This Is My Brain in Love
Page 19
WILL
Jocelyn’s words are like a slap.
There’s a civil war going on in my head. Team Chill is telling me, again, that nothing good will come of me trying to push someone into therapy who isn’t ready. Team Mayday is freaking the heck out. How can she not see it? Feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Check. Decreased appetite. Check. Altered sleep patterns. Check. Now loss of interest in movies and filmmaking. Short of printing out a copy of the DSM-5 guidelines from my mom’s old psychiatry textbooks, I can’t think of anything that would be more convincing. Or more futile.
Jocelyn and her family clearly have some sort of mental block against talking about psych issues, and I get it, I really do. My own family, open as it is, doesn’t bring my anxiety and Grace’s anorexia up in casual conversation.
We don’t pretend it doesn’t exist, either.
Team Mayday is running circles around my head, screaming at me that I have to say something, that stigma and denial are dangerous, that they can kill.
Team Chill retorts that arguing with someone who doesn’t recognize that they’ve got an issue is only going to cause resentment and further entrench them in their denial.
As my thoughts war, my body is the battleground. If someone were looking at me they might notice that I’m starting to look spacey. Maybe they’d see that my eyes are darker, because my pupils are dilated from the stress. People who know me would recognize my more common tics—the tugging at my sleeves, the way I rub my wrist as if I could slow my pulse manually, as if there’s anything I can do to calm my stupid, skittish, runaway horse of a heart.
Jocelyn looks pissed, as if my using the “d” word is a personal affront. Part of me is reflexively, defensively, mad in return. I mean, I opened up to her about my own anxiety. Does she really believe I’m the type of person to think less of her just because she might have depression?
For a few seconds, I let myself feel angry. Angry that it seems that Jos is upset with me for caring. What, does she think I’m confronting her because it’s fun? Does she think that I’m taking joy in this intervention, like I’m some sort of psychiatric superhero swooping in to help the poor, screwed-up damsel in distress by ferrying her to a therapist?
Then, because my brain is a freaking pinball machine, a memory burns away my anger in an instant: I remember how mad I was at my dad the first time he took me to a psychologist, how betrayed. I was only eight at the time, but even then I had a sense of the stigma, what with the white lie that my dad told my teacher to excuse my absence. The worst part was when my dad left me alone in the consultation room for the first time. Dr. Rifkin asked me, gently, “Did your parents tell you why you’re here?” And the only response I could think of was “Because there’s something wrong with me.”
JOCELYN
For a moment, Will’s eyes narrow in anger, and it’s such an unfamiliar expression that I can feel a thrill go down my spine, a flash of dangerous recognition. I’ve seen Will indignant, passionate, and even outraged, but I’ve never really seen him match the dark resentment that always seems to simmer inside me. I feel a weird mix of triumph and shame to have goaded him to that point. See, I think, he’s not perfect. And now he’ll realize that I don’t deserve him.
Part of me wants to cry, already anticipating the loss of our relationship. He won’t quit A-Plus; he’s too goddamn professional for that. He’ll keep doing his best to fulfill the contract. I’m sure he’ll whip Alan into shape if only to prove that he can. But at the end of the summer, he’ll look at our spreadsheet, feel satisfaction at a job well done, and say good-bye.
And for what? Because I’m too proud to admit that I might have depression? My mind does that familiar acrobatic loop-de-loop where all of a sudden my anger implodes onto myself. It’s all my fault for jumping to the attack so quickly. Will was just trying to care, and now I’ve driven him away, cut him with my sharp edges the way I’ve alienated everyone from Peggy Cheng to that girl Megan who shared her Babybel cheeses with me in sixth grade, only to have me complain about how they tasted gross and gave me gas.
Suddenly, I feel empty, as if all my emotions have canceled one another out. I’m a zero sum.
The stone in my chest is back. The rest of the summer stretches out in front of me as an endless dark corridor: being a spectator as Priya takes over our film, watching helplessly as Will goes from being something more than a friend to something much, much less.
I can’t look at him, so I stare at the lame-ass flyer that I’ve been making for our floundering restaurant. It’s a pointless effort—what, I think a bunch of hungry lacrosse bros will save our restaurant?—but I don’t even have enough energy to scroll my mouse over to delete the file.
My mom walks back to the kitchen to shout out an order, the familiar thump-squeak of the swinging door resonating in the lengthening silence between us. I want to tell Will that I’m sorry, that I know that I’m screwed up and shouldn’t have taken it out on him. I’m trying to pull together the courage to apologize, really, I am, but there’s no reserve of grace for me to draw upon, when Will—my heart jump-starts, despite everything—speaks first.
WILL
Jocelyn is so upset she can’t look at me, and I don’t blame her. I remember the hot shame I felt during that first therapy session, remember not being sure whether to turn all that pain inward or outward.
I breathe in through my mouth, count to five. Breathe out through my nose, count to five. And then I speak before I can think too much.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t… I don’t mean to be pushy.” My words break the surface of the quiet but don’t quite dispel the tension that still fills the room. At least Jocelyn looks at me again. She’s got this hollowed-out expression that I can’t read.
“It’s okay. I know you were trying to…” She waves her hand to fill in the blanks. “I didn’t mean to snap.” She swipes her palm over her face and sighs. “You don’t have to stay, I mean, I understand if you want to leave.”
“What? No. I don’t want to leave,” I say, shaking my head. Then, my voice cracking a little, “Unless you want me to leave?”
“I don’t know. Yes? Maybe? No?” Jos lets out a groan. “Everything’s a mess in my head, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.… You don’t have to apologize. We’re good.”
She looks up at me, frankly disbelieving. “Why?”
That’s all she says, just the one syllable. She could be asking me why I’m staying, or why I’m forgiving her so quickly for her outburst—that makes the most sense. But I’m crap at mind reading, if you couldn’t tell already.
“Why what?” I ask.
“Why do you care about me?”
It’s the essential question, and my anxiety level goes up the way it has for every test I’ve ever taken, from my third-grade spelling tests to the SATs. “Do you trust me?” I ask.
“Yeah?” she says. It sounds like a question.
“I need you to know, you mean something to me.” At my words, Jocelyn’s lips curve halfway to a smile, before she gives a little shake of her head and her mouth crumbles back into a frown.
That’s just it, though, right? I can say whatever I want, but what will make Jocelyn’s post-truth brain believe me?
My father has always liked to express his love for my mother with things, because he knows that she doesn’t always have the time to shop for herself. At least once a month he’ll come home with expensive chocolates (the kind that are hand decorated and displayed in boxes with gold elastic string), or hand-selected flowers (dahlias are her favorite, big and vibrant and long lasting).
In the end those kinds of things are easy to pass off as fake news, insincere thoughts that are bought and paid for. I need to give Jos tangible proof that I care, something so undeniable that it’ll break through the noise of her own doubt.
And then my watch buzzes, and I know what I can do.
JOCELYN
When I ask Will why he puts up with me, it doesn’t shock me that he stru
ggles to answer the question, that at first he just says something generic about how much I mean to him.
But then he gives a little start, and his lips part in surprise. He looks at me, laser focused, his eyes wide. “I know how I can show you.”
He reaches for his wrist—I’ve noticed that he does that a lot. He unbuttons his sleeve and pushes it up. He’s got an Apple Watch, of course, and he’s swiping through screens until he finds the one he needs. He angles his hand over to me to show me an EKG tracing. Instantly, I can tell from a lifetime of watching medical shows that it’s too fast, the waveforms filling up the screen frenetically instead of being a calm, steady rate.
And I realize: Will is literally showing me his heart.
“My mom got me this program a few years ago,” Will says. There’s a breathlessness to his voice, like he’s struggling against a strong wind. “She’s a scientist. She likes data. She uses it to show me how I can use mindfulness techniques to control things like my breathing and heart rate. So I know from months of observation that my resting pulse is sixty-eight.”
Right now, his heart rate is 102.
Mine is probably the same, and I’m already trying to explain it away. “We kind of just argued,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t that explain it?”
“Pfft.” He waves his hand. “This kind of talk? It’s not the easiest thing in the world; I understand that it sometimes doesn’t go perfectly. If I had the same conversation with one of my buddies and he blew up at me, I wouldn’t be tachycardic.”
“Tachy-what?”
“Sorry, using my mom’s medicalese. Tachycardic. Fast heart rate.” He’s already poking at his watch, scrolling through some numbers. “You see this here? This is from the day of my interview. Heart rate a little higher in the ten minutes before we’re scheduled to meet. Then when I saw you? It jumps to one hundred five.”
“Couldn’t that just be that you were stressed out about the job?” I ask.
“Sure, that’s a theory, but let’s see what it is on my first day at A-Plus, when I should’ve been more relaxed. I already had the job, right?”
101.
“But I know what you’re going to say,” he says. “That’s just first-day-on-the-job jitters. So, let’s look at the next day.”
103.
“And how about this, the day I was working on trying to get the ordering system up and running. You were out making deliveries, I barely saw you.”
88.
“Then, the night we saw Broadcast News.”
That night, he maxed out at 110.
As the numbers scroll by, I get a surreal sense of displacement, as if I were viewing my life through the wrong end of a set of binoculars. It seems ludicrous to have, all of a sudden, so much evidence for how Will feels about me. I have to resist the urge to giggle.
I’ve only ever been to anything resembling an amusement park once in my life, last summer, and it wasn’t even a real one. Priya invited me to join her family at the Booneville-Oneida County Fair. Her parents bought me an all-you-can-ride wristband, and I milked that piece of plastic for all it was worth. Priya and I rode the Tilt-A-Whirl (affectionately called the Tilt-A-Hurl by her brother) four times, and I still remember how jarring it was to step back onto solid earth after three minutes of dizzying, nonstop multidirectional twirling on uneven ground.
That’s how I feel right now. Unsteady. Not able to trust that the spinning of my emotions has stopped. Kind of euphoric. And kind of like I want to hurl.
WILL
I’ve played my last card, and I am so afraid that Jocelyn is going to pull out another ace.
Then she says, “Okay. I believe you.”
She doesn’t ask for my list of therapists. She doesn’t say she’s going to look anything up or call to make an appointment. But I think—I hope—she’s finally come to terms with the fact that I have a stake in what’s going on in her head.
After eight years of therapy I’m used to the idea of taking two steps forward and one step back. It might seem like I haven’t gotten anywhere, but I’m resolved to play the long game. I can only pray that it’s enough.
This Is My Brain on Notice
JOCELYN
The morning after Will shows me his literal heart, I bite the bullet and submit my application and references, as well as the request to waive the thirty-five-dollar application fee. When my e-mail notification dings, I feel my heart skip a beat even though I know it has to be an auto response.
Thank you for your submission to the University of Utica Junior Business Program. We look forward to reviewing your application and contributing to the growth and success of many future leaders in management and entrepreneurship.
Should you be selected for an interview, you will be contacted via e-mail in approximately one to two weeks.
“I probably won’t get an interview,” I tell myself out loud, even as a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like Priya says, “Of course you’re going to get an interview!” the same time a voice that sounds exactly like Will says, “Don’t be so down on yourself. You have so much to offer.”
To distract myself from the peanut gallery in my brain, I volunteer to go pick up my amah’s med refills after lunch while Will does his afternoon tutoring session with Alan. It’s one of the first times I’ve been out of the house by myself since I was grounded, and let me tell you, there’s nothing more pathetic than having a five-minute bike ride to CVS be the highlight of your week.
I enter pharmacy-line purgatory. I’m scrolling through my Instagram feed trying to come up with ideas for the A-Plus account, when along comes everyone’s favorite nemesis.
“Jocelyn! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! We missed you guys at the last MVCA potluck.”
“Hey, Pegs.” I muster my most convincing smile.
“Did my mom’s drug reps come through for you?”
“Actually, they did. I owe you one.” My smile gets 200 percent more genuine when I’m reminded that she did me a favor recently. Two, really, if you count her dad showing mine that Asian kids can date. I glance over at her shopping basket—it’s full of travel-sized toiletries. And is that an honest-to-God disposable electric toothbrush? “So, you, uh, leaving for a trip?” I ask. I feel beholden to at least have our conversation last more than thirty seconds.
“Oh, yeah! I’m leaving on Friday for a trip to California. I applied to this Women in STEM program at Stanford. My mom is super worried about me being so far away, but it was just too good to pass up. Room and board is free, and there’s even a travel stipend.”
“That sounds great!” I say, even though what I really mean is, “Does it come with a ‘Feel free to tell me to STFU’ T-shirt, too?” Because of course Peggy Cheng, who has never been denied a thing in her life, gets a free ride to study at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Mercifully, the pharmacist calls my name next, before I start to actually emit fumes of toxic bitterness.
When I get back to A-Plus I have a black cloud over my head, and only about half an hour to snap out of it before Will’s finished with Alan. That’s the thing. Now that I’m 100 percent conscious of how aware Will is of my every mood, it’s impossible not to be super careful about my vibe.
It’s a little stressful, honestly. I mean, sixteen years into life in the Wu family, I’ve gotten used to the weight of my parents’ expectations. It’s like a backpack that I wear every day; I barely notice it. The only other person whose opinions I care about is Priya, but she’s easy. She’s used to my peaks and valleys. She’s also enough of a go-with-the-flow person that she just deals with the drama. Not that Will wouldn’t want to, but he’s pretty sensitive, to use a word that I hate when it’s used to describe me. It’s a little bit easier for guys, of course; when people say a dude is sensitive, they use it as a compliment, to show what a great catch he is and how in tune he is with his feelings. When people say a woman is sensitive, they say it with an eye roll, like she’s one malfunctioning pair of period panties
away from rabid hysteria.
People say it as if it’s a burden to have to think about other people’s feelings, and for the first time, I kind of get it. Because as I’m waiting for Alan and Will to get done, I wonder: What if I accidentally trigger an anxiety attack with my worrying? Do I now have to be happy, in order for him to be happy? Should I start hiding the things that get me down, burying those feelings to protect us both? And are all these questions a huge, blinking warning sign?
This Is My Brain on Placebos
WILL
This is what kept me up last night: wondering if I pushed Jocelyn too far. Wondering if I didn’t push her enough. Freaking out that Alan has kind of plateaued in his progress, and that Jocelyn implied from the beginning that there is no way in hell her family would ever get him tested—let alone treated—for ADHD.
I’ve trotted out every test-taking strategy I have. Alan has gotten better, but he still makes too many unforced errors. So, I got up and did a two AM search on natural remedies for ADHD.
The first time I ever googled medical advice for a tennis injury, my mom (1) shot me the hairy eyeball and (2) delivered a lecture on fake medical news and how to detect it. She gave me her log-in to an online resource that doctors use when they need to look up reliable information on treatments. She took me to her medical school’s library site so I could see how many freaking different publications there are and understand why a few of them are like rock stars (the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature) whereas others are more like garage bands.
She then gave me a miniseries of talks with episodes on concepts like peer review (essentially, your frenemies get to gleefully tear apart your research before you can publish it), double-blind randomized controlled trials (the best and most scientific way to compare two treatments), and of course, conflicts of interest (because, news flash, scientists who are paid by pharmaceutical companies tend to unconsciously favor those companies’ drugs).