I'Ll Meet You at the Dock - A Bipolar Love Affair.volume 1. CHAPTER 1.EXCERPT

8/17/2019 I'Ll Meet You at the Dock - A Bipolar Love Affair.volume 1. CHAPTER 1.EXCERPT

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Chapter 1

From the Womb through the Tomb

(High School, That Is)

Once in a great while, you hear of a love story that is so powerful

it moves you to the depth of your soul. It imprints on your heart and

you file it in the “greatest love story of all time” folder, storing it inthe deepest part of your memory. And every time you see or hear

anything that could be “true love,” this file is brought out, opened up,

and used as the measure of what true love really is. This is one suchtrue story.

Todd Andrew DuBord and Tracy Jeanne Cress (that’s me) were

both born in 1963 in northern California. We grew up in the SanFrancisco/East Bay area only fifty miles apart, with Todd in

Pleasanton and me in Antioch.

In between our two cities towered Mt. Diablo. I grew up looking at

one side of the mountain while Todd grew up looking at the other

side. There are many legends about how Mt. Diablo got its name. Ivaguely remember one story I heard when I was a child. It goes

something like this: A Spanish military expedition chased a band ofIndians up into the mountain,

where a battled ensued. During

the battle, a devil appeared and

defended the Indians. Whenthe Spanish soldiers saw it,

they ran away screaming, “El

Diablo! El Diablo!” (Spanish

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for “The Devil.”) And that’s how the mountain got its name.

We grew up in the midst of the hippie counterculture movement ofthe 1960s. It was all about the rebellion and rejection of established

institutions and traditions. There were several ways this was lived out.

Part of it was a “sexual revolution” by way of “free love.”

The term “free love” meant that one could have sex with anyone atany time wherever they wanted without any regard to relationship,

commitment, or marriage. Another means of rebelling was takingdrugs such as LSD and marijuana to explore altered states ofconsciousness and expand the mind.

Another method of rebelling was through political activism. Many

hippies and college students alike (mostly college students) protested

the Vietnam War. Did you ever hear the expression, “Make love not

war”? Or see a peace sign? That’s where they came from.

Most of the hippies didn’t work. They lived on the streets, in

parks, and other places and basically just did whatever they felt like



4

doing. They coined the term, “If it feels good, do it.”

Men grew their hair long, and women burned their bras. Theydressed in any type of clothing that wasn’t the “norm” or in fashion at

the time. Sometimes they even went nude. They traveled from place

to place in groups, and some formed communes. Many begged for

food and money to get by.During this time, Todd and I lived in the East Bay area about an

hour outside of San Francisco. San Francisco became a magnet forhippies. Thousands congregated in several different areas around thecity. Some of those places were parks located around the Haight-

Ashbury district. My mom told me that my dad used to hang out there

with the hippies.In 1967, a hit song was written by John Philips of The Mamas and

Papas and was sung by Scott McKenzie. It is called, San Francisco

(Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair). It’s all about the hippies of

the counter culture movement that came to San Francisco.

5

Todd Andrew DuBord

Todd was born on July 27, 1963, at Saint Rose Hospital in

Hayward, California. He was the fourth of five children (three

brothers and one sister). Shortly after he was born, his family moved

from Hayward to Fremont for several years before ending up inPleasanton.

His father and mother married when they were both twenty years

old. She was a stay-at-home mom and never worked outside thehome. His father worked full time while attending college, and he

earned a degree in accounting.

Todd had a relatively happy childhood. With five children in the

family, there was always someone to play with him. He and hisyounger brother, Mark, were only a year apart in age. Everyone in the

family and extended family referred to them as “the little boys”

because they were the youngest, and they were always together.Todd was above average in intelligence. (I think he was, and still

is, a genius.) He also had an entrepreneurial spirit. He liked to grow

things, too. In kindergarten, he got a tomato-growing kit. It came withsoil and seeds. All he had to do was water it. That’s where it all

started.



6

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All throughout his childhood,

he remembers always growingtomatoes and other vegetables in

his backyard, even though he

didn’t like to eat them until he

was an adult. Todd used hisexpert salesmanship to sell seeds

from the American SeedCompany. He went door to dooraround the neighborhood selling

seeds to make money and win

prizes.He loved doing magic tricks,

too. Todd used a magic kit he

owned to put on little magic

shows for his friends and family.From an early age, he was

comfortable being on stage, though

often shy in person.Todd also made puppets and put on puppet shows. He not only

made the puppets, but he made the stage, too. The puppets were pretty

elaborate. He bought the instructions from the back of one of hiscomic books. Todd made the puppets out of papier mache. He even

made a marionette once, and he installed a mechanism in its mouth to

make it move. Everybody said it looked like Howard Cosell.1 Heehee.

(Todd thought it looked like the papier-mache heads they used in the

1979 movie, Escape from Alcatraz, starring Clint Eastwood.)

One time, Todd even made a hovercraft. Yes, you read that right, a

hovercraft. Again, he bought the instructions from an ad he saw in the

back of a comic magazine. He used the parts of an old tube vacuumcleaner to lift it off the ground (well, barely). And it really worked.

Everybody thought he was a genius.

At age ten, Todd got a job delivering newspapers for the Pleasanton Valley Times. He woke up around 4:30AM, five days a

week, and while it was still dark, he rode his bicycle around the

neighborhood delivering papers. To keep him company while he wasalone in the dark, he brought along a transistor radio. He listened to

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the top 40 songs played by Dr. Don Rose, who was a D.J. for KFRC

AM (channel 610) radio station out of San Francisco.When he was a little older, he started a lawn-mowing business. His

dad made flyers for him to hand out in the neighborhood. He went

door to door and gave them to his neighbors until he had built up a

pretty good little business.In between trying to make money and win prizes, Todd was a

member of unicycle club. He, his best friend, Scott, and anotherfriend, Russel, got unicycles and formed a club called “UnicycleBrothers.” They road all over the neighborhood and up town. The

motto of the club was “Unicycle brothers rank!”

All in all, he will tell you he had a good childhood. Heexperienced no major traumas or bad accidents, though his family

thought he was accident prone because he had to have stiches so

many times. But nothing scarred him for life, except for his parent’s

divorce.Todd was nine years old when his parents divorced. His father

moved out of the house, but he quickly fought and won full custody

of all five children. That was totally unheard of in those days.It was very painful for Todd to watch his mom move out of the

house so his dad could move back in. His mom told us that instead of

making his father sell the house and split the profits with her, shegave up her half-ownership and interest in the family home. She told

Todd’s dad to use her half of the home’s equity to pay for the

children’s college education. Unfortunately, that never happened.

His mom moved into an apartment across town for a while. Then

she got a job working in a factory in Fremont and moved there to be

closer to her work. Todd and his siblings would visit her on

weekends. Eventually, his sister, Kim, who was the oldest sibling,

went to live with their mother.His father made a middle-class living. The children were provided

with the basics of food, clothing, and shelter, but his parents couldn’t

afford much more. If they wanted anything else, they had to get itthemselves by whatever means they could. Christmases were pretty

meager. One Christmas, Todd and his siblings’ only presents were

electric blankets.



I

A couple of years later, his father married a woman fourteen years

younger than himself, only six yearsolder than his oldest child. She came

to live in a house filled with four

boys. She wasn’t the easiest person

to get along with. As the years progressed, her relationship with the

boys grew worse. Todd spent as li ttletime at home as possible during thoseyears, especially once he became a

teenager. He stayed with friends as

often as he could and spent a lot oftime at Scott’s house.

They would spend many hours in

Scott’s room learning to play their

favorite songs on their guitars fromgroups like Blackfoot, Lynyrd

Skynyrd, AC/DC, Molly Hatchet,

Boston, and Ted Nugent. Toddlearned to play his guitar so well that in high school his friends

nicknamed him “Fingers.” Heehee. He bought his first guitar when he

was sixteen. Even though he had a part-time job, he never bought a proper guitar case. He barely made enough money to pay for his

guitar lessons and an occasional bag of weed (marijuana), plus some

spending money for the weekends. So he carried his guitar around

town in a cardboard box.

When he was in sixth grade, Todd began drinking alcohol. In

eighth grade, he started smoking marijuana and partied his way

through junior high and high school. He had many girlfriends from

fourth grade onward. Hisrelationship with his girlfriend

before me lasted a year-and-a-half

and ended when he met me. I feltsorry for her (but not for me). In the

eighth grade, he was so popular

with the girls that the student bodyvoted him the “Biggest Flirt.”

Heehee.

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At fifteen years old, Todd took up kickboxing, which is a form of

karate. His friend, Kurt, was a kickboxer and asked him if he wantedto join. For a year, Todd learned the sport and competed in

kickboxing tournaments. He decided to quit when he got

the crap kicked out of him during a match at a tournament. He was

unevenly matched with a guy whowas nearly a black belt. Todd had

only been practicing for a short time. How they justified such anuneven match was a mystery to everyone. He may have gotten thecrap kicked out of him, but it knocked some sense into his head. He

asked himself, why get beat up if you don’t have to? So, he quit.

Heehee.Todd barely graduated from Amador Valley High School in 1981.

By his senior year, his grades were so poor that he had to take an

extra class after the regular school day and two night-school classes to

graduate. But he did it. After the graduation exercises, his familythrew him a party and presented him with a . . . belly dancer!

Tracy Jeanne Cress

I was born on June 11, 1963, at Concord Community Hospital in

Concord, California. I was the third child and only girl of three. We



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lived in what was then called Port Chicago in West Pittsburgh. (Now

it is called Bay Point.)My mom married my dad when she was eighteen and he was

twenty-one. She had given birth to three babies by the time she was

twenty-one. Having three babies in just three years took a ravaging

toll on her body. Worse yet, she got the mumps four months into herfirst pregnancy.

My mom and dad were surprised to found out she was pregnantfor the third time (with me) only two months after giving birth to my

brother. They were so shocked that my dad ran as fast as he could to

the nearest hospital and got a vasectomy. After I was born, my dad begged my mom to go back to work full

time and promised he would help with the babies. (Mom said my dad

could never hold a steady job.) Reluctantly, when I was three weeks

old, my mom went back to work full time. My parents left one toddler

and two babies—ages two-and-a-half, eleven-and-a-half months, andthree weeks—in the hands of a babysitter who had recently lost her

only child in a car accident. When we weren’t with the babysitter, we

were left in the care of friends and family.My brothers and I had many different babysitters when we were

young. From my earliest cognitive recognition, I recall feeling an

inherent distrust of them because a couple of them abused me. Andsome were mean and scary. I remember always being afraid and

walking on eggshells with all of them. I was always stressed and on

alert for danger. It was a huge relief whenever my mother came

home.

Not my father, though. He was abusive also. I felt the same way

with him as I had around the babysitters. Aunt Linda, my mother’s

sister-in-law, was the only babysitter with whom I ever felt safe. She

had three children about the same ages as my brothers and me. So wehad a great time playing with our cousins whenever she would

babysit. I was never afraid when Aunt Linda was around.

Unlike Todd, I had a childhood that was a mixture of good and bad, happy and sad. I experienced many good things punctuated with

bad things.

One of my favorite childhood memories was when my motherenrolled me in dance classes when I was about five or six. It was Mrs.

Marshall’s Dance Studio on Pine Street in Martinez. She was an older

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lady who turned her garage into a studio. Mrs. Marshall taught tap,

ballet, hula dancing, baton twirling, and tumbling.I’m not bragging when I say I excelled in all of them. I felt like I

was born to dance, like it was embedded in my DNA or something. I

had found the answer to the eternal question, “Why?” The meaning of

life was to dance!I was so good, my teacher wanted to take me to Hawaii with her

dance troop when I was only seven years old. It’s true. It was after Idanced in a recital that included a hula dance. Afterward, while I waswith my parents, my teacher came over and told them I was very

talented. She went on and on, telling them how good I was. Then she

said she was taking a dance troop to Hawaii to do an exhibition andshe wanted to take me as a part of the troop. I was so excited. I felt

very special. I didn’t stop talking about it for days. Then, one night

when my mom put me to bed, she gently told me we didn’t have the

money, and I wouldn’t be able to go. I was crushed and startedcrying. It took me a while to get over it, but I did. I continued to enjoy

dancing for the rest of my life.

I distinctly remember taking this picture. I was forcing a smile onmy face. I was very sad even before the recital began. When it started,

I danced. But my heart wasn’t in it. There was no one, not one family

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member, there to see me. The audience was full of family members

there for every other girl, except me.The recital was during the week and in the afternoon, not a good

time of day for a recital. My mom took time off of work to bring me

down to the hall and get me ready. I found out while she was getting

me ready that she wasn’t going to stay and watch me dance. I lookedaround the room at all of the other girls’ mothers and knew they were

going to stay for their daughters. I started crying and begging mymom to stay and watch me. I got all worked up, which got her workedup until she finally said, “Jesus Christ, Tracy. I took time off of work

to get you here and get you ready. I can’t stay and watch you. I have

to go back to work.” One good memory swallowed up by a bad one.Unfortunately, this would become a recurring cycle for years to come.

Latchkey Kids

When I was six years old, my brothers and I became “latchkey

kids.”2 It was in the summer of 1969. We were off school for summer

vacation. My mom paid a teenage girl, who lived down the street, to babysit us. She had a habit of coming late, so late that on several

occasions I walked down to her house and asked her if she was

coming over to babysit us that day. She always looked like she just

woke up. She would sit groggily and put on her shoes. Then wewould walk back to my house.

One good memory of her was when we sat in front of the stereo

and ate sunflower seeds while we listened to my dad’s records or theradio. One record burned in my memory and I never forgot it. It was

the Janis Joplin album called Pearl . One of my favorite songs was

“Mercedes Benz.”

Fast-forward to the present. I have a bucketlist of things to do before I die. One of them is

to record some of my favorite songs for my

kids, grandkids, great grandkids, and on downthe line. The first song I will record is

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“Mercedes Benz.” I love that song. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

Now back to the past.One bad memory of that babysitter was when she sent me to my

room for something I supposedly did wrong. My bedroom was in the

front of the house. My friends came over and wanted to play. I talked

to them through my open window and told them I got in trouble andcouldn’t come out of my room. She heard me saying this and came

flying into my room, yelling at me to shut the window. Then, in frontof all my friends, she slapped me so hard that my head flew into thewindow.

Of course, I didn’t tell my parents. It only took one incident of

abuse by a babysitter when I was three years old to teach me not to“tell on the babysitter.” After that babysitter finished abusing me, she

told me if I told my parents she would spank me. And that’s all it

took, folks. I didn’t tell my mother about it until I was a young adult.

Back to the Janis Joplin babysitter; after some time, she juststopped coming over completely. By this time, we were used to it. We

became so used to it that we never even thought to tell our mom about

it. Somehow, Mom found out. But by the time she did, we had beenleft by ourselves for so long that she figured we would be OK without

a babysitter.

When she was at work, she told us we had to stay in the house andnot go outside. She said if we weren’t by the telephone to answer it

when she called (which could have been at any time of the day), she

was going to come home and give us all spankings.

That threat didn’t scare my brothers enough to stay in the house.

The temptation was too great. Just like a dog that runs away every

time the front door is opened, they ran wild all around the

neighborhood. Occasionally, I joined them.

There was a hillside in back of a row of houses in ourneighborhood. Someone had parked a trailer on the top of the hill.

One day, my brother, Steven, went up the hill and removed the stop

blocks from behind the tires. This sent the trailer flying down the hill,through someone’s fence, and into their backyard.

I guess someone called my mother because a very angry mama

bear came running home, and it wasn’t to protect her cubs. After shedealt with the owners of the fence (my parents had to pay for the

damage), she came home and spanked all three of us. Talk about

getting punished for something I didn’t do.



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Another time, Steven set that same hill on fire. Even after this

incident, my parents still didn’t get another babysitter. For the nexttwo or three summers, they shipped us off to my aunt and uncle’s

house in Washington State. It was fun. But, during the school year,

we were still latchkey kids.

None of the other mothers on our street worked outside the home.It was very common in that era for mothers to stay at home. They did

not like my mom because she wasn’t there to cage the wild monkeys.Unfortunately, because my mom was a working mother, they didn’tlike us, either.

Case in point: When I was in the second grade, occasionally I

played with a little girl down the street. She was a toddler, and I wasabout six years old. Her mother would let me play with her. Mostly, I

played with her toys. Her mother was nice, too. One day, I came

home from school and sat down to watch cartoons. I found a razor

blade, the kind that was sharp on both sides, and used it to cut “V”shapes into the tops of my fingernails. Well, the inevitable happened:

I sliced at least four of five layers of skin off the top of one of my

fingers. It started bleeding profusely, so I grabbed a paper towel andwrapped it around my finger. I was crying while I tried to dial the old

rotary phone to call my mother, but I wasn’t able to dial while

holding the paper towel on my wounded finger. I panicked as I triedto figure out what to do.

Then I thought about the nice lady who let me play at her house. I

ran down the street, crying and holding my hand up in the air. I got to

her house and rang the doorbell. She opened the door and, through

my tears, I told her I cut my finger and asked her if she could help

me. She closed the door, came back a few seconds later, and handed

me a Band-Aid, still in the wrapper. Then she closed the door again

and never came back. I couldn’t believe it. Even at six years old, Iknew how wrong that was. I guess that’s how deeply all the mothers

on our street disliked my mother.

Never Fear, Grandma is Here

My brothers and I were the only grandchildren on my dad’s side.

He was an only child. Because of this, we were the lucky recipients of

all of my grandparents’ time, attention, and toys! Well, not really my

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grandfather’s. He hardly ever talked or interacted with us. He was an

alcoholic. He was always just “there.” It was ninety-five percent mygrandmother.

They spoiled us with toys. Between them and my parents, we had

so many toys that we couldn’t play with them all. My grandmother

also sewed and crocheted clothes for me and my Barbie dolls. Ialways felt very special when she made clothes for me.

Every time my grandparents came to our house for a visit, they brought us a toy. When I was around seven years old, my mom had atalk with them and explained that we had come to expect a toy every

time they came over, which we did. She wanted her kids to be happy

just to see their grandparents and not expect anything from them. Soshe politely asked them not to bring toys when they came to visit.

The next time they came over, my grandmother got out of the car

holding a brown paper bag. As usual, we went running out to greet

them and see what they brought us. She showed us what was in the bag. When we saw it, all three of us were so disappointed that we

dropped our heads, turned around, and walked away. It was a bag of

oranges! Talk about anti-climactic. It was the letdown of the century.When I was around three or four years old, my grandparents

brought over new playground equipment and set it up in our

backyard. One was a mini roller coaster; another was like a whirly bird kind of thing. It had four seats and bars for our hands and feet. If

we pulled the handlebars and pushed the foot bars at the same time, it

twirled around in a circle. It was tons o’ fun. And no backyard would

be complete without a swing set, so they brought one of those, too.

We hit the jackpot!

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Grandma was a great cook. Whenever we were at her house, shewas always baking goodies for us. Every birthday, she baked our

favorite cake. Well, my brothers’ favorite cake anyway.

When I was about four or five years old, she baked a German

chocolate cake for my birthday. I didn’t like it. But, because she baked it especially for me, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling

her the truth, so I lied and told her I loved it. Well, that was a mistake because for the next fifteen years my grandmother baked me aGerman chocolate cake for every birthday. And every birthday, I

continued to lie and tell her I loved it as I choked down every bite.

Let this be a lesson to all you young’uns out there. Honesty is alwaysthe best policy. Heehee.

When I was five, our family moved to Martinez. We lived at 123

Dardenelle Court until I was nine. That is when my parents gotdivorced. My father became what we now call a “deadbeat dad.”

(Well, he was about two or three steps above it.) He was an alcoholic

and drug abuser who never paid child support.

We were supposed to see him on weekends, but that didn’t end uphappening very often. I lost count of how many times I sat on the

sidewalk in front of my house, waiting for him to pick us up.

Sometimes he would arrive up to six hours late. Sometimes he didn’t

show up at all. It hurt so badly. I always wondered, “What’s wrong

with me that my dad doesn’t want to be with me?”

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When he did pick us up, he always took us to Grandma’s house for

the weekend. He lived with her on and off his whole life. Even whenhe did have his own apartment, he still took us to Grandma’s. We

were always happy to go to her house. It was safe there. The safest I

ever felt was when I was with my grandmother at her house. Those

were some of the best times we had with dad. His explosive tempermellowed somewhat. He seemed to be happier. I remember that my

brothers would get into wrestling matches with him. I would jump inthere once in a while, but they were all too rough for me.

Dad still went out partying in the evenings, though. It was OK

with me because, mostly, I wanted to be with Grandma. One night, he

was in the bathroom cleaning up to get ready to go out. We were allin the living room watching television when out of nowhere we heard

the loudest, scariest scream of all time coming from the bathroom. It

felt like an atomic bomb went off and any minute the house was

going to be blown away. After we all just about jumped out of ourskins, reeling from the massive influx of adrenaline that pumped into

our bloodstreams, we ran to the bathroom to see what happened to

dad. When we got there, he was calmly shaving his face. It was a joke.

All of us, including my grandmother, whom I’d never seen angry

in my entire life, yelled at him. We told him it wasn’t funny and thathe scared us to death. He came out into the living room with the most

perplexed look on his face. Like a clueless child, he half raised his

hands and asked, “What? What did I do?”

I think my dad was bipolar. I remember as a very young child

watching him play his piano with gusto. He would put one leg up on

the piano while he played and sang at the same time, just like Jerry

Lee Lewis.3 He would have jam sessions with his friend, Jim Moses,

who played the guitar. I was his biggest fan. At times, he wasexuberantly happy, energetic, and always joking around. That was the

fun dad.

Other times, he would be solemn and quiet, angry or irritated. Thatwas the scary dad. One time, when I was around three or four years

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old, my brothers and I were dressed in our footie pajamas, quietly

watching television before we went to bed. My father walked in theroom with three brown paper bags. He gave one to each of us and told

us to go to our rooms. Once there, he told us to pack our clothes into

the bags. I knew it wasn’t good and became terribly afraid. My

mother wasn’t home.Then he told us to get in the car. It was dark outside. We all

climbed in, clutching our bags. He drove us to a busy streetsomewhere and, while we were still in our footie pajamas, he told usto get out of the car. Then he drove off and left us there. I was

terrified! There was a lot of traffic. The headlights from the cars

shined in our eyes, and I wondered why no one stopped to help us. Iwas comforted only by the hope that my six-year-old brother would

guide us in the right direction. I thought my aunt and uncle lived close

by. So if we could make it to their house without being kidnapped

first, we could go live with them.We were just standing there, holding our bags for what seemed

like

hours, helpless and deathly afraid, when my father pulled up in hiscar. He opened the passenger door and told us that this is what

happens to kids who don’t do their chores. Then he asked us if we

were going to do our chores. We all nodded our heads up and downand said yes. Then he said, “Get in the car.” Even though my father

had just severely abused and traumatized us, I was so thankful he

picked us up.

Another time, my brothers and I were left with my father for the

evening while my mother went to work. Before she left, she cooked

dinner and left it on the stove for my father to serve to us.

I was very hungry when he dished up my plate, and I asked him

for three biscuits. He asked me if I was going to eat them all, and Isaid, “Yes.”

Well, my three-year-old little eyes were bigger then my stomach. I

could only eat one of them. I was too afraid to tell my father that Iwas full and couldn’t eat anymore. Instead I walked over to the

kitchen sink that was full of dirty, soapy dishwater and ever so slyly

slipped my plate along with the biscuits into it. I walked into the otherroom where he was watching TV and told him I was finished. Then I

ran into the other room hoping he wouldn’t catch me.

"J

A short time later he called me into the kitchen. He was standing at

the kitchen sink. I walked over to him with fear and trembling. Hesunk his hand into the dirty dish water and pulled out one of my

biscuits. My eyes got as big as saucers when he put it in front of my

face. Then he told me to eat it.

I took it and put it in my mouth. It was so soggy and slippery fromabsorbing so much soap that the whole biscuit slid down my throat.

My eyes filled with tears that went rolling down my face as he pulledout the second biscuit and made me eat that one, too. Afterward, Iwalked away crying because I was too afraid to run. I couldn’t get

away from him fast enough.

My mother was never around when he did these things to us. Mydad must have known what he was doing was wrong because he only

did them when my mom wasn’t home.

Because my dad was not responsible and either unwilling or

unable, my mom took full custody of my brothers and me after theirdivorce. To his credit, around ten years later, he would get sober and

spend the last twenty-five years of his life involved in Alcoholics

Anonymous. Even so, he never helped my brothers and me withanything financially. Saddest of all, he rarely made an effort to

purposely spend time with us. I was always the one reaching out to

him. It was, for the most part, a one-sided relationship.After their divorce, my mom bought a house in Antioch and

moved us there. During this time, she began attending a club called

“Parents without Partners.” She dated some of the men she met there.

I didn’t like any of them. It was bad enough that my parents were

divorced. It was traumatizing to have strangers come into my house.

They were nice to us, but I didn’t trust them. Seeing them with my

mom made me sick to my stomach.

We only spent a year in Antioch. At the end of the year, Mom soldthe house and we moved back to Martinez when I was ten years old.

For fifth grade, I attended Martinez Elementary School. It was

there that I learned to play the guitar. A teacher at my elementaryschool announced that he was teaching a guitar class after school. I

asked my mom if I could attend. She not only said yes, she bought me

a guitar. I really enjoyed it. The teacher would tune our guitars beforeclass. If it went out of tune before the next class, I was out of luck.

Back then, the only way to tune a guitar was using a piano, and I



"F

didn’t have one. It wasn’t music to my ears to practice on an out-of-

tune guitar, I’ll tell you that for sure.When I was in high school, I got a John Denver music book and

learned how to play some of his songs on my guitar. They were

“Anne,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and “Sunshine on My Shoulders.”

I could actually play the guitar and sing at the same time. What a feat.It was when we lived in Martinez that my mom met a man she

really liked. Only a month after they met, he moved into our house.Soon after, they married. It was May of 1974, one month shy of myeleventh birthday.

Before he moved in, I remember my mom and him sitting me

down and asking if it would be OK if he moved in. I told them I wasfine with it, but inside I was screaming that it was not OK. I was

afraid to be honest for fear that my mother, or even both of them,

would get angry. I was always afraid.

I wished I had been strong enough to say no. I wonder how theywould have reacted. I don’t think it would have made any difference.

Knowing my mom, she would have tried to talk me into it. And if I

still stood my ground, she would have gotten angry, said some unkindthings, and moved him in anyway. That was her pattern.

They had only been dating for about a month or so. It all happened

so fast. I didn’t know him. He was a stranger, and I didn’t trust him.They bought a house in Antioch soon after they married, and we

all moved back there. That is where I finished my schooling and

graduated from Antioch Sr. High School in 1981. My inherent

distrust of my mother’s new husband turned out to be valid. He was

verbally and mentally abusive, a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.4 He

was nice one minute, then mean, angry, and verbally abusive the next

minute. There was constant fighting, yelling, violence, alcohol and

drug abuse.Through all of this, my mother was able to maintain her career as a

supervisor working for the Contra Costa County Elections

Department. We lived a middle-class lifestyle and never lacked anymaterial thing. Even so, we always had to buy clothes that were on

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sale or at K-Mart (mostly K-Mart). We never had designer anything.

Everything we bought was a “knock-off” of designer clothing orshoes. I didn’t care when I was young, but when I got into junior high

and high school, it was embarrassing.

Loss of Innocence

My stepfather worked for PG&E (Pacific, Gas, and ElectricCompany) in Antioch as a meter reader. Both he and my motherworked full time and earned decent incomes. They bought a

truck/camper combo and a jet boat and joined a boating club.

During outings with the boat club, I learned how many womenobtained their self-worth. I watched as they strutted around in their

bikinis and listened as the men commented on which women looked

sexiest. The message I received was that my self-worth was directly

tied to how good I looked in a bathing suit. It was nothing more thana meat market, and booze was always the marinade for the meat.

I started drinking alcohol when I was twelve years old. My

stepfather built a bar in the family room and kept it well stocked withall kinds of hard liquor. I remember my parents once saying that if we

kids ever wanted to drink alcohol, we should do it at home so we

would be “safe.” We took that to mean we could drink the alcohol in

the bar, and we did. I guess that’s not what they meant because mystepfather started marking the bottles so he could catch us when we

“stole” his “gold.”

One night, while watching Saturday Night Live5 with my two

cousins, we all got drunk. I remember downing, practically in one

gulp, a large Tupperware glass of bourbon. I was so drunk that when I

lay down, I became paralyzed and could hardly speak. Of course, my

parents weren’t there; they were out on their weekly Friday andSaturday night bar-hopping route. The room started spinning. The

faster it spun, the sicker I got. Both of my cousins had fallen asleep. I

kept whispering to one cousin, who was sleeping right next to me, forhelp. She never responded. I was about to throw up, and there was

absolutely nothing I could do about it but turn my head to one side. It

was a miracle I didn’t choke to death. My cousin finally woke up and

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said, “Oooo, it smells. I’m getting out of here!” She just left me there.

Since I couldn’t talk, I thought, “Thanks a lot, Suzie.”After what felt like hours of watching the ceiling spin in endless

circles, my fourteen-year-old brother came in from his own night of

partying. He turned on the light to find me lying in my vomit. He

said, “What the hell is going on around here?!” He picked me up,stripped me down to my bra and underwear, and then threw me out

the back door to get some fresh air. Right at my feet was a nest of praying mantises. They started crawling up my legs. It took everyounce of my strength just to stay standing. There was nothing I could

do about the “meat eaters”; I couldn’t even move my legs to shake

them off.My brother was my savior that night. He cleaned up my vomit and

put me to bed. I am still grateful to him. Thanks, Jamie.

Now, one would think I would have had a raging hangover the

next morning, but viola! Absolutely nothing. When my parents weretold about it, they didn’t do or say anything. What could they say? I

did as they did. I didn’t learn my lesson, though. It took two years and

several more occasions of getting so drunk that I would throw up inmy plate at restaurants and other places before I realized getting sick

wasn’t worth the buzz. By the end of eighth grade, I quit for good.

Besides, I wanted to try out for the cheerleading squad in ninth grade,and my reputation had to be squeaky clean.

In junior high and high school, I never had a serious boyfriend and

rarely dated. I wasn’t able to date. My family was so dysfunctional

that I just didn’t have the maturity, confidence, or know-how, and I

was always afraid. By tenth grade, I only got asked out on one date

that I can remember. No one ever asked me to go to any of the proms

at school. I wanted to be like the popular girls but never was. During

that year, I spent many weekend nights at home instead of outsocializing like everyone else.

I threw myself pity parties while listening to a certain song over

and over again on the record player. It was the theme song for my lifeand summed up how I felt about myself that year. It was called “At

Seventeen” by Janis Ian from 1975. Some of the lyrics go like this:

I learned the truth at seventeen

that love was meant for beauty queens.

And high school girls with clear skinned smiles

33

who married young and then retired

The valentines I never knew

The Friday night charades of youth

were spent on one more beautiful

At seventeen I learned the truth ...

And those of us with ravaged faces

Lacking in the social graces

Desperately remained at home Inventing lovers on the phone. ...

Searching for Meaning

I struggled with depression in between episodes of mania. (I didn’t

know it then, but I was bipolar. It wasn’t until much later in life,

twenty-one years to be exact, that I was diagnosed and able to gethelp.) I was so depressed by the end of the ninth grade that I started

searching for a deeper meaning to life.

On more than one occasion, I remember crying my eyes out,curled up in a fetal position, leaning against my bedroom wall while

listening to my parents fighting. It was almost always about one of us

kids. I thought, “I am in hell! And if this is hell, then there must be a

heaven.” There had to be more than this miserable existence I wasliving.

It was in the ninth grade that I met a girl in my choir class at

school. She seemed different. She exuded an inner peace, and peace

was the one thing I wanted more than anything in the whole world. Iknew she went to church, so I asked if I could go with her sometime.

And when I did, I found what I had been looking for.I found Someone who would accept me just as I am, love me

unconditionally, and be the rock that I could cling to in times of

trouble. Someone who would build up my self-esteem, not tear it

down, who would never leave me alone and frightened but would

always be with me wherever I went. Someone who would give me the

strength to endure the pain I wasn’t able to escape and, most of all,

give me a reason to be happy.



34

My search was over. I found the father in God that I never had on

earth and a home in church where I never had to be afraid. I found myinner peace in the person of Jesus Christ who said, “I am the way, the

truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me” (John

14:6), “I have come to bring you life and life abundant” (John 10:10),

and “Come to me all you who are heavy burdened and I will give yourest” (Matthew 11:28-30).

I desperately wanted and needed all of those things. In Christ, Ireceived them. From then on, I put my life into His hands and devotedmyself to going to church four times a week—Wednesday night,

Thursday night youth group, and twice on Sunday. I was all in.

The only drawback of this church for me (but I didn’t know it atthe time) was that it was Pentecostal. (That isn’t bad for millions of

other people, but it was for a bipolar person like me). Every church

service was focused on getting worked up into an emotionally

hyperactive state. People raised their hands in worship (nothingwrong with that), they spoke in tongues (other languages), and

worked themselves up into such a heightened state of emotion that

some would start prophesying and “giving words from the Lord.”This happened every service, except for youth meetings on Thursday

nights.

Being bipolar, I spent a lot of time in hyper-emotional states. Iwould get so full of energy that it took me a long time to “come back

down to earth.” I was not only full of energy but also in mental states

of euphoria. If it wasn’t that, then I would be depressed and crying

my eyes out over something. There was no in-between. I was like a

pendulum, always swinging from one side to the other. That’s why it

is called bipolar. One is either at the north pole or the south pole,

rarely at the equator.

Because of this, I often did and said things that were out of theordinary for the average person. I was that person people looked at

and thought, “She looks normal on the outside,” but after talking to

me for a few minutes, they would think, “There’s something not quiteright about this person.” I’m sure everyone reading this book has met

someone like that at some point.

It was not enough for me to feel things “normally.” If I didn’t getemotionally hyped out about things, I felt I wasn’t getting the most

out of every experience. Combine that with an emotionally stunted

35

mind from living in an violent, abusive, alcoholic, dysfunctional

home, and you have a recipe for disaster.6

Three times a week, I went to church and became hyped to the

point of pure exhaustion. I would come home, collapse in my bed,

and wonder how I was going to get up the next morning for school.

Although I loved my church dearly, it was the worst denomination formy mental condition.

What I Won’t Revisit

I have a hard time writing about my childhood and teenage years.

It seemed like any good memory was overshadowed by one or two bad ones. The good was swallowed up by the bad. It’s like my brain

was hardwired to focus on the negative instead of the positive. (It still

is. I struggle with it to this day.) There was always an underlying

anxiety and fear in anything I ever did, whether good or bad. It wasexhausting. I have struggled with chronic fatigue and IBS (Irritable

Bowel Syndrome) my whole life, and I think that’s part of the reason

why.I learned from a very early age I couldn’t trust anyone. My own

father told my brothers and me countless times while growing up

never to trust anyone. I also learned that no one would protect me but

me. So I locked up my heart and hid it behind a brick wall that was bigger than the great wall of China. Even if I had to die to protect it,

by God, no one was ever going to break through to hurt me again,

never.Because of my inability to trust, I was never able to have healthy

relationships with anyone. I was always skeptical of people’s motives

and intentions, always on guard. My modus operandi was, “Shoot

first, and ask questions later.” It was my way or the highway becauseanyone else’s way was too big of a risk of getting hurt. This behavior

would offend and hurt many people through the years, including those

with whom I worked.

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36

Life’s circumstances constantly tried to mold me into being a

victim, but I was very strong-willed. I was always trying to break thatmold, always struggling but never quite able to break free.

I vacillated between being a victim and a victor. Victory for me

took the form of a bulldozer. I bulldozed through and over anyone to

get my way. It was the only way I knew how to protect myself. This behavior would get me into a lot of hot water over the years, and

make me many enemies.There are other things from my childhood I won’t revisit here.

Suffice it to say, I feel it is important to explain that I was sexually

molested on three different occasions throughout my childhood and

pre-adolescent years. These experiences, combined with negativemessages about sex and sexuality I received while growing up, set the

stage for major obstacles and dysfunction later in life.

The molestations left me feeling violated and victimized. I was

torn between liking boys and being afraid of them at the same time. Iwanted to be loved but was confused about love and boundaries. My

mind was convinced that the only thing men wanted from women was

sex. My heart was already locked up and hidden behind a great wall. Now, I had to protect my body as well by locking it up as tight as Fort

Knox.7

In addition to my sexual abuse, when I was growing up Iexperienced enough instances of verbal abuse, violence, and neglect

to give my future psychiatrists and therapists sufficient evidence to

diagnose me with Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD (Post-

traumatic stress disorder) in addition to my Bipolar Type II diagnosis.

That’s where Todd came in.

He was the first man in my life who loved me unconditionally. He

never pushed or tried to control me. He never got angry or raised his

voice. He broke all of my stereotypes. He gave me the freedom to bemyself.

However, I was never free. The damage to my heart, mind, soul,

and body had already been done. It would take decades to workthrough all my issues. But Todd never abandoned me. He waited

patiently by my side and supported me when I wasn’t even able to

help myself.

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What kind of love was this? He was a mirror of the unconditional

love, acceptance, and support that is only found in God through ChristJesus. It was a love of the highest order.

But with my background of abuse and only being sixteen years of

age, how would I recognize such love in the beginning? And how I

could I ever receive it?

Documents

I'Ll Meet You at the Dock - A Bipolar Love Affair.volume 1. CHAPTER 1.EXCERPT