Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [59]
Dr. Rockland encouraged me to exercise. That would be a way to lose the pounds, he said. He also said it was a proven medical fact that vigorous exercise was a good antidepressant.
So I tried to do what he said. I walked four miles on the golf course with my parents on Sunday. I found that too boring. I walked with my mother to Gail's mother's house, two miles each way. That was too hard. I tried long bicycle rides. Sometimes I'd ride my bike the seven miles from my parents’ house to New York Hospital. The hill up Gedney Way was a killer, but I stood up from the seat and pumped up. I made the five-mile trip from home to the village of Mamaroneck. Once when I was making that run Dr. Rockland, who lived nearby, happened to be driving by, and he beeped with pleasure at catching me in the act of actually listening to his coaching. I felt I should be wearing a bumper sticker: Honk if your mental patient is exerting herself.
Dad said go off, be with young people, make friends, enjoy life. So I went on a group vacation, a Club Med-like thing, to Jamaica. I liked swimming at Negril Beach. I liked parasailing, because it reminded me of skydiving. I liked pigging out on the all-day buffets. We played bingo and cards, watched crab races and went snorkeling. But most people were there to drink and sleep around. Because of the medication I was taking, I would get sick when I drank alcohol, so I felt queasy all day. And I had no intention of getting involved with any of those big-time losers on this trip.
I even tried to go to nursing school. I thought that would be cool. It would prove I was okay. Along with a B. A., I'd have an R.N. after my name. I couldn't be sick if I was a nurse.
I needed to take preliminary courses, so I signed up at Westchester Community College to take nutrition and chemistry. We analyzed the nutritional content of food. The teacher brought in the milk carton, and we studied the information on the side. I wanted to impress the teacher with my knowledge so I sat in the front row munching Snickers bars: The TV commercials said that Snickers were nutritious and gave people energy. When we saw a movie about the famous nutritionist Jean Mayer, I got all excited. I went up after class and told the teacher I knew Dr. Mayer personally. I didn't. He had been the president of Tufts while I was there, but I had never met him.
In chemistry class, I found myself leaving the room two or three times in each ninety-minute lecture out of sheer antsiness. Sometimes when there was a break, I just left and went home. I missed tests and pop quizzes but it didn't matter. On the first day of class I had seen the periodic table of the elements. My eyes had zoomed in on the “Li“—lithium. I knew all about this element in a very intimate way. I even ingested it. From then on, what I did in class never really mattered. The very fact that I knew what lithium was made me feel superior to everyone else.
I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't sit still. Too many things were distorted in my brain. I wanted to be a nurse, but I didn't want to study. After a while, I just stopped going to class.
Even so, I was trying so hard that I almost never did anything inappropriate at Rye Psychiatric. Once, though, I passed my hand, palm side out, before the eyes of a catatonic patient, trying gently to bring him out of his inner world. Eddie Mae saw me and called me into her office.
“Don't ever do that again,” she scolded. “He could come to and be frightened, and get out of control.”
Sometimes patients sensed my wildly fluctuating moods. One