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š§ Listen to Sarah read this installment of Cured:
I straighten my skirt and enter the cafĆ©. Mattās already there, waiting. He sits at the counter, a full cup of hot chocolate in front of him. The cafe isnāt crowded. He stands and hugs me, pressing his body against mine. Definitely not a friendly hug. I think people call this lust. How long has it beenāa decade?āsince anyone hugged me like this?
At the counter, I order a cappuccino, which the barista starts to make with glacial slowness.
This is the third mistake I make in my recovery from mental illness. The first: believing that I couldnāt continue in therapy because (supposedly, to my misguided brain) mentally healthy people arenāt in therapy. The second: thinking I needed to be off my meds. Neither, it turns out is true.
This time, my logic goes something like this: If I can be in a romantic relationship it will mean Iāve recovered from serious mental illness. Isnāt that the sign of mental wellnessābeing in a happy, stable romantic relationship? Donāt you need to be mentally healthy to cohabitate and compromise and commit? Certainly someone with a fragile mind, someone whoās been chronically suicidal and hasnāt been able to live independently and has instead been living with her mother would be considered too disabled to even think of partnering with another human.
I turn back to Matt, whoās looking at me with such longing, my face flushes and I turn away. We met on a dating app years ago. We wonāt talk for six months or a year and then get together, always with that underlying sexual tension. Nothingās ever happened.
The barista finishes frothing the milk for my coffee and expertly fluffs it into the cup. I pay and sit on the stool next to Matt. He tells me about the house heās building on his farm.
To say we have nothing in common is an understatement. He was once a trader who retired at forty-five and now farms soybeans in Michigan. He also sails on racing teams. His hobbies include being outdoors and hunting, which he says he does responsibly though Iāve never been able to understand how killing animals for sport is responsible.
Iāve spent the past twenty-five years reading, writing, and teaching others how to read and write while battling mental illness. Most of my energy has gone toward managing manic nights of pacing the streets of Brooklyn, the compulsive need to eat only one color of food, racing thoughts that tell me Iām dying, and depressions so thick Iāve had to duck into Chicago alleys and cry. Iāve tried to make sense of my thoughts and feelings, those ineffable parts of us, via diagnoses and initialisms (GAD, OCD, MDD, ADHD, BP, etc.).
āIām ready now,ā Matt says, smiling sheepishly, and I wonder what heās ready for. āIām ready to settle down.ā Heās almost fifty, balding but attractively so, and has never been in a long-term relationship. āWell, not marry, butā¦ā He gives me a look: I would have sex with you right now. After a beat: āIāve missed you.ā
This seems unlikely, given weāve collectively spent maybe fifteen hours together, but my stomach flutters. Itās a dull flutter because Iāve taken a healthy dose of Klonopin to be here. It has me feeling open, not so much at ease but easy. And it feels good to be wanted.
He knows about my illnessāthough not the depths of it. The last time we saw each other, sitting in this same cafĆ©, I blurted out my current diagnosisāreckless, wanting to see what would happen. Would he say, oh in a tone that makes the word sound more like ick, and lean back in his chair, establishing a little more space between us? No, he was unfazed, practically oblivious. His uncle, he said, was bipolar too. He loved his uncle.
āI think we shouldā¦try,ā he says. āLong distance.ā
He leans over, and we kiss. The thought I can do this meets anotherāThis is all wrong.
*
I donāt know it then, but much of the reason I equate being in a relationship with normalcy (which I then equate with health) comes from Americaās couple-obsessed culture. Our marriage/relationship fascination has not just one name but two: amatonormativity and matrimania (my favorite). The cultural conversation insists that being married is something to strive for (at least for women), and studies show that most Americans want to be in a serious relationship and cohabitateāfor better or worse, till death do them part.
One of the most potent cultural myths is that having a partner makes a person happy, healthy, and fulfilled. It doesnāt. Married people arenāt any happier. (The studies that said married people are happier were found to be flawed.) A single person is just as likely to be healthy as someone legally bound to another person is. For some time, it was assumed that married people were more likely to survive cancer because they were married; it turns out itās because doctors are biased against single people. Doctors presume we donāt have the social support to survive more aggressive treatments and therefore arenāt as likely to recommend them.
A third of Americans are single by choice. Half of all singletons (a stupid name) donāt even pine for coupledom. Ninety million Americans exist dating-app-free and get to live in a home where the household tasks are done exactly how they like them.
I never asked myself if coupledom was really essential to a happy, fulfilling, healthy life. I just assumed it was. And in my attempt at mental health recovery, thinking that way made me go very far astray.
*
Michigan Avenue is crowded with shoppers. Christmas music comes from speakers mounted to one of the streetlights. Iām nearly at the hotel where Iāll meet Matt.
We text dailyāme more than him, me much more than himāand have decided to spend the night together. His farm is an hour-and-a-half drive away and I donāt drive. My apartment just didnāt feel right.
He meets me in the hotel lobby, which buzzes with tourist energy. We hug that same hug. It might be romantic except my heart hurts, and I believe Iām dying. I should know itās a panic attack surging through my chest and mind, but a panic attack only causes panic because it pretends to be something else.
Luckily, a Klonopin has started to settle me in a soupy way. Itās like being there but not there.
At a sushi restaurant, we have California rolls and awkward conversation. Then we go back to the hotel. After we have sex, the Klonopin and the heavy curtains make the room seem like itās not there either. I donāt sleep. He doesāheavily. Another Klonopin. A little sleep.
Morning comes, and all I want is to escape. Be alone. Walk in the cold. Gingerly, I dress. He doesnāt stir. In the elevator, I text him to say I had to go and thank him for such a wonderful evening. I xx and oo, wondering if thatās too many xās or too many oās.
By the afternoon, he still hasnāt texted. My mood swings. Walking, I feel heavy and brittle at the same time. I text. No response. I text again. Soon, the need to hear from him takes hold of my mind like a vice and tightens.
I text again. My mind goes on repeat, texting and checking again and again for the red notification bubble that says everythingās okay, Iām okay, heās there and weāre together and Iām recovering.
Iāve become the dreaded ādesperateā woman. In a romantic relationship, itās the worst thing you can be. Magazines, websites, and morning talk shows devote whole articles and posts and segments to instructing women on how not to appear desperate. According to Brian Alexander, a writer whoās covered sex and relationships for NBC and Glamour and elsewhere (so many places), men actually have a āneediness radar systemā that allows them to āhome in on sexually deprived women.ā (Who knew they had such extra-sensory gifts?) The desperate woman gives off ātelltale signs.ā She shows too much affection, dresses scantily, comes on too strong, and buys too many gifts. And, of course, she texts too much.
But Iām way past the point of āseemingā desperate and besides, Iāve felt real desperation. Those nights sitting on the edge of my bed with the pill bottle in my hand. That day walking by the lake trying to figure out how I might avoid having my body wash up on shore.
The despair I feel now is mild and mostly about control. I need him to do what I wantāplay a role and prove Iām mentally healthy or at least mentally okay. Later, much later, Iāll learn that only I can do this.
Enjoying āCuredā? Read the prequel, āPathologicalā (HarperCollins):
Continue to Chapter 11.
So so good. š