by Cat Marnell
“Are you okay?” the stylist said.
“I just didn’t sleep last night,” I sniffled. God, I hated myself. I hated myself. I counted the bundles as they hit the floor. One. Two. Three. Four.
Chapter Eleven
BY EARLY SUMMER, I WAS the sickest I’d ever been in my life. I was so desperate to feel better that I did the unthinkable: called my family, told the truth, and begged for help.
I must have been extra exhausted and really deep into the darkness. I don’t remember the first part of the conversation that I had with my mom, just that I was crying really hard on the phone and I just . . . told her.
“I think I’m addicted to Adderall,” I sobbed. “I think I have a serious problem.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Let me get Dad.”
I sat there weeping in the mouse apartment surrounded by chaos, not knowing what the hell was about to happen.
“Cait?” my dad said, picking up the phone.
“Hi—h-hi—h-hi, Dad,” I hiccuped.
“Tell your dad what you just told me,” my mom said.
“I’m—I’m—” I was crying so hard I could barely talk. “I think I’m addicted to Adderall.”
“WHAT?!” my dad roared. “WHAT?!”
“I’m addicted to it, Dad!” I screamed. “I’m addicted to Adderall!”
“But that’s impossible!” he sputtered. Oh, Dad. He knows better now (as do a lot of doctors). “Adderall isn’t addictive!”
What?!
“Yes it is, Dad,” I cried. “I’m sure it is! I take like ten pills a day! I have a serious problem!”
He was livid.
“Well, that’s it, Cato,” he snarled. As in Cato Potato. “You’re not getting any more from me!”
“I don’t want it anymore!” I sobbed. “I’m just trying to tell you the truth!”
My dad hung up.
“Mom,” I whimpered.
“We’ll figure this out,” she said. “Maybe you should go back on Ritalin. Hmm.”
What did you just DO?! My addiction screamed. You fool!
* * *
Sure enough, my dad never wrote me a prescription again. But my mother did come up to New York the next week to take me to an ADHD specialist (and also do a little shopping).
Dr. Julia Jones did not take insurance. Swag! Her practice, Manhattan Neuropsychiatric, PC, was on Forty-Eighth Street in midtown—a mere six-minute power walk from Condé Nast. She was in her late thirties, with great legs and board certifications in psychiatry and neurology. I wouldn’t be able to pull the wool over her eyes. But that was okay. Maybe she could actually help me feel better.
She charged three hundred dollars per forty-five-minute appointment. My mom came along to meet her.
“I’ve heard such wonderful things about you, Julia,” my mom said.
“Her name is Dr. Jones!” I said.
“Oh, sorry,” my mom said. “Dr. Jones. My husband and I are also mental health professionals, so . . .” I rolled my eyes. “I’m sitting in today because, well, I don’t really trust Caitlin. My husband and I are paying for this, and it’s a lot of money to spend if she’s not going to be telling you the truth.”
Dr. Jones looked at me.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“So,” my mom began. “Let me give you the situation from a mom’s perspective. Caitlin has had ADHD her whole life. My husband and I had her tested at NIH to make sure. She’s textbook. Chaotic . . . irresponsible . . .” My eyes glazed over. “We sent her to a wonderful boarding school . . . put her on Ritalin . . . signed her up for neurofeedback . . . She didn’t like it . . .” They’d tried to attach wires to my head! “It’s crisis to crisis . . .” Dr. Jones scribbled notes. “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah . . .” I tuned out. I’d heard this stuff a million times. “And then there was . . . the abortion.”
“The pregnancy,” I snapped.
“She got kicked out of her boarding school six weeks before graduation and they told us she was pregnant and on drugs,” my mom continued. “When we got home to DC, we found out she was at almost five months.”
“Mmm,” Dr. Jones said.
“We’ve tried everything . . .” my mom went on. “Her ADHD is out of control. There’s always another disaster around the corner.”
“Caitlin—” Dr. Jones started.
“It was just so awful.” My mom was still going. “I took her to the clinic. It was horrible. Just horrible. And then Caitlin moved to New York. We paid for her life here. She and her father have barely spoken since. They haven’t had a relationship for years.”
“Mmm,” Dr. Jones said, scribbling notes.
“I can’t talk to him,” I said. “He’s—”
“Caitlin’s dad just adored her when she was little,” my mom interrupted.
I stared at a potted plant.
“I just want to help Caitlin,” my mom said. “With her ADHD medication. She called recently and said she was having . . . some pretty major . . . issues with her Adderall.” My mom sat back. “So that’s why we’re here. To find something else.”
Dr. J. scribbled more notes. Now I was looking up at the ceiling.
“Caitlin?” Dr. Jones said. “Do you have anything to add?”
I thought about this.
“Young female bodies are built to get pregnant, you know,” I said coolly. I was still gazing up at the ceiling. “And it’s been that way since the dawn of time.”
We all sat there for a moment.
“Why don’t Caitlin and I have some one-on-one time?” Dr. Jones suggested.
My mom didn’t look too pleased.
“I just want to make sure we get her on the right medication,” she said. “For her ADHD.”
“Got it.” Dr. Jones nodded.
My mom left the room. Dr. Jones watched the door close. Then she turned back to me.
“So,” Dr. J. said. “What’s really going on?”
“I’m not a failure!” I said. “I work at Condé Nast.”
“Okay,” Dr. J. said.
“And my problem isn’t ADHD,” I added. “It’s drugs.”
“Explain,” Dr. Jones said.
I’d never told the truth to a psychiatrist before. Once I started, I couldn’t stop! I told her about the doctor shopping, the bulimia. I told her about my crazy apartment and the nightclubs and the cocaine and the ecstasy and the sleeping pills and the champagne. I told her that I thought I didn’t love my family, about how I thought no one in my family really loved each other. I told her about the Adderall, the Adderall XR, the Dexedrine, the Provigil, the Vyvanse, the Valium. The Ambien, the boxes of Lunesta and Sonata I’d been swiping from my dad’s office since I was a teenager . . . I told her everything!
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, scribbling notes and listening to all this.
“And then I left my Xanax bottle,” I said, “at the Genius Bar, you know, and the Apple Store called me and were all, ‘We have your prescription bottle,’ but I never got it back, so I couldn’t sleep for like two weeks, plus my friend Marco bought this crack rock and I hated it because it made me so cranky but I kept smoking it anyway and then at work I was so tired that I was all—”
BUZZZZZ. Dr. Jones’s next appointment arrived.
“We have to stop,” she said.
“Wow!” I said. “I feel ten pounds lighter!”
“You need to go to rehab,” Dr. Jones said.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Rehab,” she repeated. “Cat. You are in serious trouble.”
I was?!
“I can’t go to rehab!” I said. “I have a job!”
“Okay, well,” Dr. J. said. “You have to come see me twice a week. And you can’t see anyone else. The ‘old guys.’
”
“I can’t promise you that,” I said. “But I will be honest about when I see them and what I get from them.”
She considered this.
“Fine—for now,” she said. “So . . . deal?”
“Deal!” I said. I mean, I wasn’t paying for it.
* * *
Dr. Jones tried to help me. For a while, she truly did. I stopped seeing other doctors for about five weeks straight. She prescribed me a cute pink mood stabilizer called Lamictal, which sounded like a dinosaur and could give you a deadly rash. She weaned me off Seroquel and Xanax bars with adorable quarter-milligram Klonopin wafers that tasted like strawberries. They came in bubble-gum-pink boxes and popped out of foil like Alka-Seltzer. My new friend Marco and I would pass a sheet like kids sharing candy.
“Your new psychiatrist is the best!” Marco would say. (More on him later.)
“Right?” I drooled.
Dr. Jones also finally agreed to prescribe ADHD medication—she knew I’d get the pills elsewhere if she didn’t. But she wrote up a special contract where I had to promise that I wouldn’t use other stimulant drugs—cocaine, Adderall, crack, whatever—or, again, see other doctors. I signed, and she prescribed me a week’s worth of Concerta, a once-a-day, navy-colored . . . pellet.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” I said. It was the drug equivalent of portion control, and I was a binge eater.
“Just try it,” Dr. Jones said.
Concerta was wack—Ritalin-ish; amateur hour. It wasn’t long before I was uptown scoring Gladerall—breaking my agreement. I didn’t tell Dr. Jones.
By the first week of August, I was a mess. It didn’t take long for me to violate the cocaine clause as well—at a party in a suite at the Union Square W Hotel. I left with a white rapper and hooked up with him in his Chelsea recording studio, where a plaque fell off the wall and split my face open between my eyebrows. My face bled all day at work and the wound wouldn’t stop.
“Maybe you should go home,” my intern told me. I was hiding in the beauty closet, trying to fix it.
“It’s fine,” I said. No one asked too many questions. Everyone at Lucky was focused on getting the November issue shipped before they took their summer breaks. (As a rule, Condé Nasties generally don’t work in August.)
I walked home along Broadway that evening. You MUST stay in and sleep, I told myself. I was so tired; plus, I had a special appointment with Dr. Jones in the morning. She was all excited to give me some expensive neurological test. My parents had agreed to pay for it.
That night, I slipped under the covers with a dog-eared copy of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections and was asleep by eleven. Just kidding! Charlotte and I went to the Box on Chrystie Street and watched a surly drag queen light her dick on fire. We were still drunk at dawn, so Charlotte took me on a tour of “Bob Dylan’s Greenwich Village.” At eight o’clock, I went home and dipped into a bath; changed into a navy chiffon Theory slip, my leopard-print Louis Vuitton–Stephen Sprouse scarf, and strappy black Givenchy platforms; applied NARS Cruella to my lips and dabbed a little Laura Mercier Secret Concealer on my crusty forehead wound; hit Dunkin’ for an extralarge iced coffee with half-and-half and no sugar, please; and took a taxi to midtown for my appointment.
I thought I looked pretty good, but apparently not. Dr. Jones’s hand flew to her mouth the second I walked into her office.
“What?” I said.
“You have to go to rehab!” Dr. Jones cried out. Do psychiatrists “cry out”? Am I remembering this correctly? She looked very afraid. “I can’t treat you anymore until you do!”
“Okay,” I said. I never took the test.
Dr. Jones said she’d make arrangements at Silver Hill Hospital in Connecticut, and that she’d call my mother. I had to tell my boss. It was ten o’clock in the morning. I stumbled down Sixth Avenue in a daze.
Am I really about to do this? I thought in the Condé elevator. There would be no going back.
Jean was in her office.
“I have to talk to you,” I said straightaway—so I wouldn’t lose my nerve.
“Okay . . .” Jean looked up. “Come on in.” I shut the door behind me.
Over the next forty minutes, I told my boss . . . well, not everything. But I told her a lot. I cried a lot, too.
“I care about this job so much,” I sobbed. “I love working for you. It’s the most important thing in my life.” I meant every word. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. Please, please, please know that.”
“Your job will be here when you get back,” Jean said firmly. She was so supportive, so kind. “Look at me. Do not worry about that.” So loving. “Take as much time as you need.” I was so relieved. “I admire you so much for telling me the truth and taking this step to get well.” She’d deal with Human Resources, she told me, and I’d be placed on paid disability leave.
I cabbed home. I’d scheduled car service to Connecticut, but just after dark, my dad called. He’d hopped in his car and driven up from DC. And now he was downstairs in front of my building. Surprise!
I looked around. Stella Artois bottles cluttered the windowsills, pill bottles were lined up like toy soldiers on the kitchen counter, full ashtrays were by the bed. What could I do? Nothing. So I buzzed him up and listened as he ascended the vile carpeted stairs. Then my father stepped into the apartment he was paying for and saw my life.
“Hi, Dad,” I said.
He didn’t even say hello back. I was in big trouble. I watched him take everything in. It was not good.
“Goddammit,” he finally said.
“Dad, I haven’t been well . . .” Then I just shut up.
He walked over to my bookshelves, where I had my collection of “drug rep” stuff he’d given me over the years—an Adderall XR stapler, a Prozac basketball, a Zyprexa brain puzzle, a pill-shaped Ambien XR squeeze toy.
(“You really like this crap?” he used to ask me, amused. “Yes!” I’d tell him. “Bring home more!”)
“GODDAMMIT!” He knocked it all to the floor.
That night, my dad slept on the sofa while I messed around in the bathroom until two o’clock, packing makeup and applying Clarins Delicious Self Tanning Cream. I took a Lunesta; my dad woke me up at six. I trudged to the bathroom. My tan looked fantastic! I was ready for rehab.
* * *
My dad and I zoomed up the . . . I don’t really know what that road is from New York City to Connecticut, but it is extremely good looking as roads go. Zillions of trees. The drive was an hour or so. New Canaan was as gorgeous as a movie set. Stepford Wives! The houses were storybook classic, with converted barns and vegetable gardens and gazebos and raspberry bushes. Summer squash and guesthouses. You get the idea.
We were mad early for my ten o’clock admissions appointment, so we cruised around the ritzy little town. There was a Ralph Lauren Rugby store and a J.Crew. Then we had breakfast at a little diner. Well, I had breakfast. Pancakes! My dad looked really skinny; he had just quit carbs, and his hair was white and he was wearing khaki pants. Slacks. He didn’t eat; he just stared at me. I dove right in when the food arrived. It tasted so good; I hadn’t taken any Adderall that morning, and I was starving. When was the last time I had a fucking pancake?
“Cait,” my dad kept . . . growling, almost. “This is it.”
“I know, Dad,” I said.
“This is the end.” He was like a wolf! “It stops now.”
“I know, Dad,” I said. God, he was grim! Was this real maple syrup?!
I cleaned my plate. Then we drove to Silver Hill Hospital. It was almost as pretty as my prep school: sprawling and green, with gardeners on tractors everywhere. There was a red clay tennis court and a chapel and a big grassy hill. The main building looked like something Taylor Swift would buy to impress the Kennedys: huge as a cruise ship, and white with black shutters. Very moneyed New
England.
We drove over a bridge and I spotted a Tudor house that I knew I’d seen before. But where?
“That’s the house from Edie!” I shrieked, launching myself halfway out the car window like my parents’ pet boxer at the dog park. “Edie Sedgwick stayed there!” I’d only read her biography two hundred times. My dad gave me a death stare; I guess I wasn’t supposed to be excited. I’d forgotten that the Warhol star had been one of my new rehab’s most famous patients! Her brother, Minty, had even hung himself at Silver Hill. I believe he used his own pants.
My dad and I got out of the car. Gosh, the air smelled divine—like pinecones! And like fresh-cut grass. Silver Hill should really make a candle; it would be a bestseller. Anyway, my dad and I sat in the admissions office. There were lots of wonderful snacks in the waiting room, like delicious buttery shortbread cookies, and I ate them and ate them. I was ravenous, as I said. Besides, I just love shortbread, don’t you? My dad ate absolutely zero snacks, even though we were waiting like two hours. And the two hours felt like ten hours, because I knew he just hated me.
“Ms. Marnell?” Finally! Intake took another hour. We went over my drug history, medications I was on, yadda yadda yadda.
“Where do you work?” the lady asked.
“Condé Nast Publications,” I said proudly. “Magazine publishing.”
She smiled.
“Of course,” she said. “We have people here from Condé all the time.” Say what?!
Then intake was over, and a cute man came and took my suitcase. I was looking around, anticipating what new adventures were to come, waiting— Ack! Suddenly I was wrapped in a tight bear hug.
“This is it, Cait,” my dad was saying. Oh, Jesus.
“I know, Dad,” I mumbled into his button-down, trying to pull away just a smidgen.
But he just squeezed me tighter—like he was part boa constrictor or something!
“This is it.”
“Got it.” My face was all smooshed into his chest. Then my dad kissed me—on the head!