NewDayNews Recovery Forum

My Experience with est: Part 13: Losing It

Posted By: Joseph <Send E-Mail>
Date: Tuesday, 6 June 2006, at 8:43 p.m.

On December 2, 1982, after riding high on the est wave for over two years, I finally got, what the trainers called, “socked in the balls by the black lady”.

It’s easy, now that I’m pushing fifty, to look back to that time and see that est seemed the answer to every problem, because I didn’t yet have any problems. I was so lucky at the age of twenty-three that nothing had ever happened to me that couldn’t be easily explained away, or handled by est philosophy. We had one technique called “Waiving a Magic Wand”. This literally had to do with pretending you had a magic wand in your hand, and you would make the motion of waving it, and this would somehow transform your problem or mood, and make it go away. It was probably a positive thinking technique where you basically lie about something until you believe the lie is true.

When my Mother called me before dawn that morning to tell me that my brother was dead, I just sat there for a moment. My mind raced. This was an eighteen year old in perfect health. Had he been murdered?

“What happened?”, I finally managed to choke out. “He and his friends went off a cliff in his truck up at the cross. His friends all walked away, but Jimmy is dead”.

Foothills surround the community of Sunland-Tujunga, where we were living. On top of one of them is a cross that stands to this day. When I was in high school I remember driving up there with friends. It had become a local make-out place, with a great view of the town below.

I told my Mom that I would be right over. Jane asked what was going on. She knew from the conversation that someone in my family had died, and assumed it must be my Father. I told her, “No, it’s Jimmy”.

I quickly got dressed, and drove to my Parent’s home in Tujunga, about three miles away. I couldn’t imagine what to say to them. I couldn’t even picture how my Father would deal with it. He had been an alcoholic the entire time I was growing up. Then after I started college, he was arrested for drunk driving, and quit drinking cold turkey. I thought that this might be the end of his sobriety.

I had faith during that drive that my est training had given me the tools I would need to deal with this, like it had all my other problems. I was happy that my Mom had taken the training as well, and thought that it would help her as well.

When I got to the house, my Mother answered the door. We just stood there and looked at each other in disbelief. His new girlfriend, Cindy, was laying in Jimmy’s bed. My Mom had tried several times to call her parents, but they were in the habit of unplugging the phone at night. She told me that my Dad was not taking it well at all. They had been together since she was 14 and he was 16, and until now she had never seen him cry, and he had cried openly when the paramedics told him that Jimmy was dead at the bottom of the canyon. Before going back to tell my Mother the terrible news, he asked the police and paramedics if someone could stay with Jimmy’s body so the coyotes wouldn’t get to it. Then he walked to the car and just said to my mom, “He’s dead”, and sobbed.

Later, I would learn that Jimmy, along with Cindy, and another teenaged couple had gone to a movie that night out in Panorama City. Jimmy got up during the film to go and check on his truck, a 4 wheel drive Chevrolet pick-up that was out in the parking lot.

When we went to go back into the movie theater, the person at the door asked to see his ticket. He explained that his friends were inside, and his girlfriend probably had his ticket stub. He was refused entry unless he went and paid for another ticket. While they were arguing about it, his friends came out to check and see if he was okay. At that point, none of them wanted to go back into the movie anyway, so they left.

From there they went to a liquor store and bought beer. None of them were twenty-one years old yet, but at that time it wasn’t unusual in the area for the stores to sell beer to teenagers without asking for ID.

From there, they decided to go up to the cross and drink the beer, probably all having a few as they drove. A newspaper account of the incident said that Jimmy had been driving erratically, and was killed when his truck plunged off a cliff.

Cindy told me that none of them were wearing safety belts. She somehow got thrown out the back window of the cab of the truck and ended up inside the camper shell. Jimmy was ejected, and the truck rolled on him. She said that they ran to him and when they got to him he took one ragged breath then just stopped. None of them knew what to do. They climbed up the mountain to the road and found a house where they called for help, but it was too late.

As my Mother started to make calls to our family in Texas to tell them the bad news, my “tapes” started playing. “Tapes” were part of an est stack-attack, where your mind starts to go crazy with thoughts. Stupid things come into your mind at a time like this. I thought about the fact that I wouldn’t have to figure out what to get Jimmy for Christmas anymore, then felt like a complete asshole for allowing myself to think something like that. Then the big-brother in me kicked in. A tape played in my mind of my Mother telling me to “take care of your little brother”. Jimmy and I were six years apart, so I was told that so often to keep an eye on him. I felt like I had broken a sacred agreement. Certainly I must be responsible for this, at least this was what I had been told in est. I had created this in my own universe, but why? Why would Jimmy create dying at the age of 18?

Then I felt angry. I was Angry at myself for not being a better big brother. I was angry at Jimmy for doing something so stupid that ended his life in a split second. Angry at the movie theater for not letting him back in. Angry at the liquor store for selling alcohol to minors. I felt robbed.

My Mom reminded me that this was the day that my Dad was supposed to go on a fishing trip to Mexico. A bunch of his friends were going to start arriving at the house soon. She asked me if I could meet them at the end of the driveway and tell them what had happened, and that my Dad wouldn’t be going to Mexico, but, they could wait in the house until they all got there.

While my Mom continued to call family back in Houston, I went down to the end of the long driveway and tried to figure out what I was going to say to these people, most of whom had known both Jimmy and myself since we were small children.

A guy named Frank was the first to pull up. He was a wiseass not much older than me. He hopped out of his car all happy and ready to go on vacation, and said “HI!”. I told him to stop for a moment and talk to me. He was all jumpy and looked like he didn’t feel like doing that right now, but I said, “Frank! STOP. Jimmy died this morning”.

He just turned pale. He couldn’t believe it either. I told him to go sit in the living room, and that he would see my Mom in there, but probably wouldn’t see my Dad, because I hadn’t seen him myself. He was in his bedroom with the door closed.

Next Butch showed up. Butch had been in our Amway down line under Ray. He was a older guy, who had started going to Mexico with my Dad when he was an official with the Union. Recently, he was voted out of office and started working with us at Paradice. When I told Butch, he just looked at me like he must have heard me wrong. Then he just said, “Jimmy SHEPPARD?”. I said, “yeah, my little brother Jimmy. He’s dead. He died a few hours ago.”.

I had to do this over and over again, until they all arrived. Then they all sadly left.

Then Cindy’s parents arrived. I was wondering what kind of parents they could be. She was only about 16 years old, and had been out all night. Their parenting skills included unplugging the phone so their daughter couldn’t wake them up to tell them she had just been driven off a cliff. They came and the mother made a big deal out of it crying and hugging her, and leaving very quickly giving my Mother and I a dirty look, like we had tried to kill their little angel.

Suddenly, I remembered that I had a play I directed opening that morning. It was a Roadshow Players production of “Christmas Tails”. I thought about just not going, but staying at my parent’s house was just awful. I told my Mom that I was going to go and make an appearance since it was the opening show, and I would be back.

At this point, I had trained a few people to be directors, and assistant directors. At Roadshow Players, I was Werner, and these were my trainers. I called up Kevin and Barbara to tell them what had happened. They were both shocked. Barbara asked me, “Are you going to be okay”. I just said, “No, I’m not going to be okay”. She just got it.

I told both of them that I was going to come to the show to support the cast, but I was not going to conduct, or participate in the clearing meeting, because I didn’t think it was possible for me to get clear, and if anybody tried to clear me, I couldn’t be counted on to be sane and rational. I asked Kevin to conduct the clearing, and explain to the cast that I was there, to support them as their Director, but because of something personal that happened, which I would share with them after the performance, I wouldn’t be clearing them this morning.

The show was only a half hour long, and the kids loved it. We had a formula, like the training, that always worked.

After it was over, I went outside for the ending clearing meeting, which Kevin conducted. He followed our formula that we did after each performance. What worked? What didn’t work? Who wants to share?

After the performers finished sharing about the show, I raised my hand. Kevin called on me, and they all looked at me to learn the big secret that had kept me from the clearing meeting at an opening event.

“My brother Jimmy, who you all know, died in a traffic accident early this morning”.

Many of these people were my friends from high school. They had known Jimmy since he was a little kid. He had been our sound man, and had to leave the group in disgrace after he hid our tape to avoid a rehearsal, but they all loved the kid. They all just looked at me not knowing what to say. Then a new girl, who most of us didn’t know that well, who hadn’t taken est, spoke up and said, “Joseph, I’m sorry, and may your brother rest in peace”.

I just wanted to tell her to go screw herself, but like a good little est robot, I said, “Thank you, I got that”.

All at once, I had this fantastic support group of like-minded people. But, nobody I knew had lost a sibling. I just felt alone in my grief, and I knew for a fact that I had “lost it”. I didn’t think I even wanted it back. Getting it back meant I had to complete my relationship with Jimmy, and I was a long way from that.

When I got back to my parent’s house, I asked my Mom what we were going to do next. She said that my Dad had always noticed Forrest Lawn Hollywood Hills, and said that maybe we could call them. I asked her if maybe it was too soon to do something like that. She replied back, “I just can’t stand the thought of Jimmy laying in that morgue with a tag on his toe”.

I called Forrest Lawn, and told them what had happened. They said that they would call the morgue and get Jimmy’s body transferred over, and that we could come right over to talk about his final arrangements.

On the drive over, my Mother surprised me by saying, “Thank God I took est. I don’t know how I would survive this if I hadn’t”. I had no idea what she was talking about est was completely failing me at the moment.

Forrest Lawn Hollywood Hills is the graveyard to many famous movie stars. I thought that perhaps this was a good choice because it was the Père Lachaise of Los Angeles. Certainly nobody would ever bulldoze these graves to make a housing complex.

I had been to this place before. My best friend, John, lived alone with his elderly father, who suddenly died. John had nobody to help him make arrangements, so I went with him to Forrest Lawn. Now I was back to help my Mother make final arrangements for my little brother.

The staff at Forrest Lawn is very professional. I don’t know how they do their job, but they seem to know what to do and say to put you at ease at the worst time in your life.

We picked a casket for Jimmy, and asked them not to embalm him. The Forrest Lawn guy told us that if they didn’t embalm him, we wouldn’t be able to view his body. We both agreed that we absolutely did not want to see his body, and we were certain that my Father would not as well. We asked them to simply wrap him in a sheet, and schedule the funeral as quickly as possible.

They had a opening in two days, and asked if that was time for the family to assemble. We told them that we were going to ask our family not to come, and limit it to the immediate family.

My Mom said that Jimmy liked red carnations, and ordered an arrangement of them to cover the casket. We asked for a simple service at the graveside. It seemed absolutely unbelievable to me that we were arranging Jimmy’s funeral, when just the day before I had stopped by the house and he told me he had given my casting photo to someone he met in the movie business. He was fully alive, healthy and strong not 24 hours ago. How could it be?

I drove my Mother home, and told her I needed to go back home and just be alone for a little bit. Of course, she understood. She had my Father still closed in the bedroom, and they needed some time together as well.

When I got home, I caught Jane up on the activities of the day. This was before cell phones, and the last time she had seen me was when the phone woke us up. Jane was entirely supportive of me, and just “got it”, which was the only est thing that seemed to be working.

Friends started to stop by the house to see how I was doing. What I learned was that nobody knows what to say at a time like this, but that doesn’t stop them. Some of my best friends said some of the most stupid offensive things. The most common shocking remark to me was, “Well, Jimmy was so reckless, it was just a matter of time. It was like he had a death wish”. I knew my brother, and I knew he never imagined being dead. When people said that to me I just wanted to reach over and strangle them. But, I was enlightened and trained, and I just “got it”.

There is something about losing someone out of order. We all experience great sadness when a Grandparent passes away, or a Mother or Father. But, from the moment we know these people, we know that that is going to happen some day. Losing a healthy 18 year old is just out of the natural order, and as such, is so difficult to accept.

To this day, I can’t say anything to people that I know have experienced an out of order death, except maybe, “I’m sorry”. I can’t say words to try and make them think it’s okay, because it’s not okay. It sucks. It’s a sadness that follows you to the end of your days.

We had the funeral. We don’t go to church, so we hired a rent-a-preacher. Of course, the guy couldn’t win. He went on about how sad it was that someone would die so incomplete. My est kicked in, and my mind said, “My brother was whole and complete”. Later, Jane told me that she had the exact same thought during the service.

My Dad got up and shook my hand. We were always strange that way. He was crying when he got out, “Thank you, Joe”. He and my Mother walked to their car. At this time I was 23, so they were only 43, but suddenly, they looked old.

Jane and I stuck around and watched the Forrest Lawn crew lower the casket. Then they brought over heavy equipment, and pushed the dirt into the grave, finally pounding the dirt in with thuds that shook the ground around us.

Some of his friends began to appear. I walked up to them and told them that Jimmy was my brother, and I knew he would appreciate that they had come.

One young man crouched down by the grave, which was now covered with flowers, and I saw him sneak a marijuana joint into the plants. He saw me watching him, our eyes met, and I looked at him as if to say, “He would have appreciated that too”.

The next day my Mother called me to remind me that my Birthday was in two more days, and asked what I wanted to do. “Nothing”, I replied. She said that we had to observe my birthday, and she wouldn’t hear of doing nothing. We decided to go out to a steak house near our old home in Sun Valley called “The Ramp”.

At my birthday dinner, my Mom, Dad, Jane and I sat and ate. I finally got what Randy McNamara said in the training about how when the helicopter blade hit him, he died, and that he was a walking dead man. We were walking dead people. I was a guru selling the secret to aliveness, and I had no idea how we would ever become alive again.

To make matters worse, Christmas was right around the corner. I remember nothing about it. I’m sure we exchanged gifts, but I had no aliveness left.

I resigned from The Roadshow Players, telling Kevin that I was complete with it. If he wanted to run it, he had my support, but I was done. At the end of Christmas Tails, they held a party for me, complete with a skit they had written just for me. I have no idea what they even said. I remember that they had cut up some of my acting head shots and at one time they were all wearing masks that looked like me. It was surreal. Almost like being at my own funeral. They didn’t mean it that way, but being dead and all, this is the only way I could experience it.

My Agent, Ron, was doing workshops for commercial voice-over. I had enrolled to learn from him, since he had been a top professional. After Christmas, the workshop started up again. When I got there, Ron, who was a fellow est graduate, of course, started with “Who wants to share?”. Everybody was telling about what they got for Christmas. I just kept my mouth shut. Ron noticed this, and said, “So, Joe, what would you like to share?”. “My brother drove off a cliff and died this month”. That certainly killed the space, but Ron, like a good est robot, just got it.

Writing about this today has me so plugged in I can’t believe it. The black lady punched me in the balls so hard, it still hurts 24 years later

I had no idea how it could get worse, but just a few months later it would.