Chapter 3

I woke with a start, partially blinded by sun light streaming through the window. My alarm must not have gone off this morning. I would be late for work, and Ms Whitfield would fire me for sure. No, wait a minute, this wasn't my bedroom. Where was I? Then I remembered this was a room at the Johnson Institute.

Climbing out of bed I realized I needed to pee. Walking to the door I tried to open it only to discover it was locked. Oh yes, that was right I needed to buzz the nurse's desk for someone to let me out. Looking down I realized I was still naked. After putting on underwear, pants, and a shirt; I pushed the button on the call box. Shortly a man's face appeared at the window in my door. The door opened and he pushed his head in.

"You need to go pee?"

"Yes"

"Ok follow me; I'll take you to the bathroom."

He led me in the opposite direction from the day room, to a door on the right hand side of the hall with the word "Men" on it. Entering the room I saw two stalls and two urinals. On the left hand side was a shower with two shower heads and two sets of controls. On the right hand side was a counter containing three sinks. Next to the shower entrance were hooks to hang your towel and clothing on.

After peeing and washing my hands, I went into the hall to ask the male nurse for a towel. He took me to the nurse's desk so I could sign one out. Each day I would need to turn in one towel for washing and sign out a new one. They also gave me my schedule for the day, showing where I needed to be on an hour-by-hour basis. The male nurse let me back into my room so I could drop off the schedule and pick up my toiletries.

After a good shower, I went down the hall again to have the nurse let me back into my room. This was beginning to get old fast. I wondered why all the other patients were not having this problem. The nurse, Roger, explained that I was in an isolation room because they were afraid I would hurt myself. He told me that once Doctor Johnson approved it later this morning; they would move me to a room without an electronic lock. They would also provide me with a lock for the wardrobe in my new room.

I looked around the day room, and noticed everyone else in the room was a woman. I could feel my fear starting to rise again. I went to the nurse's desk to ask Roger if I could go back to my room. Instead he informed me that everyone would be leaving for breakfast in five minutes. I pleaded with him to let me skip breakfast and return to my room.

The man is made of stone; he informed me he was under strict orders not to let me miss breakfast or any of my other meals. For some reason, Doctor Johnson was worried about the fact I am five feet six inches tall and weigh one hundred thirty five pounds. When you subsist on two meals a day, you do not gain much weight.

A nurse who looked to be about thirty five showed up to lead us all to the cafeteria. Being a gentleman, and scared out of my wits, I let all of ladies go ahead of me. The amount of food available for breakfast was amazing. They had scrambled eggs, sausage links, sausage patties, toast, pancakes, and oatmeal. In spite of the warning that I would have to eat everything I took, I asked for some of everything including two scoops of scrambled eggs. Twenty minutes later, there was nothing left except a dirty plate and some smears of oatmeal on the side of the bowl.

The same nurse returned to lead us back to the day room. Just before she led us out of the cafeteria, she reminded everyone to bring their notebooks and pens with them to the therapy sessions. Returning to the day room, I asked the nurse behind the desk about the notebooks and pens. She promptly reached under the desk, pulling out a blue notebook and a pen. Handing them to me, she told me I needed to keep them in my room over night.

The clock on the day room wall showed 7:45 a.m. I knew the schedule said I was supposed to be somewhere at 8:00 a.m. but I could not remember where, so I asked Robert to take me to the room. After picking up the schedule and checking my things I was ready to start the day. I did not really want to be here, but not being here was not one of my options.

The first thing on my schedule this morning was a therapy group called 'sexual abuse.' The thought of learning about sexual abuse did not thrill me at all. When I arrived in the proper room, I quickly discovered the purpose of the group was for us to describe how we were sexually abused and teach us to get past it. What was I doing in this group? No one ever sexually abused me, my Mother only beat me, she never had sex with me.

In what I discovered was the standard opening, Doctor Johnson told us that what we heard and said in the group stayed in the group. That was fine with me I didn't want to be in the group in the first place. I definitely did not want to tell others about this group.

For a morning that started off so well, it was definitely going down hill fast. I enjoyed the shower and my breakfast was the most food I had eaten in many years. Now everything was going to hell all at once. The group consisted of Doctor Janice Johnson, eight other women, and me. All of the women including Doctor Johnson were looking at me. Some of them looked like they wanted to rip my face off and some of them looked like they were afraid of me.

What does the good doctor do? She asks me to repeat the story I told yesterday in her office. While you're at it doc, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? After about two minutes I realized there was no way around it.

I started like I did the previous day. As I told the story, I zoned out and became that eight year old boy again. By the time I was done, my feet were on the chair with my knees under my chin. I had my arms wrapped around the front of my legs. Looking around the room I saw looks of horror, sadness, pity, and actual tears. Great, now she made me an object of pity, which was the last thing I wanted. The one thing I couldn't understand was why some of the women were looking at me with horror. The ones looking at me in horror were two of the women who had looked angry before.

Doctor Johnson said. "George, how often did something like you described happen?"

"I only broke my Father's belt once. Mother never punished me like that more than once a day and some times I was good enough she didn't need to punish me for two or three days. I don't know how young I was when she started, the first time I remember it happening was my third birthday. When I turned fifteen she suddenly stopped hitting me. I really don't know why. After that she used other punishments on me."

"What kind of punishments, George."

"Until I ran away from home, whenever I was bad, Mother yelled at me instead of beating me. She would remind me men were the lowest life form on the planet and then tell me I was one of the most pathetic men she knew."

Doctor Johnson asked each of the other members of the group to comment on my story, starting with Sally who was the first person on Doctor Johnson's left. She was one of the women with a horrified look on their face.

Sally started off by telling everyone she was raped six months ago and just could not bear the pain any longer. She then said she realized she did not know what real pain was, until she heard my story. She apologized to me for what she thought when I first walked in. Until she heard my story, she thought I did not belong in the group. Now she knew men could know what it felt like to be abused, it was a surprising revelation to her.

The next woman was Sarah; she looked at me with pity and sadness. Finally she said she understood why I was afraid of women. Sarah also told me that her Father used to abuse her and he raped her from the time she was nine until she ran away from home at sixteen. Sarah looked to be about an inch shorter than me, with a small frame and the face of a pixie. Before I could stop myself, I was telling her how sorry I was that her Father treated her like that.

The rest of the women in the group related similar stories, including Annette who described how her Mother and Father made her have sex with each of them repeatedly. Each of the women kept saying that they were so sorry my Mother treated me the way she did. For the first time in my life I discovered a group of people who understood what I went through growing up. The only problem was all of them were women.

I didn't want to believe them that they were all abused, but listening to their stories it was obvious to me the stories were true. I was becoming angry that someone would hurt these people so much. Suddenly, it hit me that if these women did not deserve to be hurt, maybe I didn't deserve to be hurt either.

Looking right at Doctor Johnson, I said. "I just realized, maybe it wasn't my fault Mother beat me. Maybe I wasn't as bad as she told me I was." Then a blinding rage surged through me and I shouted. "I didn't break the damn belt. She did."

Every woman in the room except Doctor Johnson drew back when I shouted out my rage. Doctor Johnson just smiled saying. "Very good, George, you are right you didn't break the belt. She should not have made you pay to replace it."

Still looking at me, she asked if I was afraid of these women. Without a moments hesitation I immediately answered yes. They scared me half to death, and I wanted to run away. Even as I said it, the rage and my confidence drained away like water running out of a sink. I spent the rest of the session sitting in a chair hugging my knees to my chest with my chin resting on top of my knees. The whole time I was listening to the women in the group tell parts of their personal stories. Some of them were in their second week of the program. They were beginning to work on moving beyond the pain and the fear.

Lori was new to the group; she stood five feet eleven inches tall and weighed approximately two hundred pounds. She told the group her story next. She was always self reliant and approached every situation with confidence. Then nine months ago two men overpowered and raped her in the park.

Lori was one of the women whose look of anger turned into a look of pity after I told my story. As the group wrapped up, she came toward my chair, but stopped about three feet away.

"George, I am so sorry your Mother abused you. Until I heard your story, I always thought the one person a child could go to for protection was her mother. I am so sorry you never had a safe place."

In spite the lump in my throat, I managed to stammer out. "Thank you Lori. I want to let you know I would never hurt you the way those two men did."

"I know. You don't have it in you to hurt people, George. You may not believe it, but you're a good man who had a lot of bad things happen to him."

I could feel my face turning bright red. "Lori, how do you know I'm not evil like my mother said?"

"George, I met evil the day I was raped. I know what it looks like, and you're not evil. Please believe me."

Doctor Johnson walked over and stood beside us. "Lori, can I have George now? He and I need to discuss a few things in my office."

Arriving in Doctor Johnson's office, she told me that the company was putting me on a paid leave of absence and paying my medical bills. She also asked me if I was ready to move out of the locked room into a regular room. After thinking about the hassle of finding a nurse every time I wanted to enter or leave my room, I decided to try staying in an unlocked room.

Her next question stunned me, did I want people from work to visit me. Melissa and her husband wanted to visit me; also both Ms Whitfield and Mr. Morgan wanted to stop by to see how I was doing. I didn't realize anyone at work cared about me. When I made that comment, Doctor Johnson looked me in the eye, saying. "George, other people think you are worth saving. Never, ever, doubt that."

If Doctor Johnson wanted to believe that, I would not argue with her. That did not mean I believed her, it just meant I would not argue. All I wanted was to go home. I just hoped I would have a home to go to. If I missed a payment, they would throw me out. With Doctor Johnson's help I worked out the logistics for paying my bills. She told me she expected to keep me for three weeks. After that, I would probably be in outpatient therapy for a year or more.

That was Doctor Johnson's plan. My plan was much simpler. The sooner I could convince her to discharge me, the sooner I could move to a new city and disappear. There was no way I would spend a year baring my soul to women who might use what I said to hurt me.

We spent the rest of my one on one session discussing how I related to women and men, both before I ran away from my Mother, and after. The point the Doctor kept circling back to was that I expected women to attack me without provocation. The way she kept coming back to it gave me the feeling that she thought I was wrong about how women acted. Then again, as a woman, she might not want to admit that women are vicious, nasty, power hungry creatures who just want to destroy all men. After growing up with my Mother, I knew better.

My Mother never lost a chance to reinforce in me that my sole function in life was to provide my wife a decent living. If I was unable to do that, then I was useless and should not be allowed to live. I knew that was why no woman ever approached me for a date. They could all see I was a poor excuse for a man. I could not even hold a job, why would they ever decide to audition me for a job as a husband. Most days I was happy women did not want to date me. I saw how my Mother treated Father. Compared to how she treated Father, my life was heaven on Earth.

Just before Doctor Johnson called Roger to take me back to my room, she expressed ideas I did not agree with at all. Doctor Johnson insisted most women did not treat men the way my Mother did. She also insisted that normally, it was the man who approached the woman for a date. When she said that, I pounced on her lie; I told her that my Mother arranged the only three dates I ever had. If it was my job to ask women out on dates, how come it was Mother setting up the dates not me? She looked at me sadly and shook her head. She closed the session by instructing me to start this journal. Right after that she called Roger.

Roger took me back to my room so I could pack. Fifteen minutes later, I was in an unlocked room all by myself. I spent the next half hour unpacking my suitcase, hanging up my clothes, and putting underwear and socks on shelves in my wardrobe. After that, I put a lock on the wardrobe door and pocketed the key.

Returning to the day room, I noticed all the other patients were back from their various group and private sessions. At noon, a nurse arrived in the day room to take us to lunch. She started by counting the number of people in the day room and comparing it to the number she was responsible for. After confirming that everyone was ready to go, she opened the outside door of the day room and led us to the cafeteria. Again I was amazed at the quantity of food they allowed me to eat.