Furiously Happy (8 page)

And then, at four a.m. I decided that the only thing that would cure my insomnia/anxiety would be a long walk. In the snow. I pulled a coat on over my nightgown, slipped on my flats, and went downstairs. My foot was killing me as I tiptoed outside, nodding quietly to the confused man at the night desk, who looked puzzled to see me leave in my pajamas. Then I walked out into a New York night, which was muffled by snow, a thick white blanketing of powder that not a single person had put a step into. I could hear a drunk yelling for a cab down the street but it was comforting to not be the only person out in that weather. Sure, I was in my pajamas and I had been stabbed in the foot by arthritis, but at least I was mostly sober and not too far from a warm bed.

My foot ached. As I took a step the sharp pain shot all the way up to my spine. And that's when I just said, “
Oh fuck it
,” and carefully stepped out of my shoes into the gleaming white snow.

It was freezing, but the cold effortlessly numbed my feet and aching hands. I walked quietly, barefoot, to the end of the block, leaving my shoes behind to remind me how to find my way home. I stood at the end of the street, catching snow in my mouth, and laughed softly to myself as I realized that without my insomnia and anxiety and pain I'd never have been awake to see the city that never sleeps asleep and blanketed up for winter. I smiled and felt silly, but in the best possible way.

As I turned and looked back toward the hotel I noticed that my footprints leading out into the city were mismatched. One side was glistening, small and white. The other was misshapen from my limp and each heel was pooled with spots of bright red blood. It struck me as a metaphor for my life. One side light and magical. Always seeing the good.
Lucky.
The other side bloodied, stumbling. Never quite able to keep up.

It was like the Jesus-beach-footprint-in-the-sand poem, except with less Jesus and more bleeding.

It was my life, there in white and red. And I was grateful for it.

“Um, miss?”

It was the man from the front desk leaning tentatively out of the front door with a concerned look on his face.

“
Coming
,” I said. I felt a bit foolish and considered trying to clarify but then thought better of it. There was no way to explain to this stranger how my mental illness had just gifted me with a magical moment. I realized it would have sounded a bit crazy, but that made sense. After all,
I
was a bit crazy. And I didn't even have to pretend to be good at it.

I was a damn natural.

 

George Washington's Dildo

The First Argument I Had with Victor This Week

ME:
Hey. Are you busy?

VICTOR:
No. What's up?

ME:
Are we …
fighting
?

VICTOR:
Why? What did you do?

ME:
I didn't do anything. I was just at my computer and then I remembered that you were talking to me in my office and then I realized you weren't there anymore.

VICTOR:
That was like …
an hour ago
.

ME:
I know. But I couldn't remember you leaving and I thought maybe you stormed out on me because I wasn't paying attention to you, but then I didn't notice because I wasn't paying attention.

VICTOR:
You don't remember me leaving?

ME:
No. It's like when you drive home but then you can't remember driving home once you get there.

VICTOR:
Huh.
Yep, we're fighting.

ME:
Hmmm. Were we fighting before I brought all this up?

VICTOR:
Nope.

ME:
Well if it makes it any better I was coming in here to say that you were right to storm out because clearly I was
not
paying attention, and so technically I think you
have
to accept my apology. Especially since it's for a fight that never actually happened.

VICTOR:
No.

ME:
BUT I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG AND I'M APOLOGIZING FOR A FIGHT WE NEVER EVEN HAD.

VICTOR:
You didn't even realize I wasn't in the room until an hour after I left.

ME:
Ah, but
you
didn't notice that
I
didn't notice. And
I'm
the one who brought that to your attention. So if anything you should be thanking me. I'm like the George Washington of marital fights.

VICTOR:
Wh—

ME:
Because he told on himself for chopping down that tree and everyone was all, “Good job, George!” and then that probably turned him into a tagger because the greatest praise he ever got was for vandalism.

VICTOR:
What are you talking about?

ME:
A tagger is a graffiti artist.

VICTOR:
I KNOW WHAT A TAGGER IS. It's what kids call a vandal.

ME:
“Kids”? Are you implying I'm childish?

VICTOR:
Of course not.
You're the George Washington of marital aids.

ME:
Ew.

VICTOR:
You're the one who said it.

ME:
No. “Marital aids” are sex toys. You just called me George Washington's dildo.

VICTOR:
I'm pretty positive I've
never
called anyone that.

ME:
Well,
you implied it
.

VICTOR:
Stop talking.

ME:
I can't. The marriage books say you're never supposed to leave a fight unresolved.

VICTOR:
FINE. WE'RE NOT FIGHTING.

ME:
THEN WHY AM I APOLOGIZING?

VICTOR:
I have no idea. Everything after George Washington's dildo was a blur.

ME:
You can say that again.

VICTOR:
No, actually. I
never
want to have to say that again.

ME:
Deal.

VICTOR:
Huh?

ME:
I promise to never make you say anything about George Washington's dildo if
you
promise to stop getting mad at me about fights we aren't actually having.

VICTOR:
Do you ever wish we had normal fights like normal couples?

ME:
Never.

VICTOR:
Huh. Me either.

Winner of the argument: Neither of us. Or possibly both. Hard to say.

 

I'm Not Psychotic. I Just Need to Get in Front of You in Line.

This year my doctor prescribed me antipsychotics.

“To … keep the psychotics away?” I asked, jokingly.

She was not joking.

She promised me that this did
not
mean I was psychotic but assured me that in small doses this drug—made for schizophrenics—could decrease the length of my depressive episodes if I used it as a sort of a side dish to go with my antidepressants.

So of course I took the drug. Drugs are magic. You take a pill and feel happy. You take another and feel less hungry. You take another pill and have minty breath. (That last pill was actually a Tic Tac, but you get the picture.)

There is nothing better than hearing that there is a drug that will fix a terrible problem, unless you also hear that the drug is for treating schizophrenia (or possibly that it kills fairies every time you take it).

Frankly, I think it's the word that scares me.

Antipsychotic
.

I dare you to find a drug that will freak people out more when they're rifling through your medicine cabinet during parties. Unless maybe it's medicine for contagious explosive combustion of the urethra, but I don't count that because it doesn't exist (I hope). Surely the people naming antipsychotics could have come up with something less hurtful. After all, we don't call Viagra the “floppy-dick pill” and hardly any of us refer to anger-management therapy as “maybe-just-stop-being-such-an-asshole class.” I honestly can't think of any drug that has more of a stigma than antipsychotics.

Truthfully though, there are some advantages to being on antipsychotics. First off, you can say you're on antipsychotics. This might seem silly but when you go to the pharmacy and you're standing in line with twenty germy people sneezing all over the place you can honestly say, “Would you mind if I went first? I have to pick up my antipsychotic meds and I REALLY needed them yesterday.” This tactic also works for grocery lines, the DMV, and some buffets.

The second advantage of being on antipsychotics is that they can actually help. In the time I've been on them I've hurt myself less. I feel more stable. The blue men who live in my closet try to sell me fewer cookies and most of those squirrels plotting against me have disappeared. (That last sentence was a joke, but only people on mild antipsychotics will laugh at it because everyone else is afraid it's true. It's not. Squirrels are real and they don't disappear no matter how many pills you take. Frankly, I'm shocked at how often I have to explain this.)

Some people say that drugs are never the answer, and I respect their opinion, but sometimes drugs
are
the answer and I think you need to be flexible. In fact, if you ask those same people, “What was it that Nancy Reagan said you should always ‘just say no' to?” they will all say, “Drugs,” and then I'll say, “Correct. Drugs
are
the right answer.” So technically we're both right. Then I point out that drugs are often very bad for you, and that you have to do your research first and realize that there's a difference between “drugs” and “medication.” You can tell the difference because the first ones are ironically much cheaper and easier to get than the latter, and also because use of medicine requires constant doctor supervision, treatment, and blood work.

Being on medication for mental illness is not fun, nor is it easy, and no one I've ever known does it just for kicks. Kids don't buy black-market Prozac to take to raves. People don't use B
12
shots as a gateway drug to heroin. The side effects and troubles with taking medication are very real and (if you have a chronic mental illness) are something you have to deal with for the rest of your life. Even if a drug is working for a while, it might stop working and you'll have to start all over again with something new, which can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening. And then you have to deal with the side effects of the new drug, which can include “feeling excessively stabby” when coupled with some asshole telling you that “your medication not working is just proof that you don't really need medication at all.” I can't think of another type of illness where the sufferer is made to feel guilty and question their self-care when their medications need to be changed.

When I went on my first antidepressant it had the side effect of making me fixated on suicide (which is sort of the opposite of what you want). It's a rare side effect so I switched to something else that did work. Lots of concerned friends and family felt that the first medication's failure was a clear sign that drugs were not the answer; if they were I would have been fixed. Clearly I wasn't as sick as I said I was if the medication didn't work for me. And that sort of makes sense, because when you have cancer the doctor gives you the best medicine and if it doesn't shrink the tumor immediately then that's a pretty clear sign you were just faking it for attention. I mean, cancer is a serious, often fatal disease we've spent billions of dollars studying and treating so obviously a patient would never have to try multiple drugs, surgeries, radiation, etc., to find what will work specifically for them. And once the cancer sufferer is in remission they're set for life because once they've learned how to
not
have cancer they should be good. And if they let themselves get cancer again they can just do whatever they did last time. Once you find the right cancer medication you're pretty much immune from that disease forever. And if you get it again it's probably just a reaction to too much gluten or not praying correctly. Right?

Well, no. But that same, completely ridiculous reasoning is what people with mental illness often hear … not just from well-meaning friends, or people who were able to fix their own issues without medication, or people who don't understand that mental illness can be dangerous and even fatal if untreated … but also from someone much closer and more manipulative.

We hear it from ourselves.

We listen to the small voice in the back of our head that says, “This medication is taking money away from your family. This medication messes with your sex drive or your weight. This medication is for people with
real
problems. Not just people who feel sad. No one ever died from being sad.” Except that they do. And when we see celebrities who fall victim to depression's lies we think to ourselves, “How in the world could they have killed themselves? They had everything.” But they didn't. They didn't have a cure for an illness that convinced them they were better off dead.

Whenever I start to doubt if I'm worth the eternal trouble of medication and therapy, I remember those people who let the fog win. And I push myself to stay healthy. I remind myself that I'm not fighting against me … I'm fighting against a chemical imbalance … a tangible thing. I remind myself of the cunning untrustworthiness of the brain, both in the mentally ill and in the mentally stable. I remind myself that professional mountain climbers are often found naked and frozen to death, with their clothes folded neatly nearby because severe hypothermia can make a person feel confused and hot and convince you to do incredibly irrational things we'd never expect. Brains are like toddlers. They are wonderful and should be treasured, but that doesn't mean you should trust them to take care of you in an avalanche or process serotonin effectively.