ve made yours. What now?”
“Even if I apologize to Leo, it’s not going to fix what I did.”
“It will not,” the doctor agreed. “You walked out on this man who lost many of the same things you did. Nothing fixes that. Wounds heal; they don’t disappear.”
“I used him to make myself seem complete,” Eve said. She rarely stopped to look at things from his side, too afraid of the truth she’d see. But there was no point in still running from it. “He deserved better,” she said. “So did I.”
Dr.Garvey scrawled a long note on her page and then looked back up at Eve. “Is that what you did with Jamie, too?”
Eve immediately turned fidgety, balling her damp tissues in her fist as she was forced to think about the havoc she created for herself by falling in love with Jamie Gallagher.
She’d hoped they could delay this particular conversation a little longer—for when she wasn’t still so underneath the situation.
“No. Like I mentioned, he was different, for sure.” She sighed.
“I went to Tennessee to get away from the noise of people and their opinions and their help. It’s why I chose such a secluded place.
But he lived right down the street, almost as though he was put there specifically for me.
” Eve chuckled at how ridiculous that sounded out loud, but that didn’t make it any less accurate.
“I was falling down this hole. Lost, sad, scared. All of it. And Jamie…caught me before I hit the ground.”
“He did for you what you did for Leo,” Dr.Garvey commented.
Eve never thought of it that way, but…“Yeah.”
“Why do you think you weren’t willing to let Leo do that for you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess…
I felt I was the protector in that relationship,” she said after careful deliberation.
“Not that I felt he was useless, but maybe I didn’t really trust Leo to be a safe harbor.
Even when we were engaged, I put money to the side for myself…
just in case.” Dr.Garvey gave her a look that effectively said, Yikes, sis , but she spoke no words.
“This was aside from savings, aside from money for the wedding,” Eve added.
“He didn’t notice?”
“He probably did,” Eve said, recalling their Christmas Eve conversation. “But he never said anything.”
“So with Jamie, you felt you could trust him?”
It stung Eve to think of the trust imbalance in her relationship with Jamie—so much of it was a mirror to hers with Leo. “Yes.”
“And you said it was a sexual relationship as well?”
“It was. I’d never done anything like that before, casual sex. Before Leo, I told guys I was waiting until marriage because I was so scared to broach the topic.”
“And your sex life with Leo?”
Eve made a face. “Functional?”
“Say more.”
“We rarely had sex for…pleasure. He was on antidepressants, which basically killed his sex drive, and that worked well for me, because I wasn’t interested anyway. Until we wanted a baby, of course.”
“So you were both fine with the lack of sex. What was different with Jamie?”
“I told my friends it must’ve been the heat in Tennessee,” she joked.
“But I don’t know, I suddenly wanted that…
connection. I could feel myself turning cold, and I was sort of longing for someone to touch me, to just remind me I was alive.
And Jamie seemed nice enough. Attractive.
He could be that for me.” Eve smiled. Sadly.
“Our first time was disastrous, because I was so out of my mind,” she said, “but he was with me all the way. He was patient and honest. And when I finally decided I was actually ready, it was the most sublime experience.” Eve paused to think about that moment in his cabin.
“And I guess I had this realization that I’ve been missing out on so much by shutting down like this.
Being afraid to feel things. Being afraid of my own body.
And that’s not to say I immediately unfurled, but I opened up in many different ways with him.
And it felt good to do it. I liked who I was with him. ”
Eve was happy she could say that she was starting to like who she was without him, too.
“The thing is, I was so wrapped up in him, I wasn’t really addressing my pain,” she said. “I put it to the side so I could experience joy with him, but I still wasn’t healthy.”
Dr.Garvey grinned. “Would you rather be in Tennessee right now?”
“With him? I don’t know. As much as I cherish what we had, even if it was only a few months, I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me.
And I know he has his own story, his own baggage, and after having to pry me open, I do understand why he said, ‘Enough is enough.’ He’s entitled to that. ”
Dr.Garvey nodded back. “So if he runs in here and pleads for you to come back?”
Eve’s cheeks warmed at the mere thought.
“The obvious answer is that I would go back in a heartbeat. Initially, at least,” she said.
“I miss him every day. I miss Jack. I miss Tennessee. Sometimes I wish I could’ve stopped time at the day we went to Dollywood.
If I could’ve just stayed right there in that moment forever…
” She trailed off as butterflies in her stomach reemerged with images of that night replaying in her mind.
Walking arm in arm with Jamie under the cascading lights.
Dollywood wasn’t just an amusement park to her.
Before she ever set foot inside, it represented an escape. A utopia, even.
Ironic that the literal Greek translation of the word was “a place that is nonexistent.”
Once upon a time in Dollywood, she was almost happy. Almost.
“But now that I’ve had some space from it,” Eve continued, “I’m not sure it’s as easy as that.
Because even though I understand it intellectually, I also know that I can’t afford to be with someone who’s going to emotionally lacerate me whenever he’s feeling insecure.
Not anymore.” Jamie was gentle with Eve when she was hardened by her pain, and she would always love him for that—even if that love was finite.
But it was time to focus on being gentle with herself now.
Dr.Garvey only nodded, but there was an undercurrent of satisfaction there, reminding Eve of the few times her mother’s whisper of a smile would say she was proud of her. More importantly, Eve was proud of herself. She’d finally opened up to her pain, and she was already brighter and wiser for it.
“Before you get out of here,” Dr.Garvey said, taking a glance at her watch, “we should talk about your assignment from last week. Where are we with Mr.and Mrs.Ambroise?”