CHAPTER 6

Messages from my TV and a Hospital Waiting Room

After two rings, a pleasant-sounding professional voice answered the phone, "Good Afternoon, Dr. Graham's office."

My mouth turned into a wad of cotton. I swallowed hard and choked out the words, "Hello, my name is Maggie and my therapist, Karen Mulligan, said I needed an appointment as soon as possible."

"Hello, Maggie, my name is Linda. Dr. Graham doesn't just schedule appointments. We have an intake procedure that must be followed."

A bit fearful of the answer, I pushed forward anyway. "Oh. What do I have to do to make an appointment?"

"Appointments are scheduled after the intake procedure has been properly completed. You need to answer a few simple questions, and he will review your answers. Once his review is complete, he will assign you an appointment time. Then I will call you with the time and give further information regarding what you should bring to the first appointment. During the scheduling phone call, I will ask for your insurance information."

It was painfully obvious that she'd given the speech more than once.

"Oh," I replied. "Can I answer the questions now? And, how long will I have to wait for him to review my answers?"

"Yes, I'll ask you the questions now, and Dr. Graham is extremely efficient. His policy is to review the potential patient's responses on the same day. He still has two more patients to see this afternoon. So I suspect he'll read your answers this evening and have me call you with the appointment time tomorrow."

"I was hoping to see him tomorrow," I said.

"That is impossible for me to predict." Her clipped voice took on a tone of annoyance. "It's all about your answers and how he perceives your current state of mind. He may choose to squeeze you in tomorrow afternoon, or he may decide there is no urgency, and you can wait until next week."

I stared at the wall of the parking garage as she spoke, wondering if she wanted a bribe for an earlier appointment. Quickly rejecting the idea, I paraphrased her words back just to confirm my understanding. "So if I am really crazy, he'll see me tomorrow, and if I am only a little crazy, the appointment will be next week?"

"Maggie, please refrain from using the word crazy--it's derogatory and not appropriate to the treatment process. But to answer your question, yes, depending on your responses to the questionnaire, the appointment will either be tomorrow, or next week."

I inhaled, sat up straight, and clenched my free hand around the steering wheel. "All right, Linda, start the questions."

I heard her rifling through papers.

"Question number one: Do you receive messages, intended for only you, from billboards or your television?"

Not exactly a question I was expecting. "No, Linda, billboards do not send me messages and neither does my television."

"Do you ever engage in bizarre behavior?" she asked.

"Define bizarre, please," I replied, seriously hoping I didn't do anything bizarre.

"Acting socially inappropriately, including the neglect of personal hygiene, talking to yourself, or any other behavior that is not typical for you." I detected a hint of exasperation in her voice.

I shook my head. "I don't think so. But sometimes on weekends when I have a lot of homework, I forget to shower."

"That does not qualify as bizarre, Maggie, just lazy. I'll put your answer as 'No.' Next question: do you experience troubling nightmares, recurring thoughts or flashbacks?"

"No, but sometimes before an episode, I get fixated on something, a book or a song," I replied.

"I'll make a note of that. Question five, do you feel sad or depressed for days or weeks at a time?" she asked.

"Linda, I've felt sad or depressed for almost every day of my entire life." The moment the words left my mouth, I felt relief--a sensation of lightness. Every day, I fought a battle to function like everyone around me. Every day started with the same goal, be normal, but I never succeeded because something dark and ugly always lurked just under my skull.

Linda continued with the interrogation. "Do you ever think of killing yourself?"

"Not now. I used to," I replied.

Her breath sounded heavier after hearing that answer. "Explain, please."

"When I started taking Zoloft, three years ago, the desire to kill myself went away." In the background, I heard her fingers clicking on the keyboard. "Now," I continued, "on my rock bottom days, I pray for a fatal disease or a car accident. I don't think about doing it to myself."

She proceeded to the next question. "Do you ever have trouble sleeping or sleep too much?"

"Yeah, I sleep too much. It shuts off my brain," I replied. At this point, someone beeped in on my call waiting. I only heard part of the next question. "Could you please repeat the question, Linda? My call waiting beeped."

"Fine, Maggie, I'll repeat the question. Do you ever have trouble falling asleep?"

Sleep turned into a sensitive subject for me after I moved in with Sam. He hated when I disappeared into bed for days. No matter, how many times or ways I tried to explain that when the brain shut down, the body followed, he didn't get it. During the rare times falling asleep became difficult, he had no problem voicing his annoyance with my tossing and turning. I always ended up migrating to the couch.

"Sometimes, Linda, my body's engine revs too fast, and random thoughts inundate my brain, then sleeping becomes very difficult.

"Maggie, do any of your family members have a mental health issue?"

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and squeezed the phone, because for some unknown reason, the term mental health issue kicked up a queasy feeling in my stomach.

"Hello, Maggie, are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here," I replied and noticed a strange tightness in my throat. "My mother also takes Zoloft. She's been on it since my dad died."

"Last question," Linda said, after a rather loud exhale. "Would you consider yourself as currently being in an emergency state?"

"No," I replied, pleased to hear the end of this interrogation was near. "The emergency occurred last week, so I don't expect another emergency for at least four to six weeks."

"That is the end of the intake questionnaire. Thank you, Maggie, for your honest answers. Dr. Graham will review the information before assigning an appointment, and I will notify you of the date and time."

It sounded like she was reading from a cue card. "Thank you, Linda. Have a nice day."

"You, too, Maggie."

Reaching up to scratch my suddenly very itchy scalp, I forced myself to breathe. My hands quivered a bit as I stared through the windshield at the cinder-block wall of the parking garage, unnerved because I found myself hoping to be crazy enough to get an appointment tomorrow.

The next morning, I jumped out of bed, showered, ironed my shirt, and paced the hallway an hour before the phone rang, at promptly nine a.m. In her clipped voice, Linda informed me that Dr. Graham had scheduled my appointment for the following Tuesday. Damn, so much for being emergency level crazy. It's going to be a long weekend, I thought and hung up the phone.

Later in the day, an unsettled feeling plagued me. Instead of concentrating on my homework, my mind returned to Linda's question, "Do any of your family members have a mental-health problem?" I gave up on the homework at about ten o'clock and went to bed.

Saturday morning, while eating my cereal and reading the online version of the newspaper, it occurred to me that my mom and I hadn't discussed Zoloft in over a year. She crashed into a deep depression after my dad passed away. I had no idea if she was still taking it or not. I dialed her number and got her voicemail. "Hi, Mom, give me a call when you get this message. I need to ask you a question about Zoloft."

She called back in the early evening, and I asked her if she was still taking it.

"No," she said. "I stopped taking it about six months after I married Ed."

My dad died of an aggressive form of cancer in October of my senior year of high school. Ed was my father's best friend. They golfed together in the summer, bowled in the winter and played tennis all year round. After my father died, he spent hours drinking coffee in my mom's kitchen. While mourning together, he realized why he never married--the woman he loved was married to his best friend. I missed my dad every day, but I was happy my mom had Ed. Odd as it might seem, them being together had kept my dad's memory alive.

"Mom, does anyone else in our family take an anti-depressant?"

"Not on my side of the family, honey, but I don't know about your father's side. Call Uncle Roy, maybe he knows something."

The strange feeling in my stomach persisted after I hung up the phone. Rather than gathering my books together for a trip to the library, I picked up the phone and dialed my brother, Mark. He answered after the first ring. "You dialed the wrong number, Maggie. This is my phone, not Amy's."

"I know that," I replied. "Believe or not I want to talk to you."

"Still struggling with that Evidence class?" he asked, in a snarky tone.

"Yeah, but that's not why I am calling. Mark, do you remember when we were little kids and Grandma would be in the hospital for what felt like months?"

"How could I forget? We spent our childhood in the waiting room of that hospital," he replied.

"Mark, why was she in the hospital? I only remember watching other kids ride up the elevator to the rooms, and Daddy making us stay in the waiting room or the cafeteria because Grandma was on a special floor, and we weren't allowed to see her."

"Wow, Maggie, I forgot how little you were when all of that happened. You were too young to grasp any of it," he said, sounding genuinely surprised.

"Here is something that I never understood, Mark. Once, during a really bad episode, I locked myself in my bedroom. I remember screaming and throwing my shoes at the wall. Dad yelled through the door, 'You don't want to end up in the hospital, on the floor where Grandma goes.' I never understood what he meant, because he told me she went to the hospital because her diabetes medication was off balance, and I didn't have diabetes."

"Maggie, she wasn't in the hospital because of diabetes. Our family made up the medication story to avoid the truth. Dad couldn't let us go to her room because she was on the psych ward."

His words pulled the knowledge from somewhere in my subconscious--conversations from long ago played back in my memory. The diabetes story was a lie. "What was wrong with her, Mark?"

"Beats me. They weren't going to tell us kids. Honestly, after she died, I never thought about asking Dad. Well, then he died."

"Did you ever ask Uncle Roy about Grandma?"

Uncle Roy was my dad's only brother, and they were very close. When Roy took a job on the other side of the state and moved his family to Yardley, my dad called him on the phone every day for three months. Fortunately for us, Uncle Roy brought his wife and kids to Ellwood for every holiday and every summer our families vacationed together in Ocean City, New Jersey. His daughter, my cousin Stephanie, was my best friend.

"No." Mark replied, to my question. "Even if I asked, I don't know if Uncle Roy would tell me the story."

"Mark, do you remember the Easter that Uncle Roy and Aunt Dori brought Stephanie and Justin to stay at our house? Steph and I were playing some game in the family room. Justin bounced down the steps and insisted we stop and let him play. Our game wasn't over, and we didn't want to start a new one, so he swung his arm and smacked all the pieces off the board. We tried to ignore him, as we gathered them up, which pissed him off even more. He started taunting us, as if he wanted us to cry. Eventually, he blurted out something about our family being crazy. Then he said he heard Uncle Roy tell Dad our entire family was loony. Justin danced around the room repeating, 'Loony, loony. We're all loony.'

"It sent me running upstairs, crying to Mom. She told me to ignore Justin. Funny, how that day stuck with me all of these years. He said we got it from the Scottish side."

"Maggie, do you ever recall the truth emerging from Justin's mouth? Creating fictional stories was his claim to fame. I know he's family--but come on--everyone knows he's been screwed up since we were kids. He's spoiled."

"I want to talk to him. I doubt he'll remember that day, but maybe he'll recall hearing his dad say it. I'm going to call him. I'll let you know what he says. Kiss the baby for me and tell Amy to cook something good tomorrow, I'm inviting myself for dinner."

I quickly dialed the last two numbers stored in my contact list for Justin, both disconnected. Refusing to give up, I texted Steph to get an up-to-date number.

She texted back instantly. This is J's last number 957-774-6752. More than a month old, most likely disconnected. Everyone had low expectations of Justin.

I dialed and was thrilled when it actually rang. Justin was one of those high-IQ people who couldn't get their lives together. He got accepted to the University of Pennsylvania and attended for a semester. They bounced him out in the middle of the second semester for smoking weed in his dorm room. The next fall, he ended up at Penn State as a philosophy major. One semester before graduating, he entered his esoteric phase--life was meaningless, therefore, education was meaningless--and he dropped out. The last time I talked to Justin was when he called and pleaded with me to wire him a hundred dollars to pay his electric bill. My uncle Roy and aunt Dori stopped lending him money when he dropped out of Penn State. After the sixth ring, he answered the phone.

"Ah, hello," he mumbled.

"Hi, Justin. It's Maggie. How are you?"

"Maggie? Maggie, my dear, how are you?"

I could tell right away that he didn't recognize my voice. His tone sounded like he was trying to remember if he had been with a girl named Maggie recently.

"Justin, relax, it's me, your cousin Maggie. Are you stoned or drunk?"

He ignored the question. "Mags, how in the hell are you?" He slurred his words. "Miss future mover and shaker lawyer, what did I do to deserve the honor of hearing your sweet voice?"

"You're still full of shit, Justin. But I need to ask you a question about something that happened a long time ago."

"Wow, I can't even remember getting out of bed this morning," he replied.

"Justin, it's really important to me. If I ask you the question, will you try to remember? Please."

A huge exhale flew out of the receiver. "For you, my gorgeous cousin, I will command my synapses to snap."

"Do you remember the year your family stayed at our house instead of Grandma's for Easter?" I asked.

"How could I forget? That trip sucked big time."

"Justin, you said our whole family was loony and claimed you overheard your dad say it. You told Steph and me it came from the Scottish side of the family. Did you really hear him say that?"

"Believe it or not, I do remember. We stayed with you guys because Grandma was doing one of her stints in the psych ward. Man, that visit was a bitch. I bunked on the floor in a sleeping bag, because, Mark, the jerk, with a double bed, wouldn't let me sleep next to him, called my germs gross and disgusting. How is the asshole?"

I paced my living room, phone in one hand and the other fisted, struggling to control my voice. "Justin, you didn't answer me. What did your dad mean when he called our family loony?"

"Really, Maggie. Where were you for the last forever? Half of our family is certifiable. Look at me. Do you think that I like being the family loser? Medical marijuana here in sunny California is the best thing that ever happened to me. Antidepressants do nothing for me, and I refuse to go back on that lithium shit."

"Justin, you've been on antidepressants? And lithium?" I said, unable to keep the shock from my voice.

"Yeah, Mags, only for most of my life. My dad's on them too. He doesn't go manic though. He just gets the really shitty lows. I don't mind the highs as much as the lows. That is, when I don't end up in a hospital, but at least when I'm manic, I get laid. Hey, call my dad. I'm sure he knows more about our tribe than I do."

"Justin, does your sister know about any of this?" I asked, fearing the answer.

"I doubt it. You know the Hovis family motto--don't talk, don't tell, and if you must, lie about it. But then again, Steph's not stupid, I'm sure she noticed all the strange behavior in our house. Hell, who knows, maybe she's on the drugs, too."

"She's not," I snapped. "I would know, and you better not be making this story up, Justin. Please assure me you're telling the truth this time. Don't let me call your dad and make a complete ass out of myself."

"I said it then and I'll say it now. We're all loony--bad blood."

The words needed to continue the conversation failed to make an appearance. Arguing with him would have been pointless. He dug into his position, and I couldn't deny the strength of his evidence. Through the phone, I could feel him waiting for me to say something. I opted for the safe way out and ended the conversation. "Well, thanks for the information, Justin. Take care of yourself."

"You too, Mags, and if you or Mark want to unload a few bucks fast, send them my way."

"I'll remember that, and relay the message to Mark when I see him tomorrow."

I clicked the end button on the phone, and stared at the time displayed on the screen--too late to call Uncle Roy.