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It hurt to walk. It hurt to sit. It hurt to lie down. But even worse than the pain in my ass was the pain in my heart. It hurt to be conscious. So it's no surprise that the following day, when I returned to the city, I had a nervous breakdown.
It started as a panic attack. A panic attack is what happens when your fight-or-flight reflex acts as though you've just met a bear in the woods, even though you're just sitting in front of your computer eating a sandwich. Not everyone experiences the same symptoms, but the most common are rapid heart beat, numbness in the hands and feet, shortness of breath, choking sensations, depersonalization and a sense that you're losing your mind. As a result of this shitstorm, sufferers often think that they're dying. I'd had a couple of panic attacks before, mainly after my botched appendectomy, which I covered in my nude-housecleaning column.
Those panic attacks lasted for only a few minutes, but this one lasted for almost two hours. Convinced I was having a stroke, I lay in my roommate's bed with my feet elevated and commanded him to call 911. When the police showed up instead of an ambulance, it began to dawn on me that they had come to "take me away."
"Where are the doctors?" I asked, my panic doubling in severity.
"You're not having a stroke," the policemen said.
Finally, two EMTs did arrive and immediately started to complain about my sixth-floor walkup.
"Do you want to go with us?" they asked, according to protocol.
I knew they wouldn't take me anywhere nice like Promises, but instead to a terrifying city hospital where they would drug and abuse me.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
A guard at the front desk gave me a sticker that said "New York Psychiatric Hospital Visitor." Now everyone knows I'm insane, I thought, affixing it to my jacket. |
"Okay, well, if you call again, we're going to take you," they threatened.
Armed with the knowledge that if I went insane again I would be institutionalized, I decided that it might be time to try therapy.
Problem was, I couldn't get out of bed without having a panic attack. I also couldn't afford therapy. Instead, I spent entire days on the phone with my BFF, Faceboy.
"I just want to drink coffee again," I said.
"You will. Trust me."
"And alcohol."
"You will."
I missed coffee and beer. I wake up in order to drink coffee and beer, and now my nerves were so shot, I couldn't drink either. Something had to be done. As I lay in my sickbed perusing the Village Voice, an ad jumped out at me: "Do you suffer from panic attacks?" Test subjects were needed for a study at Columbia University. The payment: three hundred beans and six months of free therapy. Frantically, I dialed the number.
A guard at the front desk gave me a sticker that said "New York Psychiatric Hospital Visitor." Now everyone knows I'm insane, I thought, affixing it to my jacket. He directed me to the fourth floor, where a kindly admin named Brendan handed me a stack of forms containing questions about my mental health, family history and lifestyle. As I checked off the variety of substances I've put into my body throughout the years, I wondered how I'd managed to stave off a trip to the psych ward for so long.
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