Lost in the Reflecting Pool: A Memoir

by Diane Pomerantz

despite being a physician, he was not particularly supportive in medical situations.

Early in 1997, I was more in touch with my withdrawal and depression than I had ever been.

Sex and anger: not unusual bedfellows.

I wake up and before me is a magnificent table of mahogany and cherry carved woods. Perhaps it is not a table. . . . There are huge candles and hanging crystals. . . . Perhaps it is a coffin . . . perhaps my own.

My mood was still awful. Panic attacks were the norm, and, although I managed to function and do all of the things I had to do, it was only on the surface.

I felt as if I had taken steps backward. Although I got up each day, put one foot in front of the other, and did what I needed to do, I often awoke in the morning with the thought I wish I were dead. The other thought that always followed was, Help me, Momma, help me. Although I was finding myself more irritable with the children, the third thought, the one that would finally get me out of bed, was, My kids need me.

If I was going to be accused of having black strands of evil running through my soul, I might as well make good use of them and cast some spells and chant some incantations.

It was the mark of a true narcissist: they fear someone only when they think that person has more power than they do.

When I was drawn in, I always said too much, revealed my inner thoughts and feelings, only to then be surprised anew by the ugly words he wrote about me in his journal or in his e-mails to Victoria.

Short of having a butcher knife impaled through one’s chest, blood dripping on the courthouse steps, nothing was an emergency.

I knew memories could ground both Sam and Elli when the earth beneath their feet was shaky.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer. —Albert Camus

a narcissist develops only a false sense of self.

I have come to realize that for each of us, there are always certain issues that we bump up against. And whatever those issues are that we start out with, we just keep finding them, disguised in different costumes. It’s as if there is a master plan set out for each of us and we get to keep trying until we get it right.