Carry the Ocean

by Heidi Cullinan

  “But how do I deal with it?” I’d been trying to be normal for years, but nothing worked.

  “The drugs you’re taking might help. But so will active therapy. Most of the help, though, will come directly from you. Like Emmet, you’ll have to work harder to adapt. But you can adapt. I’m not attempting to commit you. I want to understand the background of your decision to attempt to end your life. I’m asking you to try to determine if this was a singular event based on heightened emotions and a rare feeling of despair or if you often experience this level of dangerous depression.”

  I let out a shaking breath. “But we’re having a tough time finding the right drugs.” One had given me weird electrical shocks in my brain, and the next made me cry all the time. The one I was on now was better, but I worried it wouldn’t be right and I’d have to start all over again.

  “SSRIs and SNRIs, since they are powerful drugs working on a fragile organ, must be treated with care. Which is what we’re doing right now. Part of checking to see if the drugs are working are your answers to my questions.”

  I drew in a long, slow breath. “I think about killing myself all the time. Less since I’ve been here, but it’s almost a bad habit. Sometimes it’s because I’m upset. Sometimes it’s just there, like an option. I try not to think about it, but it’s not easy. It makes me feel safe, to know where the door is. Except that’s crazy.”

  He held up a hand. “I would prefer you refrain from using both that word and the word stupid.”

  “I am, though. Aren’t I? Crazy. I’m mentally ill.”

  “Mental illness is no different than a heart condition. In the same way a faulty valve can cause harm to the body and require medication and care, so does a malfunctioning brain. Insanity is a crude, culturally loaded term setting the sufferer apart in a way which will not aid the patient’s recovery. The way we regard those whose brains hinder them with fault or injury is a prejudice, not a diagnosis.”

  Where was this guy when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen? All I remembered from back then was my parents yelling. Maybe I should have attempted suicide long ago. Except, of course, what if I’d succeeded?

  “So what happens when we find the right drugs? Will I not be depressed anymore?”

  “Unfortunately, no medicine exists which can permanently or fully stop the thoughts and feelings depression and anxiety cause. We don’t understand enough yet what is going on, which makes the conditions difficult to treat. The best analogy I can give you for what SNRIs and SSRIs do is to say they’re a crutch, or a set of leg braces. You still need to walk and fight the limitations your brain gives you. But the medications, when carefully selected and administered, can become something to lean on and keep you from falling down so often.”

  The mental picture was clear. “But I wouldn’t ever run a marathon, and I’d walk a little jerky?”

  “You would walk, more regularly then you possibly ever have, and on good days you might even run a little ways. But no. With the levels of depression you’re describing, you will likely struggle with the tide of your emotions every day of your life. With proper care and assistance, this life can be a long and happy one.”

  I asked the question that in its way was more frightening than being committed, because in a way the questions felt linked. “What if my parents won’t let me take the drugs? What if I go home and my mom says I have to quit them?”

  Dr. North’s smile glinted. “Your parents do not make this decision. Your health care is private business between the two of us.”

  Hope fluttered in my chest. How was that possible? “I want to take the drugs. I want to try to be normal.”

  He raised a finger at me. “That’s another word I want you to eradicate from your vocabulary. There is no normal. There is not an invisible bar you must meet to be acceptable to society.”

  Yes there was. “I don’t want to be the moody guy who cries all the time and has panic attacks if the grocery store is loud.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being that guy. There’s nothing wrong with learning to manage yourself so you may react differently to stimuli, to control your environment, but being that man is being yourself. You are the young man your parents are eager to protect, the one Emmet is so fond of. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to impress him.”

  I appreciated what he said, but I felt he was deliberately misunderstanding me. “Dr. North, I want to go on dates and go to school and go shopping and…everything. I don’t want to live with my parents. I want to be the same as everyone else who graduates high school. I don’t want to feel this way.”

  “You can go on dates and go to school and go shopping, and everything. But you must do it as Jeremey Samson. You can no more erase your anxiety and intense emotional responses than I can become a sixty-year-old professional basketball player. What you can do is learn to manage your emotions. To learn how to tell yourself your feelings are not facts. That they seem real, are real, but that does not make them laws and truths.”

  I had felt so hopeful, and now I felt such despair. “So you’re saying I have to be a loser for the rest of my life? The guy everyone laughs at? The guy no one wants to be friends with? The kid his parents wish hadn’t been born?”

  “I have said none of those things. What I am saying is you can be yourself. Your best self. And your first step toward it is accepting and loving who you are.”

  “Then I’ll need to have Emmet around all the time. He’s the only one who makes me feel okay.”

  “When managing depression and anxiety, you must do the work, and you must do it yourself. It’s perfectly fine to feel stronger or better with Emmet or any friend or loved one. But you must never let them be the only way you’re stable. People are good medicine, but they can’t be your foundation of functionality. You must build that yourself.”

  Tears welled up so fast I could barely hold them back. “But I can’t. You don’t understand how impossible it is for me.”

  “This will be a challenge, yes. But you’ll get there, and I will help you. I promise.”

  I didn’t see how he could make that promise, but I didn’t argue, because I wanted to hope.

  The most difficult part about being in the hospital wasn’t the meds, or the loss of freedom, or the scariness of what would happen when I got out. It was my mom.

  She came every day, though honestly I wished she wouldn’t. I don’t mean to say unkind things about her or make her sound like a bad person. She loves me, and I know this. But sometimes I think she loves the boy she wishes I were a little more than she does the one she actually has.

  Mom always wants to fuss, but in the hospital she was unbearable. She took issue with the light in my room, saying there wasn’t enough. She didn’t like the bare walls. That I never got to go outside made her crazy—she lectured Dr. North and the nurses about fresh air. She criticized the food—and honestly, this I was down with. I didn’t tell her Althea brought me in amazing vegan dishes. She made me eat a lot of kale, which was only okay, but she also gave me these fruit salads with cashew cream and sometimes, if I’d been good, vegan and gluten-free cupcakes from the co-op, the same ones Carol had given us the day I’d had a panic attack outside of Wheatsfield. They were sweetened with maple syrup and were so good I thought I might die.

  I never made the joke out loud, though. I figured I’d kind of used everything up on that subject for a while.

  Mom wouldn’t have understood about Althea’s food, because basically the food I should be eating was the food she made at home. I should be at home.

  “When will they let you out?” That was always her first question when she came to visit. Not how are you doing? She made no remark about how I was looking so much healthier and happier. She always seemed sad, as if she were about to cry. She’d cover her mouth with her hand, or press her lips flat and shake her head, and ask me when I’d be able to go home. Go
back to normal.

  I didn’t know how to tell her she was the reason I wasn’t going home. I’d admitted to Dr. North the greatest threat to my mental health was her attempts to nag me out of my funks. He agreed with me. But this was my stumbling block: how to tell her. And, honestly, what to do instead of going home.

  As my tension over my inability to confront her grew, Emmet noticed. Of course, he had no problem asking me what was wrong.

  “Is it your meds?” He looked over my head as he sat beside me on the couch. “Are you dizzy?”

  “No. My meds are good. I feel a little foggy, but calmer. The world isn’t as sharp-edged.” I rubbed the butt of my palm nervously against my jeans. “The problem is my mom. I need to tell her she’s too intense, that she’s part of the problem. But I’m nervous. I don’t think it’s going to go well. And until I confront her, I can’t go home.”

  Emmet smiled, but it was a wicked smile that made my insides jumble up. “I don’t think you should go home. You should come live in an apartment with me.”

  I blinked, several times. “Live—in an apartment? Are you crazy? I thought you said you couldn’t handle that?”

  “No, I’m not crazy. You shouldn’t use that word.” He rocked back and forth, but I could tell it was happy Emmet, not nervous Emmet. “I can’t live in a regular apartment, but Mom found a special kind of place for us to live. You know the old elementary school on the street north of our houses?”

  I did—Roosevelt School was an old brick schoolhouse which had closed before I went to kindergarten. People had a huge fit about it closing, and four times people tried to reopen it, but it never did. There had been a lot of construction around it lately. “What about it?”

  “They’re turning it into apartments. It’s called The Roosevelt now. It’ll be open soon. I asked to see the blueprints. I didn’t know about how blueprints worked exactly, but I read a book and did some research, and I think they did a good job.” He smiled his mischievous smile. “The Roosevelt was full, but Mom talked the owner into letting us have a room they were using for one of the social workers. They’ll share an apartment so we can have a place in the new building. We could move in there. Together. We could both be independent.”

  The idea was wonderful and terrible all at once. I didn’t know how to respond. “I don’t have any money, or a job. And neither do you.”

  “My mom and dad have a lot of money. They’ll pay for you if they have to. It’s a good idea. It’s a two-room apartment. We could each have our own space. But we’re close to our parents if we need help. Wheatsfield is still within walking distance, and so is the bus stop.”

  “But, Emmet, I don’t have any money. And my parents will never pay.”

  “Dr. North can help you find an appropriate job. Sitting around isn’t healthy. You need to stimulate your brain. Just carefully so you don’t get overwhelmed.”

  He made it all sound so easy. He didn’t address at all the boyfriend issue, which to me was the bigger obstacle. It couldn’t be okay to move in together after basically admitting we liked each other for a few weeks. Except who else could I possibly live with? Nobody else would understand me the way Emmet could.

  Also, if we lived in the same apartment, we could have sex. The drugs dulled the yearning a little bit, but only when Emmet wasn’t in the room. When he was with me, like right now, talking and planning and being so bright, all I wanted to do was kiss him and touch him.

  He touched me now, taking my hand and squeezing it. “Say yes, Jeremey. Say you want to move in with me.”

  Yes. I want to move in with you. “We…we have to talk to Dr. North.”

  “We will. At group.” He fixed his gaze on my hairline and touched my cheek. “But it isn’t time for therapy yet.”

  Oh, it was—my favorite kind of therapy. We sat there on the couch, Emmet holding my hand and kissing me sweetly…then not so sweetly.

  Our kisses were never movie kisses with suave bending-you-over, full-body clinches. Sometimes our kisses were awkward. But they were always passionate, and they always made me feel good. They made me feel. For as much trouble as I had with Dr. North’s I want statements, when Emmet and I kissed, I knew everything I wanted, and I wanted so much it rattled around in my head. I wanted to kiss him. Touch him. Take off his clothes. Explore all the things about sex I’d read about or watched. I wanted to touch his cock. Maybe put it in my mouth. Do things.

  Kissing him now, when he’d filled my head with ideas about living on my own—oh, it couldn’t happen, but being able to dream about not having to go home was better than a whole bag of SNRIs.

  To my surprise, when we went to group and Emmet told Dr. North his idea about the apartment, our therapist was in favor of the plan. “I was already looking into group home situations for you, Jeremey, but this could work out far better.”

  I couldn’t believe this. “But—I don’t have any money. And there’s no way my mom will go along with this.”

  “She might surprise you. Even if she didn’t, you can supplement your half of expenses with disability payments, though I’d like to see you begin part-time work. I’d entertain college if it’s what you wanted, but given what you’ve told me about school, a break might not be a bad idea.”

  I didn’t want to go to college. I didn’t want anything to do with school ever again. “But…how can it be okay for us to live on our own?”

  “You’re both over eighteen,” Dr. North pointed out. “You’re legal adults, and there’s nothing wrong with living on your own, provided you’re given assistance. Your families will help, but you both need case workers as well. Someone to help you learn how to go shopping, pay bills, do laundry. Live your life. And handily, The Roosevelt has two social workers on staff.”

  I didn’t know what to say. All I could think was how this couldn’t be real. “Are you saying we can do this, just like that?” Even if we’re boyfriends? We hadn’t even had a date yet. How could we possibly move in together?

  Dr. North smiled sadly. “No. It won’t be quite so easy. But it’s a good idea, one worth exploring.”

  We did explore it—two days later I had my first outing in almost a month, and it was to get in Althea’s car and drive to The Roosevelt. There was still a lot of construction outside, which made me nervous to go in, but when they saw us, they took a break, and the building’s owner gave us a personal tour.

  Emmet seemed to know him well already. “Did you get the fire ladders, Bob?”

  Bob smiled at Emmet. “I did. You can come see them for yourself.” He grinned. “Is this your friend?”

  “My boyfriend.” Emmet stared at the wall between us. “Jeremey, this is Bob Loris, the owner of The Roosevelt. Bob, this is Jeremey Samson. We’re going to move into your building.”

  “That’s what I keep hearing. I like it.” Bob extended his hand to me. “Good to meet you, son.”

  Bob showed us the whole building. It was weird, how you could see how it used to be a school, and yet it looked totally different at the same time. We went into one of the apartments upstairs—number six, which was the one Emmet said he wanted.

  “It has a view of the train tracks, so I can count the cars and engines. Bob put in fire ladders for safety. If you jumped out of these windows, you’d break your neck, or your legs, or maybe both. But now we have the ladders, so it’s fine.”

  I had to admit, I liked the apartment. A lot. I couldn’t tell what it had been before—maybe two classrooms? It had two bedrooms with a bathroom between them, a small laundry in the closet off the kitchen, and a kitchen and dining room that opened into the living room. The ceilings were so much higher than I’d ever have guessed they’d be. Each room had a ceiling fan, which Emmet would appreciate, because he loved them. The one in his bedroom at home had a remote, and he loved to slow it down, wait until it stopped, then start it up again. I had a feeling he’d be talking Bob into r
emote-controlled fans, if he hadn’t already.

  Emmet kept rocking, and sometimes he flapped his hands. He’d done it around me only a few times, but I was surprised he did it in front of Bob. I glanced between the two of them, worried Bob would stop being so friendly toward him, but it never happened. On the way to the hospital, I found out why.

  “Bob is a good guy. He built this place because of his son, who was in a bad car accident and can’t move from his neck down, except for a little bit of his right hand. He wants somewhere for David to live where he can be on his own but still have help.”

  The comment made me balk. What, this was the special ed building? But I supposed that’s what I was now. Special ed. Special needs.

  Better the special needs house than your home.

  As I lay in bed that night, the room dark and quiet, the nurses and aides moving through the hallway, the guy next door to me crying because that was what he did at night—I thought about The Roosevelt.

  It still stung a little that it wasn’t a regular apartment building. I wondered who else would live there, what kind of disabilities they’d have. I hated the idea that this was who I was, someone with a disability. That even if I wanted to go to college, I’d have to have adaptations like Emmet did. And I still didn’t understand why everyone was so whatever about us moving in together so fast. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I just…worried maybe it was too soon.

  During the day those truths had burned, but as I lay there in the dark, I closed my eyes and imagined living in The Roosevelt. I imagined looking out at the train tracks with Emmet, enjoying his silence as he counted. Walking down the street to the co-op to buy food. Making dinner in the cozy kitchen.