Once I began to walk up the stairs to greet Rick, I pulled out a canned smile. “Hey baby,” I called back to him. I was feeling guilty about going to the doctor without telling Rick, but I knew that I had to keep my secret because he had such a fear and distrust for doctors. I was convinced that if he knew that I was going to take depression medicine, he would object and that concerned me.
Once, Rick had told me about a time when he worked at Fairmont Hospital as a heating engineer. Fairmont Hospital was in San Leandro, California and it was where the police took people who were 51/50, or people who lost their minds. Rick had worked there before he took a job at San Francisco State University doing the same kind of work. He told me about all the people that were dosed up on medicine and how he knew that it was really the medicine that was keeping the patients crazy. I can’t exactly remember how the subject of medicine and hospitals came up, but I knew that Rick had strong and negative feelings about those issues.
That night, after taking the Effexsor for the first time, I snuggled up close to Rick. I hoped that he didn’t want to make love to me because I didn’t have the strength. I didn’t want to take my mind off the fact that I could wake up the next morning trying to be Jesse James. And, I can’t remember if I slept that night. All I know is that I went to bed thinking that there was hope for the new thing that was ailing me.
…
A whole two weeks passed.
I still wasn’t eating much, but I managed to stay on the Effexsor. Even with only two weeks of the medicine in my body, I held onto the little sense of optimism it gave me. I was hoping that it would help me get back to normal or something close to it.
…
Monday, Week three with Effexsor.
The previous weekend got lost in the blurring of time. I did remember running to the bathroom at work because I suddenly felt like everything was closing in on me. It was by far one of the most desperate times in my life other than when the voice came into my head. I felt so anxious. And if I was a rocket, I would have shot past Mars a couple of times.
…
Tuesday Morning. Another day on the Effexsor.
Before Rick was out of the door good to go to work, I found myself back in the bathroom and in the mirror. It was terrible. I was trembling and staring at myself waiting for my image to change and before I knew anything, I was thinking about the gun in Rick’s drawer.
Go to Rick’s drawer. You can do it!
I heard the soft but sharp words.
“NOT AGAIN. PLEASE. I CAN’T DO THIS AGAIN.” I pleaded out loud to the voice in my head.
But then I walked into our bedroom where the gun had been resting for three whole weeks. I bent over and opened the dresser drawer as slowly and as deliberately as I could. Rick’s white tee shirts were crumpled over the gun, but I could see the steel black barrel barely sticking out. I had hid it well the last time. I reached for it, picked it up right behind the trigger. I walked into the bathroom.
THIS WAS THE DAY THAT THINGS WOULD GO TOO FAR.
…
Before the fifteen or so minutes that I was in the bathroom passed, I had done the unthinkable. I PUT THE GUN TO MY HEAD. I was being told to pull the trigger because I had nothing to live for. I thought the voice was right.
I am in pain. It’s not going to get better. I am hopeless, ugly and doomed to failure.
The voice told me that I was never going to sleep and that I wouldn’t graduate from my Master’s program because I couldn’t concentrate enough to finish my research paper. My head went into a whirlpool of pain and torment and I became convinced that my life was never going to get better. Then I began to visualize what would happen if I committed suicide in Rick’s house, in his little bathroom. I saw my blood and my brains splattered all over everything. And I saw Rick coming home after work to find me. He would be devastated. He would not know how such a thing could happen.
AND THEN I THOUGHT ABOUT MY TWO BABIES, CRYSTAL AND PAITYN.
My mind was racing over scene after terrible scene that might involve me killing myself. Each scene would force my children to absorb the fallout from my selfishness. Would they hate and long for me at the same time? My children would look at the human mess I left and they would be scarred for life. MY BRAINS. MY HEAD OFF MY BODY. They would never know what happened because I had not told them that something had wrangled its way inside my head and wanted me dead.
In the moments after my near-breaking point, I got sadder and sadder because I could imagine their faces and their pain when they would know what I had done. These children of mine would run to their Nana, my mother, and together they would agonize and cry and tear at their own minds for answers that weren’t there.
There was so much turmoil in my head that day. BUT I KNEW THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO DIE, not by my own hands. Hell, I didn’t want to die, PERIOD! I wanted to live even with everything in my life that seemed to go wrong. I was a Christian and suicide was not an option. It was important that I held onto that thought that kept filtering through the dark moments encapsulating me.
…
“GOD, PLEASE HELP ME. PLEASE HELP ME!” Every word shouted itself out of my mouth. I laid the gun down on the floor and I just started praying with all my might. I got louder and louder. I tried to drown out the killer voice in my head. “CAN YOU HEAR ME GOD?!!!”
…
Time must have floated away without me noticing. It was 7:10 a.m. and I had to get ready for work. I managed to pull myself up from my knees. I took a deep breath and I felt a little better. There was no doubt in my mind that God must have heard me and had mercy on me.
I was on 580 east before I snapped back enough to realize that I was in serious trouble after what had just happened to me. It was abundantly clear that I was beyond the point of being able to fake “normal” at work or around the people who loved me. It took everything I had not to come apart as more and more anxiety moved on me. And when I could feel myself beginning to hyperventilate for seemingly no good reason, I would run and take refuge in the closest bathroom. And I knew that people could see that I was wasting away. Only one woman at work had the courage to ask me if I was sick. I made up something about working too hard and I didn’t give a damn if she believed me or not. That was the least of my worries, you know.
In the coming weeks, I would repeat the ritual or the suicidal morning dance with the gun and the mirror. One of my doctors explained my condition as morning depression. IDK. But when it occurred to me that the Effexsor might be causing my condition to get worse, I became concerned. I remembered that Dr. Stratham had mentioned that I might need to try several medicines before he could make a medical decision about which one might be best for me. It had been three weeks since I had seen him. My thought was that I really needed to see Dr. Lang, my general practitioner.
Then the day finally came; I was able to make an appointment with my regular doctor but it would be another five days before I could plead my case of suspected insanity.
FIVE DAYS SEEMED LIKE FIVE MILLION YEARS. So, I acted on my own out of shear desperation. [Warning: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!] I stopped taking the Effexsor. I convinced myself that it was at the root of my madness. Then, I used the internet to investigate the properties and effects of Effexsor as well as other depression and anxiety medicines. WHAT I FOUND WAS STARTLING. I found out that patients on the drug that I was taking might have suicidal thoughts. OMG! Other medicines in the same family carried identical side effects and the same warnings.
Then, a bell rang in my head. DINGDINGDINGDINGDING.
I wondered whether my daymares were partially attributable to the medicine or whether they just amplified my already crazy state. IDK. But I think that this scary information had a reverse affect on my brain; I suddenly felt like an empowered patient, or one that wasn’t going to be pushed pilled around by even well-qualified doctors. And still, the insuppressible fact was that I couldn’t help but feel like a half-crazy woman, but I knew that I needed to be on a serious mission
. I needed to save my own life because something deep inside of me wanted to live. There was no doubt that my true self had declared: I- DO- NOT- WANT- TO DIE! But there was also a beaten down and dark side of me that reached out at death like it was a lifeboat. NOW— how crazy is that?
And suddenly, it wasn’t a mystery to me anymore about how people could commit suicide, or how they could shoot themselves, or overdose on pills, or run a car over a cliff. It occurred to me that maybe all those people who had been successful in snuffing out their own lives had gone through the same thing that I was going through. They had heard voices in their heads, and they felt nuclear compulsions to the point of thinking that they had no choice but to act in total DEFIANCE AGAINST LIFE ITSELF. As foggy as it seemed inside my head, things, at least for a short period of time, started looking more and more clear.
I WANTED TO LIVE!!!
When the fourth day came that I had stopped taking the Effexsor, something new had pounced on me like a lion with more than its share of claws and weight. I was feeling weirdly unstable. My attention span was extremely short, and I could feel myself being nervous and scared all the time. I also had this needle-like stinging sensation under my skin. And that particular pain became more intense during the times when I would flashback to my past. It was the past that I couldn’t reconcile no matter how hard I tried. It was a futile endeavor but my mind wouldn’t latch onto that one simple fact. It was the most terrible feeling I ever had.
The sleeplessness that I had experienced during this time of internal unrest was debilitating too. Day and night were only separated by the fact that I had to go to work. Otherwise, everything would have meshed together into one miserable twenty-four hours. Something has to give or I’m going to be gone; this was my constant thought. I wanted to lean more on Rick, but my prolonged emotional trauma was weighing him down. I could see it all over his face. He started drinking more and I knew it was because was worried about me. He was my friend, my protector, and if I could have let him get close to me, he would have been the only lover for me— for the rest of my life. I know this much now.
When it became clear to me that I had a serious case of insomnia, I began sleeping in the room Rick prepared for me so that I could study; I was in the final months of my Master’s program. I tried to make good use of the time alone and of those few moments when it felt like I could, even minimally, control my thoughts. Then a fantastic idea came to me; I could access the internet to find my own medicine for depression. Yes! Keep going, keep going, and keep going. I talked to myself in order to stay focused enough to keep the rogue and insurgent thoughts out of my head. These were the thoughts that were lynching me softly with the ropes of the past.
Hours and hours passed. I searched and searched. I studied what I read.
Then, Wah-lah! I found the medicine that I thought knew was right for me, even though I was just going on what I read and what I thought I understood.
The next day, day five, I asked my general practitioner, Dr. Lang, to prescribe the drug Citalopram for me. No— I didn’t have any medical credentials to defend my findings, but I still felt that the medicine I proposed was certainly better than letting doctors play Spin the Pill Bottle with my life. And if I had not exercised due diligence in my search for the right medicine, and if I lacked the requisite faith in my own will to conquer the misery that befell me, I might have abandoned my resign to look out for my own survival. So, sometimes there is power in pain and desperation.
But Dr. Lang, bless her heart, must have gathered that my condition had become dire. She saw how the flesh had melted off my body since the last time she saw me. She saw through my distant eyes with walls of blackness behind them. So instead of granting my one request (the Citalopram), she referred me to psychologist.
I didn’t have to make the appointment. Dr. Lang made it for me. Bless her!
…
On my way to the appointment, I almost got hit by a car. Now, that would have been an accident.
The new doctor was a gray white man (hair & colour, respectively) with no personality at all (NPAA). He had stuff himself, even as small as he was, into a tiny office space in the back of what looked like a makeshift room. It was the place where I was to get my therapy and my medicine. Umph! I decided to let him have a shot at prescribing something for me. We talked for thirty minutes.
“YOU HAVE DEPRESSION,” he said.
But it just didn’t make sense to me that I could be diagnosed so quickly and then given yet another drug that might make me kill myself. Is he just reading Dr. Lang’s notes? I wondered. I had already been told that I had depression. Now, I had a third opinion.
I was given two drugs. The BuSpar, Buspirone (byoo spye’ rone), an anti-anxiety medication, was for the GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder); worry was my constant companion. I was also given another drug for the depression. I don’t remember the name, but I took it. The two drugs together were supposed to help me get back to being normal.
THEY DIDN’T.
How did I know? Well, one weekend, after taking the two new medicines, I almost took my own life in public. Happened like this: Rick had convinced me to take a Sunday stroll down Telegraph Avenue. I didn’t want to go, but I had said, “NO” to him so many times. We got out of the car and began walking. I was feeling so strange and empty in my gut, but I couldn’t remember what hunger actually felt like. I looked at the oncoming cars and wondered how I could throw myself into the traffic so strategically that there would be no chance for me to survive. When I think about that now, I just want to cry HOLLER. The morose thoughts hopped on a reel and keep spinning.
I spied the cars going in the same direction that I was walking.
I must have made note of every make and model on the planet. Should I jump in front of a Porsche? Nope. Too little. How about an Escalade? Yiiikees, that might get messy. Just in the nick of time, Rick grabbed my hand. He could not have known what I was thinking. I was the great pretender.
“You know I love you, Ali,” he professed.
IT HAD TO BE GOD!
“I love you too, baby.”
…
Long story made short: I did my homework— again. I came back to the drug, Celexa (Citalopram). Based solely on what I read, I determined that it had fewer side effects than the other depression medicines in the same family of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). I told the third doctor (on my road to recovery) that he wasn’t going to kill me and make me pay for it. “I NEED CELEXA,” I insisted.
“But you haven’t taken the other drugs long enough—.”
I cut the fool off.
I pushed my seat closer to him. “LISTEN,” I was pointing at the doctor, “I almost became people paté yesterday while I was in Berkeley.” I was desperate and I wanted the doctor (who thought he could just rig me up with some drugs and let me go on about my business) to know that I was serious and wasn’t going to fall for any SHIT.
I looked him straight in the eyes. I wanted him to see that I wasn’t just some crazy person who couldn’t advocate for herself— okay…maybe I was crazy but that didn’t stop me from trying to work my way towards sanity. I tried it once more—“I- know- what- I- need!”
B**ch! Shit! That wasn’t the real me thinking such words. My head was polluted with something I wanted out of me… post haste!
The doctor prescribed Celexa (Citalopram). This was in 2001.
I felt better in eight days, maybe 71/2. Yes, I counted.
It’s 2011 and I’m still taking the Celexa. I have a normal wonderful life now.
…
Rest in Peace, Rick. He died a few years ago. Thank God I got the chance to tell him how much I appreciated him.
48
Keeping My Depression in Check
MY MOTHER USED TO ALWAYS SAY, ‘LORD, JUST KEEP ME IN MY RIGHT MIND.’
Over the years, I heard the words many times, but it wasn’t until I was nearly forty that I understood my mother’s frequent and tenaciously spoken praye
r. Mother was simply asking God to keep her sane.
Always a solider in my mind, my mother had survived a lung surgery, battled diabetes with her sword of endurance and determination. She had come through a colon surgery as well as many other medical ailments that began to plague her after the age of forty. As far as I was concerned, my mother was the epitome of strength, endurance and survival.
Without equivocation, I think it is very interesting that with everything Mother had going wrong with her physically; she embraced the preservation of her faculties as paramount to her very survival. Today, I am blessed to fully comprehend the seriousness of mother’s prayer that I must surely pass on to my daughter, granddaughter, nieces and nephews. And although I would have preferred to have been spared from suffering with clinical depression, I can embrace that what I went through was not for naught; I have learned so much. I now know that recovery from this kind of illness should always be an on-going endeavor. And I embrace it as one of my life’s most important mandates.
Two of the biggest questions that consumed my thoughts after my bout with clinical depression were: HOW WOULD I KNOW WHETHER IT WAS COMING BACK TO GET ME? AND IF IT DID, HOW COULD I STRIKE FIRST BEFORE IT COULD TAKE ME TO THE DARK PLACE I NEVER WANTED TO GO AGAIN?
In order to get started with my life plan for survival, I had to take myself way back over my own path of good and bad experiences. I learned how to do this with the help of a therapist I saw once a week on my way to getting “mentally” better. It is so important that I learned how the past can impact the future. And for me, a little girl who had been abandoned by her ultimate protector (my father) and then abused by the next man (my stepfather), the past had a good advantage for being able to jerk me backwards into the darkness whenever my vulnerability exceeded my ability to be strong. It had happened once and I wasn’t prepared to take any more chances on my survival.
What would I do to ensure that I never get to the place (again) of considering becoming my own “hit woman”? I made a plan for myself that would help me navigate through an imperfect world with imperfect realities at every turn. And I’m glad I made a plan. Why? I would have to face the burden of being a witness against my former spouse in his capital murder trial. No one can know what that’s like. I also had to learn how to try to keep the BLUES from getting into my daughter because she refuses to see a therapist. So, I had to learn how to kick some BLUE’S ASS.
Conquering Darkness Memoir of the Serial Killer's Wife Page 19