The Family Gathering (Sullivan's Crossing #3)(53)

“How is it you know so many psychiatrists?” Sedona asked.

“We like the same part of the body. The brain. I like the physiology, they like the chemistry.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than chemistry,” Sedona said.

“You don’t know anything yet,” Maggie said. “First you have to be honest about what’s happening with you.”

Sedona tried her hardest. She gave Nan the benefit of the doubt. Nan was a tiny woman dressed in a suit that made Sedona wonder where she found professional-looking clothes made in such a small size. She assumed Nan was as smart and intuitive as Maggie said, and tried to open up. She explained that she’d started having manic episodes. Her heart would pound violently and she suffered from insomnia. Then the voices began. Usually it was her mother’s voice, telling her what to do. She’d already had two children, and believed she was out of the woods for schizophrenia since she was in her late twenties. She used the excuse of needing to be available for her kids and asked about working from home. Her employers accommodated her. Now, looking back, she wondered if they knew something was wrong with her and preferred to keep her out of the office. She was running analyses of psychological testing. It really wasn’t necessary that she be available for meetings or presentations as long as she supplied regular reports. And she did—long, meticulous reports. Being alone was better for her; she muttered to herself constantly, unless Bob or the kids were around, then by sheer dint of will she shut her mouth.

She went to see a psychiatrist with a good reputation and he immediately prescribed therapy and medication, but when she couldn’t wake up for the children, she stopped taking it and never went back. She was smart enough to know that meds without therapy or therapy without meds just wouldn’t do it. So, to cover what she knew was wrong, she made herself a rigid schedule that would disguise the fact that she didn’t want to leave the house, didn’t want to be with people. She went to the grocery store on Mondays, ran other errands on Thursdays, saw her parents twice a year. If her schedule went awry for any reason it was torture, but no one knew because it was apparent she used her time very well. Her house was perfect, her cooking delicious, her children excelled in school. Of course Bob wanted a social life, but she declined so often he all but gave up. She’d toss in a labored acceptance sometimes, just to keep the peace. He might be having an affair; she didn’t know. Didn’t really care. Not as long as her life was routine and no one knew her secret.

But it got worse, which of course was her worst fear. She experienced memory loss and confusion. She began to see things—animals in the refrigerator, the walls were crying, there was someone hiding in the closet in her bedroom and she was terrified to look. She couldn’t lie still in the dark; it made her bones itch. So she went to the basement—to read, she told Bob. But really she paced and muttered and tried to will it away.

She admitted to Dr. Tayama that she’d thought about suicide.

After her assessment, Sedona spent ten days in the inpatient facility, talking to the psychiatrist every day, taking medicine, enduring group sessions that for her were impossibly terrible. One thing she did grudgingly admit: the drugs were not as bad as the ones she’d been prescribed several years ago and probably a thousand times better than the ones her father had tried. She was resting better, though she’d wake up confused about where she was until she got her bearings.

She walked into Dr. Tayama’s office for her regular appointment.

“I’m so happy to see you, Sedona. You look well. Are you having a good day?”

“I think I would like it better if I could have a normal day,” she said.

“Then I have good news,” Dr. Tayama said. “You are normal. Not average, perhaps, but normal. Your version of normal.”

“It would feel good to be everyone else’s version,” Sedona said.

“Ah, that would be a problem. It doesn’t exist. I know it’s hard to be objective when you’re so far out of your comfort zone, but do you think the meds you’ve been taking are helping? Are you getting some sleep? Are the voices and images relaxing?”

“I suppose,” she said. “Whatever you’re giving me is an improvement over what Dr. Schizak gave me.”

“That was a combination of Mellaril and Haldol. I don’t know how you even got out of bed. I prescribed something that has less tranquilizing effect and isn’t an antipsychotic. I thought there was a fair chance your confusion, memory lapses and voices were induced by anxiety-provoked insomnia. Go long enough without sufficient sleep and your brain will conjure anything.”

“Anxiety?” Sedona said.

Dr. Tayama nodded. “It’s a smorgasbord of issues. Anxiety that produces isolation and sometimes antisocial behavior, insomnia, depression. Add to that some OCD. I’m still not sure if it’s the chicken or the egg—was your OCD severe enough to cause anxiety or did your anxiety lead you to attempt to control your environment as though you had OCD? In any case, to be conservative, I wanted to try a drug for anxiety and one for OCD. They behave as well as an antidepressant with some sedative side effects, just not as severe. It seems to be working. You seem alert and rested.”

“But Dr. Schizak said I was schizophrenic!”

Dr. Tayama shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think you told Dr. Schizak you were schizophrenic, like your father, when in fact you had a few symptoms that masqueraded as that disorder.”