On Medication
Today I cried at my doctors office.
I shifted my weight and the paper kept crinkling and she kindly placed her hand on my knee and asked if I had talked to my therapist at medication.
My therapist, "Doctor Susan", is a psychoanalyst who nods and calls me by my last name in a formal tone and I feel as though she doesn't know anything about my personality. "Ms. L, this is something we will work on together." She ends most of our sessions with "we'll continue to work on that." Things are vague and she doesn't really understand the self destructive sides of my personality. I've told her about my feelings of jealousy for friend's who's lives are going well or my streaks of distraction and inability to concentrate at work and the overwhelming anger that can bubble up inside of me with no warning. Doctor Susan doesn't seem to understand that I push friends away or that I can lash out easily or that sometimes, when I drink, a small demon takes over and says "Yo, L, let's fuck shit up" and I text and ex or make out with a coworker or start to remember how much I hate my body or my work ethic or my anxiety. She does, however, take my insurance.
A week before I cried in my doctors office, I was at a publishing party in Bushwick. It housed 20 and 30-something want-to-be 'literati' who were all carrying a Knausgaard in their bags or fake leather jackets for show. A photographer in a jean vest with a wallet chain was milling around, taking photos of the guests, except for the group of women I was with. I ran to the bathroom and joked that while I was gone they would have their picture taken. They did. When I returned one of my particularly tactless friends exclaimed "OMG L, we totally did have our photo taken!"
I had recently returned from Turkey where I had traveled among mosques and ruins and covered my shoulders and witnessed the call to prayer and had consumed more halal meat than any human should. I had also held a particularly mangy looking kitten outside of the Istanbul Cultural center. The cat had not bitten or scratched or acted irregularly but I couldn't shake the notion that I certainly, one hundred percent, had rabies and would be dying in the next two to twenty days.
The party came after a particularly grueling day of work and independent rabies research. As soon as I learned that the photo was taken, presumably because I was finally gone and that made things more esthetically pleasing, I grabbed my coat and said I had to go. A friend chased me into the street, like we were in a romantic movie with warehouses covered in murals and a single street lamp. I told her I loved her but had to go, she insisted I come back and I turned around and yelled "I have to go. Now." The second I turned around, quickly pacing away, the tears rolled down my cheeks and wet the collar of the jumpsuit I had worn, hoping to make myself feel more trendy and beautiful. I then walked the long way, twenty-four blocks, home and melted into my bathroom floor for a few hours.
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I was yelling at my friends at work parties. I wasn't sleeping. I had gained almost 40 pounds because of emotional eating. I was scared of bedbugs and rabies and if I had ever blacked out and something 'bad' had happened.
Sitting in my doctor's Chinatown office, surrounded by succulents and grass gardens in the examination room, I couldn't breath. The mention of medication, of not having to be referred to an out-of-network (read: out-of-pocket) psychiatrist, of ending my sleepless nights and google searches of "rabies instances in Istanbul" or "cat with rabies sat on me, do I need a shot?" or "is rabies shot really $1200?" had previously felt like a relief that I was never going to feel. I couldn't believe that medication was finally an option. My immediate fears of death and diseases dissipated. My doctor was still concerned and couldn't very well say you're 100% rabies free because she wasn't with me outside of the Instanbul cultural center and she didn't see the kitten in question. Still, she did realize that something inside of me was not working and that I hadn't slept well in two weeks and that it wasn't really about a rabid cat. And so we started on 10 mg of Lexapro and Xanax as needed. I was out the door with a hand written perception and puffy eyes.
At the pharmacy that night I felt giddy. I was going to have a fix. I was also, most likely, not going to die of rabies. Of course, over the coming days I came down and realized that a pharmaceutical wasn't a cure all. Lexapro wasn't going to take away every facet of my anxious personality or shed that 40 pounds or give me a healthy adult relationship and improved friendships. Still, it was going to bring me back to a healthier version of myself. I might be able have the energy to contrite for a few hours at a time at work, I might sleep through the night, I might feel motivated enough to go to a yoga class again.
It's been seven months and I'm up to 20 mg of Lexpro and only take Xanax once every few weeks, mainly to stop a racing mind at night. I'm drinking less and am eating to feel good. I go to spin and yoga classes three or four times a week. I'm openly communicating with my girlfriends. I haven't shown any symptoms of rabies.
