by Dana Bowman
I don’t think separate triggers actually happen at all, when hormones come into full play. I think, perhaps, just one big, huge, colossal trigger slowly digests all the other ones like a great hormonal amoeba of destruction, and from there on you are batshit crazy.
That’s when you just need to say, “Well, folks, I’m out. I’m moving to a tiny house in Colorado Springs for a while. It’s for your safety and mine. I promise I’ll stay sober, although I do hope some hipsters smoke a lot of pot in the tiny house a half acre over, so I can live vicariously off the fumes. It’s legal there, you know. And at the worst, I’ll probably just hyperventilate from deep-breathing all that mountain air. I will return once this hormone ride ends. I made some casseroles. They’re in the freezer. Good luck to you all.”
When a woman hits menopause, all states should mandate that she get her own tiny house experience. They do this in Sweden, and their crime rate is super low. I think I read about that in Martha Stewart Living, so it’s the law. I think it would help out healthcare and the divorce rates in the United States, too. And how about this: Menopause? Nope. Meno-paid leave. I can see it on a bumper sticker.
What we do with triggers is what matters. I once tried to explain this ideology to my infuriated five-year-old after he had a meltdown because his evil brother ate his Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Honestly, I felt for the kid. This was a serious offense. But, as I sat next to him and he heave-cried into my shoulder, I explained, wisely, “It’s not bad to get angry. It’s what we do with the anger that can be the problem. And honey, I know you are mad, but threatening to drop your brother’s candy stash into the litter box, while a creative idea, is just plain old revenge. And we don’t do that. It doesn’t help our hearts. Besides, it confuses the heck out of the cat. Is it food? Is it a litter box? That sort of thing.”
I’m no longer out to get revenge on my triggers. Granted, when I first got sober I did pretty much whatever it took to stay that way. I fought dirty. I ate a lot of junk food, lifting crinkly wrappers up to the heavens and saying, “TAKE THAT, ALCOHOL. I SHALL SMITE THEE WITH SOUR PATCH KIDS. VENGEANCE IS MINE!” I plugged myself into whatever soul-soothing, mindless escape I could to get through another day. And after a while, the Sour Patch Kids ended up as a dessert option, not one of the four food groups.
It’s all in the reaction. If Mr. Trigger rears his ugly little head and I shriek and swat at him like he’s a spider, then that’s panic, and panic does not heal. Instead, there should be some breathing, a few prayers, and maybe even a phone call or a text to reach out. In other words, there needs to be a little wait time before I react all over the place because then my reactions are a little less crash-and-burn. It’s almost as though I need to imagine that all triggers must have a twenty-four-hour waiting period before purchasing, or something like that.
Back in the train restaurant’s bathroom, I decided that I had stared at my reflection in the mirror long enough. Another lady entered, and it was getting weird. I breathed deeply, said the Serenity Prayer in my head, and applied my lipstick, MAC’s Lady Danger. Appropriate.
Then, I exited and entered back into the sideshow attraction that was my family trying to leave the restaurant. Charlie came up to me, all aglow, with an idea.
“Mom, MOM, I just went to the BATHROOM,” he exclaimed, like there should be a prize involved. “And you know what? I think? You know what? Do you? Know?”
All children talk like this. They’re not on drugs. It’s just what they do.
I kept nodding and smiling because really I wasn’t going to try to engage yet. Nothing had been said, and I don’t think he would have heard me if I responded, anyway. SpongeBob was singing at us over our heads.
“I think this place is awesome. BUT. THEY REALLY NEED TO PUT TRAINS IN THE BATHROOM TOO. LIKE, TOOT TOOOOOOOOT!!! HERE’S YOUR TOILET PAPER! DON’TCHA THINK?”
Perhaps I spoke too soon about those drugs.
I No Longer Have the Damn Time for the Following
(Triggers from a bunch of my recovery friends on social media)
1.“Marathon hang-outs, such as gathering before and after a dinner, or events that are used as excuses to get sloshed, such as football games and music festivals.” —Ellen
2.“Welcome receptions, drinks, dinners at conferences. No, thanks. You don’t miss anything important anyway.” —Karen
3.“Children. Laundry. Clutter. Overwhelm.” —Emily
4.“Work holiday parties and happy hours.” —Katie
5.“Same!” —Jessica
6.“Family!!! I just say NO!!!!” —Jeanette
7.“First-class upgrades. I don’t say “no” to them, because I’ve found other ways to make it fun and special (and it’s still more comfy), but it’s a trigger.” —Ingrid
8.“Me too! I flew first class during my first month of sobriety and thought it was the universe playing the most cruel joke on me! And I think one of my biggest triggers is listening to my dad tell his old drinking stories. It’s weird because I was not even alive when he was having these experiences, but they make me nostalgic for a reckless fun that was never even mine to begin with.” —L.P.
9.“Good news celebrations. I’m already guarded against bad news WTFs.” —Betsy
10.“Boredom!” —Jan
And finally:
11.“Chuck E. Cheese’s. That place is just awful.” —Me
* * *
PART THREE
enough
“I never talked. Then, I drank and I talked all over the place.
Then, I quit drinking. And I had to learn how to listen.”
—ME
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HOW TO
be sad
If someone wants to talk to you and begins by asking if you are sitting down, you sit down.
You always sit down.
My sister called me at work. And then she started the conversation with the whole “sitting down” thing, and it all went downhill from there. She told me she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was Halloween.
I hung up the phone and stared into space, trying to figure out what to feel. I knew I should feel a lot of things: scared, sad, mad, or any combination of the three. Instead, what I felt was . . . nothing. I felt a blurred absence of any feelings whatsoever. And that was when I first thought something was seriously wrong with me in the feelings department.
I have dealt with depression all my life. In my teens and twenties it was a frenetic, manic brand. I remember some instances when I was nearly immobilized from anxiety or gloom, and then, in a span of an hour, I was over it. I had no clue what to do with sadness except to gather it in a soulful embrace, like I was Cindy Lauper in her video for “Time After Time,” serenading it at a rain-drenched window. Plus, sadness was also kind of cool. I wore black. I listened to Yaz’s “In My Room” on repeat. Sadness and I were quite an item. I wore a lot of wine-colored lipstick and watched Twin Peaks.
But as I got older, every once in a while, the sadness didn’t feel right. I wanted to wear pink. I was tired of trying to like Pearl Jam. And I would try to shrug it off, like my oversize flannel shirts, but the sadness would stay.
Perhaps I trained it to stay. I don’t know. When all you do is listen to Radiohead’s “Creep” on repeat for days, then maybe you rewire your synapses. Either way, sadness had slouched over to my futon and asked me, “Dude, can I crash?” I didn’t know how to ask him to leave. It seemed impolite.
I dated a guy when I was in my late twenties who was cute, kind, and smart. He was the total package, if you’re into that kind of thing. Nate was enthusiastic about KU basketball. For those of you not well versed in the best college ever, KU stands for Kansas University. He didn’t paint his chest red and blue or anything like that, but our dating life involved attending a lot of games. And I did so, also enthusiastically, for weeks. I located all my old KU sweatshirts, put my hair up into a high ponytail, and channeled my inner cheerleader. I knew she was in there somew
here, buried underneath a decade of The Cure and loving inappropriate men. But about three months into the relationship, I found myself disenchanted. It was a lot of work, trying to be so perky all the time. Nate was so cheerful. He liked puppies, and he called his mom every week.
I found it exhausting.
I broke up with Nate and I never really looked back. I didn’t find myself listening to Hootie & the Blowfish and missing him. But I wanted to miss him. I wondered what might have been. Would I have glommed on to the cheerful? Would it have finally sunk in enough to stick around?
In my thirties, I found Jesus. This phrase always makes it sound like he was stuffed under a couch cushion or something, but you know what I mean. My life found its center point, and it was worth celebrating. And I did, and still do, because grace deserves joy. Grace creates joy.
But I still got depressed.
I didn’t really know why. I thought Jesus had it in his contract to fix that sort of thing for me, but as I came to find out, life is still hard.
Maybe it was because bad things happened. My grandparents died. My boyfriends left.
September 11, 2001, set me off into a lump of weariness for weeks. But with events in my own life—things a therapist would call “situational depression”—I experienced a weird state I can only describe as numb dread. This was what I felt when my sister told me about her cancer. It was like closing thick, dark curtains on a window and then sitting right in front of it, wanting to feel anything—warmth from the sun, rain, or a cold breeze. But instead, I felt mummified.
And then, I would get depressed for no reason at all. I mean, there’s hormones. I know about those. And it could be a brain thing, some sort of chemical imbalance. This always makes me picture my brain with little tiny brainy arms all flung out, trying to walk across a balance beam with a lot of frantic waving and sometimes toppling over with a thud.
It’s a seesaw of weird synapses. Tragedy occurs; I respond with grim acceptance. Commonplace events happen; I respond with hardcore despair that wrenches my gut and leaves me spinning. So, in sum, I prefer the big tragic events. Those hit me, and I descend, yet I feel relief. “This is doable,” I think. “My sister has breast cancer, and I can function. I’m operating heavy machinery. I’m walking and talking. Look at me, depressed and still all vertical about it.” It does drum up guilt, though. “Here I am, with a sick sister on Halloween, and I feel guilty about my constant self-regulation of this whole thing. I suck. What kind of sister am I? It’s so depressing.”
And on and on.
Overwhelming dread, brought on by no discernible reason whatsoever, is what I deal with today. Still. Even after recovery. Even after spiritual awakenings.
And even after marriage and children, which is supposedly the apex of womanhood and bliss—as fifty thousand mom blogs with all their cute jewelry and chalkboard memes will tell you. Parenting, in fact, can corner the market on woe. But I digress.
One afternoon not long ago, I woke up, got dressed, brushed my teeth, and sent my two cherubs off to school. Then, something in my stomach seemed to shrivel, and all I could feel was pain. It wasn’t sharp or searing like the scorch of a burned finger from a hot pan. This was a dull thud in my gut. It crawled up into my throat and gripped hard.
I walked into the kitchen and wiped off the counter. I stared out the window. I walked into the living room and sat on the couch. I got up and got the mail.
I sat back down on the couch. I stared at my hands.
My house, it seemed, had filled up with water that morning. It felt like I was sinking. Chairs and couches and beds were spots onto which I could tether myself and get my breath. But everywhere else, I had to paddle. Just to get from one end of the dining room to the kitchen took what felt like Olympic effort, and I am a lousy swimmer to start.
This is depression.
And there was absolutely no reason for a flood. Outside, the sun was bright, and the day had the easy warmth of late summer. My bills were paid. My children were well-dressed and attractive. My pets were all fluffy and cute. The previous day, I woke up, dressed, brushed my teeth, and proceeded to walk through my day without even as much as a paper cut. Today, I was drowning in my living room.
And all the while, while treading water, I was trying to figure out where the water had come from.
Floods don’t really make room in their schedules for this kind of analysis. They just pour water in all over the place, and you spend your time in other worthy endeavors like escaping. Figuring out how this all happened comes later when the insurance guy shows up.
Because sadness needs to mean something, doesn’t it? If not, that’s just cruelty, and this world has enough of that.
It’s confusing. If I pay too much attention to depression, it grows. It’s like a toddler who has to have the meltdown in the superstore. There are times when the only way to survive is to plod along with eyes averted while the kid wails about the Ninja Turtles cereal and rattles the bars of the shopping cart.
But then, if I ignore depression, it grows. And then, one day, it becomes the sullen teenager who sneaks out at midnight and gets arrested. The cry for help is real.
On my slowly sinking, depression days, I tend to find a spot where I can sit and watch the waves for a while, like my bed. Usually a cat or two jumps up to join me, and we stay dry for a bit. We wrap up in a blanket and watch the water rise, and I have a conversation with God that starts like this: “Really? Why? What now?”
I curl up onto my side. All I can hear is this echoed refrain in my head: “Oh, please. Please help. The water is so cold.”
There is no big solution for depression. I can’t pull some universal stopper and watch the waters recede to one final circling flourish around the drain. It’s not easy or tidy, and any more water analogies are not going to wash it away. Medication can help, and yes, it’s totally okay for people in recovery, even me. Journaling and exercise help, too. Counseling is always a good option if you can make sure to find a therapist who isn’t creepy and doesn’t ask for hugs when you don’t want to give them. It’s all so tedious and messy and depressing, dealing with depression.
This is where my children come in handy. I knew they would make themselves useful at some point, and in this case they’ve become like those therapy dogs. They can sniff out trouble within seconds, and then bammo, they’re at your side, all wiggly with wet noses. However, their main therapy tactic is to annoy you into distraction by repeatedly asking for snacks with Ninja Turtles on them.
I cannot help but listen when my children are asking after me. Because that is all they seem to do: ask for things. Children so rarely come up and just say, “Why hello there, Mother. Lovely day, isn’t it? Would you like some tea?” This would be grand, but it would also be weird, like my children had been replaced by a British butler named Barnaby, and butlers make me nervous. (Note: This is purely theory. I have never actually encountered a living butler, or even a dead one.)
Instead, their questions push and prod and require an answer, and unless I want to delve into totally horrible parenting, I try to avoid that even on my worst days. Common courtesy requires that I answer my children when they ask me thirty times that day, “Mom? Mom? Can we play Wii?”—if only to establish that no, for the thirtieth time, they cannot. Repetition is our love language.
When I was drinking, I did not listen well. I chattered away and clattered about and turned up the music, and all the noise and ruckus kept me from really hearing anything at all. Until, of course, I was silenced by my own addiction, and no amount of noise came through. That’s how alcoholism works. It works itself up into a great din with a crash of cymbals and timpanis. It’s the final bars of some great opera, exuberant, loud, and long. But then, the music always stops. One way or the other, the music always stops.
My sad days would be poured into a glass when I was drinking, and lo, instant fix. The glass, and its contents, worked. I would pour a glass of Pinot Grigio, the music would swell, and relief would come. I
didn’t need counseling, or journals, or medicine, or God. I had wine. It did all the work for me.
Until, of course, it stopped doing any work at all. Wine, like duct tape, always functions well at first. But then it frays and gets all gummy and makes you look like a slob. But you rarely notice because, well, it’s wine.
When I quit drinking, I was scared to listen. I was afraid I would hear things such as “You are the worst mother” and “You are never going to get better” and “Why try? What is the point?”
And when I quit drinking, that is exactly what happened.
Sad days would descend. And with them came a sick certainty that I was the worst mother.
I would never get better.
And there was no point.
When I listen to my children, I am in the habit of bending down and leaning in toward their faces. I know this makes me sound lovely and maternal, but really? My boys use these breathy, teensy voices at the weirdest times, and so I need to get millimeters away to just hear them. Incidentally, this tiny-voice thing sounds cute and all, but it only occurs when we are alone. If others are around, for example my pastor, or really anyone, my children like to bellow things such as “WHY DO THE BACKS OF YOUR LEGS LOOK LIKE THAT?” These types of conversations are often completely ignored, because as much as I advocate for common courtesy, I know better than to engage with them because I might kill them.
In my sadness, I picture myself leaning down and listening to me. I put my hand on my shoulder and look into my eyes and come in close. I can’t carry any journals or a Bible or even a counselor’s office number scrawled on a slip of paper in my hands because they are placed on the shoulders of the child who is me. My hands are full. I have no other thing to do but listen.