365 Nights Page 16

  We’ve been revealing our true selves bit by bit over the years—from hair dye to two left feet. But a few years ago I did the mother of all baiting and switching—I went from outgoing, fun-loving career gal, to crying, angry, nervous mother-of-two, battling depression. I mean ugly feet are one thing . . .

  “Battling depression” sounds overly valiant to me, as I didn’t know for a while that I was waging any kind of war on anything. My cheese just slid ever so slowly off my cracker, so that it was barely perceptible at first. “Contracting depression” sounds about right—as I did feel like I was contracting, growing smaller, shrinking, and shriveling up.

  I do call it Little D, though, versus Big D, because while Little D was certainly hazardous and a huge distraction, it didn’t require massive amounts of medication, or hospitalization, and it didn’t last years and years, for which I am forever thankful. The weird thing about Little D, though, is her sneakiness. It’s like a girl who wants to be friends, sidles up to you, courts you for years and years, and then proceeds to suck all the life out of you until there is nothing left. To quote my dad, “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”

  When Little D showed up at the party, it took me by surprise. Little D had been hanging around in the shadows awhile—after the births of both of my children, for example. Of course, hindsight is really “how did you not recognize postpartum when it was knocking you upside the head, girl?” And the winter doldrums (otherwise known as SAD—seasonal affective disorder) had always been a part of my landscape over the years, but it wasn’t anything that a sunny trip to Florida or some time in front of those weird sun lamps couldn’t conquer.

  I thought I had managed to rebuff Little D’s overtures—and although my husband would find that statement laughable, I believed it. But one fall, she pursued me with abandon. And in retrospect, I can see how Little D took up residence with me. One of my dearest friends died and was buried on her thirty-seventh birthday.

  We knew Christy was going to die. Or rather she had declined to live, in the nicest way possible, of course. That was her way and that is how ALS works. You reach a point where your body has so completely betrayed you that you have to decide: yes or no. Yes, I am okay with how this disease has progressed and I will see it to the end, which means that after my body is unable to move, my lungs will no longer be able to inflate and I will suffocate. Or no, I want more time. And though I still can’t move, I will go on a ventilator that inflates my lungs and breathes for me so I won’t suffocate and I will buy some days, months, and even years. Christy said yes to the natural course of ALS.

  Even when you know someone is going to die, I’m amazed by the capacity to still be shocked by the actual death. The phone call is still startling. The funeral arrangements still seem surreal. The fact that she is gone is astonishing. And apparently, throughout and after all of this, people run into the arms of their loved ones looking for affirmations of life. They need immunity from the tragedy and assurance that it won’t happen to them. In the midst of moments of incomprehensible grief or terror, there is apparently this need to physically connect with another human being. Babies conceived around 9/11 are the perfect example, or people who had a lot of uninhibited sex while bombs were raining down on them in the London Blitz in World War II. Dying or the idea of dying creates a craving for connection for things that are, naturally, living. And sexual intimacy is proof that we are very much alive.

  But when Christy died, that didn’t happen for me.

  I mourned alone. I flew solo. I was embarrassed by the flood-waters of grief that spilled over me every day after Christy died. I grieved in the shower, in the car on the way to work, or when washing my face at night. Never in the arms of my spouse, as so many seem to do. I did not seek comfort from Brad—not that it wasn’t offered. And I certainly didn’t feel an urge to be intimate with Brad—not that it would have been rebuffed. Simply, I was untouched by the idea of touch.

  I remember when I got the call. Brad was outside playing with the kids. I opened the front door and stood in the doorway. He turned, almost as if in slow motion. “Christy is gone,” I said. It was a cold, hard statement. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” But instead of running into his arms, I ran upstairs, closed the bedroom door, and got into bed. I wanted to be alone. Brad came after me, but the door was locked.

  I was overwhelmed with life and trying to fit in mourning the death of a friend. It sucked, it really did. My grief was not greater or grander than that of her other friends or her family. There was not the slightest thing remarkable about my grief, save that it belonged to me and that I chose to bear it alone. It was something that was so staggeringly personal that I couldn’t share it with anyone. I didn’t know how. Not even Brad. It was crushing for us both, yes, but I couldn’t do differently.

  You see, Christy was so fabulously special that she made you feel that you were her favorite, most fabulously special friend. That seemed to be her job of sorts, to prop up her friends and serve as a reflection of how truly special we all were. Which was ridiculous in a way, as no one was as special as she and we all strived to be even the tiniest reflection of Christy. At least I did. And it seemed I would fail miserably in the year to come.

  Not long after Christy’s funeral, my dad and career mentor sold his company (which was where I worked, by the way) and retired—a move wholeheartedly supported by our entire family. I was unprepared for how bummed I would be and I missed having him in my corner rooting me on every day at work. I truly mourned the loss of that part of our relationship. But I reasoned I couldn’t really be sad because we were all so happy he sold the ad agency and could retire, play fantastic golf, and drive my mom nuts at home.

  As though not enough were happening in my life, I thought it would be a good idea if we moved. When you’re in the throes of emotional crises, you’d be amazed at the things that seem smart. We were to move, not to a new state or even to a new city, but a mere 1.2 miles from our house—to a wonderful home in a great neighborhood in a great school district where two of my college pals lived.

  As soon as we signed the contract for the new house, I freaked. Panic attacks, tears, bursts of anger. It was Charla as Freak Girl. While tears, anger, and panic were part of my repertoire, this was of a new intensity and frequency. I think it was a cumulative freak—all the stuff in my life was catching up to me and I couldn’t deal. And by cumulative, I mean having two babies in as many years, finding and hiring a nanny (horrific and comic at the same time), working full-time and later part-time (gratifying and nauseatingly stressful), burying a dear friend, saying good-bye to my dad as day-to-day career coach, and trying to ensure that Brad recognized in me some semblance of the formerly cute, fun, witty, and charming gal he married. I can assure you I failed at that one, in spades—not remotely cute, not at all fun, and all but completely witless. And for some reason, I had really bad hair at the time. Perhaps there is a correlation between my having really bad hair and struggling with Little D? Anyway, Little D was there through all my milestones, patiently waiting in the wings for her official debut.

  Fighting Little D off was kind of like those giant roller brushes that you use to blow-dry your hair . . . when you get them all tangled in your hair and you start to panic and yank on the brush, and it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse, and your hair is wrapped every which way around this prickly brush and it hurts like heck but you can’t seem to stop tugging. The solution is to be perfectly still and calm and focused. Instead, I was standing there with a giant hairbrush festered into my scalp, sweating and breathless, wondering how the heck I was going to undo this mess.

  I would wake up at night, shake Brad awake, and tell him we couldn’t move to the new neighborhood “with all those people.” I would cry uncontrollably (a common symptom when Little D has you in her grasp), clench his T-shirt in my fist, and wildly look into his face for answers he couldn’t possibly give me.

  “What people?” he asked. “We know half the people in the new neig
hborhood.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, those people don’t know us,” I hissed. “We have to stay here, we’re safe here, with these people.” The cheese was definitely slipping off the cracker.

  My fear of moving was logical, in a way. If you don’t know yourself and why you’re behaving in such a bizarre way, wouldn’t you be freaked out that someone else might find out? I didn’t want people who never knew me before to discover how neurotic and weird I was and can be—they might not be thrilled to have me, the cheeseless cracker, as a new neighbor. I could not reason why I would lie awake night after night catatonically staring at the ceiling and wondering if I would ever sleep again. Just like there was no explanation for calling Brad at work and demanding he come home right away to help me find our child’s missing shoe.

  After several months of me sleepwalking through my life, crying myself to sleep morning, noon, and night, with Brad packing moving boxes every evening after work while I sat in a chair and silently watched him, he politely suggested that I might want to “see someone about this.” So I numbly called that little number on my insurance card, and a couple of phone calls later, voilà, I was sitting on my therapist’s couch letting it all hang out. And according to that newly acquired therapist, I was not good with transitions.

  Well, this was good to know, I guess. And while I knew I was a bit neurotic and on occasion compulsive, it had mostly played out okay for me in the past. I disguised all that angst (Little D in her younger, prettier years, I think) with wit, personality, and sheer determination (or so I thought). So yes, knowing that I didn’t do well with transition would have been helpful in an earlier chapter of my life, called going to college, when I was shoved out of the proverbial nest and failed to fly.

  Cases in point:

  Going away to college: Confounding! I couldn’t really master that whole getting to class, participating in college life, and conquering the time-management conundrum (until my dad yanked my car and I miraculously made Dean’s List to earn it back).

  Breaking up with my high school boyfriend: Miserable! I couldn’t really get past the idea that the boy I thought I would marry (naïve but true) would dump me unceremoniously after nearly four years for a cheerleader whom he met at a frat party in college. You are not going to believe how I found out he wanted to see other people—my friend Cece had her friend up from NC State for the weekend and brought her by my dorm to meet me. As she surveyed my dorm room adorned with pictures of my adoring boyfriend (who also attended NC State), the friend suddenly left . . . very upset. Apparently her room was adorned with pictures of my adoring boyfriend . . . adoring her. I mean, what are the chances? I was also ill prepared to deal with his comment of “let’s still be friends” (also naïve but true) as I thought he meant we would still be friends, which meant I could still call him to hang out. Bad, bad idea, especially when he had new pictures of his adoring girlfriend posted in his dorm room.

  Making friends at college: Laughable! Are you kidding me—I could barely get myself to class and get a pen to paper to take notes, much less make a friend or two in the dining hall. Which was amazing, really, because I spent a lot of time in the dining hall. Note: My mother burst into tears when I walked in the door for Christmas break. I mean, twenty-five pounds . . . what’s the big deal?

  The only things that saved me at the time were: My parents, who read me the riot act and made me suddenly acquire through sheer osmosis the ability to study, get myself to class, and score decently on my exams. A friend or two who could peer beneath the paralyzing anguish of getting dumped by the boyfriend I was supposed to marry (did I mention he took up with a cheerleader?) and see that I was a fun soul worthy of friendship and attention. My own sheer chutzpah, which I am glad to report I still have. And God, who put in my path two little life-altering opportunities that gently nudged (remember, transition = bad) the course of my college career and allowed me to blossom into the slightly caustic, occasionally witty, and fiercely loyal person that I am today. Said person who is prone, of course, to bouts of Little D during times of transition.

  So the summer before my sophomore year I broke up with Little D, or we went on hiatus, if you want another way to look at it. I spent the summer studying in Europe, met some terrifically funny and wonderful people, and that fall pledged a sorority filled with women who would impact my life, in a very gentle, nonthreatening way. And the key to those transitions? Good question, friends. I decided, finally, that I was ready for them. Yep . . . bring them on.

  How did I deal with life’s other major transitions?I was ready for marriage. I’d waited long and hard for Brad to come into my life, and I was delighted to finally have enough sense to recognize the gift that was he. Interestingly, my friend Christy had to give me the nudge on that one, though.

  I was not ready for kids (although at thirty-one I was not getting any younger and I certainly thought I was ready for kids, at least in theory). In retrospect, I don’t know many people who are ready for kids, except for my friend Nina. Motherhood was so instinctive and natural to her that we all applied to be adopted by her. In fact, Little D was masquerading as postpartum and how I didn’t recognize her is beyond me.

  I was not remotely prepared to be a full-time working mom, which played out fatefully with Little D coming to check in and see how miserably I was “doing it all.” Now, I am not opposed to being a mother “who works full-time outside of the home” and I did just that for a number of years . . . I am merely noting that I was woefully unprepared for it and terribly bad at it.

  Not exactly a good track record on the transition front, so I was ready for some tutoring once I realized I was flunking my life so miserably. I’m a smart girl, and to quote Dr. Phil (who is quickly spiraling into Jerry Springer territory, but I am a fan of his early work), “You cannot change what you don’t acknowledge. ” Darn straight.

  So after I paid this therapist a buck fifty an hour to tell me I do not manage transitions well, I got home and announced to Brad that (1) he can never leave me; (2) our children can never go to college; (3) we can never move again; (4) my parents are required to live forever; and (5) by the way, did he have any longevity secrets he could pass along posthaste? Oh yeah, and I needed some serious sleep starting this minute and I curled up on the kitchen floor and assumed a sleep position (at least I wanted to). Brad assured me he could only help me with point 1. It was a start.

  Later, Brad wanted to know the details. So I told him everything I had learned about myself and this little “situation,” including the details on a questionnaire I had filled out at the doctor’s office that had covered a variety of issues, including sex. It was the very last question that caused him to pause. The questionnaire read: “How would you answer the following: I am interested in having sex with my partner. (1) Often; (2) Occasionally; (3) Sometimes; (4) Never.” Well, you don’t have to be a member of Mensa to guess my answer. Brad nodded solemnly when he read it. “We do have a problem,” he said. Perhaps seeing in writing that his wife “never” wanted to have sex with him was a shock. Perhaps he had convinced himself that it was really “occasionally” or “sometimes.” Either way, I was sad for us both.

  That’s when I got serious. I sat down with my “transition” therapist and we outlined a game plan. I knew I didn’t want to go the medication route, but was willing to try one if the non-pharmaceutical remedies didn’t untangle me out of this giant roller brush. Diet . . . good days, bad days. Exercise . . . more times than not, at least in the beginning. Sleep . . . lots and lots of that. Massage therapy . . . heaven on earth. Acupuncture . . . not so much, but hey, I tried. (It was cool at first . . . until my muscles started to twitch and it didn’t feel so cool.) Vitamins and supplements . . . some for sleep, others for energy, but who knows if they really worked? And lots and lots of prayer, which proved to be the most important part of this “Little D, be gone with you!” cocktail.

  Interestingly, sex wasn’t on the prescription list. My therapist brought it up, to her cre
dit. I had scored poorly on sex in that questionnaire, after all. But after I started laughing (or crying, I can’t remember) in reference to her discussing the topic, we agreed to table it. I have to admit, though, she was one of the first ever to suggest that although I might have married the World’s Most Perfect Man for Charla, it was hardly a perfect union without some semblance of a sex life. At the time, though, it simply wasn’t a part of the repertoire for feeling better for me. How can you have sex with someone when you feel so sad? How can you want to be intimate when you’re waiting to get home so you can cry in the bathroom away from your kids? How in the world can you feel romantic when it’s all you can do to get through another day that feels like you’re swimming underwater? I mean, people in the movies and in novels seem to run into the intimate arms of a loved one when things get unbearable. Having sex when you’re sad, afraid, or overwhelmed should provide comfort, but I never tried it as it was beyond me. I was quietly inconsolable, and I was convinced that having sex wouldn’t change that.

  Could regular intimacy with a loving spouse have cured me in some way? I wondered. With depression, I believe not. It never occurred to me that sex—or rather intimacy and all that comes with it—could be a management tool for grief . . . or any host of ills. Stress. Anxiety. Pick an angst and test it. “I feel a bad spell coming on, I need to run home to Brad before I fall apart again.” It just didn’t seem practical. But of course, when you’re depressed, your libido is buried somewhere deeper than deep, so at the time, there was no way I could have known.

  Fast-forward several years to now, and while Little D is behind me (for now), I realize that there is nothing remotely practical about having sex every day with your spouse either. In fact, as part of this experiment I did indeed learn that if I’m regularly engaged in an intimate relationship with Brad, I really can leverage it to my mental and physical benefit in ways I never considered before (see my back pocket research from January). Back then, I was not aware of the healing benefits of sex with a loving spouse in the confines of a happy, adjusted marriage. But I am now. If you had said to me, “Charla, you should really take up road biking. I think biking twenty to thirty miles a day would really help you feel better/look better/seem better,” I would have thought that you were double-dog-down crazy. Ouch, just looking at that tiny seat makes my delicate little arse hurt. But if I was familiar with a bike, I was used to riding it twenty to thirty miles a day, and I had witnessed the many benefits of said activity, then perhaps (1) I would be more apt to believe it, and (2) I would be more apt to do it.