The Story of H by Marina Perezagua

Author:Marina Perezagua
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-07-03T16:00:00+00:00

Sixth Month:

Lost in My Brain

A few tiny steps led to a few more, and though it proved challenging, I was able to walk for the first time into a psychiatrist’s office, that of Dr. Z, who had come highly recommended. I spent hours thinking about how to properly explain to him my issues, my phobias, and my despair over Jim’s absence. I had a hard time ordering my thoughts, and it was even worse trying to figure an effective way of expressing them to a stranger. But I did my best, trying to make the doctor’s job easier by shaping my story into a useful tool for my recovery. After listening to my litany of symptoms, the doctor looked as if he’d just woken up and asked about my relationship with my father as a young girl, as if he hadn’t heard a thing I’d said. I couldn’t find the connection, since one of the few things I was sure of is that my situation was owed to a very real concern, the death of a loved one, just as my previous crises were inevitably tied to the very specific circumstances of having to renounce maternity or my sexual identity. But I answered his questions thoughtfully, despite feeling dubious that my relationship with my father in childhood had anything to do with the issue at hand, trusting the word of so many people who had assured me their recovery began right here, within these four walls. Surely they can’t all be mistaken, I told myself.

Well, I learned that it’s possible for everyone but oneself to be mistaken. That gentleman lacked the intelligence to analyze a single thing. He diagnosed the problem I was already perfectly aware of, which is what brought me to his office in the first place—depression—and said I needed proper medication as soon as possible. He referred me to a psychologist for group therapy. I asked if medication was really necessary and wanted to know how he felt it was going to cure me. He said yes, absolutely, in answer to the first question, and our dear Dr. Z had no idea how to respond to the second one; he simply looked at me snarkily, as when someone tries to make up for his lack of knowledge by dismissing your question as ridiculous.

After six months of treatment I knew exactly what kind of method the doctor was using: trial and error. A perfectly unscientific method. He changed my medication according to the secondary effects the different pills had on me. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to read the brochures and appreciate that each medication was geared specifically to treat different types of problems. But all he was doing was looking for one that would just shut me up and was free of side effects. So I went through periods when I lost my appetite entirely and periods of binge eating. In six months I went from weighing 110 pounds to 155, and from 155 to 104.

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