An Unquiet Mind - Kay Redfield Jamison [44]
For a long time both before and after I tried to kill myself, I was in the close care of a friend of mine, one who redefined for me the notion of friendship. He was a psychiatrist, as well as a warm, whimsical, and witty man who had a mind like a cluttered attic. He was intrigued by a variety of bizarre things, including me, and wrote fascinating articles about such topics as nutmeg psychoses and the personal habits of Sherlock Holmes. He was intensely loyal and spent evening after evening with me, somehow enduring my choleric moods. He was generous with both his time and money, and he stubbornly believed that I would make it through my depression and, ultimately, thrive.
Sometimes, after I had told him that I simply had to be alone, he would call me later, at one or two o’clock in the morning, to see how I was doing. He could tell from my voice what state I was in, and, despite my pleas to be left alone, he would insist on coming over. Often this was in the guise of “I can’t sleep. You wouldn’t refuse to keep a friend company, would you?” Knowing full well that he was only checking up on me, I would say, “Yes. Trust me. I can refuse. Leave me alone. I’m in a foul mood.” He would call back again in a few minutes and say, “Please, please, pretty please. I really need the company. We can go somewhere and get some ice cream.” So we would get together at some ungodly hour, I would be secretly and inexpressibly grateful, and he somehow would have finessed it so that I didn’t feel like I was too huge a burden to him. It was a rare gift of friendship.
Fortuitously, he also worked as an emergency room physician on weekends. After my suicide attempt, he and my psychiatrist worked out a plan for my medical care and supervision. My friend kept a constant watch on me, drew my blood for lithium and electrolyte levels, and walked me repeatedly to pull me out of my drugged state, as one would move a sick shark around its tank in order to keep the water circulating through its gills. He was the only person I knew who could make me laugh during my truly morbid moments. Like my husband, from whom I was legally separated but still frequently in contact, he had a gentling and calming effect on me when I was vastly irritable, perturbed, or perturbing. He nursed me through the most awful days of my life, and it is to him, only next to my psychiatrist and family, that I most owe my life.
The debt I owe my psychiatrist is beyond description. I remember sitting in his office a hundred times during those grim months and each time thinking, What on earth can he say that will make me feel better or keep me alive? Well, there never was anything he could say, that’s the funny thing. It was all the stupid, desperately optimistic, condescending things he didn’t say that kept me alive; all the compassion and warmth I felt from him that could not have been said; all the intelligence, competence, and time he put into it; and his granite belief that mine was a life worth living. He was terribly direct, which was terribly important, and he was willing to admit the limits of his understanding and treatments and when he was wrong. Most difficult to put into words, but in many ways the essence of everything: He taught me that the road from suicide to life is cold and colder and colder still, but—with steely effort, the grace of God, and an inevitable break in the weather—that I could make it.
My mother also was wonderful. She cooked meal after meal for me during my long bouts of depression, helped me with my laundry, and helped pay my medical bills. She endured my irritability and boringly bleak moods, drove me to the doctor, took me to pharmacies, and took me shopping. Like a gentle mother cat who picks up a straying kitten by the nape of its neck, she kept her marvelously maternal eyes wide-open, and, if I floundered too far away, she brought me back into a geographic and emotional range