đ§ Listen to Sarah read this installment of Cured above.
Note: This chapter describes suicidality. If youâre having thoughts of suicide, speaking to someone can help. You arenât alone. Call or text 988. If you donât feel youâre a danger to yourself, call or text one of the many warmlines available to help.
My friend Lisa picks me up in her Subaru, and we drive to the suburbs. The idea is to get some things for my claustrophobic studio apartment to make it âhomier.â Interior decoration appeals to me about as much as breaking a bone: painful at first and then just tedious.
But I want to be ânormal.â After twenty-five years in the mental health systemâan eternity, it seems nowâmy new psychiatrist has told me that recovery from psychiatric disorders is, in fact, possible, a secret none of the many clinicians I saw ever divulged. According to them, my diagnoses (I received six, one after another, trying to give a name to my mental and emotional pain) were lifelong. The best I could do was manage my symptoms. Now, Iâm trying to heal inside a fantasy of whatâs ânormalâ and whatâs not.
We head west and eventually merge onto the highway. Weâve been friends for twenty years, ever since we both waited tables at the same restaurant. We fall in and out of touch. During one of my deepest depressions, I lived with her for about a month.
Lisa tells me her jewelry business is struggling. Sheâs dyed her dark hair blonde, which makes her perfect porcelain skin look even more flawless.
During a lull, I look out the window. The landscape seems to blur though Lisa isnât driving that fast. Pressure builds in my chest. The pressure flutters, then tingles, then pulses.
I couldnât name it then, but thatâs how anxiety and fear manifest in my body. The American Psychological Association (APA) describes an emotion as âa complex reaction pattern involving experiential, behavioral, and physiological elements.â Merriam-Webster defines it as âa conscious mental reactionâŚsubjectively experienced as strong feelingâŚtypically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.â Some emotion theorists say we can physically map our emotions:
At the time, like many people, I didnât even know that an emotion is a sensation or a series of vibrations in the body: a fluttering heart, sweaty hands, a stomachache, weak knees, a pulsing sensation in your head, heavy limbs, the tightening of your shoulders and neck, a rush of warmth to your face.Â