Tweak by Sheff Nic

Author:Sheff, Nic [Sheff, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Publisher: Atheneum
Published: 2009-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

DAY 234

Spencer’s still in the hospital, but the worst is over. He’s so weak and pale. He can barely walk to the end of the hall and back. The only good thing, he says, is all the weight he’s lost.

“Death-bed diet,” he calls it.

I’ve been working at the hair salon the last few days, even though Michelle has been gone. I’ve stayed with Lucy every night since Spencer got sick. I’ve visited the hospital as much as possible. It felt good to be so busy, though I haven’t been able to ride my bike or anything like that. Honestly, it’s so hard for me not to exercise. I just have this feeling of total failure when I don’t do it. Last night, however, I was able to go to a twelve-step meeting with some of my friends. None of them seem as crazy obsessive about everything as I am. It’s strange ’cause I had the same feeling in high school that I have here in the fucking twelve-step program. It’s like, well, it just seems so easy for everyone else and so difficult for me. I turn from these extremes of feeling on top of the fucking world—to feeling so despondent. They don’t have to struggle like I do—or maybe that’s just me comparing my goddamn insides to everyone else’s outsides. But I swear to God, I just seem to wrestle with everything more than anyone else.

I talked to my father today on the phone. I called him this morning before work. We talked for almost an hour. I told him everything that was going on with me—how Spencer is in the hospital and all. He let me know a little about how Jasper and Daisy are doing. He still seems very protective of them, like he is trying to keep me from getting involved in their lives. When I asked to talk to them, he refused. I understood, but it made me cry some after I got off the phone.

My dad is not willing to help me with rent or give me any money at all, but he did offer to help pay for me to get into therapy. He believes very strongly in psychiatry and was worried when I told him I’m not on medication. I’ve been on different antidepressants since I was eighteen. None of them were ever like a miracle drug or anything, but they did seem to help me from falling down as deeply into my depression. I admitted to my dad that I was concerned about being off all my meds.

Spencer, of course, is intensely against taking any kind of medication for psychiatric reasons. You really can’t even talk to him about it. You see, according to him, God should be able to cure everything that’s wrong with me. Mental illness isn’t really given any consideration. And of course I’m not denying that his teachings have been very powerful and have really helped, ’cause obviously they’ve changed my whole life. That is the truth. Not only am I not using anymore, but I’m not fighting cravings all day.

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