We battled over the issue for several weeks. In the end we agreed I would not take medication every day, but only when I was ‘acting up’ – a condition to be determined by my father – at which point I was taking the pill even if they had to administer it rectally.
Considering the colonic treatments that used to be prescribed for OCD, I got off easy with the pills. The mid-eighties were still the dark ages as far as OCD was concerned. Though I had a textbook case, I was not told what I had or what caused it. I’m not sure my therapist even knew. Like many sufferers, I hid it, even from my shrink; it was just too embarrassing. Better she should think I was bipolar or borderline or, as one doctor suggested I might be, schizophrenic. Auditory hallucinations – there’s no shame there. But washing your hands a hundred times a day is just crazy.
Even if my therapist did know what I had, it was unlikely I’d get very effective treatment. All the wonderful drugs we have now weren’t available then. The prevailing treatment was behavior modification, and let’s face it, that’s just too much work.
But there were some pills. Now it’s treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac, but then we got tranquilizers. These were not particularly effective. They don’t knock out the compulsion; they knock out the compulsive. But that’s something. Had they been given to the compulsive’s family as well, you’d have had a pretty good working solution.
So we had the drugs and we were going to France. Or so we hoped; this was a season of half-starts. My erratic behavior had been forcing my family to cancel plans fairly consistently. Dinners out, weekends away – we’d be ready to go and then something would happen; I would step in something contaminated or touch something unsafe and I’d lose it, sending everyone stomping back into the house. We were only two weeks into summer and I’d already bailed on Rotary Camp, three babysitting gigs, and a day trip to the state fair. If the thought of kids and corn dogs sent me into rocking catatonia, what would snails and topless beaches do?
Well, non-refundable tickets have a way of keeping you in line. And while I seriously doubted I could handle it, I really wanted to go. Then, two weeks before we were supposed to leave, something was wrong.
What was wrong was that my abdomen had grown knives. An alien trying to claw its way out of my liver, or perhaps a wrestling match in my intestine – there was something inside me, and it was armed. All the bad things I’d ever thought I deserved were happening, right now, in my stomach. I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t keep anything down. I’d been transformed into a natural wonder, a marvel, a spouting geyser of vomit and petulance.
Oh, something was wrong. It took about ten hours to convince anyone of this fact. I was the girl who cried “Wolf!” or not “Wolf!” but “Contamination!” and “Iniquity!” and “Disease!” Between my scrupulosity and my hypochondria, my family had learned to ignore my dire premonitions years earlier. Besides, some moaning and vomit were all part of a normal day’s work. It would have taken bleeding ears or perhaps stigmata to elicit more than a shrug.
“Go lie down,” my parents suggested. Ten hours later, when I wasn’t feeling any better and my eyes had rolled all the way back in their sockets, they thought it might be a good idea to get this checked out. Yes, I thought, let’s get this checked out. Too preoccupied by pain to subject my outfit to the usual inspection, I quickly slipped into a T-shirt, a skirt that fell to my hipbones, and a pair of plastic shoes, noting with some satisfaction that they all matched. I gingerly picked my way toward the car, then collapsed on the backseat and took up a moan that would not cease for the entire forty-five seconds it took us to drive the block and a half to the hospital.
When we got there we learned my father was the only surgeon on call. The same stupid hospital policy that had prevented him from giving me the cheekbone implants I’d wanted for my tenth birthday prevented him from treating me now. I would get nothing for the pain until they could locate a doctor I wasn’t related to. In the meantime, perhaps I would enjoy reading this eight-year-old issue of Field & Stream.
I moaned and rolled my head in response. I did not want sporting magazines. I didn’t even want People. I just wanted the meds. After spending two weeks insisting I go on drugs, now that I really, really needed them, my father was denying me. I couldn’t believe it. “I think this qualifies as ‘acting up!”’ I shrieked.
“If I give you something now, the doctor won’t be able to evaluate you properly, honey,” my father answered gently. “Believe me, I would like nothing more than to take the edge off for you. For all of us. In fact, I’m sure your mother is wishing we’d had a little wine with dinner right about now. But we didn’t, and you can’t, and you’re just going to have to take the pain.”
I nodded tearfully, sat up on the examination table, placed a paper towel on my head, and prayed for the next two hours.
It was appendicitis. Of course it was appendicitis. I had it coming. The day before, I’d committed so many sins I knew something really bad was going to happen. There was going to be retribution, and I was lucky it was appendicitis and not the brain tumor I actually deserved.
I had spent the day with my best friend’s family. They’d invited me sailing, and my parents had leapt at the chance to get me out of the house for a day. “It’ll be great,” my mother promised. “The fresh air will do you a world of good. Maybe you can start working on a tan. I bet a little sunshine is all you need to get your complexion back to a more normal tone. And if you get, you know, contaminated, you can just dip your hands over the side of the boat. Won’t that be fun?”
“I don’t think I can handle this,” I answered.
“Uh-huh. They’re picking you up at ten.”
And so we set off along the Delta, a body of water known for its murky appearance and delicious seafood. As far as I was concerned, we were stewing in a giant bowl of clam chowder. This was bad enough, but trying to act normal for eight whole hours – eight hours that included two meals – that was just impossible. What was I going to eat? When was I supposed to pray? And the bugs – what about all the bugs?
I was fine for five whole minutes. Then someone offered me a soda. Oh, man, a soda. What was I supposed to do about this soda? There was probably ham in the cooler. The ham molecules had probably permeated the soda can somehow. There was no way this soda was kosher. But if I declined the soda, I might offend my hosts, and that would be a sin, too. Maybe the soda was kosher. Or maybe it wasn’t a sin to decline beverages. Yes. No. Maybe. Wait. What does the Torah say about ham-tainted carbonated beverages? What? What?
I interrupted this line of thought to answer, “None for me, thanks,” and this was the worst sin of all, interrupting a theological inquiry to talk, and I had to think about that for a while, and then I got interrupted again, and so it went all day until they dropped me off at my house, sunburned and sick with myself for being such an awful, sinful person.
So appendicitis was a light sentence. It was almost a reward, it was such a light sentence. For the next several months, I took great satisfaction in picturing the organ, red and glistening and angry, quivering and erect with toxins. I would imagine the excision and the disposal, and then I would wonder where it went and what it had taken with it. I was not sorry to have it gone.
Appendicitis wasn’t bad. And if it hadn’t been appendicitis it would have been something else. I was a wreck. When my sister called my friends to tell them where I was, the only surprise was that I wasn’t on the psych ward. Of course I was in the hospital. Where else would I be?
Rotary Camp, that’s where. And I was having much more fun in the hospital. I had worn out my parents’ patience months earlier, but now I had a whole new staff to fuss over me. I couldn’t wash as much as I liked, having fainted during my one attempt to shower, but I was sedated enough not to care. The food part was easy. All my parents’ friends worked in the hospital. There was always someone who had missed their last meal break and was happy to help me get rid of my turkey and Jell-O salad. But th
ey couldn’t have the pudding; the pudding, I decided, was kosher. I had pudding and a remote control and push-button morphine. Paris schmaris – I wasn’t going anywhere.
My HMO felt otherwise, however, and soon I was home, with a head full of ruminations and a week’s worth of compulsive rituals to perform. Five days later I could walk a block, with help. Five days after that I was at the airport, leaning on my suitcase for support. We were going to France, we were going and we had the drugs. Me and my family and this bottle of pills, we were going.
The first pill was forced on me before we even lifted off. Anyone could have seen this coming. I’d spent the previous three months curled up under the coffee table crying uncontrollably. I had an angry red scar on my belly and an anesthesia hangover and I’d been ambulatory for less than a week. Oh, and I was crazy, and Orthodox, and my parents had scheduled our transatlantic flight for a Friday night.
I flipped out as soon as the preflight beverage service began. There were beverages and snacks, and it was too much. I burst out crying, knocking over my cup and sending my honey-roasted peanuts flying, a shower of legume confetti all over seats 8A through D. “Oh, yes, I think it’s time for one of these,” my father announced, pulling the vial out of his pocket. I argued briefly, then gave up and washed the tablet down with the remains of my diet 7-Up.
Half an hour later it kicked in, a dreamy half-buzz I would both resist and crave. It did nothing for my impulses. It did, however, distract me. It detached my head from my body, myself from my surroundings. Now it was like I was watching a movie: Oh, these beautiful people, they are so pretty, with this lovely twilight filling the cabin, so lovely, really, look how pretty my sister is, look. I watched it all unfold and it was lovely, my fellow travelers all enjoying themselves, all of us having such a good time. Look at the French couple slipping into the bathroom together, oh, those French, what can you do. I waved at them sleepily as they locked the door behind themselves, and the next thing I knew it was morning and we were on the tarmac.
Because my father is allergic to cabs, he had worked out a way to get from the airport to our accommodations using only public transportation. This was a simple procedure that required no less than two trains, a bus, and three different Metro lines, all easily navigable with sixty pounds of luggage. Two and a half hours later we staggered out into the Paris sunshine and began the ten-block march to our quarters. All along the way beautiful young French people enjoying parfaits and coupes de glace at quaint outdoor cafes gaped at the ridiculous, rumpled American family who appeared to be taking all their belongings for a walk. This was not how I had pictured my arrival – I’d been hoping for a litter, or at the very least a horse-drawn carriage, at the very least a taxi – but we were here.
We had rented an apartment in the Latin Quarter. It sounded so bohemian, so chic. “This is so much better than staying in a hotel,” we told ourselves. “We’ll get the real French experience.” I suppose we did. The walls were paper-thin, and our fellow tenants were crazy sex fiends. Below us was a middle-aged painter whose sole hobbies were seducing shirtless ephebes thirty years his junior and attempting to kill the neighbors’ cats. He was partial to poison bombs that bothered the cats not at all but forced the rest of us to evacuate with our throats closing and eyes swelling shut. Next door we had a young lady who seemed perfectly nice until the first night her boyfriend came over. Their gymnastics were conducted at full volume right next to my head. After a few days of this I was ready to dose the building’s water supply with saltpeter. What was with these people?
It was an educational trip. Besides learning the French for “Give it to me good, you smelly bastard,” I picked up quite a bit about history and physiology. The rest of my family consists of two medical professionals and a sadist, all of whom are fascinated by the gallstones, flayed scalps, and pickled genitalia of history. My idea of sightseeing is Benetton; theirs is seventeenth-century tumors. Paris is a city that indulges a morbid fascination like no other. There are museums of embryology, of torture implements, of dentistry and surgical oddities. There are bones and bugs and guillotines. My family was delighted. Each morning they would announce our itinerary over coffee and croissants. “We thought we’d start with the Catacombs, then check out the Colostomy Museum. If we have time we’ll hit the Museum of Taxidermied Novelties in the afternoon.” For a girl whose fear of contamination by death was such that a dead spider in my sock drawer would prompt six showers, minimum, this was quite a bit more than I could take.
My scrupulosity made even regular museums agony. I had decided not to look at any paintings of people; they were graven images, and if I was going to do that I might as well go ahead and build a golden calf. Worse still were the religious paintings, idols all. My parents had seen this coming and had warned me not to try anything funny. “If we pay eight dollars to get you into a museum you’re damn well going to look at everything they have there,” they insisted. I placated them by pretending to look at the artwork; I was actually just looking at the frames.
This was a great way to make a boring outing a lot less interesting. The scrupulosity was only part of the reason I didn’t want to be there. The main reason was that the museums were so horribly dull. Despite my affectations, I have no interest in actual culture. I would much rather shop. Even today, I avoid museums at all costs and cringe when visitors insist on dragging me to one. I recently had to inform one would-be museum-goer that unless the museum was having a sale on Capri pants, he would be going by himself.
But on this first trip to Paris there was no getting out of it. And that was fine; I deserved boredom and misery, welcomed it like an embrace. It was around this time that I started letting things hit me. I wanted to hurt myself, not badly, but enough to cause some discomfort. I was looking for something in the hair-shirt, scourge-belt range. These are harder to find than one might think, even in Paris, so I settled on more pedestrian weapons. I stood in the path of heavy swinging doors, letting the door smack me backward, savoring the weighty, satisfying thud. I dropped suitcases on my feet, slammed windows on my fingers, snapped branches back to hit me in the face.
I’m not sure why I bothered. Allowing myself to be photographed in Paris was masochistic enough. These are some of the most unattractive pictures ever taken of me. I am not particularly photogenic, but these were astounding, so bad and so funny that I felt I could not keep them to myself; when school started in the fall, I would present them to my French class. “Regardez-moi la. J’apparait comme une banane corrompue, a fourrure et desséchée.” There I am, sallow and pale, my dull, frizzy hair tamped down into a dowdy French braid (we were in France, after all), my eyes fluttering half-shut above a grim smile or a frown. There’s my scary body, a twisting mobile of bones anchored by gunboat feet in protruding K-Swiss. The overall effect was clownish, Sideshow Bob in white jeans and a hair bow. “We’re real glad we flew five thousand miles to get this wonderful picture of you beaming with contentment,” Dad would say as he snapped the photo. “We’re real glad we spent six thousand dollars to make you so happy.”
But there were moments. There was the ten-dollar melon. Eating in France had been very, very difficult. Lunch was okay; there were salads, cold things, vegetable things that suited me well enough. But dinner was tough. I would have to slog my way through three full courses, each more contaminated than the last. I would finally find something I could eat, and it would arrive at the table garnished with a bug that had died en route from the kitchen. I would start to cry and out came the pills, then the liqueur, proffered by a solicitous proprietor; and then the pill and the alcohol would begin a little two-part harmony, and I would start to feel well enough to inspect my macedoine de fruits for blood spots.
The night of the melon we’d gone to a special, fancy restaurant. I was not pleased, as special and fancy usually meant pork in every course. I scanned the appetizer menu for the smallest, simplest thing. There it was, in tidy French cursive, in brown ink: a melon. Sixty francs. This seemed a
little high, but perhaps it was a very special melon.
“You just ordered a ten-dollar melon,” my father said as soon as the waitress walked away. My hand flew to my mouth and I felt guilt heat my face. I was, at this point, a very expensive child, what with the therapy and the drugs and the truckloads of paper towels, but these were incidentals, incurred but not intended. I did not ask for a car, did not demand expensive clothes or plead for electronics, did not request something indulgent simply because I wanted it. This I never did.
But then it came, and my gosh. What a perfect melon. It was small and cold, with smooth skin, striped dark green and light, like silk upholstery, and creamy orange flesh. I tasted it in my eyeballs. My gums sang for this melon. This melon could be prime minister. It could read minds, calm children, train pets, raise the dead. This was an extraordinary melon.
It was glorious. Normally I would not permit my family to come near my food, as they tended to contaminate it, but the melon made me generous. “Try it,” I urged.
“That’s a damn good melon,” they agreed. “That melon is worth ten dollars, all right.”
And so went the rest of our stay. There was my hand in a closing train door, and then the next day there were berries, perfect berries that made no demands and kept me perfectly happy for fifteen minutes. Then the French-English dictionary intentionally dropped on my foot, and then a movie, a really funny movie. There was the outburst, and then the pills. Things went this way and that, and then we were home.
Looking back on it now, I can’t believe my parents put me on the plane in the first place. I was barely ambulatory and nearly catatonic. I was also extraordinarily unpleasant to be around. That’s one thing when you’re at home, but quite another when you’re paying several hundred dollars a day to be somewhere else. None of us had all that much fun, and I’m sure my parents regretted their decision every time they had to pull me, chapped and barefoot, out of a fountain. But it ended up being the best thing they could have done. OCD is a disease of pathways. By taking me away, my parents plucked me out of the grooves I’d worn smooth with repeated rituals, compulsions, obsessions, and prayers. They took away my hiding places and touchstones.
Devil in the Details Page 17