Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing(65)

   Having to then hang out in some asshole’s apartment—minimally furnished in early-aughts Ikea, ’90s left-on-the-curb, my-mom-gave-me-that, and a bong collection—watching guys build out their Call of Duty load, listening to jokes over the rage-rock playlist while a usually shirtless guy asked me questions about my sex life, in order to get the drugs I needed to deal with some guy who’d copped a feel at work seemed a little fucking excessive. But there was no other fucking option. This was the Maryland suburbs, and pot wouldn’t be legal in even California or Colorado for several years.

The panic attacks had been getting worse because I was working as a cable tech, walking into strangers’ houses and all too often completely at the mercy of some guy. Then I went to jail, where they locked me in a cinder block cell for a week. I stopped smoking pot because I was on probation.

I stopped sleeping, staying up later and later each night to avoid falling asleep, only to wake up paralyzed, a nightmare I couldn’t remember just at the edges of my mind. I’d sleepwalk through my workday, stay up until four a.m., sleepwalk through another. The way my shifts were structured—two on, one off, two on, two off—every other day was Friday. I slept through my days off. The sunlight through the window told my mind I wasn’t in a cell.

   That lasted a couple weeks, until it didn’t. I was connecting a ground wire to the cinder block wall of a customer’s basement, tears streaming down my face. The tears had become a regular occurrence. I hid my eyes behind sunglasses when I could. When I couldn’t: “It’s just allergies. I need to see if I can get a shot. Honey works? Wow. I’ll try that.”

Anyway, I was screwing this little ground wire into place. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the concrete floor of a basement with a profoundly kind woman’s hand on my chest telling me I was okay. I was safe. A broken glass of water on the floor next to her skirt. A laundry basket she’d dropped next to the unfinished stairs. I’d pissed myself.

She told me not to worry about it. She was pregnant. She did it all the time.

I’m grateful it was her. My last customer had been a gun nut who sprayed cologne on that morning like he was trying to kill a cockroach. I don’t know how comforting he’d have been during a panic attack.

My boss sent me home and told me to get a doctor’s note. I could file for temporary disability for PTSD. The VA doctor signed the paperwork and said, “I’m just going to write that you can’t be in basements or near men. Unless they can figure out how you can do your job without that, you can take some time.”

I figured I’d do what I’d always done, any goddamn chance I got. I would read. Escape to another world, another life, until I could face my own. But in an unusually dick move, even given its long history of sabotage, my brain forgot how to recognize words. I don’t mean that I forgot the word “aphasia.” I mean that I couldn’t remember the word “book.” I’d have to read a page five times for anything to make sense. And I’d forget it all halfway through the next page. But I didn’t want to be around people on account of my eyes leaking, and I wasn’t all that big a fan of most people. I tried television. But daytime television is geared toward the unemployed, and the ads for mesothelioma lawsuits, for-profit college grifts, and disability scams made my depression seem like a reasonable condition, considering my future. Luckily my roommate had an Xbox.

   My experience with video games was that I’d often, in supposedly social settings, had to watch people, mostly guys, play video games. People who play video games universally assume this is something anyone would find entertaining. I’d rather shove lit cigarettes into my vagina. But my roommate wasn’t home. I turned on the machine, waited for something to load, and there it was, Call of Duty. I had to sit through some patriotic music, run through the tutor setting, and I was born again, a gamer. I tried live action first, but I could hear those other fuckers talking about me: “Look at this faggot. The fuck is he even shooting at.” I backed out and played the campaign mode. At least the game didn’t call me a faggot.

Turns out shooting Nazis is a great way to waste a month of your life. It requires no thought whatsoever. You run up a hill. Shoot some Nazis. Die. Respawn and shoot some more Nazis. Take the pie out of the oven. The pie’s not in the game. I’d started baking things because I wanted to feel like I could do anything at all. So I baked. I didn’t eat any of it. I had no appetite. But my roommate was more than happy to take pies and cookies and muffins and cakes to work.

   I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t leave the house except to walk my dog. I was barely alive, like my system had shut down to save the battery. And once a week, I’d shower so that they wouldn’t think I was too far gone, and I’d go see my doctor at the VA.

I’d already been diagnosed with PTSD after the breakup with Autumn, before jail. The doctor who diagnosed me handed me the first of many bottles of correct, legal, get-your-shit-together drugs. Prozac didn’t work, so we tried Wellbutrin. When that didn’t work, we added Zoloft. Switch one out for Cymbalta. Let’s add trazodone. Still crazy? Okay, up the Wellbutrin. You haven’t slept in four days and you’re seeing patterns in everyone’s behavior and you think they’re watching you? Maybe we should add Xanax. Oh, you’ve written a hundred-thousand-word manifesto and think bugs are crawling under your skin. I see. That’s no good at all. Let’s switch to clonazepam. Have we tried citalopram yet? Let’s switch that to Paxil. Tell me more about losing time. Do you mean you can’t remember doing things? “Other than actually fucking assaulting someone?” And when you say you’re not in your body…Maybe we should try lithium.