Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [122]
Dr. Fischer and I kept in touch with each other for about a year after she left the hospital. Then one day I received a letter telling me she was about to have a baby. I couldn't take it. I destroyed all the letters she had sent me, and never wrote her another one.
I'm sorry we lost touch. I want her to know me as I am today, and see how well I am doing. I want her to see what her work has helped me to achieve. I want her to be proud of me, and proud of herself as well. Just recently she wrote me a letter. I know that one day I am going to be able to summon up the courage to write back.
I'm still very close to my parents. We spend a lot of time together. I love them and respect them. I'm grateful for all their help. At the same time, I've learned I can also get angry at them. But when I do, I can express it without getting out of control or worrying that I'm driving them away. I now understand how powerful an emotion love is.
I've even suffered a bit of a relapse and recovered.
It happened over the summer when I was working on this book, dredging up old memories of the time between my first two hospitalizations. It was a particularly difficult period in my life and very painful to recall. At the same time, other stressful things were going on in my life: My brother Steven had married and moved with his wife Ann to South Africa. I missed him and was anticipating missing Mom and Dad, who were retiring and moving to Florida. I was feeling abandoned by my other two strong supports as well: Dr. DoUer was taking a maternity leave, and my caseworker Jacquie was returning to school. At the same time, Dr. Doller and I were experimenting with lowering my medication. It was all too much for me.
Within a week I began to feel strange, all buzzy and unstable inside. Within two weeks, I was having a full-blown attack. Amanda, my writing partner, was climbing into my brain. She had seized control of my thoughts. What's more, she wanted me dead. For over a year we had been talking with each other several times a day, laughing and joking and enjoying each other's company. Suddenly I was terrified of her. I fled from her. I stopped answering the phone. Even the sound of her voice on the answering machine sent tremors through me. She was trying to control me, to ruin my life. Days went by.
Such a psychotic episode could have easily spun out of control. It didn't. What stopped it? I did. I knew something was wrong. The illness had seized a portion of my brain, but it hadn't seized all of it. I knew I needed help. I raised my medication back up to its normal level. I called Dr. Doller. I talked to my parents. At first I scorned what they said. My Voices and I knew better. But I never became completely consumed. Over the years I had learned to trust Dr. Doller. So if she said I was experiencing a psychotic episode, then I probably was, no matter what the Voices told me.
Soon the medication took hold again, and my fears subsided. I picked up the phone myself to call Amanda on her birthday. A few days later, we met in the city. When I treated us both to two huge bowls of steamed clams and melted butter at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station it was more than just her birthday we were celebrating.
I still hear the Voices from time to time. I try to take my own advice. I distract myself, lecture myself, and focus on the outside world. I have taught myself to use a little mantra when they reappear: “These Voices are not real. Don't be frightened. Don't get upset. They are not real. Don't let them overcome you. Try to think of what happened just before you heard them. Is there some emotion you can isolate that will help explain why they are here now? They are not real. It's okay. Don't be afraid.