Every Last Morsel

Warning: substance abuse and mental health issues contained

“Forever and ever, my baby you’ll be.”

My mother said it like a promise. I believed her—believed in her automatic, forgiving, unconditional love. Even when everything else in our house felt unstable, her love was the one thing I trusted.

Until it wasn’t.

This is what Dr. Amy wanted me to tackle in our therapy session today.

She guided me through a reflective exercise designed to penetrate my deeper, most painful memories and connect them with feelings I tended to label as “unwelcome.” The directions were clear: lay down in a comfortable position, sit with those feelings, and see what memories the cat dragged in from the alleyways of my mind.

I obeyed the first instruction, happily lying down on her plush, oversized loveseat adorned with pastel-colored pillows. The rest, I planned to ignore. My eyes fluttered shut as I prepared my brain for something calmer – a peaceful state of reflection and objectivity rather than an emotional mess, which wouldn’t be pretty for myself or Dr. Amy to clean up. I inhaled deeply, holding until my lungs strained. Envisioning all my anxiety, uneasiness, and sadness swelling up inside me, I blew out an exhalation of air and discarded all those “unwelcome” feelings. A dry, almost sardonic laugh escaped with it.

Settling deeper into the couch cushions to concentrate, nothing came to me. I couldn’t dredge up anything but a miniscule, shimmering light in a sea of darkness, which I was certain was just the reflection of the overhead lights in Dr. Amy’s office. I recognized the old pattern of restricting my memories, and I expelled a sigh of irritation.

I sat up. I needed a coffee, and the comforting distraction of busy work for my upcoming non-profit gala.

“This is useless, Dr. Amy. Let me get back to better things.”

“You mean there are better things in your life than healing your inner child? It takes more than five minutes to infiltrate deep-seated trauma – especially with the military blockades and mazes I’m sure you’ve built in your mind.”

Another sardonic laugh slipped past my lips. Military blockades. Hard to argue with that.

“You’re right, Dr. Amy. And those blockades are meant to protect me – so aren’t they doing their job?”

“Look, Sage. You came to me crying on my front porch after Doug triggered that memory a month ago. I am more than willing to help you work toward healing, but you’re going to have to put in some effort. Tearing down even one blockade doesn’t mean you’re unprotected. In fact, it might help you dismantle them all together. ”

Okay, okay Ms. Know-It-All. We’ll try it your way.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, okay. Let me traumatize myself right here, right now. Hope you’re ready for cleanup on aisle seven.”

“Humor me, Sage. I’ve got the mop ready.”

I resumed my place on the couch, this time grabbing one of the pastel pillows for comfort. The softness – the calm and tranquil yellows, pinks, and light greens – almost mocked me. I closed my eyes, not really taking this seriously. My blockades had always protected me from going down the rabbit hole of my memories. I couldn’t change anything so why did it matter if I worked through it or not?

It was just weed. What are you afraid of? So what if he used a soda can? It was the only smoking device he had. I guess it was in the way he scraped it for every last morsel of weed. Every. Last. Morsel.

A whiff of ash and mold clung to my nostrils, sudden and unwelcome.

What was I even doing here? No amount of “working through it” would change the fact that my childhood was shit. It happened to me. God decided I was the one who had to endure it.

But you’re the one who is the strongest to survive it, Sage.

The voice didn’t feel like mine.

Another voice echoed in my mind – my mother’s. It felt familiar, but also chilling. My blood ran cold. Goosebumps ran up my arms and danced along my spine. Then, slowly, a crescendoing hum built up in my mind until I could discern the mantra:

Corner. Cower. Silent.

The room thinned around me, and my body stiffened as my fight-or-flight instincts surged. I could taste the staleness in the air, feel the rough carpet beneath my feet, smell the stench of a rusty staircase railing, hear the angry, muffled voices of my parents.

Corner. Cower. Silent.

The mantra looped in my head as I saw myself creeping up the stairs of the townhome I lived in with my family – what was left of it, anyways. My father had always said we only needed the four of us – mom, dad, Lana, and myself – to survive.

We were in Memphis. My safe space called to me, the corner of my room where I could burrow into myself and quiet the chaos. My parents avoided my room like the plague, complaining of the "teenage stench” that hit them as soon as they walked in.

Halfway up the stairs, a deafening creak ripped through the silence as my foot landed on a weak part of the floor. I could never remember the exact spots to avoid.

Damn it all to hell, motherfucker, bitch. A slew of obscenities only God would be terrified of flew through my mind. My stomach tumbled into a pit of terror. I froze, bracing for the screams that echoed in my parent’s room to be hurled at me. But their screams only grew louder toward each other.

14 steps total, only 5 more to go, I repeated to myself. Finally reaching the top of the steps and that much closer to my sanctuary, I tore past my parents’ bedroom, the bathroom, and into my own room. I collapsed into the farthest corner of the room, cowered into a fetal position, and stayed silent, at least out loud.

A wave of dizziness overcame me. My vision grew blurry as a cacophony of thoughts, like frenzy worker bees, bounced off of the walls of my brain:

When would this end? What did this mean for my future? How could I help my mother? My sister? Myself?

My hands clutched my thighs for comfort, and if I had any fingernails – ones I hadn’t been bitten to the nub – they would’ve punctured the skin. I rocked back and forth, slipping my two middle fingers in my mouth, sucking ravenously. I had done it since I was a baby. It was the only ritual I knew that calmed me.

Stay grounded. Keep calm. Wait for my parents to make up like they always do, I reminded myself.

I sat there for what felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes when I heard the door to my parents’ bedroom squeak open. My dad stormed downstairs and out of the house for his fortieth cigarette of the day.

Inching into the hall, I could hear the whimpering of my mother. It left a pang in my heart. I wanted to run to her and hold her in my arms like I used to when I was younger, but I knew her daughter’s love wasn’t enough anymore to save her.

“Sage,” she called hoarsely for me. “I need you…I need you to get the party favors.” That’s what they called it.

I slipped into the bathroom and grabbed the orange Fanta soda can, a paper plate crusted with old pizza sauce, and a blue lighter.

I stepped into my parents’ room, items in hand. She let out a heart-wrenching sob and motioned to me for the items. I placed everything on the mattress, one of the few adornments in the room. Slouching to the floor, I watched as my mom snatched a plastic bag full of drugs from the bedside table and dumped it on the paper plate. Whatever substance they were smoking, she didn’t seem to have much left. I waited, anticipating her putting the “party favors” away and whisking me into her arms instead.

But she didn't.

Like I wasn’t even there.

Instead, she took the can and a nail, and scraped it for every last morsel of weed. Every. Last. Morsel.

A whiff of ash and mold clung to my nostrils, sudden and unwelcome..

It wasn’t new- the soda can, the paper plate, and a bag of drugs. As the tendrils of smoke disappeared into the air, an older memory struck me from the side: myself, practicing the same ritual at eight years old.

Go back. Stop. Control yourself.

My eyes snapped open. I jolted upright, my heart hammering in my chest.

Something shifted, but I couldn’t place it.

“Forever and ever, my baby you’ll be,” I whispered to myself. I could still feel the grip on my thighs, the tinge of ash in my nostrils, the steady hum of the “corner, cower, silent” mantra reverberating in my mind.

Suspended between memory and reality, shame, guilt, fear - old companions from my childhood bubbled over. I let out an earth-shattering scream and sob. I grabbed one of the pastel pillows - a yellow one no longer calming, and battered it until a seam tore, spilling stuffing everywhere.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! I’m not your baby. I never was. All you cared about was the party favors. I just wanted you.”

Tears streamed down my face, and snot smeared my neck. For the first time in a while, I let it all out. Right here on the floor of my therapist’s office.

After I regained my composure, I let my body fall limp against the couch, and coddled the yellow pastel pillow I had just decimated. Forcing myself, I looked half-heartedly at Dr. Amy.

Her soft blue eyes met mine. She didn’t say anything – just waited for me to speak, to explain what the hell had just happened.

I stayed silent.

Finally, she spoke up and addressed the elephant in the room. My breakthrough, if you could even call it that.

“Did you feel that? I think you let go a little…let something slip through the cracks in your barricades.”

“Yeah,” I admitted, a sheepish half-smile tugging at my lips. “I’ll say something slipped through. Sorry about your pillow, by the way.”

Dr. Amy let out a soft laugh and joined me on the floor. She embraced me in a bear hug, and I could smell a hint of her vanilla perfume.

“It’s a start, Sage. And that is something to be so proud of. We can work through this.” She paused. “Who were you talking to earlier?”

I thumbed the buttons of my coat, curling tighter to the yellow pillow.

“My mother,” I whispered. “She always had a saying: Forever and ever, my baby you’ll be. But she lied, Dr. Amy. She loved her drugs more than me. Why wasn’t my love enough to save her?”

“Oh Sage…” Dr. Amy embraced me again, tucking my now-stringy hair behind my ears in a quiet, motherly motion.

“You were a child. Your love mattered, it was real,” she spoke softly.

She paused, stroking my hair still.

“It’s hard when it comes to addiction, Sage. Love doesn’t cure it, and it certainly wasn’t your job to save her.”

“I’ll never forgive her.” The words came out flat and final. At the thought of my mother and her “party favors,” I felt something harden inside of me.

“She’s not here to speak for herself, Sage.” Dr. Amy spoke soothingly. “But you are.”

Continuing gently and choosing her words carefully, Dr. Amy spoke “Feeling that anger, that hurt – any of it – is important. Don’t bury it. This is finally a breakthrough.”

I had been pulling at the stuffing in her pillow. Now it looked like me. Empty, deflated.

“I hate her…”

My voice cracked as I stifled back a sob.

“But I still want her.”

Dr. Amy remained silent. We stayed on the floor, hunkered in the quiet.

I pushed the stuffing back through the torn seam in the pillow.

“Forever and ever, my baby you’ll be,” I muttered.

“Forever.”