I am sitting in my psychiatrist’s office, weeping, explaining No, no, it’s fine. Everything is fine, really. I feel fine. The tissues the psychiatrist handed me are balled up in my fists. They’re the cheap kind. You can tell because of the way lint comes off and lands on the blue carpet with each fidget. I didn’t know blue could be such an ugly color.
The thing is, I’m not lying. I feel pretty okay about everything. When my friends talk about depression, they talk about not wanting to leave the house or their bed. They talk about not wanting to go to work. They talk about killing themselves. I don’t. I’m ruthlessly pragmatic. I get up every day without hitting snooze. Listen to the radio on the drive to work. Smile and say adequate things about Mondays and Fridays and the other weekdays and their relation to Fridays.
Except for I keep weeping. I can’t seem to stop. It’s not sobbing, really. It’s not destructive. I cried on the way from work to my appointment. I cried in the shower this morning, too. I like to cry in there because the acoustics are nice and sort of interesting. I cried about three times a day for three weeks. Three times three times seven is nine times seven, which is forty-nine.
I tell my psychiatrist this. I say that I’m actually pretty okay, but I know this isn’t normal. This isn’t normal, right? I want to explain that it’s not childish crying, I’m not a baby. I think about mentioning Billy Pilgrim so the psychiatrist knows I’m smart and well-read but decide against it.
I think about the idea of transference, that sometimes patients will fall in love with their therapists. This seems pretty unlikely in my case. He has a nice enough face but lacks glasses or a big rack.
He asks if I’ve had any Life Changes recently that could have triggered the profuse weeping. I take a minute because I swear I have a puddle for a brain. I say:
“Well, um. So, I got a new job and a new house. And, um, before that, my friend from college suddenly died. Um. Before that, my partner was fired. He has a new job now but that was stressful. Um. Before that, my mom tried to kill herself. She said it was my fault. And before that, my parents disowned me via text message. I guess?”
“Did all of this happen within the last couple two or three years, or…?”
“No, this is all within the last twelve months.”
The psychiatrist makes a noise in his throat.
“Also, I’m getting really paranoid. I sort of deleted all of social media. I just feel like no one loves me. That’s not what I mean. I mean, like, everyone will inevitably half-love me, and it’s like, just make up your mind already. If you don’t love me, that’s fine. But don’t pretend to love me. Don’t make up some smarter, thinner, happier, funnier version of me in your head and love that version instead. And—”
“Okay. I can give you a referral for someone for you to talk to.” I’m annoyed at him for interrupting. Then I feel bored. Then I start to see his side of things. He’s the pill guy, not the talking-about-things guy. I’ve stopped crying, so that’s something, I guess.
He goes on to prescribe something for depression and something else for anxiety. I don’t catch the names; it’s all alphabet soup, and I’m slightly lysdexic anyways. I’ve never been prescribed something before, other than birth-control and cream for eczema. I like to think eczema is a major turn-on for someone. They must be out there.
He explains that maybe I don’t have depression, not really. Just that I didn’t have time to process my emotions because I was too busy trying to take care of everything. And now that things have finally calmed down after a year, I’m learning to feel again, but the emotions are coming back all at once and inappropriate for the immediate context. He says to think of the pills as tools, that these will help me process things. Like a computer.
I pay for the prescriptions myself. I have health insurance, I think, but I don’t know if I filled out the paperwork or how that really works.
I get lost on the long drive home. I have a puddle for a brain. I go inside. It’s late. Eric’s on the couch with the TV on. I look at him, sleeping, and wonder what he wants. I remember that time he found me jammed inside of the dryer. I thought it looked so nice and safe in there, and it was. I had to take the clothes out because it became clear that both the clothes and I just weren’t going to fit. When Eric found me, I shouted at him: What do you want from me? What do you want? And he said Nothing. I don’t want anything at all.
I consider him lying there, sprawled with glasses ajar. He can turn his brain off. I shake him awake gently. I told him I’m sorry, but he can’t sleep on the couch because of his bad back. I say that it’s late and I got lost but I’m home now. I said I’d get the beer bottles and solo-cups tomorrow. It’s late out, and there’s probably bugs. The garbage is from a housewarming party we threw a week ago. It was a good party. I don’t know. I got really drunk, but I don’t think I said anything appalling. I’m not sure, though. My brain is puddle that won’t stop analyzing itself.
I get him his water and we go to bed. I ask if he needs anything else. He says, no, he has everything he needs. And I hope, maybe, he’s right.
Nadia Arioli is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Thimble Literary Magazine. A three-time nominee for Best of the Net, Arioli’s poetry can be found in Cider Press Review, Rust + Moth, McNeese Review, Penn Review, Mom Egg, and elsewhere. Essays have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize and can be found in Hunger Mountain, Heavy Feather Review, SOFTBLOW, and elsewhere. Artwork has appeared in Permafrost, Kissing Dynamite, Pithead Chapel, and Poetry Northwest. Arioli’s forthcoming collections are with Dancing Girl Press and Fernwood Press.
Image: “Choisissez le silence du rêve – Choose the silence or the dream” by JC Alifer
JC Alfier is a poet and photo-artist whose aesthetics are informed by Yoko Mizuki, Francesca Woodman, and especially Katrien De Blauwer.
Pine Hills Review 