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On My Own Terms

by Darlene Barriere

263 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-2307; ISBN 1-4120-1929-X; US$21.99, C$26.99, EUR17.99, £12.99

The story of a woman who uses psychotherapy to come to terms with her abusive mother; but things get really complicated when her mother is dying of bone cancer.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book On My Own Terms: A Memoir TWENTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD DARLENE BARRIERE is borderline anorexic when she enters psychotherapy. She's there to prove she doesn't need professional help, even though she hates everything about herself. She's afraid of being labeled neurotic or psychotic, but mostly, Darlene is afraid that she might be as crazy as her mother. And so begins ten months of grueling sessions with Dr. Stein . . . . Darlene shares and faces the memories that led to a suicide attempt, a planned teenage pregnancy and subsequent abortion, promiscuity, a stint in detention, morbid obesity, eating disorders, and a voluntary tubal-ligation when she was twenty-one years old. But she doesn't share the fact that in her purse are three boxes of Ex-Lax. Darlene must face the reality that her mother hated her. She must come to terms with her love/hate feelings for her violent, lord-and-master father. Twelve years later, Darlene learns her estranged mother has terminal bone cancer. As the family congregates to prepare for their mother's death, Darlene attempts to re-establish the emotional connection she once had with her brothers and sisters. But religious feuds, unresolved childhood squabbles, and Darlene's 'public-trustee-relationship' with her mother take their toll. Now she must deal with what happens when the past collides with the present. For more information, please visit: www.members.shaw.ca/darbarriere

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About the Author Darlene Barriere is a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba. When she isn't working on her novel, or faux painting walls, or installing crown and chair rail, or at the gym for her daily workout, she can be found in the kitchen preparing gourmet dinners or decorating specialty cakes for neighbors and other friends. Darlene and her husband, John, now live in Kamloops, British Columbia.

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Excerpts

Chapter 27 - Consumption

WALTER WAS BY far our most annoying customer. He'd sit for hours after demanding a pot of tea with four teabags on the side, usually nothing to eat. Every fifteen minutes he'd hound us for more water. Then, after a couple of hours, when the teabags produced only a slight tint to the water, he'd insist on a fresh batch. Byron finally caught on. "Charge him a dime per bag," he said. We tossed a coin to determine who would have to serve him.

"What the hell is this?" Walter hollered at me the night I'd lost the toss. I'd added eighty cents to his bill for extra teabags. It didn't matter that I'd informed him about the extra charges when he'd first sat down, he obviously hadn't taken it seriously.

"Sorry, Walter, but that's the going rate for teabags these days. Talk to Byron if you have a problem. He's at the front." I hadn't been rude, a little brassy perhaps, but not rude. I turned on my heels and went to the table beside him. I bent over to clear off the dirty dishes.

"Someone's got to take you down a peg or two," he said in a throaty voice. He lifted the skirt of my uniform, then landed an open hand hard across my backside.

Impulse overshadowed common sense. With little forethought, I frisbee-ed a small dish straight at Walter's head. He was a mass of legs and arms as he stumbled into the booth behind him.

"She's crazy, she's fricking crazy!" he shouted, nursing the goose egg above his left ear.

My face had to be the same color as my uniform. I had a finger to Walter's nose. "You cheap little bastard. If you ever lay another hand on me I'll chop it off at the wrist!"

"IT WASN'T WALTER'S actions that made me realize I had to get out of that place, Dr. Stein. It was mine. I had no idea I could turn so violent."

"Perhaps a dish to the head was a little excessive," he said, "but you had the right to defend yourself."

"I threatened to chop his hand off!"

"You were posturing."

"Still, it scared me to realize I had such rage."

"It was more outrage. A threatening act sometimes requires drastic measures."

"This from a man who abhors violence? You surprise me, Dr. Stein."

"We all have our breaking point."

I paused a moment for reflection, then suddenly had to chuckle. "Dr. Stein, it's ironic that it took a smack on the rear end to finally come to my senses . . ."

THE CLASSIFIEDS AGAIN. It was the day after the dish incident with Walter. I hadn't been fired, just the opposite. Byron backed me up, and even told Walter to leave. But when I looked inward I realized I'd become cynical; hateful; crass; wary of nothing, which was scary on its own merits. I had to get out of the place. I quit smoking in hopes of finding work at a better establishment. Two weeks later I was working the 5:00 a.m. shift for a non-smoking woman who had just opened a family restaurant next to the I-Hop on Allister Road. There were no drunks. No undesirables. No customers. Three months later I was unemployed.

"Why are you always looking for waitress positions?" Sandy asked after I told her I might have to go back to the cafe. "It's not like you need the hours anymore. You sure as hell don't need the aggravation." She mixed a couple of caesars from behind her living room bar. "Besides, you're too good for that dump."

"Come on, Sand, waitressing is the only experience I've got. I didn't finish grade 12, remember?" I used the celery stick to combine Worcestershire and Clamato juice. Sandy sampled her drink, then added a few more splashes of Tobasco. We moved to the couch, and put our stocking feet on the cherry-veneer oval coffee table. "Anyway, who's going to hire me without a high school diploma?"

"I got hired at City Hall, and I didn't exactly graduate," she replied.

"That's because you knew someone there," I reminded her.

"True." She rubbed a lock of her golden hair between her thumb and index finger, then twirled it. "But think about the courses you've got under your belt, Dar: bookkeeping, business management, typing. It's a lot more than I have. It's got to be worth a decent job somewhere."

"As what? A secretary?"

"Why don't you try for a secretary's position. They certainly have a better class of people in an office than in a god-forsaken dive like the cafe you worked in. Jesus, I can't believe you worked in that hellhole for a year and a half. I'd sooner see you on welfare than have you go back there."

"Don't even talk to me about welfare, those high-and-mighty assholes. No one but me is going to put food on the table and a roof over my head."

"Then do it sitting behind a desk for a change."

At home I rummaged through my heaping pile of newspapers (piled high because I wanted to get caught up with the political scene and do the crossword puzzles). Before long I'd come across two full columns. I'd had no idea there was such a demand for secretaries. The next day, after several phone calls, I had an interview with a family-runned company that sold and repaired small motors on 1st Avenue in Vancouver. Joel Coleman, the owner, offered me $1.50 above minimum wage.

Dan Fulton was the company accountant in charge of training me. His title was honorary since he didn't have a CA or CGA designation. Dan was protective of his job. All financial reports were his domain. Payroll, invoicing, collections, end-of-month statements were mine. As long as I didn't cross that line, there was no adversity. We got along like old buddies - distant buddies. But as protective toward his position as he was, Dan was a gentleman. He opened doors for ladies, tipped his hat 'good morning' to them, and referred to women in the politest of ways. Dan danced. He loved the theater. And he loved the company of classy women. He'd been a widower for about ten years. At six-foot-one, approaching his mid-sixties and sporting a Burt Lancaster face and physique, he now had females swooning.

I lived vicariously through Dan's genteel descriptions of his dates. I'd go home after work to my sparsely furnished apartment, void of companionship. The loneliness was unbearable. It started a chain reaction of insecurities and emotions. Of remembering. Then desperation to forget. I started running laps around the track on the hill next to Winston High, intent on getting fit and releasing frustration. It helped for a time, but the memories still hexed me. Nightmares of my mother chasing me with a bullwhip plagued my otherwise sleepless nights. I needed to talk so I could resolve the barbarity of what had happened to me as a little girl. I turned to 'Mom'.

"You must understand," Lorraine said, "your mother came from calamity. She was forced to live with a drunken father who probably didn't give a shit about anyone but himself."

"My grandmother was the monster in that family," I said resolutely. "And so was her mother."

"And why do you think that was?" Lorraine said, not really expecting me to answer. "It's because generations of women have had to put up with lord-and-master men in their lives. Your mother came from a time when she didn't have a chance to break free. She was full of rage. What she did to you wasn't her fault."

"Wasn't her fault? Come-on, 'Mom'. I have to accept responsibility for my actions. Why don't the same rules apply to her?"

"Read Betty Freidan. You'll get your answers there."

"I've read it. Several times," I replied. "It doesn't excuse what my mother did to me."

"You may have read the book, Dar, but you didn't absorb it." She went on about the plight of women. Then she went off on a tangent about how important it is that a daughter love her mother in order to love herself. I'd heard the sermons before, and I believed everything she had preached. But now that I began to question her philosophy, 'Mom' wasn't listening.

I walked away confused, wondering how to be thankful for a mother who had beaten and tried to destroy me. Yes, my mother was a product of child abuse. Yes, she had married into violence. Yes, she was unstable. And yes, she'd given birth to me. But I still hated her. And now I hated that I hated. It was crazy-making!

My solace was in cans of pop from the laundry room soda machine. I gulped a dozen an evening. Gigantic bars of chocolate were my special reward twice a week. Twice a week progressed to everyday. My dress size increased proportionally with the size of my insatiable appetite, which led to consumption of even more food, which led to the halt of my fitness program.

The 7-Eleven was five blocks away on the corner of Granger and Tanner. I walked for the exercise so I could burn off some of the extra calories I was about to consume. I went under cover of darkness so no one would see me and yell out, "Hey fatso," or "Tub-a-lard," from their cars. I bought ten chocolate bars, a twin-box of Old Dutch potato chips, two containers of French onion dip, and a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. "I'll wait until I get home to have a taste," I told myself out loud when I reached the ravine that ran perpendicular to Granger. "I'll freeze what I can when I get there." But by the time I turned the key to enter my apartment I had already eaten four Hershey bars.

Disgusted with my lack of willpower, obsessed with numbing the pain and dulling the senses, I tore into the box of chips right there at the foyer and crammed a handful down my throat as I let my body slide along the door toward the floor.

No thoughts.

No feeling.

No pain.

Just food.

More food. I needed more food.

I ripped the lid off the French onion dip. My hands trembled as I scooped a blob with fingers. I plunged them deep into my mouth, then followed with more chips. I choked on the dry saltiness. But even choking couldn't stop the frantic spree. I cracked open the seal on the bottle of cola before chugging a quarter of it down. I repeated the ritual over and over and over until all that was left were empty bags and streaks of dip in the containers. Then I reached for the remaining Hershey bars.

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Catalogue Information

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