I Thought I Heard

by Bill Tope

"I remember a whisper I heard when I was seven; a uniformed policeman was addressing my aunt, with whom I lived. 'Your brother, Mrs. Allen,' he said, 'lost his life in an automobile accident last night.'

Image credit: Neil Kami on Unsplash

"Aunt Livy's only brother was my dad, Tom Lewis, Jr. I remember thinking to myself that I was named after him, which made me Tom Lewis, III. I heard a sudden sharp intake of breath and then screaming. I remember worrying about how Aunt Livy was taking the news, but then I realized that the heavy breathing and screaming were coming not from my aunt but from me. But nobody else could hear it. They paid me no mind.

"'His body was taken directly to the morgue, Ma'am,' said the cop. 'There was just no hope. I'm sorry.' 

"She said something like, 'Yes, I understand; I'll phone the funeral home this afternoon and make arrangements.'

"What I thought I heard was: 'Yes, indeed, Tom should fetch around $1.49 per pound at the butcher's; and I'll see to it that Mr. Lindsey doesn't put this thumb on the scale this time!' 

"I started, stared disbelievingly at Aunt Livy, but her face was the same as always. The conversation between the policeman and my aunt continued for several more minutes with no further surprises. I took a deep breath.

"'I'll get out of your hair now, Mrs. Allen," said the policeman. ‘I know you must have just skads of people to contact.'

"Intuitively, I knew that what my aunt then said was, 'That's correct, Officer: his ex-wife, our parents, his work, there's just a hundred things to do!' 

"But what I thought I heard was: 'That's correct, Officer, I have calls to make, invitations to send out, caterers to call, for the huge party we're giving in celebration of my brother's passing. The whole neighborhood will be there. Tom was such an asshole! You and the misses should come, too.' I didn't hear his response, but she added, 'Don't bring a thing; we'll have noisemakers, balloons. I think we'll even have fireworks, and maybe a magician.'

"I swayed a little on my feet, felt a little lightheaded. 

"As he turned to leave, the policeman swiveled round to me and deep down, I knew he said, 'Take care, Young Man, things are going to be alright.' Then he squeezed my shoulder, smiled and left.

"But, what I thought I heard him say was, 'You little shit! If I catch you out after curfew, for any reason, I'll rip your heart out!'  Then he grinned grotesquely and left.

"When the cop had gone, Aunt Livy, who had been my guardian all my life, since even before my mom and dad finally split up, said, 'Well, I guess you heard most of that, Tommy. I know it's not easy to lose a parent–or a brother–but we'll manage somehow.' She smiled sweetly at me.

"I sighed with relief at her tone and sweet-sounding voice.

"But, what I thought I heard her say was, 'Now I'm stuck with you, you little parasite!' She glared, then drew her finger to her chin, thinking. 'But it might not be all bad: I could get his house!' And she smiled sweetly.

"It was at about that time that I began in earnest my life-long love affair with Lithium and Quaaludes. Dr. Patel?” I said, addressing my therapist. I stared expectantly at him, hoping for some insight into my 30-year misbegotten journey into hearing what was assuredly not said to me.

"Mr. Lewis," said Patel, "what we are confronted with here is the mistranslation of the spoken word and its consequent misinterpretation. When we listen to others," he explained, "we're not directly hearing their words or intent. We are actually receiving an interpretation of a set of meaningless, automatic neurological processes in our brain that have scant relationship to what has been said."

"Then what is what I think I hear based on?" I asked.

"What you hear is entirely determined by your education, family, mores and beliefs that have been stored in your brain and which filter all incoming messages. What you interpret these words to mean has been markedly affected by what you've heard before. This creates biases and surmises that prevent you from correctly translating incoming messages with any degree of accuracy. We interpret what we hear in terms of what we've heard–or imagine that we've heard–before. As a listener, you have no idea what has been discarded in the process of hearing and translating what's been said. On average, we accurately hear no more than 35% of what has been said."

"What is this called?" I asked, completely at sea.

"One name," replied the doctor, "is Auditory Processing Disorder or APD. This delimits the ability to process incoming auditory signals. Such a person may hear, but they have poor auditory discrimination skills."

"Is that what I've got?" I asked with dread. It sounded awful.

"You tell me," invited the doctor. "Symptoms include difficulty localizing sound; difficulty understanding rapid speech; difficulty focusing and avoiding distractions; high-frequency hearing loss."

I shook my head no. "That doesn't sound right," I said.

He went on to talk about hyperacusis, exaggerated startled response and sensitivity to such sounds as running water, dog barking and walking through leaves. Once more, I answered in the negative. He said these symptoms often ensued from trauma and emotional distress. Under questioning, I told him about the most traumatic event of my life: the death of my father when I was seven years old.

He inquired if I experienced hypervigilance and was always in an alert posture, and I nodded, acknowledging my familiarity with that phenomenon. He said, "Perhaps you overanalyze people's tones, facial expressions or body language." He went on, "A neutral response from a friend might feel cold, distant, even hostile to you."

I nodded avidly, recognizing myself in the scenario he described. The doctor had told me to just jump into the conversation to recount any pertinent experiences. At this point, I did.

*

"'Tom,' said Cheryl in a sultry voice, 'make love to me.'

"Being just 15 years old, though tall for my age, I felt at a loss. 'I don't know how,' I said miserably.

"Cheryl, who was 18, snuggled close in my arms and said, 'That's okay, I'll show you what to do.'

"But I thought she said, "Shit! What are you, a homo? Get the hell out of my apartment! I'll tell everybody at school that you're queer!' And she shoved me away.

"Moments later, when we were having intercourse, I heard Cheryl moan, and she remarked that I was a fast learner. I smiled to myself.

"But I was certain that she said, 'You have got the smallest dick I ever had. I can hardly feel it! Doesn't it get any bigger?' Then she laughed, and my face turned crimson."

*

I looked into the face of my therapist and saw him blow out a breath. I asked him, "What do you think, Doc?" As he was speaking, I felt my eyes open wide and a crushing pressure on my chest. He stopped talking and looked at me with concern.

He said, "It happened again, didn't it?"

I nodded. I felt feverish.

"Tell me what you thought I said," he implored.

"I thought you said, 'Brother, you are batshit crazy! There is no hope for you.'"

"Anything else?" asked Dr. Patel.

I nodded.

"You said, 'I'm a doctor, not a freaking magician!' And then you laughed."

I looked into the doctor's serious brown eyes, and he was not laughing now, which made me even edgier. "Is it hopeless, Doctor Patel?" I asked.

He gave me a kindly smile, which reached his eyes, and replied, "No, Mr. Lewis, all is not lost. Let's examine the episode you detailed for me just now and relate it to subsequent events. Has it been replicated in later life experiences?”

I nodded.

"In interpersonal relationships," he explained, "your past experiences have taught you that love is unpredictable or conditional. You see, Mr. Lewis, your brain is trying to protect you from future pain by preparing you for the worst."

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I can see that now."

"Other typical behaviors," he said, "are mind reading, as in, 'they must think I'm stupid.' Also, catastrophizing: 'if they're upset, it means I ruined everything.' And black and white thinking, which means that 'if they're not constantly reassuring me, then they must not care.'"

"I've felt that way many times, Dr. Patel," I admitted.

"Can you give me an example?"

"How many do you want?" I posed the rhetorical question, then answered him.

Image credit: Keith Chan on Unsplash

 Beth

"When I was in my late 20s, I was married, briefly, to a really wonderful girl. Beth picked up on my problem with what you called black-and-white thinking, and she found herself reassuring me at every turn. When she failed to tell me that I was a good provider or a competent lover, or even a good driver..."

"Go on," prompted the doctor.

"Once when we went on vacation to Washington D.C., I was driving, and I don't know if you've even driven in the nation's capital over the Fourth of July, but it can be a bear." I looked up at him, and he nodded. "Well, anyway, there was some protest march or something, and a teenager ran out into the street and threw herself on the hood of my car. No reason; maybe she was high..."

"How did you respond?" asked Patel.

I angled the car away from her and slammed on the brakes. If I hadn't, we would've killed her."

"And how did your wife respond?”

"She didn't. She took a deep breath and sighed; I think."

"But I instantly thought she said, 'Tommy, you jackoff, you almost killed that girl. Keep your mind on the road, for Chrissake! They'll throw your sorry ass in jail and I sure as hell won't visit you!'"

*

"That's quite a bit of mental gymnastics," remarked Patel.

"The thing is, that Beth never used crass language in real life," I said.

He nodded. "Here's another one," said the doctor, warming to his topic: "A friend forgets to invite you somewhere, and you feel deeply rejected, because it recalls memories of feeling unwanted as a child.'"

I nodded. "I remember feeling very unwanted as a little boy, like I was always in the way and standing in the way of others living their lives and enjoying themselves."

"Like your aunt Livy?" he suggested.

I nodded again. "Yes, and my mother. She left the home, and I got placed with Aunt Livy when mom couldn't handle motherhood."

At length, feeling that at last someone understood and got me, I asked, "What can I do about this, doctor? Is there a magic pill?" I asked wistfully.

"Regretfully, no," said Patel. "However, I believe that cognitive processing therapy is indicated. It has been useful in reducing symptoms of PTSD."

"PTSD?" I said. "That's what soldiers get," I recalled.

"Many things can trigger it," said Patel. "Violence, sexual assault, even the death of a loved one, particularly when experienced by one so young."

"What's involved?" I asked.

"A series of 12 one-hour sessions helps patients learn how to modify unhelpful beliefs related to their trauma. A new understanding of that trauma is conceived so that it reduces its ongoing effects on their lives. A narrative, called an impact statement, is written by the patient about his thoughts and beliefs about those traumatic events, and he talks about why he thinks the trauma occurred. The patient includes sensory details that they remember: smells, tastes, sounds, in addition to his most intimate thoughts and feelings."

"When can we get started?" I asked eagerly.

The doctor scrolled through his iPad, and I thought how unusual for a medical man to handle the scheduling of his own patients. He said, "I have an opening in one week. Can you come in next Thursday at one?"

I agreed that I could.

*

Several weeks into my CPT, I phoned up my best friend, who happened to be my ex-wife. I told her that I had taken her advice and seen a therapist. Beth came from a military family and had experience with family members who had suffered PTSD. I asked shyly if she wanted to meet to discuss what I was going through. Of course, she agreed. We sat in Beth's favorite restaurant–a McDonald's. Beth was a McDonald's maniac. Rail-thin, she couldn't get enough Filet-of-Fish sandwiches. She'd insisted we have them on our wedding night. She had nearly voted for Trump when she learned that he liked double cheeseburgers as much as she.

"He can't be all bad, Tommy," she'd said, only half joking.

So, we sat in a yellow and brown plastic cubicle, McCoffee's before us, as I struggled to fill out the worksheets the doc had given me at our previous session.

"What are the worksheets about, Tommy?" she asked, adding copious packets of creamer to her coffee and stirring.

"There are five basic themes," I told Beth. "Safety, trust, power and control, esteem, and intimacy."

As I pored over the worksheets, I grew uncomfortable and fidgety, and Beth picked up on this. She laid slender fingers on my forearm. It felt warm where we touched. "Just relax, Tommy," she said. "Take your time and be completely honest. No one will judge you. There are no wrong answers." Beth told me before that she had surfed the web on the topic of PTSD for both her brothers, who had served. This gave me a great sense of relief and support from someone I loved dearly.

*

But just inside my level of consciousness, I thought that Beth huffed out an angry breath and snapped, ‘Tommy, why are you so damned helpless? This is your last chance: ace these worksheets, or we're through, for good!’ I stared helplessly into her lovely green eyes.

*

Beth gave me a look of love. "I know," she murmured, "it happened again. What did you hear?" she asked. I told her. I was near tears. "Fight it, Tommy," she whispered. "You know I love you and would never say such a thing. You know that, right?" she smiled.

I nodded and smiled back.

Beth and I met each week after that, where we discussed what I'd learned. I struggled, and she was my rock. One time, as we sat drinking our coffees, tears suddenly began tracing down my cheeks. I had begun to feel the sadness I'd never allowed myself to feel before. Beth reached out and softly lifted a teardrop from my cheek. She told me I was doing fine and that she loved me.

When she barked at me and told me I was a pussy and a disgrace, I didn't listen but continued to bask in my hopeful recovery and in Beth's love.

In the latter stages of the CPT, Dr. Patel had me focus on finding a new understanding of the occurrence of Dad’s death. He felt this would reduce the event's ongoing negative impact on my well-being. Most importantly, he had me identify and analyze those beliefs which were causing me problems. He called these stuck points. He had me rewrite my impact statement to see if my perspective had changed at all. It had, and in spades. The therapist said I had a lot of self-blame about what happened with my dad. He used what he called Socratic questioning to help me question these thoughts.

One day, over McRibs, Beth said that CPT was recovery-based and that the coping mechanisms instilled in me by Patel would allow me to handle myself without further therapy. I shyly asked her if she'd like a real date for a change. We agreed to dinner and a movie on Friday, which was in two days.

On Friday morning, I had my final CPT session with Dr. Patel. He was expansive in the way he extolled the progress I had made in three short months. He congratulated me warmly and shook my hand. I left his office for the final time, feeling like a million bucks.

Down in the lobby, getting off the elevator, I watched as two uniformed policemen, and one obvious plainclothes detective got on board. They were not smiling. I stopped at the Starbucks in the lobby for a croissant and a coffee and sat eating when I watched the three men come back out of the elevator with a man in tow. He had his wrists cuffed behind his back. It was Dr. Patel! Several reporters suddenly descended on them. The group exited onto the street.

Squinting up at the flatscreen TV affixed to the wall in the Starbucks, I watched in morbid fascination as the very scene before me played out in real time on the screen before me.

"What are the charges, Detective?" asked one TV reporter, thrusting a microphone into his face.

"Pretty straightforward," replied the cop. "Impersonating a doctor. Practicing medicine without a license. Malpractice."

"He hadn't passed his Boards?" asked the second journalist.

"Hell," said the detective with a harsh cackle. Ujjwal Patel never spent a day in medical school. He doesn't even have a bachelor’s degree." The camera focused on the ersatz doctor. His face was impassive. He didn't look surprised. The live feed went to a commercial.

I sat in stunned wonder for a few moments before my cell phone buzzed. I picked up. It was Beth. She called to ask if we were still on for tonight. I listened.

‘You worthless slime,’ she hissed. ‘I've got a better offer for tonight. A Broadway play,’ she boasted. ‘Don't ever call me again, you mental cripple...’

***

Bill Tope is a retired public assistance caseworker; construction laborer; line cook at Hilton Hotels; and one-time nude model for university art classes. He lives in the American Midwest with his mean little cat Baby.