Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [121]
Gail Kobre Lazarus tickled me with her response to the new, improved me. “She's baaaaacck! Lori's baaaaaack,” she said, mimicking a horror movie—only this time not Carrie, the movie that haunted me so.
I've been reaching out, trying hard to make new friends. I've rekindled friendships with buddies from high school. When I have friends over, I cook dinners of chicken and pasta and make brunches of bagels and lox. I've tackled the bar scene. I attend singles dances and discussion groups. Sometimes I'll go by myself, sometimes with a friend. The goal is to meet other people; and it's fun. It sure beats being in the hospital.
At first the only thing I knew was my illness, my medications and the halfway house, which didn't make me a very interesting conversationalist. But as time has gone on, I've become more adept at talking about more general things—about family, and friends, and relationships, and things in the news, and vacations and movies.
Nothing about dating is easy these days for any thirty-ish single woman. But I've even come to think it's fun. Now that I'm back to my college weight—118 pounds—I feel chic and pretty again. I dress casually in jeans and a sweater, spray on my favorite Calvin Klein Escape perfume and head for local hangouts. Since I don't drink, I usually sit at the bar and order some food, to keep myself looking busy while I scout for a good-looking guy who's alone. I've met a hot dog peddler, a fax machine salesman who owns his own company, an IBM computer programmer, a General Motors plant supervisor and a cemetery executive.
I very badly want to get married and have kids. But with all the medications I take, I think I would probably be better off trying to find a ready-made family. So I'm looking for a nice divorced or widowed man with kids of his own. It's going to take a very special guy to realize how much I have to offer him. But I know when I find him, he won't be disappointed. (That's a glimpse of my personal ad.)
When we're making small talk at the outset of a date, it isn't always easy when the moment arrives to come clean about my past. A lot of guys just can't take it. In retrospect, some of their reactions are even funny. For quite some time I dated a guy I met who worked where I was having my car repaired. We got along well and had a pretty good time together, so finally I decided to tell him. I took him to my apartment and showed him an article I had written about my history.
He finished reading the article, then looked at me in disgust.
“You don't have schizophrenia,” he said.
“Yes, I'm afraid I do,” I replied.
“No you don't. You're just making it all up,” he said. “Why did you write that? ”
When I showed him the box of all the medications I take, he became angry and threatened to call my parents.
We kept on meeting for several weeks after that, but he never became convinced. I decided I couldn't continue seeing someone who had such a hard time accepting me for who I really am, so we broke off. I never saw him again.
As for drugs, real drugs, street drugs, I have never taken up the offer to get high with anyone since the cocaine incident at Futura House years ago. I've come too far and accomplished too much to waste it all by sliding back into the shadowy world of drugs.
I meet with Dr. Doller twice a week. She helps me monitor my medication. I take twenty-six pills a day for my psychotic symptoms, my mood swings, for anxiety and for the side effects that the drugs cause.
We have a great partnership these days. I carry a little tape recorder with me wherever I go, to