Copyright © 2021 Patrick Dylan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Snow Anselmo Press, Florida
www.safewantedloved.com
Edited and designed by Girl Friday Productions
www.girlfridayproductions.com
Design: Paul Barrett
Project management: Katherine Richards and Laura Dailey
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-7364172-2-5
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7364172-1-8
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7364172-0-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021902606
First edition
For my wife
Contents
1. The Start
2. The First Day
3. The Emergency Room
4. The First Diagnosis
5. The Nightmare
6. The Truth
7. The Plan
8. The Devil
9. The Crisis Center
10. The Lost Cuban
11. The Stranger
12. The Resurgence
13. The Worst Night Ever
14. The Advocate
15. The New Normal
16. The Long Titration
17. The Relapse
18. Desperation
19. The Final Diagnosis
20. The Christmas Present
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
That’s the stigma. We are so, so, so accepting of any body part breaking down other than our brains. And that’s ignorance. That’s pure ignorance.
—Kevin Breel, Confessions of a Depressed Comic
1.
The Start
Coldplay
“The Scientist”
3:11–3:43
“Pat, I am going to prison.”
My wife’s voice woke me from a deep sleep. I opened my eyes. The room was dark; it was too early for her to be awake.
I lay still for a few seconds, listening intently. The eeriness of complete silence began to scare me.
“I am going to prison. I am definitely going to prison.”
We were staying in the guest room of my parents’ house, and being so close in the small bed made Mia’s upright posture more apparent.
“What are you talking about, babe?” I asked, trying to sound calm but feeling my pulse quicken. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t matter. I am going to be arrested.”
The certainty of her answer sent my mind reeling. Mia and I had been together for over seventeen years and married for fourteen. She was as straitlaced and by the book as anyone I had ever met. Sure, she had been pulled over for speeding, but the thought of her doing something that would send her to prison was incomprehensible.
“Mia, you are starting to scare me. What are you talking about?” Her voice sounded different than usual. It was strained and serious. She wasn’t joking.
“A family came in to see me on Friday. The boy was severely constipated. I told them to change his diet, but I could have done more. I could have prescribed him a stool softener, but I didn’t.”
Mia worked as a physician assistant for a highly regarded pediatric firm in our hometown of Sarasota, Florida. She had been in practice for over a decade and was trusted by everyone at her work. I had no medical experience, but what she was saying didn’t sound right.
“What? You can’t go to prison for that. You did what you thought was best.”
She continued as if she couldn’t hear me. “It all makes sense now. That family was hired by the doctors to see what my response would be. They must have put a secret camera in the exam room to videotape the whole thing. There must have been several cameras. Oh my God, it’s all on tape!”
Now my heart was racing. I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about, but she was clearly in distress. And she was wide-awake, as if she hadn’t slept at all.
“Calm down, Mia,” I said. “I’m sure that your doctors didn’t frame you. You did what you thought was best. No one can send you to prison for that. That’s just . . . Well, it’s crazy.”
She sat with her back against the wall, staring into the darkness. In all our time together, I had never seen her look like this. She was clearly worried, but she also appeared deep in thought. She looked like she was analyzing a problem from a thousand angles. Her eyes were glazed over, but she wasn’t crying. Although she was talking to me, I wasn’t sure if she knew I was there.
Mia and I had met as undergraduates at Harvard. She was extremely intelligent. It was one of the things that I found most attractive about her. Mia wasn’t just smart, though, she was creative. She had this incredible gift of looking at the world both in the same way that I did but also in ways that I had never considered.
Another reason I fell in love with Mia was her incredible compassion. People could sense immediately that she truly cared about them and what they were saying. She didn’t pretend to hear you; she listened. She didn’t feign interest; she really wanted to help.
Mia’s kindness didn’t mean that she lacked toughness. On the contrary, she was resilient. We met on the track team. She was a highly recruited long-distance runner, nationally ranked and invited to attend every elite university in the country. You don’t string together five-minute miles without having serious determination and grit.
I got accepted to Harvard because I had a knack for pole vaulting. Vaulters are good athletes, usually fast and strong, but they aren’t known for their determination and grit. Little did I know that on this morning, this darkest of mornings, I would be thrust into a struggle that would severely test my determination and demand all the grit I could muster.
2.
The First Day
The Beatles
“I’m Looking Through You”
0:07–0:28
I will never forget the first time I caught sight of Mia. I saw her from across the weight room in Harvard’s indoor track facility at the beginning of freshman year. She was petite and naturally elegant, with long dark hair that fell below her shoulders. Her slim build and tan skin were complemented by lively brown eyes, outlined by the longest lashes I had ever seen. Her smile captivated me, and I couldn’t stop sneaking glances her way. Watching her, I didn’t feel like a small-town kid recently transplanted to a big-city college, timid and alone. I felt young and full of hope.
I heard her tell a friend that she was living in a dormitory called Pennypacker. Later that week, I was out on Saturday with my college roommate, George. We were finishing up a late night of party hopping. Tipsy and hungry, he wanted to go for something to eat.
“First, let’s take a walk through Pennypacker,” I suggested. “There’s a really cute girl on the track team who lives there. Maybe we’ll run into her.”
He thought it was far-fetched, but George was always a good sport. We soon found ourselves wandering the quiet and deserted hallways of the dorm. As we finished walking the last floor, he lost patience.
“Can we go now? I’m starving!” he whined.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I sighed.
&n
bsp; George let out an enthusiastic cry of victory and immediately bounded to the stairwell and slipped out of sight, whooping and hollering. As I neared the bottom of the stairs, I heard him accosting someone. “Are you going to eat all of that pizza by yourself?”
“Umm,” the person responded, “it’s for my roommate and me.”
“You guys can’t eat all of that pizza,” declared George. “C’mon, let us come back to your room and share it with you. C’mon, please? Please!”
“Okay. I guess you can come back and have a piece of pizza.”
I rounded the final staircase, looked onto the scene, and couldn’t believe my luck. George was with the very girl whom I wanted to meet!
Mia led us back to her room. Once there, George, animated and loud, focused his attention on her surprised roommate, who wore an increasingly pained expression.
“I can’t believe he talked you into this,” I said, gesturing toward George but marveling at the collection of thick science books sprawled across Mia’s desk. She was clearly spending her Saturday night much differently than we were.
“Aw, I had to take pity on him,” she replied, flashing me that intoxicating smile. “You guys didn’t look too dangerous. Besides, he seemed pretty desperate. I felt sorry for him.”
“Yeah, well, you should be feeling sorry for your roommate,” I joked, and we enjoyed a short conversation about the track team. Mia had recently taken a shower, and I found her damp hair and the fresh smell of her shampoo mesmerizing. Finally, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I dragged George away, a tail end of pizza crust dangling from his fingers.
Once we were out of earshot, George said, “Wow, they were fun. Too bad we didn’t meet that girl, though.”
“George!” I exclaimed. “That was the girl! Mia was the girl!”
“What? Mia was the girl?” He started jumping up and down.
“Yes! George, you’re a genius!” I cried, and we nearly skipped all the way back to our room.
***
“Mia, babe, you need to relax,” I said, putting my arms around her. Strangely, she didn’t return the hug. “How much sleep did you get last night?”
“I don’t remember.”
It was Sunday morning, and it happened to be her thirty-ninth birthday. We had celebrated the night before with our two children and my parents. Will, our son, was in sixth grade, and Jamie, our daughter, was in fourth. We had a nice dinner but hadn’t stayed up late.
“How much do you think you got?”
“I don’t know. I called the office a few times but just left messages. No one was there.”
Of course no one was there, I thought. It was the middle of the night on a Saturday.
Mia had been unusually worried about her work over the past several months. Her pediatric practice was part of a larger network of physicians. The network was being acquired by the local hospital; doctors and surgeons were vying for position and arguing for salary adjustments. As a physician assistant, Mia was not involved in most of these discussions. But being on the fringe meant even less information, and all of the uncertainty had her on edge.
“Okay, Mia, I know that you have been stressed out about work, and it seems like you haven’t slept well. But you aren’t thinking clearly. You are not going to prison.” I tried to sound reassuring but firm. “Why don’t you take a shower and then maybe you’ll feel better?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll take a shower.”
The water turned on. The dim bedroom was partially lit by the white glare leaking from beneath the bathroom door. I sat in a swirl of crumpled sheets, reflecting on the situation. Mia couldn’t get arrested for doing her job, but maybe with all of the shifting allegiances in her office she had upset one of the doctors? It was pretty implausible, given how valuable she was to their practice.
And what was with that glazed look in her eyes? She seemed exhausted but simultaneously anxious and hyperfocused. It was unsettling, like she had stayed up all night and then downed an entire pot of coffee. I decided she must have been suffering from a severe state of overtiredness. I had read about navy SEALs who became disoriented and confused during their training regimen. With a shower, some food, and maybe a nap later in the day, she would be feeling better.
A short time later, we gathered at the door to say goodbye to my mom and stepdad. We would be heading home that afternoon after stopping to spend the day with Mia’s family in Roseland.
“Thanks for the great birthday dinner,” Mia said as she hugged my mom. “I really enjoyed it.” My mom, a former runner as well, was also slight and athletic. As she responded, I kept a close eye on my wife. Mia was acting normal, saying all the things that you would expect. She still had an unusual look in her eyes, but the paranoid thoughts seemed to have cleared.
Ever since having children, Mia did most of the driving. She had developed motion sickness, and if she wasn’t behind the wheel, she became nauseous. So as usual that morning, Mia took her place in the driver’s seat. As we came to a light, I found it odd that she hadn’t put on her directional signal. “You’re going to turn here, right?”
“Yes, but I’m not going to turn right. It’s a left turn,” she responded in a flat voice, flicking on her blinker. She hadn’t quite understood what I meant.
The entire drive was like that. She stared blankly ahead, and I reminded her of the route. The kids didn’t notice anything, sitting behind us in the minivan, but I studied her every move with a growing unease.
We met Mia’s family at church for Mass. Her reserved parents, Marcos and Lucia Delgado, were two of the friendliest people I knew. Both small in stature like Mia, they had come to the US during the Cuban Revolution in the early 1960s and worked hard to build a life together, raising four children in a strict Catholic home. Conservative like his parents, her older brother, Mark, was an emergency room doctor. Her younger sister, Celia, was an office manager and the most outspoken of the family. Seven grandkids had graced the family. Mia also had a younger brother, Luke, who was not at the church that morning.
Our large family sat down together along a few pews in the back, and the methodical hour of the service gave me a chance to calm my worries. Yes, my wife had been acting very strange. But she was clearly tired, and people needed their sleep. Once Mia had a chance to rest, everything would be fine.
When church was over, we drove to her sister’s place. More extroverted than Mia, Celia had a big heart and an even bigger personality. Whenever the Delgado family gathered, her voice was the loudest of the group, dominating the conversation and carrying across the house. The boys of the family had planned a golf outing, followed by a late lunch at Celia’s. The whole day had been scheduled months in advance. I was hesitant to leave Mia, but I didn’t want to make a scene.
“How are you feeling, babe?” I asked. “Are you still worried about work?”
“No, I’m fine,” she promised. “Go have fun. Everything is okay.”
I looked into her eyes but didn’t feel like we were connecting. Still, she was saying all the right things, and I knew our son would be disappointed if we didn’t play. Will lived for golf and had been excited for weeks. I figured a few hours away wouldn’t hurt. Besides, Mia would be with her family.
About forty-five minutes into the round, I overheard my brother-in-law Mark talking on the phone. He was a likable guy, smart and self-confident, but with his shaved head and round John Lennon glasses, he could resemble an imposing professor, especially when things turned serious.
“What? Celia, calm down. Repeat what you just said,” he ordered, trying to concentrate. He listened for a while longer and then glanced over at me. He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Was Mia acting weird this morning? Celia is freaking out.”
All my concern from the morning came rushing back. “Yeah, she was,” I said. “Let me talk to her.”
Fortunately, Will and his cous
ins were off near the green, oblivious to what was happening. “Celia, it’s Pat.”
“Pat, oh my God, Mia is really starting to scare us!” she pleaded in a terrified voice.
I tried to sound composed. “Celia, calm down. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s like she’s gone crazy. She says that people at her work are after her, that they’ve got secret cameras recording her. She says it’s all linked to some books that she’s been reading to the kids. She keeps saying we have to contact the author of these books because he has the answer. What the hell is she talking about?”
It sounded even worse than before, and I felt a hit of adrenaline. “She was acting strange before church, too. I don’t think she slept last night. She just needs some sleep.” I said it like I knew what I was talking about.
“Sleep, there’s no way she’s going to sleep!” cried Celia. “She’s wired, and she’s scaring me. At first, I thought she was kidding, but she’s completely serious. She thinks the cops are after her!” Celia was frantic. “You and Mark need to get back here!”
“Okay,” I said, trying to calm myself down, too. “You’re right. Just do your best until we get there.”
I hung up the phone and looked at Mark, suddenly relieved to have an emergency room doctor in the family.
Although my heart was pounding, I tried to slow my voice and clearly explain to him my interactions with Mia that morning. We had known each other for over fifteen years, but I had never seen Mark in a clinical setting. He immediately started rattling off questions.
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary before this morning?”
“Not really.”
“Do you know how much sleep Mia actually got last night?”
“No.”
“Do you know what her sleeping patterns have been like over the past week?”
“No.”
“Has she seemed more anxious than usual recently?”
Safe, Wanted, and Loved: A Family Memoir of Mental Illness, Heartbreak, and Hope Page 1