In Our Blood: A Memoir

By Caitlin Billings

When Caitlin Billings became a therapist, she did so with an intention to heal from her past. She wasn’t planning on a mental health relapse or an involuntary psychiatric hold. She was a mother now. A mental health professional. She thought the issues she’d faced in her past were dealt with, tucked away forever.

She was wrong.

Over the years, Billings contends with bipolar disorder while raising two children and fighting to regain her footing as a clinician. She feels she’s finally gotten a handle on her mental health when, on the cusp of adolescence, her elder child begins to struggle with disordered eating and depressive symptoms. Convinced that she is to blame for her child’s struggles, Billings pivots her attention to this new crisis, determined to keep it together for her family—but after it comes out that sexual abuse has taken place in their home, she questions her ability to protect her children and experiences a relapse. Amidst all this turmoil, her elder child also comes out as transgender, forcing yet another kind of reckoning. Billings must find a way to accept the many changes and unexpected challenges that have reared up in their lives—and, ultimately, to accept herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781647424169

Caitlin Billings

Caitlin Billings lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has a thriving therapy practice specializing in complex trauma. She is working on her second book.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The first time I cry is in front of a therapist who wears brown clogs. Her restless feet dance with minute movements. A flash of striped sock. She holds a notepad.

The scrape of the pen slices something inside of me, a grinding kind of ache that keeps the tears dripping. She told me her name when she came into the room, but now her staff tag blurs with my grief.

When she speaks again, I become a statue, one leg crossed over the other. I wear sneakers, not professional shoes. My body tries to say, I can’t believe this is happening, but then she asks if there are other cuts. I shake my head no, and my husband pulls up my shirtsleeve. Shallow, tentative wounds from my shaving razor, all over my left arm. Those cuts sting more than the straight razor strokes to my wrist.

My breath shakes in my diaphragm, and I move my husband’s hand. I press my face into my palms, glasses and all, and sob. Perspiration tickles my back.

Allen, I say.

His hand grazes my shoulder, and I don’t brush him off. I’m here. When I move my hand to blot my eyes, brown clogs and striped, socked feet stand, pause, and then lumber away.

I loved to sing as a kid. Sometimes my best friend and I converged at the park between our houses. We rested on the rusted merry-go-round and spun with our feet in wood chips. She sang one long tone and I belted the next note, its sharp sister. We held those sounds as long as we could while we stood and whirled in slow motion, hanging from the bars, looking out over the park with its meadow and creek and stinging nettle. Our creation was the ugliest and most beautiful noise I had ever heard.

That noise is coming from me now, a howl that fills the room with dissonance.

It’s going to be okay, Allen whispers after a moment. He lifts my head, and I hand him my glasses. He places them like a tiny, vulnerable eggshell on the seat next to us.

Out of my mouth pour the jangled notes; they are huge and take up all my air.

What have I done?

I’m sorry …

Brown Clogs returns. Nothing to be ashamed of, she says.

I rock in my seat.

She hands me a tissue.

---

Time passes. I don’t know how long. I tell the balloon in my chest to release rather than pop.

Caitlin, Allen says. He stands in the doorway with a tray of burgers and french fries.

Brown Clogs is gone. Outside the open door, a man in a dark uniform with SECURITY printed across his back and a walkie-talkie at his hip sits in a chair.

The windows have turned from bright to soft black.

What time is it? I ask.

Allen pulls a low table toward our chairs. It’s about six, he says around a bite of fresh onion and pickle.

Where are the kids? My hand cups the cuts as if to shield my children from the sight.

My sister picked them up.

Your sister? Oh god, Allen—

It’s fine. He hands me a fry. Eat.

I take the greasy wedge and stick it in my mouth.

This is grief, I think to myself. Because grief comes like the ocean rushes and sprays and tugs. My familiar self, sculpted out of thirty-three years of life, taken away by a moment of insanity.

Tears fill my eyes and sting like shards of glass.

I don’t want to go, I whisper.

The security guard pokes his head around the doorframe.

I try to appear sane.

He steps back, and the awful scratch of pen on paper returns.

This wave, it’s massive. I’m sucked under, deep into the dark murk where shadow creatures live, where the blind and translucent dwell, so far down I’ll never come up.

I sink into Allen on the love seat.

Voices trail down the hall. A soft exchange with the security guard and then someone states my name.

Another uniform. A gurney.

I feel small and see myself in their eyes: tousled bun, swollen face. Allen’s sweatshirt. Dirty sneakers.

I hand the sweatshirt to my husband. In a simultaneous choreography, the medic wraps a warm blanket around my shoulders.

I am loaded, buckled, and secured. We roll down a hallway and out the door into a parking lot with a silent ambulance.

They lift me into the vehicle with a weightless swing, as if sway-backed elephants are carrying me.

You ever been in an ambulance before? asks one of my escorts.

No.

The wave crashes and yanks me down until I black out the moment.

No, I’ve never been in an ambulance.

I’ve never been admitted to a psychiatric hospital before either.

PART ONE

ONE

I sat before my soon-to-be supervisor, a requisite interview with a foregone conclusion: I would be starting my internship the following day with a group of lawbreakers, men convicted of domestic violence and sentenced to a year of group therapy.

How do you feel about working with this population?

I think it’s great. Having worked with survivors of abuse, I’m really excited to learn how to help these men change. I skimmed the assessment form, eager to begin filling the empty spaces with elegant black.

You’ll be giving each new client a personality assessment, and you’ll have them fill out these papers. I’ll be here in the office tomorrow, so if you have any questions, just let me know.

Awesome. I picked up my backpack and slung it over one shoulder. Do I go out the way I came in?

---

Stained chairs and a worn brown couch formed a ragged circle. Through the second-floor bay window, the setting sun cast a beam of warmth on the carpet.

One of my hands pressed against the mahogany of my desk; the other smoothed the buttons of my shirt. I had slipped on slacks and sensible flats hours before and applied mascara with a hummingbird hand. Nervousness and a touch of excitement fluttered through me.

I flipped on a few lamps, checked the clock, and paced. At ten before the hour, the first car pulled up. I knew these clients and had worked with them for months now at the side of my supervisor. Tonight would be my debut as the only therapist in the room.

A bruised face. Splotches of red circling a neck. Petechiae in the eyes. The casualties of rage presented to me when I had volunteered at a domestic violence refuge.

The men filed in. Wood shavings, grease, and the musk of Axe spray. Pungent undertones of sweat filled the room and mixed with the spice of cologne.

I received a few handshakes, some head nods. A guy lurked by the door, a cap pulled down over his eyebrows, a thick leather jacket hugging his muscular frame.

I checked my list—his name was Frank. With a gesture at an open chair, I invited him to sit. He did, but apart from the other men—outside the ring, his head down, his arms on his legs.

Frank, I said, can you scoot your chair into the circle? And remove your hat, please.

He shifted, removed his baseball cap, and ran a hand through his thick, greasy hair.

The men checked in with their names and the charges that referred them to what they called anger management. The reasons varied, as did the justifications. Some said they didn’t know why they were in group. Part of my job was to press them, to help them begin to see their responsibility.

What does ‘not sure’ mean? I asked Lew.

He shrugged. A local doctor, he struggled to make sense of his decades of professional success with the label of perpetrator.

To me, it sounds like you don’t understand why the court ordered you to attend a batterer intervention program.

Yeah. It was just an argument. I don’t understand why my wife even called the police. I didn’t touch her.

Do you know what the charges were?

Something about me being a terrorist, he said with a laugh in his voice, looking up from his hunched position at the other men.

Some gave him what looked like conspiratorial grins.

I frowned in their direction.

Besides, he said, turning toward me, the charges were pleaded down.

Your charges are called ‘terrorist threats.’ It doesn’t mean you are a terrorist, necessarily. What it means is that you threatened to kill your wife—that’s what it says in the police report.

I had confronted him. My thighs trembled.

How old are you? he asked.

Of course. A classic deflection. What should I say? Should I just tell him? What would that mean? What might he do with the information?

My training as a polite woman overcame my new identity of therapist. Thirty.

He threw up his hands, rolled his eyes, and huffed, as if to say, Can you believe this kid?

I thought thirty wasn’t that young but could see my blunder. He had thrown me a curveball, and I’d missed.

There were other types of men in this group, men also in their forties and fifties, men who had been around a while.

Sometimes, it felt like they were my protectors.

Hey, Lew, Chance said. How long you been here? A few weeks? Lay off her, man.

Lew looked at me again. Sorry about that. He put his elbows on spread legs and bowed his head.

Frank was last. A tradition for the newcomer.

We were arguing. Is that what you want me to say? A glance in my direction and then back to Lew. Frank spoke through gritted teeth. I shouldn’t even be here. It was self-defense. His jaw muscle pulsed like a heartbeat.

My pen scrawled, and warmth exuded from the man next to me.

Too close.

I shifted my body to the side, crossed my legs.

They watched me, wondering, I was sure, what I was going to say next. Lew had challenged me tonight already. His reaction had confirmed my first instincts—that my mere presence was enough: a thirty-year-old woman. Asking questions.

Frank lifted his head but couldn’t hold eye contact.

Kevin cleared his throat. You’re justifying. And it’s not her fault—a gesture in my direction—that you’re here.

A few nodded. Lawrence smiled at me.

I thought mine was self-defense too. Chance spoke in his soothing, car-salesman voice. But now I know that I had choices. That’s what this is all about.

One guy stared out the window. Another blinked at a spot on the floor. A man in sagged jeans and a voluminous red sweatshirt sighed and slumped in his chair.

Kevin, Chance, and Lawrence had been in group the longest, and they were engaged participants. Treatment was a twelve-month program. I had learned that if a guy made it through the first six weeks, he was likely to stay.

Frank wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I just can’t get with sitting in this group every week for a year, sobbing my eyes out. Man …"

After it became clear that nobody was going to save Frank or his pride, he settled down, crossed his arms, and fixated on the window.

Joseph, a round man in a camo hunting shirt, had homework to present. His forehead shiny, he began reading a letter to his family out loud. He flushed.

My heartbeat quickened, and a protective hand drifted toward my sternum. I wanted, instead, to protect his. Despite their crimes, despite the rough treatment they often gave me when they first arrived, they were human beings.

Joseph’s voice cracked. A long silence. He shook his head and muttered, I’m sorry.

We waited.

He read, I always swore I would never do to you what was done to me. Unfortunately, I broke that promise, and now you have to pay for the pain I was in.

I felt that way too, about my dad. A rare moment of participation from Henry. A local man from the outskirts of town. He had set fire to his girlfriend’s trailer.

Duane leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

Joseph, the largest man in the group, made himself even more gigantic as he spread his legs and planted his feet on the floor. My dad … he used to beat the crap out of me.

My mom’s boyfriend, the third one, he swore to me that if I ever tried to get in his way … but I still tried to beat him up. Got an ass-whupping so bad I missed school for a week. Chance laughed into the silence. He stopped.

I always said that too, that I would never do my girlfriend like he did my mom. I tried to protect my mom, man. Frank let his gaze move around the circle and settled on me. You gonna write that down too?

Do you want me to? I asked.

No, I don’t want you to.

Frank, part of my responsibility is to take notes during these meetings. I understand it can make you feel uncomfortable. I would be if someone was writing down everything I said. I tried to lighten the heaviness that pervaded the room. The hummingbird was back, this time fluttering in my stomach.

Well, we’re actually out of time. Let’s take a moment and do a breathing exercise together, and then we can finish for tonight.

We inhaled and exhaled. I scanned the group and a few had their eyes closed, heads back, while others shifted and sighed. I silently counted to thirty and announced the end of group.

Are you going home soon? Joseph asked as I shuffled papers at a table in the corner of the room.

Chance stood back, his raincoat over one arm.

I just have to finish a few things up, I said.

It’s really dark in the parking lot. Do you want us to stay here with you until you’re done? Henry stood up from his seat.

No, guys, I’ll be fine. My car is right downstairs.

Henry blushed. We just want to make sure you get home safe.

In the parking lot, Chance and Henry stood like sentries.

I loaded my bag into the front seat. Good night, guys!

They raised their hands in salute.

---

My colleagues often asked why, in my first year after graduate school, I had chosen to work with violent men. On my drive home, the moon full and luminous in the sky, I considered the question again.

My first response had always been, Because I want to get to the root of the problem, and working with survivors of abuse isn’t going to stop the violence.

But maybe it was others’ faith in me that fueled my drive to achieve. Maybe it was the desire I’d always had to help. Maybe I thought perfection was a protective layer I could pull around myself until dawn arrived and the night monsters had gone. Maybe I had been running into perfection’s arms my whole life, forgetting that trap of security—that cool sense of certainty—can vanish when it tightens around your waist and you can no longer breathe.

I knew my reasons were complicated. My biological father, Jesse, and adopted father, Glen, were not violent men: one was lost, the other angry. And it was true that years after I left home and began my adult life, I forgave them.

Jesse, despite social anxiety and a distaste for crowds, attended my MSW commencement with his wife. We had reconnected in a San Francisco café over coffee and stayed in touch. Glen adopted me, and through many turbulent years, he never gave up on me or on being my dad. At my wedding, I looked out into the crowd to seize on his beaming face. In his quintessential lumberjack flannel shirt and suspenders, he held my toddler daughter asleep with her head on his shoulder in the birthing suite. When my son was placed on my chest, my daughter’s bright pink pajamas were the first thing I saw. My dad’s huge grin was the second.

My lack of positive childhood relationships with them had left me longing for validation for many years. It was my own yearning for acceptance and grief at their imperfections that had brought me to work with wounded individuals.

Maybe my fathers couldn’t be perfect, but with enough wherewithal and training, maybe I could help others and somehow embody healing.

I mean, I was fucked up, but not that fucked up.

---

Meditating on this final thought, I turned down our street.

The night smelled like ferns and moss as I pulled into a parking spot. Our apartment door opened to the glow of the computer screen on my husband’s face. He squinted at his work.

Still writing that paper on pedagogy? I asked.

Yeah, he said, not looking at me.

I patted the top of his head, and he hugged me around the waist with one hand.

Hi, he said.

I kissed him on the forehead.

In the kids’ room, Danny, my two-year-old, clutched a stuffed dinosaur under one arm. I wrapped myself around his sturdy body and thought of the men as little boys.

Hannah lay sweaty on the top bunk bed with flung limbs. Five years old, in kindergarten, yet still infantile when she reached out in her sleep and said, Mama.

I rested my lips on her forehead—a silent wish, a blessing.

In my bed, I replayed the evening’s events. The feelings these men brought up in me were so varied. I had been learning how to interpret and use my knowledge of countertransference to guide my understanding of my clients. Although I felt some of the men were my protectors, their response to me had more to do with them, with what our relationship evoked. For some, I was their mother; for others, their wife or mistress. Still others treated me as a platonic confidante. I learned that age didn’t always matter.

This made me feel special and adept. In supervision we discussed cases in intellectual tones, while underneath I wondered what it meant that I felt victorious and significant when sessions with clients went well and catastrophized when I made a mistake. The humiliation of exposing my deeper feelings of inadequacy kept me from sharing this shame with my supervisor. Those emotions and memories were more appropriate for my own therapy, I thought.

Except I wasn’t going to therapy.

With these musings, I got into bed. I let the men go, funneling their stories into space above my head, just as I had done years before with the pain of my fathers.

Hours later, Allen slid under the blankets and hugged me to his warm body.

TWO

Hannah, her blond hair in braids, pulled Danny closer with a viselike elbow grip around his neck as I pointed the camera at them.

Careful, I reminded her. He’s only four!

Danny grinned and peered at his sister out of the corner of his eye.

My children’s beauty was not the only bright spot in our life. We had relocated and everything around us sparkled: the enchanting house with a sun-filled living room, a loft bedroom for me and Allen, and the smaller bedroom, just large enough for the kids’ bunk beds and dresser, nestled downstairs. The new jobs that filled our social justice hearts—Allen as a chemistry teacher at a local high school and me as a staff therapist working with women overcoming addiction. The fact that after years of food stamps and student loans, worry over rent and credit card bills, we now drove two economy cars, Allen sported a tie and slacks every day, my wardrobe overflowed with scarves and soft materials, and Danny was attending a private preschool.

As I took photos of the kids, Allen broke ground near the fence where we’d decided to place our garden beds.

I scooped Danny from the stairs that led from the large yard to the deck. He wrapped his small legs around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder. I navigated my way down the steps, Hannah trailing, and we crowded around Allen as he speared the earth with the shovel.

He paused, wiped his brow, and squinted against the late summer sun.

I was born a boy, Danny announced.

Yes, I said. You were. I squeezed him close to me for a moment before putting him down to investigate his father’s handiwork.

And I was born fast, Hannah said, her hands on her hips. "Wasn’t I, Mama? And I meowed, meow, like a cat!" She sidled over and leaned against me, her head against my waist in that familiar tilt.

Allen grinned. Mama wasn’t in labor very long because you wanted to come out. You had important things to do in the world.

Flashes of Hannah’s birth consumed me for a moment. Contractions ripping through my body. Screaming, Jesus motherfucking Christ! as Allen’s mother, a born-again Christian-turned-Catholic, looked on. The ecstatic moments