Dog Medicine by Julie Barton

Author:Julie Barton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-06-27T17:42:22+00:00

CAN’T STAY

AUGUST 2, 1996

I kept my bottle of Zoloft next to the bed and took one pill each morning as soon as I woke up. The medication made me terribly sleepy, and I found myself desperately needing a nap each day at about 11 a.m. Mya suggested I begin taking the pill before bed, so I switched to nighttime, staring at those little yellow oblong pills, wondering what they did for me. I devoured research about how repeated traumas in a young person will induce chronic activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis—the system that directs how a body responds to stress, the “fight or flight” reaction. Tests done in animals showed that if the HPA axis is activated again and again when the brain is still developing, it will forget how to shut off. So the animal lives in constant hyper-vigilance. Even when there is no threat to it, the animal is on high alert—leaving it unable to attend to itself—depleting its energy, its desire for play, food, sex, and interaction. Some researchers say that once this system is activated in humans, it is forever altered, sometimes setting the stage for depression or anxiety that can stay dormant for years, until it finally reveals itself.

The research helped the pieces fall into place. There were reasons that all of this had happened, and it wasn’t just that I was a freak or lacked the basic skills to get along in the world. Uncovering those reasons felt like pulling the veil off of a great and mysterious force.

The fact was, I was recovering. I could feel it. Therapy was slowly helping, the medication seemed to be working, and I had Bunker. I made a daily practice of noticing my thoughts as I walked my dog. Those two acts helped me notice, feel, then dissolve the depressive, heavy, black thoughts.

Still, ever persistent in the back of my mind was the nagging unknown of what I would do next, where I would go. My dad would always say, “There’s no pressure here, but we would just love it if you stayed close to home.” The truth was that living in Ohio had always felt wrong, like I didn’t belong. I remember driving on the outer-belt that encircles Columbus, looking into other cars and wondering if there was someone out there like me in this town. I’m sure there was, but I hadn’t found them.

Despite this, I wanted to at least consider making a life for myself in Ohio. So one afternoon, my mom and I put Bunker in the car and drove to a local dog-friendly apartment complex we’d found in the newspaper. The unit sat in a squat one-story brick apartment building near the Scioto River. We walked into the damp living room with a sour-smelling brown carpet, thin walls, and chipping Formica kitchen counters, and turned right around. We didn’t need to say much to each other in the car, other than “Nope. Not going to work.” My fears reared up. Was

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