Lost and Trapped, part 1

Before I write about finding the path, it seems somehow appropriate to write about the times when I was most lost.  


At the suggestion of a friend, I'm currently reading a young adult novel called Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld.  I don't know what to make of this book: not much happens in the plot and I can't stand the main character, yet still I can't put the book down.  It's incredibly real.  I wonder what I'd make of this book if I'd read it at 16 rather than at 34.  


In the scene I'm currently reading, Lee, the protagonist, has just learned that her roommate from freshman year in high school (to whom she was not particularly close) has just attempted suicide.  Lee had never thought this particular girl had emotions strong enough to make her want to take such a drastic action.  A teacher takes Lee to the hospital and seeing her friend there, she thinks, "The way she looked at me was so hopeless, so exhausted, that it seemed scornful.  I had an inkling then that maybe I had underestimated her.  Perhaps in the past I hadn't given her credit for having opinions or experiencing discontent - for being like me."   Then she thinks how you just try to be normal, to do and say the right things to fit in... but "at certain moments time slowed... and you saw that it was all really nothing.  It was just endlessness..."


It's funny that I truly can't stand the protagonist when, in truth, I was very much like her: self-conscious about everything I did, desperate to fit in, a self-imposed outsider, a snob, painfully embarrassed by everything my parents said and did.  I'd like to think I was a bit nicer than she was, but probably only marginally.  I was friendlier and more successful as a student and athlete, but in terms of what was going on inside, I was as big a mess.


It was observed by a couple insightful friends between my teens and early twenties that I was either the happiest or saddest person they knew, but they couldn't tell which.  This was fair.  I was alternatively both the happiest and saddest person.  In college I put up barriers between myself and most of my friends.  I was never sure anyone actually wanted me around.  I felt more comfortable with adults, with whom I didn't feel like I had to put on an act - to know what was cool and what was popular. 


I felt so alone so much of the time.  I would walk around campus listening to the Counting Crows.  "Rain King" would play and I would take particular comfort in the line, "Mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone?  I can't go outside cuz I'm scared that I might not make it home."  I always wanted to have a boyfriend because I didn't want to be in my own company... I was afraid of the direction of my thoughts would take.  But, it wasn't because I didn't think much of myself.  In fact, just the opposite, I thought quite highly of myself - felt I was special... destined for greatness.  


Funny now to know how many others feel exactly the same way.  Some of them are, some of them... not so much.  And funny how the definition of "greatness" changes as one matures.  But back then, I thought it was my own little secret.  I had a destiny to fulfill, but the fact that I was -  shall we say "special" - was unrecognized by my peers.  I was equal parts snob and insecure.


I thought about suicide, but not in any real way... just a bit of melodrama - the misunderstood and unappreciated genius.  So isolated by her own gifts for understanding the state of the universe.  I fantasized about being in a psychiatric hospital - I thought of it like a retreat from life.  I pictured myself in the company of Keats and Coleridge, FitzGerald, Woolf and Plath.  My depressive tendencies put me, in my mind, in a unique group of those who have affected with the world - the darkness opening up to them insights invisible to eyes of mere mortals... my peers who walked through life with such ease and comfort, going to class, drinking at bars, hanging out with friends.  I... I was different.


That was my college mindset.  Then, against the desperate objections of my subconscious, I got married the year after I graduated college.  In fact, I graduated in May, met X in June, got engaged in August and got married the following June.  


It was during the engagement, probably in October-ish, that things started to unravel completely. I had given up a dream job (a dream job in retrospect... didn't recognize it at the time).  U.S. News and World Report had offered me a position as a fact-checker, with opportunities to try writing.  A thousand times I've imagined myself going back to that moment and saying to X, "You can be a teacher anywhere.  This is the only place I can work this job.  If you love me, you come here."  Then I would have learned before it was too late - before I'd lost 4 years, before all the hurt we'd caused each other - what love meant to him.  He would have said no.  I've gone back to that moment a thousand times and thought, "if only... where would I be?"  It's only now... now that I see the long and twisted path behind me that has led to this amazing place that is my life now - the amazing man who is my husband now - only now that I know I would not be here if I had not been there - that I can let go of the regret.


But then, I didn't think twice.  I turned down the job and at X's suggestion, started a Masters in Education program.  It wasn't that I'd ever really wanted to be a teacher, but I had respect for the profession and thought maybe I could do it.  Turned out, I was a much better student than teacher.  The program required an internship in a middle school, where I worked M-F.  I was in the principal's office more often in the first couple months of the course than I had been in my previous 16 years of education.   Apparently, one wasn't supposed to do gymnastics in the cafeteria or allow students who didn't have warm coats to stay in from recess.  And other Teaching Assistants tattled when I was a minute late for morning duty.  And there was the fact that I was living in Lisbon - not Portugal, which would have been cool - but Connecticut, which I didn't even know existed, despite having lived in the state for 8 years.


For a multitude of reasons (again, I go back to my subconscious emotional reactions warning me that I was making a huge mistake), I started experiencing Sunday night blues - deep depression every Sunday night when I had to leave X to travel back to his father's house, where I was staying for the program.  Then Sunday night blues started Sunday morning; then Saturday... Then Friday night.  Then, they never went away.  I was constantly ducking into bathrooms to cry, staring in the mirror at myself wondering what in the world I was doing?


It was all over by Christmas.  I couldn't go another day.  I moved out of X's father's and in with X (who lived in the same town as my parents).  I thought this would make me better, but actually, I got worse.  I didn't get out of bed.  I cried all day and all night.  I tried to make X stay home from school to be with me.  I thought about death all the time.  


At some point, maybe February or March, I called my father and told him I couldn't stop thinking about dying.  He picked me up and brought me to his cousin's office.  That was the start of my pharmacological journey to hell.  Dr. M is a brilliant psychiatrist, neurologist who listened to my descriptions of dark thoughts and manic highs.  He diagnosed me as I expected him to (since I knew well the symptoms I was describing).  He prescribed medication.  Of course, it only took him about a month of treating me before he diagnosed me appropriately.  He said, "It's X.  You need to break this off.  I'm going to call your mother to come get you and bring you to her place.  You must get out of that relationship."


And part of me knew he was right... 


And yet, that voice was too quiet.  Too overpowered by what was still love at that time.  Too overpowered by my sense of the inevitable.  The ring was binding - I couldn't see a way out... I couldn't see another way.  


to be continued.