by Terri Cheney
“You’re awfully kind,” I said, feeling that old familiar risk-taking tingle. “Can I buy you a drink when you’re free?” (I’m so practiced at asking men out for drinks when I’m manic, I could lecture on it at Vassar.)
“I’ll be off in an hour,” he said.
“Terrific! I’ll meet you in the lounge.”
I went to my room to unpack. Something was missing, but I couldn’t say what. Perfume? Check. Mascara? Check. Stilettos? Check, and check. I slipped them on, with a sexier dress and some racy new lingerie. But the feeling continued to nag at me: What had I forgotten? Was it important? Would I need it? Oh well, I shrugged. Whatever it is, I can buy it in the gift shop later.
I went to the lounge, ordered myself a tequila sunrise, and settled in to wait. The bar was busy—lovers and tourists cooing over the magnificent view of the ocean. I glanced in that direction: a sunset. Pretty, but I’d seen it before. I was more interested in the view of me. I took great care to arrange myself on the stool: a little leg, a glimpse of shoulder, just indiscreet enough to be noticed.
A man at the bar came over to me. Another dashing devil, only this one had blue eyes and was wearing a crisp white shirt with epaulets. Having dated a pilot once, I knew what those four bars meant: a captain.
“Quite a view,” he said.
“That?” I waved my hand at the panorama.
“That, among other things,” he said. He looked down at my empty glass. “Can I buy you a sunrise?” he said, and I giggled. It sounded salacious to me, but then most things do when I’m manic.
“Maybe,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Dan,” he said. “And you are…?”
I put a finger to my lips. “Incognito,” I whispered. “So tell me, which airline are you with?”
“I fly corporate,” he said. I’ve never once dated for money, but still: visions of Lear Jets and Gulfstreams flitted before my eyes. At the slightest whim, we might be off to Acapulco or Paris or wherever for the weekend. Imagine all the art I could see, the tales I could tell, the glitz and the glamour of a jet-setting life…
“Yes, you may buy me a drink, Captain Dan.” I heard the rhythmic lilt in my voice, and for a moment, I felt uneasy but I wasn’t sure why.
He drank Glenlivet, as all men should. I kept to tequila but switched to shots on his dare. Probably not a wise idea: Alcohol is trouble enough on its own, but it instantly kindles my mania, as if a match had been held to my brain. I downed another shot, and fire exploded inside me: oranges and violets and flamingo pinks, as if I’d swallowed the sunset instead.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around: the handsome valet. The two men immediately started sizing each other up. I got in between their glares and said, “This is my old friend, um—I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“David,” he said.
“Dan, meet David,” I said. Or should it be David, meet Dan? It was getting awfully hot in there; droplets of sweat snaked down my back, and I was suddenly flushed and confused. Why were they both wearing white uniforms? Should I be wearing one, too?
“Give me a minute to change,” David said. “Hotel policy.”
“Ooh, are we breaking a rule?” I said.
“Not yet,” he said, and he winked. I laughed, but Captain Dan didn’t seem amused.
I watched David leave, and wished I could go with him. His eyes were so dark, they looked like they were rimmed with kohl. They were the eyes of an Arabian prince. I pictured myself swathed in colorful silks, riding bareback with him across desert dunes. Pretty boys were feeding me sweet fresh dates and waving palm fronds across my body to keep me cool…
A jazz combo started playing, annoying and loud. The music inside my head was so much nicer. “It’s suffocating in here,” I said. “Let’s leave a note with the bartender so David can find us.” I scribbled two words on a cocktail napkin and handed it to Captain Dan. He looked at it, quizzically. “The ocean?” he said.
“Yes, let’s go for a swim. I need to clear my head.”
“But I don’t have a bathing suit.”
“Neither do I.”
It didn’t take him long to settle our bill after that. When we stepped outside, the night had turned cool and windy. “I need to get my pashmina,” I said. “Back in a flash.” It didn’t occur to me how absurd this was: as if a small silky shawl could keep the chill off my wet, naked body. Captain Dan leaned against a pillar and lit a cigarette. I spotted David coming up the path behind him. I wondered if I should stay and soothe the tension, but then I figured, it would be so much more fun to watch the sparks fly.
I hurried to my room and grabbed my pashmina. A paper came fluttering out from its folds—a page from a legal pad. I’ll deal with it later, I thought, and started to put it back into my suitcase when I saw the title, in red ink and all caps: “WARNING! READ IMMEDIATELY!” Uh-oh, I thought. This can’t be fun. But I sat down on the bed, smoothed out the well-worn paper, and read:
“If you suspect you’re getting manic, you probably are. You MUST obey these ten sacred rules:
1. Don’t change into something sexier. Wear granny panties and flats.
2. Don’t make friends with strangers. They’re strangers.
3. Don’t drink anything but iced tea—Lipton’s, not Long Island.
4. Don’t get naked, except to shower. Alone. And don’t shave your legs.
5. Don’t try to beguile attractive men. Or attractive women. Or cops.
6. Don’t pull out your credit card for any reason, except if necessary to post bail.
7. Don’t call or text or email ever—except, as noted, for bail.
8. Don’t cut your hair short. You aren’t Audrey Hepburn.
9. Don’t quit your day job.
10. Don’t follow your bliss.”
My manic cheat sheet. I kept multiple copies of it with me at all times—in my glove compartment, my suitcase, my briefcase, my purse. That must have been the paper that flew away when I fell. I’m supposed to read it every day, but frankly, I forget to when I start to feel high. Or more likely, I don’t wanna. But those rules had saved me countless times, from danger and improvidence and self-sabotage and worse. I carried them for a reason, and I reluctantly admitted that I ought to heed their advice.
Thinking wistfully of the two men waiting for me, I kicked off my heels and slipped off my dress and put on the thick white terry cloth robe provided by the hotel. How perfect: my very own white uniform. I locked the door and shut off the lights and pretended that I hadn’t done any real harm—or, at least, not too much. Was this rude? Maybe—but it was also safe.
DEPRESSION
“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain…”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“Sad.” “Out of sorts.” “Lethargic.” “Blue.” Everyone thinks they know depression, but clinical depression is much more debilitating than most people can imagine. The DSM-5 outlines the following criteria for a diagnosis of major depression:
• Markedly diminished interest in all, or almost all, activities;
• Significant changes in weight or appetite;
• A slowing down of thought and reduction of physical movement;
• Fatigue or loss of energy;
• Feelings of worthlessness, or excessive or inappropriate guilt;
• Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness;
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.
To qualify for a diagnosis, these symptoms must cause the individual significant distress or impair his functioning in social, occupational, or other important areas. They must also not be a result of substance abuse, or another medical condition.
Antidepressants are mainly aimed at improving mood and social functioning. But depression also has a profound impact on attention and memory, as well as information-processing and decision-making skills. According to the Harvard Medical School, “[These] cognitive impairment symptoms have received little attention—and ha
ven’t necessarily been the target of medications for depression.” While behavioral therapies may help, further research is urgently needed to help people return to full mental functioning (https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/sad-depression-affects-ability-think-201605069551).
That’s why I have such tremendous admiration for anyone who outlasts depression—it takes exceptional courage to exist on a few faint memories of light.
EVERY DAY, EVERYDAY MIRACLES
Stare at your hairbrush. Count the bristles. Hear the clock ticking on the counter. Ignore it. The hairbrush is what matters. It’s round and spiky, like an instrument of torture. Sometime in the very near future you must apply it to your scalp, not just once but over and over again. This ritual, however painful, will allow you to pass unnoticed in a crowd. You’ll be coiffed, and no one will know what it took for you to brush your hair.
Everyone I know with major depression faces some version of this scenario—a pitched battle with the seemingly innocuous tasks of daily living. Grooming, washing the dishes, making the bed, etc.: all Herculean assignments. It’s not surprising, given that depression saps the motivation, energy, organizational skills, and focus such activities require. When your brain is depleted, a load of laundry can feel more complicated than chaos theory.
The flip side of self-care is self-neglect, and it makes perfect sense in a blighted world. Why bother to care for yourself when you despise who you are and what you’ve become? This isn’t a rare phenomenon at all, but like so many aspects of depression it isn’t openly discussed. Again, not surprising: there’s nothing more humiliating than admitting that laundry makes you suicidal.
For me, the hardest thing by far is to get into the shower. “Why don’t you take a nice hot shower?” my mother would always ask me when I’d call her, crying. She might as well have said, “Why don’t you go climb Everest?” Because I can’t. I just can’t face it.
But yesterday I had no choice. My dearest friend in all the world was in the hospital and I promised him I’d visit. He was dying; who knew if this would be my last chance? Even given these exigent circumstances, I still had to struggle with myself. What if I waited another day? Maybe I’d feel more up to it then; and maybe it wouldn’t be too late. That’s how difficult a simple act like showering can be when you’re depressed: it makes you play chess with God.
I could at least try, I told myself, as I lay in bed imagining the impossible. The thought of that claustrophobic cell with its stabbing stream of water taunted me. “Come let me assault you,” I could almost hear it hiss, and I did my best not to listen. I’m fastidious by nature, but the thought of all those gallons of water pelting my naked nerve endings was just too much to contemplate. I preferred to wear my own dirt.
But I couldn’t inflict that on my friend. Days when I can’t get into the shower are bound to be bad days, spent hiding in bed. Bad days are usually microcosms of bad weeks, when I avoid all human contact, resolutely ignoring the phone and attempting social invisibility. I wallow in abysmal failure then, hating my inertia but unable to overcome it. My hair gets straggly, my clothes turn rank, my skin is slick from oil and sweat. In short, I smell like depression.
So I continued to eye that damned shower. If only, I thought. If only I could bear that, I could bear anything. If only I could get nice and clean, I could start my life out fresh. For twenty minutes I visualized getting up, but my body didn’t share the visualization: it stayed right where it was. Finally, I managed to move my foot an inch or so toward the edge of the bed. Another twenty minutes went by before I could move it any farther. Then in a burst of violent concentration, I swung my legs up and over and stood—dizzy from the sudden movement, furious that it took this much effort just to get out of bed.
I forced myself to walk into the bathroom, open the shower door, and turn on the water. I stared at it for a good long time, wondering why such a marvel of nature and engineering was my nemesis. I had to muster all my willpower to reach out and place my hand under the stream. “There now, that’s not so bad,” I told myself with a shudder, and I kept progressively submerging my body—wrist, forearm, elbow, shoulder—until I was accustomed to the stinging sensations against my skin.
It was agony, but it was endurable agony; sometimes endurable agony is as good as it gets. I took a deep breath and stepped in.
There are small miracles that take place every day—heroics that nobody knows about, but that are feats of glory all the same. Somewhere today a severely depressed person is getting out of bed and brushing her teeth. Somewhere someone is deciding to eat breakfast rather than commit suicide. In my house, victory looks like getting wet.
PISTOL-WHIPPED
When I was cleaning out a jammed drawer recently, I found this story from many years ago. I’d forgotten all about it. But now that I’ve unearthed the incident, I think it’s worth remembering—if only to be grateful that it happened a long time ago, and not yesterday. Here’s what I read:
I’m writing this from the very depths. From the ragged hole at the heart of hell. I’ve been depressed for an eternity now, or at least several weeks, and there’s no glimmer of hope on the horizon. There never is, when it’s this bad. When I woke up this morning, the pain was worse. I didn’t think that was possible. Dante said there were only nine circles of hell. Clearly, Dante was wrong.
Today is Tuesday, and I’m supposed to go to therapy on Tuesdays. But that’s impossible, so I leave a message with my doctor canceling our session. This is incredibly thoughtful of me because it’s so hard to pick up the phone, then dial, then talk, then hang up the phone. The energy required to do all this depletes me, and I go back to bed.
The phone rings, and I let the machine pick it up. It’s my therapist, asking if I’m okay. How percipient of him: I was crying when I left him that message. But then, I’m always crying these days. He probably thinks that’s status quo. I’d like to forgive him his ignorance because long ago when I wasn’t depressed, I thought he was a decent man. But he should be able to read my mind, God knows he’s dissected it long enough. He should know that I’m far from okay.
I’m scared like a child left alone in the dark. There’s a big black shadow looming over me. We’ve met before, and I know what it wants. It wants me to go on a journey with it, down and down and ever down, until we hit oblivion.
Almost a week ago, the shadow and I took a trip to a pawn shop together. It was in a seedy part of Beverly Hills, which meant it wasn’t exactly skid row, but it wasn’t Rodeo Drive, either. There was a staleness to the air inside—maybe just a cigarette haze, but to me it smelled like sulfur. I told the man behind the counter about a recent rash of burglaries in my area. I told him I felt I needed protection. He took a good look at me, up and down, from my sleek bob to my tasseled loafers.
“I think I have just the thing for you,” the man said. “Small, so you can carry it in your purse. But lethal, if needs be.” He fiddled with a jangly bunch of keys, reached down and pulled something out of a drawer. Then he gently set it down on the counter, on a black velvet cloth, just like they do at Tiffany’s.
It was beautiful, a work of great craftsmanship and terrifying to behold: a small mother-of-pearl-handled pistol. I picked it up gingerly. It fit the palm of my hand.
“It’s so light,” I said. “Are you sure it will work?”
The man smiled. “It’s perfect for your needs.” I wondered how much he had guessed, but before I could even start to worry he played the ultimate salesman’s card. He reached down and pulled out a mirror. “Just look,” he said. “It suits you, don’t you think?”
That settled it. I looked like a femme fatale from a ’30s film noir. All I lacked was a gauzy black veil and elbow-length gloves. I pulled a credit card out of my purse and didn’t even ask how much.
“I’ll take a deposit now,” he said. “But there’s a brief waiting period before you can take her home.” Then he told me some stuff about paperwork, and proof of residency, and forms of I.D., and other annoyi
ng incidentals. I waited for him to ask me about my mental status, ready to lie through my teeth, but he didn’t. The shadow and I linked arms as we left the store.
Since then, bad as the depression’s been, I haven’t tried to hurt myself. I haven’t sharpened knives or counted out pills. That would be amateur hour. Instead, I’ve counted down the days, and crossed them off the calendar with a big red X.
It’s Tuesday. The waiting period ends Wednesday. One more day.
My damn phone rings again. I contemplate not picking it up because I already know who it will be. Then I’ll have to hear it one more time: the old saw about the hospital. Out of spite, I decide to make him wait. I answer on the very last ring because it might be the last ring, ever.
“I’m going to check up on you every hour between patients,” he says. “Will you promise me you’ll pick up the phone?” His usually mellifluous, careful voice sounds funny, kind of hoarse, as if he has a cold.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“No, Terri, I’m not okay,” he says. “I’m very worried about you. I wish you would listen to me about the hospital. You shouldn’t have to suffer like this.”
I can feel the chunk of ice around my heart crack just a bit, just enough to let that in. In a way, he’s even scarier than the shadow. What if he really does care? It doesn’t matter what the pearl-handled pistol does to me. But what will it do to him, when I use it?
“I’ll think about it,” I say, for what feels like the hundredth time. Then I hang up the phone and I wait. An hour goes by so slowly when you’re waiting to be loved. Sure enough, in fifty-five minutes the phone rings again. I answer more quickly this time.
“How are you doing?” he asks.
“The same,” I say, but as is often the case in therapy, I’m not quite telling the truth. Something is shifting; something feels different. I wait another fifty-five minutes, until he calls again. And again. And again.