Trapped(work in progress)
I was losing my mind, that much was clear. I was visited in my brain by a person named Mr. Rabbit, stupid name I know, the name of my favorite childhood stuffed animal. But he had transformed, instead of calming me he was hurling me forward, telling me I had to die a horrible death, destroying me from day to day. I heard the CIA interrogating me, in my skull, the voices would not leave me alone, so I left my job as a business analyst and went to the hospital. I remember talking to the doctor about my issues, and they nodded again and again. I wanted to shout, “cure me.” By day 3 they told me I had schizophrenia. That fatal disease, my malheurs, my sonnet of recieved sadism. Oh error of errors, I was fucked up.
I talked to some of the other patients, they had stories to tell. One woman recently lost her son, she was crying in a corner when I talked to her. She said she only talked to me because I reminded her of her son. He had truly been the love of her life, she explained to me that she chose to have him after a one night stand. That people around her were telling her to give him up for adoption or to abort the fetus. She not only did not abort, him, Andrew, but raised him. He was the pride of her life, the principle of her being. She heard voices too, her dark days were when the voices were telling her to drown her son. That’s the way voices go, they hit you when you care about someone the hardest, dismembering the collusion of true affection.
I talked to her for an hour, she talked about him growing up, and how fast he learned how to read. How inexhaustibly wonderful he was, that he called her every day at the same time and talked to her for sometimes, hours. No matter how busy he was, he always called her. He had no family, and did not have a girlfriend at the time of his death, fatality from being hit by a drunk driver. The horror. At this point, after having abandoned my profession, I felt like I wanted to say to her I would have died in his place. When you quit your job, especially as a man, your whole life is uprooted. Your world implodes, like it’s been bombed, you don’t know west from east.
The slow, stale confusion, it hits you. I gasped by day 5 from the lack of sensory envelopment, oh to hear glorious music. There were handsets, so I dialed the radio, and did hear some beautiful classical music. I cried in my room, feeling like a pansy, a coward. I had been successful in my life, before this, now with the voices shouting abuses at me, I doubted I could ever be successful again. The confusion did not dissipate, at all, with my new medication, zyprexa. It only seemed to make things worse. My vulnerability to the lack of diversions only became worse. I wanted to kill myself, so badly, imagining that I’d tie a nice noose. But not knowing how.
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I actually expressed my suicidal ideation to my doctor and he told me that things should get better. Would they? Two weeks into my stay, things started to improve. I had more fluency in my thinking, and they told me I could leave soon. During those two weeks, Mr. Rabbit had been getting quieter. I didn’t know how to approach the world, though. I thought about asking for my job back…but then, I felt like I was fucked beyond belief. I followed the advice of my social worker and applied for social security. After a year, I was living still in my apartment, depleting my savings, and receiving social security disability.
I made tea for myself every morning. Read the telegraph and the new york times. I wanted to run from myself, still thought about suicide a lot. Then after talking to a friend, who had recently married someone they met from an online dating site, I agreed to start dating. I uploaded a photo on bumble, then swiped for half an hour. After 3 hours, my phone sounded, a person had matched with and messaged me. It began with a simple, “hi,” I texted back, “hey you.” We started talking and agreed to meet that evening, for a drink at the amsterdam bar. I took a shower, and looked at myself in the mirror. I guess I had gained weight, so I looked like a overweight, but tall guy, with brown hair and brown eyes.
I sat there at the bar, getting nervous. Finally,a petite blonde walked in, she was Mandy, cute as shit. I wanted to kiss her soft, voracious mouth. That was my first thought. “Hi, Peter.” “Hi Mandy.” “So you’re unemployed?” “Yes, I am, I guess I should thank you wholeheartedly for meeting me at all.” She laughed, “I’ll mark it down as good karma, I’m a preschool teacher.” “Oh, that’s great, you like kids then.” “Yes, I love kids, they’re so adorable and fun.”
I asked her what she wanted, she said, “Cosmo.” I quickly spoke to the bartender, “Cosmo for the lady, Gin and tonic for me.” “Certainly sir.” We talked and talked, the conversation went well. I talked about my mental illness and she didn’t seem completely scared away. She told me that everyone has their “downfalls,” “difficulties,” and “issues.” She told me she had bulimia in high school. That she was fat as a pre-teen and lost weight the hard way. I told her she always probably looked great and had nothing to worry about. She smiled. At the end of the date, I chalked it as a good experience, and went home thinking about how nice she was.
I called my friend who got me into online dating and told him I actually had a great first date.
