David's Inferno

by David Blistein

  I’ve already driven 12 hours and 615 miles. Some of which, by the way, is on the “Trail of Tears.” Only to arrive in a town where the most illuminating sign claims that it was the birthplace of Rush Limbaugh.

  This is the last straw. Clearly, I am now so disconnected from my intuition that I’m deludedly spinning profound portents out of simple encounters with stoned hitchhikers.

  My disappointment is as palpable as it is irrational. I have to get out of Girardeau. And so I cross the river into Illinois where, after yet another hour of driving, I check into a nondescript hotel near the Marion Penitentiary, which is populated by about 50 death-row inmates as well as members of the Aryan Brotherhood, El Rukns, the Mexican Mafia, and D.C. Blacks.

  I feel like I’ve escaped.

  April 8th, 2006. Marion, Illinois to Somerset, Pennsylvania. 678 Miles. Over the course of 7,633 miles, you listen to a lot of music. When blended with a hair-trigger emotional life, this can easily lead to terminal indulgence in feelings that can only be considered maudlin, mushy, mawkish or way too many of the above. Because you inevitably end up thinking all those songs are about you. Which they’re not. After all, if several million people feel exactly the way you do when you hear a song, you have to question just how special you are. That solidarity thing is one of the great things about rock concerts, but can be problematic in memoir since you’re in serious danger of using phrases like, “soundtrack of my life”—at which point you might as well go find another line of work. While you’ll probably never lose anyone’s respect by saying you feel empowered by listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—or even Sympathy for the Devil in a counter-intuitive way—the casual comment that We Built This City on Rock & Roll makes you feel the immensity and glory of creation is bound to raise an eyebrow. And, rightly so. At the same time, if you play your cards right, you can simultaneously experience the solidarity of those we-are-one emotions and your individual piece of the kaleidoscope. Which feels kind of good. Although, whether that excuses playing The Rose or Pachabel Canon at any more weddings is open to debate. I have to admit, however, that there’s a song called Long December by Counting Crows that inevitably brings tears to my eyes. It begins with the singer, clearly a big-time depressive, hoping against hope that this year will be better than the last.

  Three months into 2006, it’s increasingly hard for me to keep that hope alive.

  The song comes on just as I’m leaving Marion, Illinois on another section of the “Trail of Tears.”

  April 9th, 2006. Somerset, Pennsylvania to Dummerston, Vermont. 561 Miles. I arrive in Somerset, Pennsylvania well after dark, and check into the Budget Host Inn, where, to my dismay, I discover that not all shabby hotel rooms are alike. Some are even shabbier than others. After finding an ice machine deep in the catacombs—you have to take a big ice pick, both to defend yourself and to chop off pieces—I briefly calm my 14-hours-on-the-road nerves with a Jameson’s before staggering out like some refugee from a Sartre novel in search of comfort food. I find it at The Summit Diner: scrambled eggs and home fries, served by a waitress who’s overweight, pierced, tattooed, and savvy. It only takes her a couple of minutes to know everything she needs to know about me—just leave the guy alone, call him “honey”—more kindly than usual—and go give the other customers a hard time. The dinner’s $4.50. I leave a $2 tip.

  Now I’m driving off into the sunrise on Route 219 toward Johnstown, and then cutting over toward Altoona which I can see in the valley off Route 99. Another town. Another world. Another universe I’ll never explore. Later, as I drive along Route 220, barely avoiding Penn State, I’m confronted by a series of signs that give me pause: “Beware of Aggressive Drivers.” “Beware of Tailgating.” “Keep two dots apart.” (Don’t ask.) Culminating in: “Attention Drivers: High Crash Area.” They have no idea.

  After 230 miles, I stop at the Turkey Hill Convenience Store in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to get gas. My last stop. Just over 200 miles to Vermont. I fill the van, check the oil and transmission fluid one last time, and go into the store to buy a protein bar, Smart-Food, and a bottle of Starbucks coffee with a big cup of ice (the only alternative when you can’t find the local coffee shop).

  I come back out, get into the van, take a big bite of the protein bar, open the popcorn, and turn the key. The van doesn’t start.

  I try to stay calm. Maybe I’m not in “Park.” Yes I am in “Park.” Try again. The van doesn’t start. Try neutral. Nothing.

  I remember how we used to crawl under our old 1970 Volvo and tap the starter with a hammer. I find the crowbar and work my way under the van. Can’t find the starter. Check the manual. It doesn’t know where the starter is either. Call my repair guy back home. He tells me it’s pretty hard to get at the starter without pulling out the engine or transmission or something equally intimidating.

  I get back in the van and turn the key. Nothing. I take three deep breaths. Nothing. I try ten breaths. Nothing. I get out and start walking toward the store. Turn around and try again. Nothing.

  I tell myself not to panic. That it’s okay. What’s one more day after three weeks? I don’t believe myself for a minute. This is apocalypse now. I go in and ask the cashier if there’s a repair shop nearby. She points to a tire place just a few doors down, which I’d managed not to notice.

  I go back and try to start the car again. Nothing.

  Reluctantly, I go over to the shop and point at the van. They say they can probably tow it over and take a look later in the day. “Later in the day???” They say not to worry … if it needs a starter, they can definitely get one tomorrow. “Tomorrow???”

  I hand him the key.

  I decide that I should go for a bike ride to calm my nerves. Oddly, there’s a bike shop two doors down from the tire place. I stop in to see if they have a bike map. They don’t, but give me precise directions for getting to an area where the biking is good. Unfortunately, I can’t pay attention. I’m on the verge of hyperventilating.

  I go back to the van. Realize I have a spare key in my backpack. What the heck. Put the key in the ignition. Visualize all manner of positive things. Nothing.

  Call Wendy. Tell her I guess I won’t be back that night. She’s disappointed, but seems a lot more concerned with how I’m taking it than how she’s taking it. If I were her, I’d be relieved that I had one more day of peace before my deranged spouse walked in the door. To her credit, I don’t hear that in her voice.

  I go into the store to apologize for the fact that my car will be stuck there until they tow it. They tell me no problem. (No problem for them maybe.) Go back to the van. Try to start it. Nothing.

  I decide to go for a walk before biking. That way I can keep an eye on the van in case it suddenly decides to start itself up and drive over to pick me up and go home. I start walking up a steep hill in a prototypical working-class neighborhood. No one is around—everyone is at work.

  At the top, I can see the whole town. Doesn’t look like good biking to me. A few blocks ahead I notice a young man talking with an elderly woman. Jehovah’s Witness … no question. My first impulse is, of course, to turn in the other direction. But the lady looks so helpless. So I keep walking toward them, watching the drama unfold. She cleverly shakes him off by suddenly turning a corner just as he’s about to step off a curb. He hesitates, briefly tripped up by this act of God, whose ways we will never fully understand, until he looks up and sees me—a miracle if he’s ever seen one.

  By now, I’ve surrendered any resistance I have left to whatever the universe has decided to throw at me. As he talks, I nod my head and respond with genuine enthusiasm (what happens in a parallel reality, stays in a parallel reality): “Jesus? Sure I’ve heard of him. Amazing guy. Son of God? No question. Really? Jesus says that? Sounds like good news to me. Huh? Of course I love him. What’s not to love? The money changers? Great story. He sure showed them. And the thing with the fishes?… it doesn’t get any better than that. Yeah. I know. Me too. Yes. Absolutely … of course. T
hank you. I’ll definitely read that brochure. And that one. And, sure, that one. Yes, that one, too. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, I’ll take a good look. I’m so glad we met. Thank you.”

  Satisfied he’s filled his convert quota for the day, he gives me a big smile and walks away. I turn around and say out loud, quite clearly, so my intention cannot possibly be misunderstood, “Okay Jesus, start the f-ing car.”

  As I walk down the hill, I invoke the names of several other saints, perfect masters, gods incarnate, and shamans of my acquaintance. I create a universe in which the entire notion of my van not starting doesn’t exist. It’d be like anti-matter or something.

  I get back to the Turkey Hill Convenience Store, put my backpack on the ground next to the van. Dig calmly around until I find the spare key again. Open the door, get in, toss the backpack on the passenger seat, put the key in the ignition and turn it. No deep breaths or anything. Just turn the key.

  God damn if it doesn’t start.

  Having successfully called upon the intercession of Jesus, Buddha, Isaiah, Dale Carnegie, and Okomfo Anokye (a seventeenth-century shaman) to perform the minor miracle of starting my car, I figured it was only a matter of time before they realized I had bigger fish to fry—and would really welcome their help.

  A few weeks after my road trip, I decided to dig up a rock that had been harassing my lawn tractor for years. I approached this borderline boulder with a long iron pry bar, pickaxe, two boards, two shovels, two hands, and equal parts determination and wariness. Slowly, methodically, I began to work my way around it, stopping every few minutes to re-evaluate its emerging size, contour, and depth. Each time, it returned my gaze rather sheepishly. As if it would like to help but, having been stuck there for the last 10,000 years, didn’t have the slightest idea how to begin.

  Naturally, the rock was bigger and heavier than I’d imagined. A lot bigger and a lot heavier. But I kept at it, slowly working the edges, finding a ray of hope every time I was able to release one of the many smaller rocks that were wedged up against it; rocks that I could then use as fulcrums to release others. Eventually, I began to get a little wiggle room. Something the rock seemed to kind of enjoy.

  I enjoyed it too. A rare balance of body and mind. First one straining, then the other. Instead of one taking charge and beating the other one to a pulp.

  Once I got some serious purchase on the rock, I started sliding boards underneath. More purchase. More leverage. More boards. Slowly—to our mutual surprise—the rock began to rise from the earth. And kept rising. Except that, every once in a while, no matter how carefully I levered and pried, it would shift slightly off one of my precarious supports and fall back into place with, seemingly, more determination than before.

  Diagnosis

  To name an illness is a literary act before it becomes a medical one.

  —SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE

  YOU KNOW WHAT’S REALLY HARD about writing this book? It’s certainly not sitting in a cabin in Vermont watching the snow come down, drinking my version of a café mocha, and listening to rock & roll. That’s not hard at all.

  It’s not trying to transform years worth of erratic journaling, essays, emails, and medical records into one more-or-less coherent whole without sucking all the juice out. That’s what writers sign up for every time they pick up a pen or open up the laptop.

  Occasionally, it is hard to maximize the creative waves that ebb and flow during the day. But by juggling food, research, working out, paperwork, conversations, and coffee, I can usually put in a good day’s work.

  It’s hard, of course, to avoid getting distracted and procrastinated by email and the Internet. But, for me, that’s just part of the process. In the old days, I’d light another cigarette or pace the floor.

  No. The hardest thing about writing this book is that there’s no single word that I can use for what ailed me.

  If you have a heart attack, you have a heart attack. If you have cancer, you have cancer. If you have diabetes, you have diabetes. These diseases, horrific as they may be, have names. In general, medical professionals can give you a pretty good description of what’s going on inside you, and which medicines or procedures (or both) may help.

  What we call “depression” has many names. And—despite all the talk of serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine … SSRIs, MAO blockers, and tricyclics … cognitive therapy, shock therapy, and alternative therapies—diagnosing and treating it is a crapshoot. As far as I’m concerned, the most trustworthy healers, whether western or eastern, traditional or alternative, are those who have the wisdom to admit they don’t really know what it really is, but do have the knowledge, experience, and sensitivity to have some idea what might help.

  William Styron, whose Darkness Visible describes his version of depression with more excruciating exactness than any diagnostic manual ever could, wrote that “brainstorm” is a more accurate term … “a howling tempest in the brain.”

  I’ve been called all kinds of things over the years. My official diagnosis is currently Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent, in Partial Remission. That sounds kind of tame, although during one particularly difficult phase, I earned the term “Severe,” which is a little more impressive. I’ve also been “accused” of having a severe Cyclothymic Disorder. That’s a little technical for my taste, although its definition as a “persistent instability of mood” is something to which many people would testify—going back to my childhood when my parents and brother found those unstable moods alternately amusing and annoying.

  Agitated Depression, “a state of clinical depression in which the person exhibits irritability or restlessness,” is a pretty accurate descriptive term, as are Overlapping Cyclothymia or Double Depression.

  As a writer, I’m partial to Dysphoric Mania. It sounds noble, in an early-twentieth century kind of way. The Merck Manual describes it as “prominent depressive symptoms superimposed on manic psychosis.” Even better is Melancholia Agitata, which makes me picture myself, hand on forehead, swooning onto a Victorian fainting couch, and twitching uncontrollably until I collapse ignominiously onto the floor.

  In Dante’s day, I would have been labeled as having acedia. That word is unfortunately usually translated as sloth. This may be how it seems from the outside, but it’s a far cry—actually many far cries—from how it feels.

  I definitely think I deserve a little credit for surviving akathisia—the inability to sit still—and anhedonia—the loss of capacity to experience pleasure. One time my doctor asked me if I was having any fun. I looked at him as if he were from another planet. Fun? Fun? To me, that was like asking a homeless person if they’d eaten at any good restaurants lately.

  This was not fun.

  There seems to be some disagreement as to whether I was or am bipolar or not. I know from my reading that in cases of extreme Bipolar I, the highs are way out-of-control higher than anything I’ve experienced … except perhaps many years ago on hallucinogens … bordering on and occasionally crossing the line into delusion. And the lows are virtually catatonic. While there were times I displayed symptoms of Bipolar II (the lesser of the two evils), my manic phases usually weren’t sufficiently psychotic and didn’t last long enough to qualify. Besides, my mania was dysphoric; that is, the opposite of, and not as much fun as euphoric. Instead of swinging wildly from low to high, my moods would swing from depressed to intensely, agitatedly depressed.

  But if I had to choose my favorite diagnosis, I’d say Melancholic Depression–Severe with Hypomanic Episodes. Just seems like a nice blend of literary and technical, with intense visual undertones—a dark brooding figure in a medieval Doré woodcut next to some shrieking Ruben-esque figure on a nonstop train to Hell.

  Big-time depression is way more than extreme sadness. Every psychiatrist, textbook, and pharmaceutical company may draw the line in a slightly different place. But for us case studies, there’s no question when you’ve crossed it.

  To use a biking analogy, sadness is like finding yourself
at the bottom of a steep hill that you know well. You may be discouraged when you realize you have to climb this hill again, but you just had your bike tuned up, the road’s in good condition, you know which gears to use, and are confident you will eventually reach the top.

  Depression, however, is like finding yourself at the bottom of a real steep hill you’ve never climbed before. You don’t know the road or how steep it gets. Turns out it’s not even paved. You have your road bike instead of your mountain bike. The shifting’s screwed up so you can’t get into the lowest gears. The tires are worn smooth and you don’t have any replacement tubes. Or a pump. Oh yeah, I forgot: a bunch of drunk kids drove up the road the night before and threw empty beer bottles out the window, shattering glass all over the place. You have serious doubts you’ll ever get to the top.

  For me, the line between sadness and major depression can’t be drawn based on the quality or quantity of sad thoughts. In both cases, they ooze around all the time—appearing in a wide range of inner conversations about things that worry, frustrate, and upset me. In both cases, outer circumstances can fuel or calm these thoughts. Still, specific thoughts aren’t the hallmark of the experience.

  Nor do I experience the distinction between sadness and depression based on the quality or quantity of my sad feelings. In both cases, I can feel hopeless, despairing, and overwhelmed. In both cases, outer circumstances can make these feelings better or worse. Still, specific feelings aren’t the hallmark of the experience.

  For me, the hallmarks of big-time depression are physical … visceral. More than the classic heaviness of sadness, it’s a scrim that coats my insides—a swath of sensation that runs from behind my eyes, through my tear ducts, down into the deep base of my throat, through my chest cavity, and into the formless abyss of my gut.