The Start of Hope

Prologue to Lucky

Agoraphobia has cemented my ankles to the foot of the bed. Sometimes it feels like I have no legs at all. I’m terrified to leave my bedroom except to stare blankly at an empty refrigerator or to piss into my shower stall or to puke or shit into the filthy, stinking toilet. Bowls of decaying maple and brown sugar oatmeal have taken the place of framed photos on my nightstands. Broken glass litters the carpet. The shards have been there so long I know exactly where to step to avoid cutting my feet. In the early morning stupor, I sometimes forget. Other times, I know exactly what I mean to do and drag blood streaks down the hall all the way to my kitchen and back onto my bedsheets.

My life is textbook manic depression. Inspired periods are marked by flurries of activity. My fingers catch fire as they fly over the keys on my laptop and my hands cramp as I scribble in stacks of dusty notebooks. Other days my entire apartment is turned spotless in just under two hours—the place was certainly in need of cleaning. The stench and darkness are well-contained more often than not. Only in my brightest moments do I even turn the blinds or open the windows to let in the fresh air. 

Fact of the matter is: I don’t even know why I try because nothing matters anymore.

In other 36-hour-blocks, I lay catatonic in my bed next to a pile of wadded up tissues. TV remotes and video game controllers occupy the spot she used to lay in. My life has devolved into a disgusting and painful cycle. For every two steps forward, I regress a half-dozen.

One great byproduct of this madness is the dramatic weight loss. This is what happens when you forget to eat for days at a time and when those days blend into each other; MonTuesdays are a greater struggle than WeThFridays. My jaw line is sharper, but my eyes are sunken and red from weeping into her old pillow. The spastic sobs ripple through my body and terminate in my abdominal muscles which I can finally see again. Gone are the chubby cheeks and spare tire that always ruined the pictures we took together. I always pleaded with her not to upload any of the photos of us to her social media montage. She was always stubborn like that.

I only leave the safety of my apartment twice a week. On Wednesdays, I see my therapist. Fridays are reserved for buying booze and Chinese take-out. Hector, the owner of Los Hermanos, must be worried sick and wondering where I am. The lopsided neon green sign and wafting aroma of fresh flour tortillas are too much to bear. The regulars at our favorite coffee shop remember me so I stopped going there, too. Their beady eyes fixate on my fidgety hands. They’re ready to mock my pressured speech when I try to converse with the human cashiers.

Today is Wednesday, hump day as it were, but there’s no woman crush to be found. Not even close. This is the third time I’ve left my apartment this week. Yesterday I bought a case of an IPA I’d been meaning to try. On Monday I went out to the mailbox to retrieve a mailer from my younger brother Joey Patil. In the small envelope was a locket that slid down into my palm like a puzzle piece, the rest of which lay hidden in a drawer I hadn’t dragged open in months. I had half a mind to toss the locket into the garbage can of the waiting room. Instead, I put the locket in the fifth pocket of my jeans. There, in our secret pocket, a small piece of her weighed heavily.

I wish I didn’t have to be here with the rest of the crazies, but I was just as fucked up as they were. But these crazies are my brothers and sisters now. I feel a closeness to anyone with anxiety, depression, and introversion––my fellow silent sufferers.

The minute hand has moved 37 times since I took my seat. No one is calling. No one is texting. There’s nothing better to do than watch the clock move. For a few brief moments, it feels like the second hand has synced with my heartbeat; my breathing stops every time the long red arm stops moving as if the malfunctioning of the clock would actually stop my heart. What a beautiful reprieve that would be. No one else notices the clock except me. Time seems to crawl at a snail’s pace in this place. I was the only one left in the waiting room now. Had I imagined everyone else?

The blank, emotionless walls tell volumes. The milieu was unfamiliar and panic-inducing. Sitting here in the office of some quack psychiatrist was only making my symptoms worse. These sessions are meaningless anyway because life has lost all meaning.

Sharon wouldn’t allow me back to work until I had seen Dr. Tasker for the mandatory eight sessions with an extra hour likely in the books. She told me Tasker helped her get over the end of her marriage whose demise was orchestrated by her overweight, good-for-nothing, alcoholic, unfaithful, son-of-a-bitch, mother-fucking-asshole of an ex-husband. I had only peaked once into the white paper bag when I picked up her prescriptions from the pharmacy––90 tabs of Xanax, an antidepressant, and a blister pack of birth control. God, this woman has issues. But I’m one to talk because my boss and I are two peas in the same crazy pod.

Finally, my name is called.

“How do you feel about the situation now?” Dr. Tasker asked.

“I wouldn’t reduce it to such miniscule proportions, doc.”

“Sam, we agreed we wouldn’t call it,” Tasker shuffled through a heap of papers and referred to last session’s notes. “A soul-obliterating Greek tragedy. How do you feel about it now?”

I paused a moment before speaking. Our eyes never connected as I spoke. Customarily, I would address his tan dress shoes, noting imperfections like tiny scuffs or variations in the hue as I blabbed on about whatever he thought was troubling me. Nothing ever changed. No matter where our talks started, the conversation always gravitated back toward the subject I loathed and loved talking about.

Today I changed things up, alternating between staring daggers at him and turning my head to look at his stupid wall clock, the waiting room’s identical twin, and cursing at it under my breath for being so noisy and intrusive. I got up from the comfy leather chair and took the clock off the wall. I peeled off a strip of duct tape keeping the batteries inside the clock then ripped out the batteries. After hanging the clock back on the wall, I wrapped the batteries in the duct tape and deposited them in the plastic wastebasket by his desk. I resumed my staring as I sat down with a satisfied sigh. The doctor said nothing and held my gaze without wavering.

“I try to bury everything, but she keeps rising from the dead. That’s Lazarus, isn’t it?” Tasker shrugged his shoulders. “Indifference is how I cope with it now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t ever get out of bed.”

Tasker nodded his head twice and jotted down more notes.

“You’re not writing down ‘progress’, are you?”

“That is exactly what I wrote, Sam.”

“This isn’t progress.” I argued.

“Two sessions ago, you told me to fuck off and slammed the door to my office which knocked over a cheap vase full of dead flowers. Worse than that, my grandson’s finger paintings came off the corkboard by the door. Frankly, I don’t mind you turning my clock off. I never look at that damn thing anyway.”

I suppose this was progress. “I’m sorry about that. Your assistant told me you liked the new vase.” I said.

“I do. Thank you, Sam. Honestly, getting you to feel anything is better than feeling nothing, so this is progress.”

After our little breakthrough, Tasker was silent for ten minutes and let me pour my soul out into this tiny room that he called an office. He wanted to move along faster but held himself in check.

What I really desired was a long period of rest. The final sleep. Death.

“My guilt will forever be heavier than my sorrow.”

“Her death wasn’t your fault, Sam.” Tasker said. “I want you to say it aloud and realize that is the truth.”

The good doctor’s healing words quickly turned into poison. “Doc, why are we here? Wouldn’t things be easier if I was just gone? You wouldn’t have to worry about me breaking all the shit in your office. My family wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. The least you can do is give me something to feel numb.”

Tasker would never fall for any of my traps. He always spoke methodically and carefully. “I’m not going to prescribe you any more medication for the time being. Didn’t you tell me you self-medicate plenty during the week?”

“I’m cutting back.” I lied. Before everything happened, I had been a sexually frustrated teetotaler. Now I was a shameless alcoholic.

Tasker shook his head. “Sam, you never picked up the Lexapro refill I sent. My assistant checks these things. I’ll keep prescribing your medications, but you can’t take them and drive. That’s a DUI. You’re endangering your life. An exacerbation of your underlying depression and anxiety after a major loss is to be expected, but the next time you tell me you’re going to kill yourself I’ll have no choice but to send you to the BHU again and put you on a 72-hour hold. These medications are only one part of treatment. The second part are these sessions with me and group therapy with Colleen. If you let us, we can help you, but you have to want to get better.”

That was the problem. I didn’t want to get better. I didn’t want to be saved. Not by Tasker or Colleen. My hero was gone.