Always Watching

  “You had group programs at River of Life?” I made sure that my tone was casual, more curious than interrogatory. With Daniel not around, I hoped she might share more about the center.

  “Aaron doesn’t believe in medications. That’s why I stopped taking my pills. He said I could heal myself, my meridians were just blocked.”

  I wasn’t shocked to hear that. He’d never liked medications, even in the early days of the commune, and wouldn’t allow any of the members to consult doctors. It was amazing no one had ever died from medical complications.

  “They had classes on how to be happy. They said you can use your mind to cure anything. It didn’t help me, though.” She gave another hollow laugh.

  “Depression is a disease, just like diabetes, or anything else. Even if you’re feeling better, you can’t just stop your medication. Let’s talk about ways you can take care of yourself when you’re feeling depressed. What were some things that helped in the past? Like exercise, or a favorite movie or book?”

  She shrugged, scratched at her bandages. “I used to do yoga.”

  “So maybe that’s something you can try again. We have group sessions a couple of times a week.”

  She looked lost in thought. “That’s how it started. I met a woman at my yoga class, and she told me about this meditation retreat she was going to at the center. She said she had gone before, and it was the best experience of her life.” Her voice turned mournful. “I just wanted to be happy, too, but look at me now.” She slumped in her chair, her earlier glimmer of energy snuffed out. “What’s the point of even talking about this? It won’t change anything.”

  My head filled with questions about the center. What happened during the retreats? How many members lived there? But I couldn’t ask—this wasn’t about me. I shoved everything to the side.

  “We can show you how to stop your thoughts when they start spiraling down, like if you suddenly feel depressed, try to remember what you were just thinking. Once you identify the trigger, you can replace it with an alternative, more positive thought. Would you like to try some together?”

  She stared at her knees. “They said they could help me too. When I went to that first retreat, I did feel happier. Everyone was so nice—they complimented me and made me feel special. And they listened to everything I said, like my opinion actually mattered.”

  What Heather was saying sounded like “love-bombing,” which was something various groups and even salespeople did. They give you what they think you’re missing, encouragement, compliments, validation, to make you feel good about yourself, which in turn makes you feel good about them. I thought back to the commune, remembering that Aaron would ask us to be extra nice to new members and show them how happy we were living at the commune.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I hate myself for leaving. Why didn’t I just stay there?”

  I waited to see if she’d answer the question for herself, but she was just staring at her feet now.

  “You didn’t want anyone else to raise your child, which is perfectly understandable,” I said. “Have you been having more troubling thoughts?”

  She nodded and wiped her nose on her arm. “I don’t want to tell Daniel about them.” She took a shuddering breath. “He’s always worrying about me.”

  “We won’t tell Daniel anything you don’t want us to. But you can talk to me. Is there anything you’d like to share?”

  Her face grew sad. “We did sharing exercises at the retreats. Daniel and I were partners the second weekend I was there—that’s how we met. Aaron matched us. He said our energy was really strong together.”

  “What kind of exercises?”

  “We had to confess things.” She shifted her weight, tugged at the bandage on her wrist like it was suddenly too tight. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  My chest had also tightened at the word “confess.” I wanted to ask Heather more about these exercises, to see if they were like the confession ceremony I had participated in or something even worse. Maybe there was a clue there as to my memory loss. I hesitated. It wouldn’t be right to push Heather before she was ready—but she was the only person who could help fill in the blanks. I was still thinking about what to do when she continued on her own.

  “They said they could help me, that all my problems were in my head.” Sounding wistful now, Heather said, “So after a couple of weeks, I sold everything I owned, moved to River of Life, and started helping in the store.” I wondered what kind of store they had and whether it was at the commune.

  “I wanted to be good at something.” Heather paused, thinking. “Before Daniel came to the retreat, he’d been in Haiti, helping after the earthquake, and before that, he was overseas. He’s done such amazing things with his life. I haven’t done anything. I’m always quitting stuff—school, jobs. I have a trust fund, from my grandparents, and my parents bought me stuff and gave me money, so it just never seemed to matter. When I was at the center, though, I liked working at the store. I designed the displays—and I was good at it.” She began to pick at the bandage on her wrist. Pick, pick, pick. “When we left, I couldn’t find a job, because I was pregnant, so Daniel had to take two jobs. I was alone for hours.”

  “How was that experience for you?”

  “I hated it.” She stretched like she was trying to get away from something, squirmed in her chair. “Every minute seemed so long. I would watch the clock, TV, anything. But I was tired all the time, so I’d sleep. I tried to make him dinner when he came home but I’d make a mess and burn it.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she started shaking her head. “He should have a wife who takes care of him. Look at me.” She held out her wrists. “Who would want me?”

  “Have you had more thoughts about hurting yourself?”

  “I keep hearing a voice in my head.” She stopped. “I don’t mean like someone else’s voice. It’s mine, but it’s saying that I should die and—” She broke off, her hand covering her mouth.

  “It’s okay, just take a moment. I know it’s hard to talk about these feelings, but I can show you healthy ways to ease painful emotions rather than hurting yourself.”

  She took a breath and started again. “I call myself names.”

  “Like?”

  Her lips curled into a snarl, and her voice rose. “You stupid bitch, I hate you. You can’t do anything right. You’re an ugly, worthless piece of shit.” Her voice changed back to normal. “It makes me want to take a knife and gouge at my body, all over.” She pantomimed stabbing her legs, slashing at her body.

  “Who is the voice?” I wondered if she might be experiencing some splitting, a form of dissociation.

  “I don’t know—me, I guess. I just want it to be over.”

  “If everything is over, then you also don’t get to experience anything good. There’s no turning back.” I held her gaze. “Death is a permanent decision. Your husband, your parents, they might never recover.”

  “But then they could stop worrying about me—and my father can stop being disappointed.”

  I wondered if that’s why she’d been drawn to the center. A group that provided lots of encouragement and acceptance would have been very enticing. She was still searching for approval from an authority figure.

  I said, “Can you think of another time in your life when you felt depressed?”

  Speaking in a flat tone, she said, “When I tried to kill myself before.”

  “If you had succeeded then, you wouldn’t have met Daniel, right?”

  “That’s true.…” She turned toward me, a flicker of awareness in her eyes. My words had connected.

  “Well, that’s something to keep in mind next time you’re feeling depressed—wonderful things can happen. What’s kept you going in the past?’

  “Sometimes I’d want to kill myself, but I’d think about how angry my dad was the first time I tried, and that would stop me for a while.”

  “Do you think maybe he was angry because he was scared to lose you?”


  “He doesn’t care about me. The second time I did it was because I wanted him to get mad—I just wanted him to see that I was hurting.” She shook her head. Though the sentiment was sad, I was pleased that she was showing some self-awareness. She added, “You must think I’m so stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid to want your father to love you. But hurting yourself to get attention isn’t the best way of going about it.”

  “It didn’t change anything anyway. They came back from their trip, and Dad made me see a psychologist, but then they just gave me money and left again. He’s a lawyer, and everyone thinks he’s this great guy.” Her mouth twisted. “But he never spent any time with me. Neither of my parents did. When I was growing up, everyone thought my life was perfect because we’re rich, but I was just lonely.”

  “That must have been difficult. When you’re depressed, being alone can make it even worse, so we can come up with some ways to combat that, okay?” I was willing to bet that loneliness was one of the main reasons she’d sought out the center in the first place—she’d wanted to belong somewhere.

  “But it always comes back.”

  “What comes back?”

  “My depression—I’m so tired of feeling this way.” She faced me and the depth of pain, the hopelessness in her eyes made me catch my breath. “Maybe I can’t be cured. I’ve tried everything—antidepressants, yoga, therapy. I thought the center would help, but it just got worse. I don’t think I can be helped.”

  “You can get better. You started feeling depressed again because you went off your medication, and you suffered a painful loss. That was a lot to take.”

  “Aaron said that we create our own pain, and that you can’t allow yourself to become dependent on medication. You can teach your body not to need it.”

  I made myself take a breath before I spoke.

  “Many people need medication for depression. There’s nothing embarrassing or shameful about needing help. It’s a difficult disease, but you can learn to manage it, just like you would any other health issue.”

  “I’m not strong like that. Aaron said not eating or sleeping before we chanted would bring us closer to our true selves, and we’d learn to control our bodies, but I just felt confused.”

  “How long did you have to go without food or sleep?”

  “Sometimes days, I don’t even know. It was just a blur. They’d talk to us for hours, about the center, their beliefs, how they could change our lives.”

  It sounded like they were using alertness-stopping and programmed confusion, which was alarming—cults use it as a way of breaking down new members. While in university, I’d written several research papers about cultic groups and studied some of the more destructive ones. They didn’t all have paranoid gun-toting leaders—some of the most dangerous ones paraded under the guise of human-potential groups. There was a great deal I didn’t yet know about the center, but it did seem as though Aaron had progressed to new extremes.

  “Was it like that when you went to the first retreat?”

  She shook her head. “They were just about how to slow down and come back to center. They were very relaxing. I’d walk around the grounds, and everyone would be smiling, or meditating on one of the hills. Everything was so quiet there, and the stuff that usually mattered, like cars or cell phones, movies, clothes, status stuff—no one cared about any of that. You ate all this healthy food, got fresh air, exercised, and just focused on stopping the noise in your head.”

  “So when did you participate in the other chanting ceremonies?”

  “Not until about the fifth retreat, after I’d asked to come live at the center. You had to prove you were committed.” Her arms tensed slightly, and she rubbed them, like she was cold.

  “And that’s when you fasted and went without sleep?” I was starting to get the feeling there were two sides to the center, one that was presented to the public, as a relaxing retreat, and the other a more intense version for full-time members.

  She nodded, then started picking at her nails again, like she was nervous about having shared so much. “Some other stuff too, but yeah.”

  “Heather, anyone would start feeling depressed in that situation. Your blood sugar would plummet, and fatigue would make it even worse.” It would help Heather if she could see how she’d been manipulated, so that she’d be better able to stop the pattern of self-blame. I thought about how she said Daniel had to take two jobs after they left and wondered what had happened to her trust money.

  I said, “Did the center ever ask you to donate money to them?”

  Now she looked even more nervous, her gaze flicking around the room, her chest rising as she started to take rapid breaths. She said, “I shouldn’t be talking about them. I told Daniel I wouldn’t say anything.”

  So they had, and judging by her reaction, she had complied. I wondered why Daniel had allowed them to leave. He’d obviously wanted to stay, and the behavior Heather had exhibited to this point, even her promise to her husband, showed someone more likely to submit to him. Either he’d given in to her feelings to keep her happy, or deep down, he might’ve also had his own doubts.

  When she didn’t elaborate, I said, “I know you weren’t comfortable with the center’s beliefs about raising children, but was there anything else that you didn’t agree with?”

  She glanced at me nervously again, shrugged. “Some stuff … it was just different how they did things—but it helped a lot of people.” She said the last part slightly defensively, and I wondered whom she was trying to convince.

  I said, “Like what?” I heard the words come out of my mouth, and realized I’d asked because I’d personally wanted to know, not because I was worried about Heather. I felt a rush of anger at myself. This was not the kind of doctor I wanted to be, one focused on her own agenda. But it didn’t seem like Heather had even heard my question.

  She said, “I keep thinking about when I was first there. How fun it was, and how happy everyone was. I felt really good, better than I had in years.” Her eyes filled with tears. It sounded like she was glorifying her first days there, in a sort of euphoric recall, like some people do about the beginnings of their relationship, after everything falls apart. “Maybe I’m the problem. If I couldn’t stay happy at the center, then maybe I’ll never be like that. Maybe they were right, and I was just scared to let myself be happy. Why didn’t I just stay?”

  I repeated what I’d said on the first day I met her. “You made a choice that felt right for you. You wanted to protect your child.”

  “I don’t know.” She looked confused. “I was thinking that maybe I should go back. When I get out of here…”

  “I don’t think you should make any decisions about that right now. This is a place for you to take a time-out from life, so you can focus on getting better.”

  Her face was beginning to shut down as she pulled away from the conversation.

  “Can you concentrate on taking care of yourself for now?”

  She didn’t answer, and I couldn’t push harder without risking her shutting down completely, so I said, “Would you like to talk about something else? You mentioned another girl, Emily. Do you want to tell me about her?”

  Guilt washed across her face. “When we’d been living at the commune for a few months, we were assigned people who came to a retreat—like a spiritual brother or sister. We had to go everywhere with them. Emily’s only eighteen. She’d tried to commit suicide before too, that’s why she came to the center.…”

  Where was this girl now? If she was suicidal, then the center might be the worst place for her. My concern was elevated even higher when Heather said, “She was still depressed at the center—but I talked her into staying for another retreat, and now she lives there full-time. If you were able to get people who came to workshops to sign up for another one, Aaron would sit with you in a private meditation. I wanted him to like me.” Her eyes turned flat, despairing.

  Trying to get visitors to sign up for more retreats also fit
with the profile of many human-potential groups, including ones of a cultic nature, but it had been the mention of private meditations that alarmed me the most. I thought back to the commune and got a murky memory of Aaron leading female members off for healing sessions, his hand on their lower back, or resting on their shoulders, in almost a caress. Had he really just been trying to heal them, or something else?

  I turned my thoughts to my patient, who still needed my help. I leaned forward and made eye contact. “It’s obvious that you’re a very caring person, Heather. I’m sure you didn’t want any harm to come to Emily.”

  She looked down at her bandages. Then in a quiet voice she said, “She shouldn’t have listened to me. I’m useless. I couldn’t even kill myself properly.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On the way home from the hospital, I thought back to the commune and Willow, the first person to get me interested in medicine. She had a vast knowledge of herbs and plants, about which ones could be used for natural remedies, and quickly took over the greenhouse. If anyone had an injury or an ailment, they would consult Willow. She’d use lavender for just about everything—antiseptic, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, skin problems, upset stomachs. Stinging nettles helped with joint pain and as a laxative, comfrey tea for coughs. Yarrow could stop a toothache and was used as an astringent.

  She always smelled like some herb or plant, Rosemary one day, rhubarb or sage the next, but mostly lavender. She made soaps and lotions, shampoos and lip balms, pastes and oils. Food came alive with her herbs. I asked her once how she knew so much, and she told me that she’d grown up near a reserve and spent hours with a First Nations woman. When I inquired about her parents, her hand paused as it fussed with a leaf, and her mouth pulled down, so I changed the subject.

  Joseph tried to bully her a few times, questioning her use of an herbal tea, claiming that she was trying to poison the members, but Aaron intervened and sent him to his cabin, while Willow watched, her face concerned. He then told Willow that she shouldn’t use that tea anymore. She’d tried to explain it was harmless, but Aaron wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t the first time there’d been some tense moments between them. When people consulted Willow about an herb or some ailment, Aaron would make sure to give them a healing session right away. He’d thank Willow for her supportive treatment, but he’d stress that it was his clearing of their meridians or blocked chakras that had cured them.