Give Me A Pill So I’ll Feel Better!

 All I had ever wanted was to be married.  Be careful what you ask for.  My husband managed the property of a local hotel chain and for the first few weeks of our new marriage, his employers were very lenient with him in terms of the number of hours they made him work each day.  That was, however, soon to change.  He was eventually sent on a business trip to New York for three weeks. 

            Several nights into the trip, he called me with a big surprise.  He and a couple of co-workers had taken a trip to New Jersey to hit the gambling casinos.  He said, “You are never going to believe what happened!”  I said, “What?”  He said, “I won $900.00.”  Naturally, my immediate thought was what’s yours is mine.  When I alluded to the fact of my share, he said, “I won it.”  I said something to the effect, “You mean to tell me you are not going to give me any?”  After a few moments, he reluctantly said I could have $250.00.  My feelings were bruised but I accepted it very sourly.  He had an attitude about money that I really didn’t like. 

  I brushed it off and pretended it didn’t hurt.  The “normal” thing for me to in my new role as a wife was to imitate being a good wife (just like Donna Reed), but something inside of me was fighting against it.  Nonetheless, I was going to make the effort since this is has always been my dream.             

             I was visiting with his mother on the phone and she made the comment that when her husband traveled, she would plant flowers or do something new around the house to surprise him upon his return.  There was something ingrained in me that made me want to imitate the behaviors of people I saw on TV and in the movies.  Therefore, if I heard or saw something that looked or sounded good to me, then I was going to put it into play for my life.  So, I waited for the weekend to come (I didn’t do much of anything extracurricular except on weekends) and decided I was going to become an avid horticulturist! 

  Saturday came and I headed to the nursery.  I never went anywhere alone but there was no one else to go with, so off I went.  I knew nothing of flowers but made a purchase of several different types (feeling very grown-up) and headed back home to play the role of a good housewife.  I was squatting in the front yard when my heart started to palpitate and race wildly.  I became flushed and sweaty all over.  I couldn’t catch my breath; I got scared and jumped up, leaving everything all over the yard and ran inside.  What was happening to me?  Was I dying?  Was I having a stroke?  My first thought was to call Mom.  I managed to dial the numbers on the phone and I uttered, “Help me!”  She said, “What’s wrong, honey?  Try to calm down.”  I barely got the words out as I gasped for every breath.  She talked calmly and I listened.  I couldn’t cry, I could hardly breathe, and could hardly hold a thought in my mind.  She said, “Molly, it sounds to me like your nerves.”  Nerves?  Okay, maybe I wasn’t having a stroke.  That realization calmed me down but I wanted to know what was going on with me.  A few minutes passed and she said, “Why don’t you come over here and stay with me?”  Ok, I thought, but how was I going to manage to drive a car in my condition?  I pleaded with her to come and get me, which she did.  It seemed as if hours passed until she arrived.  I walked around the house, gasping for every breath until she got there.  We packed a few of my things and headed for her house.

  I sat in front of the TV staring at the screen.  All I know is there was nothing in my head…nothing.  I felt as though my mind was going to float right out of me.  All the years of thinking I was going to go crazy was now really going to happen.  My aunt would have been right; I was just like her.  I also recalled the comment my dad had made about his grandparents who both went insane.  I heard insanity skips a generation so tag, I guessed I was going crazy, too.  Thoughts of this malady had been in the back of my mind for several years now.  Evidently, I was headed in the same direction my great-grandparents and aunt took.

Thinking that my issue was something female related, Mom called her Gynecologist and made and appointment for me.  He checked me over, discovered nothing physically wrong but placed me on a small dosage of Valium for several weeks.   I had been on Valium several years earlier but had stopped taking them because they made me sleepy and caused any control over my eating habits to fly out the window.  I lost any inhibition I had while I was on them and would literally, “pig out, causing my weight to balloon up.  Then I would have to turn around and lose the weight I had gained.  Up and down.  Up and down.    

            All I ever had to do in the past was tell any doctor I was having chest pains, shortness of breath and, of course, the old stand by, I felt “nervous.”  They would listen, look at me and then prescribe a sedative.  I knew all the right words to say to get what I wanted to ease my pain.  Now, I took Valium as my lifeline, functioning at about a 50% level.  He handed me my prescription and referred me to a colleague of his whom he believed would be better equipped to help me.  Mom and I headed for the next doctor.  He was young, handsome and caring but even that was not helping me.  He listened to me and placed me on an antidepressant.  I had never heard of such a thing but it sounded to me like they were something given to crazy people. Bring it on and just help me!  I returned for a follow-up visit to let him know how the pills were working.  I told him they only made me feel weird.  He tried me on one other pill but that one also made me only feel weird, as well.  I apparently stymied the man because all he could do was throw his hands up in the air as he proclaimed there was nothing else he could do for me. He suggested to my mother I go to a Psychiatrist.  He gave us the name of someone who was supposed to be top-notch in his field.  I thought, "I really must be crazy."  When talking with my in-laws on the phone, I would pretend everything was okay.  My husband was still away and when he would call, I would cry.  I didn't want to be labeled crazy.  It reminded me of the kids in the neighborhood calling me fatty.  I tried to fake being happy but the darkness that had settled in me was becoming too hard to mask.  I started rapidly losing weight.  I could hardly swallow anything for fear of choking on it.  I was not well.  My mom was doing everything in her power to help me.  I couldn't be alone so I had to sleep with her at night just in case something happened to me. 

             My husband came home one weekend to be in a friend’s wedding.  I was still at my mom’s and didn’t want to go home but knew I didn’t have a choice.  I wanted to stay with my mother where I felt safe.  Was he going to want sex?  Well, that was out of the question.  I was actually afraid to tell him I had been sent to a Psychiatrist, but I knew I had to.  My husband said he just wanted me to be well.  He wanted me “fixed.”  The weekend flew by, he left to finish his stint in New York, and I went back to Mom’s house.  We made the appointment and I waited anxiously for the two weeks to pass for my first appointment with a shrink.   

  I was going crazy and I thought, ”How could his office make me wait for two weeks?”  I managed to suffer through and finally the day came for us to go to my next doctor appointment.

  I sat across from the first Psychiatrist I had ever been around and watched him as he sat holding a chart and clipboard in his lap.  He seemed normal enough.  He looked up at me and asked me how I was.  I looked at him and asked the only important thing on my heart, ”Am I going crazy?”  He looked me square in the eye and said, “People who ask if they are going crazy are not.  It’s the ones who don’t ask that you have to be concerned about.”  My answer had come.  “Okay, so I am not crazy.  I can face and deal with anything else,” I thought to myself as I sat there. 

 His statement resounded in my brain and heart, “I am not going crazy.”  Then why did I feel like I was?  It was as if those few words pulled me back from the pit of hell.  My savior sat right across the room from me that day.  He is the one that let me know I was going to be all right.  He is the one who spoke those comforting words to me when I needed to hear them the most.  That day he started trying me on anti-depressants and counseling began.