July 9, 2014
Carving New Paths
My foot slams down hard on the pedal, making my head snap back from the force. The cement barrier is now a looming wall between my white-knuckled grip of death. 85 mph… 90 mph… the barrier rushes up to meet me. 95 mph… My 4-cylinder Altima engine screams its defiance. 100 mph…. Darkness consumes me as I race towards certain annihilation.
“You’re the most awesome mama I could’ve ever asked for.” The innocent voice flows through my thoughts like a euphoric melody and tears immediately spring from my eyes. For a fleeting moment, in the place of the cement barrier is an illuminated image of the most beautiful cherubic face I have ever seen. An intoxicating giggle floods my brain, and then all sounds cease. In an instant, the insurmountable barrier rears its head. Adrenaline coursing through my veins, I stomp on the brakes with all my might as my hands wrench the wheel hard to the right, the screeching tires a war cry in my ears.
In the weeks leading up to my 2002 Altima carving a new exit 113 ramp to Lipscomb/Brighton, the pain was so unbearable that I could not even get out of bed some days. The pain seemed to come from all directions, it penetrated my body, splitting it open from the inside out. I had been coming to work late more and more often, my stomach in knots and a cold sweat beading along my forehead. I’d have to pull over just off the narrow back road and throw up, many times not even making it out of the car, then continue on to a day that seemed more like a hopelessly daunting task—like climbing Mount Everest with asthma—than a job.
On this particular morning, my stomach turned as I woke up to yet another day of sickness. I knew if I called off, the human resources manager would have an interview for my job lined up that afternoon. I quickly got dressed, scooped up my young son, and drove him to meet my mother in Hueytown. With a lump growing in my throat, I had barely kissed his forehead goodbye before jumping back into the car and taking off for work. The drive felt like it was on autopilot as I numbly found my way onto the freeway.
When the frantically moving images in my windshield finally rest, my car sits at the bottom of an embankment with its passenger rear tire stuck in a ravine. My body feels like a volcano getting ready to erupt. Two men who have stopped to help stand in front of me. I can barely understand them, and after attempts at speaking to me have failed, they only seem annoyed with me. I fear that they are about to leave, but instead, they walk to the back of the car, and I dumbly follow. They yell at me and point to the driver’s seat. I sit down, staring back at them with vacant eyes.
“Come on, girl. Help us out. Give it a little gas!”
I give a tired laugh. “That’s what got me here.”
My car is back on the road with only cosmetic damage to tell the tale. The wheels of my car spin, taking me away from exit 113, and then leading me further and further away from work. My body feels heavy and aches as if every muscle is slowly deteriorating. Every thought I have is met with dread – what if I have cancer? What kind of affliction has taken hold of me, tearing apart my insides until nothing is left? I feel scared and confused as I drive along the interstate, not knowing where I will end up.
Unspeakable Pain
I sit in the car for almost an hour before I open the door and step into the humid air. A low hum of disgruntled chatter drifts out from behind the glass doors of the doc-in-a-box. I duck my head and trudge across the parking lot, feeling my skin bristle as a man rushes past me with enough force to knock me off balance. Inside, the waiting room is packed full of people in various degrees of distress, some standing, others pacing or slumped in chairs. I shuffle through the throng and write my name on a slip of paper at the check-in desk, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the person behind it. With trembling hands, I print “pain” under symptoms and pass it back.
“What kind of pain?” the doctor asks.
The doctor’s words echo in the white room as I feel my chest tighten and tears well up in my eyes. I try to speak, but instead, a sob escapes my lips. The doctor pulls out his stethoscope, brushes the cold metal circle against my skin, and asks me more questions as he continues to listen. His concerned gaze makes it hard for me to control my tears, and they stream down my face like an unstoppable river.
“I’m going to ask you a couple more questions, but you need to understand before you answer that if you disclose something that makes me feel that you are a danger to either yourself or others, I am obligated to report that to law enforcement. Do you understand?”
My head slowly moves up and down and my bottom lip quivers.
“Do you have thoughts of harming others?”
“What? No.”
“Are you thinking of harming yourself?”
I am obligated to report… But my son needs me. I can’t get locked up. He will think I’ve abandoned him. “No,” I answer.
The doctor examines my face. I can feel his gaze penetrating my very soul. He knows I’m lying. The corner of his mouth drops, and he sighs. “You are suffering from depression…”
“But I hurt… like, physically… all over.”
“Yes. Physical pain can be a symptom of depression. I’m prescribing you Celexa. Make sure you take it every day, and I recommend that you seek the help of a psychiatrist as soon as possible.”
I am on the brink of desperation as I pull into my driveway. Without wasting any time, I take out my phone and start calling every psychiatrist within a 50-mile radius. Everyone I speak to tells me the same thing: “Sorry, the doctor’s not taking new patients at this time.” With trepidation, I phone the last number on my list. To my relief, a woman answers and says they have an opening in a little over a month. My pulse races as I jot down the appointment date on August 12th.
July 12, 2014
The first two days on the Celexa were miserable. I was shaking, my mind constantly racing and I couldn’t stop crying. But today is different—I feel calmer. The fog that had clouded my day-to-day life is lifting and I’m beginning to see a path forward.
July 15, 2014
I’ve started reading Stephen King’s The Stand. I’ve always wanted to read this book, but with work, I never have time to read. Now that I’m on a leave of absence until my appointment in August, I have tons of time. This Celexa is amazing. I’ve had tons of energy. I rearranged the furniture last night and read until 4 am. I had an hour’s nap, and now I’m about to start reading again.
July 20, 2014
I haven’t made it as far in The Stand as I thought I would have by now. I can’t concentrate and mindlessly read the same page over and over and over. There’s a specific line that haunts me. “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” It’s actually a line from Yeats’s poem, “The Second Coming,” that King uses quite effectively in the book, but right now, it resonates a little too well with me and my current situation.
I’m having trouble sleeping. For the past three days, I might have had an hour of sleep—in total. When I lay down, my mind races—it just churns out mindless gibberish. I moved the furniture around twice last night because I needed to see what the couch would look like caddy-cornered and if I could fit a desk into the dining room. Neither of the setups looked good, and I cried when I realized that I needed to move everything back before Eric woke up. I cry at least once an hour nowadays.
July 27, 2014
I spend my days perched on the couch, trying to make it through The Stand. Eric avoids me. He’s afraid to ask about the sounds of furniture moving in the middle of the night. He doesn’t want to know why the dining room is covered in poster boards that are intricately labeled with people and places and ideas, arrows stemming off in all directions. Yesterday, when he got home from work, he asked, “How was your day?” I burst out laughing—and then continued to laugh until I sobbed. He walked away, shaking his head, and saying, “I just don’t know what to do for you.”
August 2, 2014
I read the same page at least twenty times today. I had to give up. I’m still sniveling and wiping tears from the forty-minute crying session that ensued after deciding to give up reading. I’m exhausted. I only get twenty to thirty minutes of sleep a night. My mind won’t shut up and I just want it all to stop.
August 11, 2014
Robin Williams died today. They say he killed himself. The news continuously reports about his battle with depression. I never knew. The doctor said that I have depression. If Robin Williams—the funniest man I have ever known—can commit suicide, what’s going to happen to me?
August 12, 2014
It’s a cloudy day as I make my way to the doctor’s office. I am so incredibly anxious that I spend the better part of an hour spitting out unintelligible syllables and shredding the endless tissues that the doctor hands me. He asks me what I’ve been taking and I hand him the Celexa from my purse. “Do not take any more of these,” he says sternly as he holds up a bottle filled with tiny, white pills. “Celexa can cause some people with bipolar disorder to experience rapid cycling and mixed episodes, which is what you are currently experiencing.” He hands me a prescription for Lamictal and gives me detailed instructions on how to slowly increase my dosage over the coming weeks. I have to come back to see him in a week, which I will repeat until he feels that I’m stable. Things fell apart, and now this man who’s trying to save me says it will take about four weeks for me to start feeling better—four weeks until the center will begin to hold.
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