Answer Addiction

Tag: bipolar

  • When Love Is Not Enough: How We All Failed My Sister

    When Love Is Not Enough: How We All Failed My Sister

    These are the ugly, dark parts of mental illness and drug addiction that no one talks about, and by not talking about it, it stays hidden, and shameful, and powerful, and deadly.

    My sister had 765 “friends” on Facebook. I don’t think I even know that many people. But I can count on one hand how many of those friends came to visit my sister during her four-month hospital stay. So apparently they were friends, but not quite that close.

    I believe that if regret had a smell, it would be the smell of something burnt and visceral, and sharp in your nostrils. I think of that every time I listen to the last voicemail that my sister left me. It was so normal, absolutely nothing special about it, like the countless other messages we had left each other.

    “Hi baby girl, it’s me. Call me back. Love you.”

    Sometimes I listen to it just so that I can hear her voice, but often I find myself straining to hear something that I must have missed. Did she know that she was dying? Was there some sort of resolve in her voice? Or was that loneliness? But mostly what I hear is regret. Mine, of course, not hers. Because no matter how much I loved her, I couldn’t save her. I am painfully aware that I failed my sister. Sometimes I think that we all did.

    Malika and I were two years and 10 months apart, and about as different as two people carved from the same parents can be. She was always the pretty one, the free spirit, and she had the goofiest sense of humor. The boys simply didn’t see me when we were together—she shone that brightly—and we could fight like nobody’s business. But above all, she was amazing to me.

    My sister was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in high school, which apparently is a common age for that to rear its ugly head. We both shared a sort of rebellious streak borne out of a sometimes-tumultuous home life and an ugly divorce between our parents, but she never really grew out of hers. She had a self-destructive side but it was always directed inwards—she never set out to hurt anyone but herself. I can see clearly now that for years, she was self-medicating.

    There were many times over the last few years that I had no way of getting hold of her. She often changed her phone number, and she and her boyfriend moved around a lot, either by choice or necessity. That was the thing about my sister: when she was healthy enough and able to be around people, she was great. Absolutely great. But often, and particularly in the last several years, when she didn’t want to be found, she went completely off the grid. I had heard rumors that at one point she was seen in the city begging for money for drugs. Another time I heard she was staying in the house we had grown up in while it was empty and in foreclosure.

    I ask myself all the time what I could have done differently, or what I should have done. But you cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, and you certainly can’t force them to get help. If you give them money, you know where it’s going to end up, but do you do it anyway? I’ve been on both sides of this, and I know that you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And when you don’t, they hate you and disappear again—proving that it was the only reason they resurfaced in the first place.

    I don’t even know how many times my sister tried rehab over the years. I do know that she tried. She had been in a day treatment program and was on methadone when she was admitted to the hospital last August. She was confused, bloated, and had no idea where or who she was, and she didn’t recognize me when I first came to see her. She had every drug you can think of in her bloodstream. They said that the confusion was caused by a bacterial abscess on her cervical spine just below her brain that had developed from repeated IV drug use with a dirty needle, and they started treating her on a wide spectrum of antibiotics. About a week in, she started coughing up blood and spiked a fever. Despite being on so many antibiotics, the infection in her bloodstream had attached itself to a valve in her heart, and every time her heart beat, it scattered more of the infection throughout her bloodstream. She slipped into a coma at that point and ran a fever that ended up lasting for weeks.

    Watching her go through that was a special kind of hell, wondering if she was ever going to wake up. She went in and out of consciousness and agitation as the doctors wrote things down like acute respiratory distress (ARDS), MRSA, MMSA, endocarditis, pneumonia, and acute pulmonary edema. All the while her fever kept climbing and I sat with her completely helpless, watching the numbers climb and her cooling blanket sweating into a puddle on the floor. Eventually they had to do a tracheostomy because she wasn’t breathing properly on her own.

    At the end of October, they finally managed to keep her fever below 100 degrees for a full 48-hour window and were able to take her into surgery to replace the heart valve that by now had been completely destroyed. The surgeon very kindly and very gently told me to prepare for the worst because even in a very healthy patient, open heart surgery brings significant risks. In Malika’s severely compromised state, the odds were not at all good that she’d wake up from surgery.

    But true to form and consistent with her defiant and rebellious spirit, she did. Amazingly, I began seeing my sister come back to me. Despite all the odds, she started to bounce back and gradually brought her spunky personality and wicked sense of humor with her. I’ll never forget the day I walked into her room and she simply smiled and said “Hi Shawn,” like it was no big deal. I remember that I actually stopped walking and that when I tried to speak, I was so caught off guard that it came out in a strangled sob; just that morning, she was finally improving enough that the doctors were able to take her trach out, and she was able to speak for the first time in I don’t even know how many weeks.

    I wish I could say at this point that her story became a fairy tale and she walked out of the hospital and into a brand new life with the second chance she was given. But addiction is not all sunshine and roses. The truth is, the better she got, the more she simply wanted out, and all the talks we had about rehab gradually fell away. She made up her mind that she was fine and just wanted to be free of all the IVs and round-the-clock medical care. What everyone involved in her treatment overlooked was that during the entire four months she was hospitalized, there were no concrete plans being made for her recovery, no drug treatment, no 12-step program, nothing to work on the addiction that had been slowly killing her since we were teenagers.

    This realization fully hit me for the first time when she was caught by one of her nurses trying to drink the alcohol gel beads inside one of her ice packs. The nurse told me that she had been asking for them on a regular basis and had apparently been hoarding them for just this purpose. Up until that moment, I’d never understood why they took away perfumes and mouthwash and anything else with even trace amounts of alcohol when you check into rehab. Malika was not clean or sober during those four months she was hospitalized. She was simply separated from her addiction.

    Which is why, after seeing her nearly every day for those four months that she was in the hospital, she quietly pulled away from me after she was discharged at the end of December. She never did check into the rehab or residential facility that she promised she’d go to when she got out. Gradually, she stopped returning my calls and texts.

    So I wasn’t that surprised when the hospital called on May 25, 2018, just five months later, to tell me my sister was admitted back into the ICU and that, as her healthcare proxy, they needed my consent to treat her since she was wasn’t coherent. This time, the doctor said that the spots on her arms were a sign of heart failure, and an MRI showed that the confusion was caused by scattered spots of bacteria throughout her brain. That beautiful, robust new heart valve that had given her a glorious second chance at living just a few months before was now infected from a dirty needle again. And when the doctor said that her fever this time upon admission was 109 degrees, I was sure I heard him wrong. I didn’t even know that was possible, and that was while she was wrapped in a cooling blanket. They watched her around the clock for seizures and told me she would likely have brain damage when she woke up. When her fever finally broke and she came to a couple days later, I remember thinking that the light in her eyes had dimmed. She never really bounced back this time.

    When I went up for my daily visit with her at lunchtime on June 5th, we had one of the best visits we’d had in months. I remember very clearly telling her how much I loved her hair short, and how she was sitting on the side of her bed swinging her feet like a little kid. I remember her telling me that she was so sick of being in the hospital and that there was never anything good on television. But for the life of me, I cannot remember how we ended that visit. Every single time I left the hospital after spending time with her—every single time—she made me promise that I’d come back to see her. And I’d always laugh and tell her of course I would, I always do. It had almost become a ritual: I knew she’d say it, childlike and sweet, and she knew exactly how I’d respond. Maybe it was reassuring to her and she just needed to hear it. Or maybe I just wanted to remind her that I’d always come back. But I have replayed our conversations from that day over and over and over again, and I cannot remember her asking me to make that promise to her on that afternoon, or what I said to her when I left. And it haunts me.

    That night, just before midnight, I was woken by someone banging on the front door and the dog flipping out. My husband opened the door bleary-eyed. A friend of my mom’s stood there, frantic, saying that we had to come right away to the hospital; they had been trying to call me and couldn’t reach me. She said my sister’s heart had stopped and she was dying. I couldn’t comprehend her words. I told her I’d just seen my sister that afternoon and we had a great visit and she was fine. We don’t have time, she said. Just come. 

    When I grabbed my phone, I saw I had seven missed calls from the hospital. Seven. We got to the hospital in record time; a nurse was waiting for us and waved us to her room.

    Malika died a few minutes before we got there. Minutes. I will always believe her death occurred after one of those seven calls, and that I was too late to save her, again. They told me that the overnight nurse came to check her vitals and found her in bed, unconscious with foam on her lips. They think she must have had a seizure, and her heart, which had already been through so much, finally gave out. One of the nurses rode the gurney doing CPR all the way up the elevator and into the intensive care unit, but they were never able to bring her back. She was 43.

    Most of that night is a blur, stretched out unnaturally long in some places and disjointed and quick in others. But what I remember most clearly is the look on my sister’s face, and I carry that image with me, especially on the hardest days. I had come into her hospital room countless times when she was sleeping, and sometimes I just sat with her while she slept, while other times she woke up to talk with me for a while. But in all of those times, she kept this tiny wrinkle in her brow while she slept—like she was trying hard to remember something important. That night, though, that little wrinkle was gone, and she looked relaxed, peaceful, even. I realize that sounds so cliché, but it’s the only way I can describe it. She was finally, finally free of the demons she’d been running from for most of her adult life.

    These are the ugly, dark parts of mental illness and drug addiction that no one talks about, and by not talking about it, it stays hidden, and shameful, and powerful, and deadly. And I am not ashamed of any of this—just unbearably sad for what my sister went though—and I am so angry at myself for not having done better. For not knowing what to do, or what she needed, and believing that she wanted me to stay at an arm’s length when she must have been in so much pain. In all the days since my sister passed, I’ve promised her that I would do something on her behalf, so that what she went through wasn’t in vain. I am still working on this.

    But for now, I will continue to take my sons to the memorial bench that we bought for their Aunt Malika in the middle of a wildflower garden at a nature park near our first house, and I regularly talk to them about their goofball aunt who loved them more than life itself. I want to be sure they remember her at her best, while also understanding in no uncertain terms that if she could have beaten this horrific addiction, she would have, and she’d still be here to watch them grow up. I want to share her story because she was so much more than the addiction that claimed her life in a horrific and painful slow-motion free fall.

    Malika was beautiful, wickedly smart, funny, kind, and free-spirited. I want people to remember her as the girl who followed Phish for a month one summer with her old boyfriend and their dog in a piece of crap van that they took across the country. Or the girl who wore her long, curly hair in pigtailed knots while she danced with my sons in the kitchen to Christmas songs in July and would do absolutely anything to make them laugh. Or the girl who could talk to and make friends with anyone, absolutely anyone, with ease.

    It is that girl that I remember when I sit on her bench with the sun on my face and my eyes closed, remembering the sound of her laugh. I hope she knows how sorry I am that I didn’t do better for her, and how much I love her. And that even though I sat with her every day, I was ultimately no better than the 765 friends who did not. Because I didn’t know how to fix this.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How to Recognize and Treat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

    How to Recognize and Treat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

    Seasonal Affective Disorder is much more than just the winter blues.

    Frank*, 55, has been living with bipolar disorder since he was 18. Over the decades he’s noticed that his condition is the most difficult to manage when fall gives way to winter.

    “As soon as it starts getting dark I feel it coming,” he said of his depressive symptoms.

    Erin, 57, is normally very active and productive, but as soon as the days become shorter she feels her mood slipping.

    “The first few days are great. You sit on the couch and read a book,” she said. “But then you end up sitting on the couch not doing anything but getting mad at yourself.”

    Frank and Erin both say they suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that is linked to the change of seasons. Most often, seasonal affective disorder symptoms — which include typical depression symptoms like hopelessness, lack of energy or weight gain — strike during the winter months when short days and cold weather can leave even the healthiest people feeling a bit down.

    “As it becomes darker in the fall and winter and the weather starts becoming colder, it is common for individuals to have trouble with motivation, lack of energy and joy,” said Beth A. Burns, a therapist and clinical director at Fortitude Counseling & Wellness Services, Inc. in Lexington, North Carolina. “When we begin to consider SAD is when the individual is experiencing increasing distress throughout their day. It begins to impact their daily functioning, influencing their ability to maintain relationships, seek out social support, and have normal interpersonal and intrapersonal functioning.”

    Up to 6 percent of Americans experience depression during the winter, with as many as 20 percent experiencing a more mild form of SAD, according to The American Academy of Family Physicians. Luckily, the treatment for seasonal affective disorder is minimally invasive and can be very helpful for restoring optimal mental health during the winter months.

    How is SAD diagnosed?

    Although many people joke that they feel like hibernating during the winter, people who actually have seasonal affective disorder experience depressive symptoms that are severe enough to interfere with day-to-day life, just like the symptoms experienced by people with major depression.

    “Diagnosis of SAD lies on the spectrum of depression,” said Dr. Neeraj Gandotra, a psychiatrist who is on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is the chief medical officer at Delphi Behavioral Health Group. “It’s a form of depression.”

    Although all depression is cyclical, with periods where symptoms become better and worse, people with SAD find that their symptoms predictably flare up during the fall or winter and they experience remission during the spring and summer (although a rarer form of SAD can follow an opposite pattern, with flare-ups during the warmer months). In order to be diagnosed with SAD, a person must have this pattern for two years in a row.

    As with depression, SAD is diagnosed more often in men than women. And it is more common in areas that have darker, colder winters.

    “The incidence of this condition absolutely goes up further from the equator,” Gandotra said.

    What causes SAD?

    Doctors don’t fully understand why SAD occurs, but they are learning more about seasonal affective disorder symptoms and factors that can contribute to seasonal depression.

    “Like many mental illnesses, science has been unable to pinpoint a specific cause for Seasonal Affective Disorder,” said Dara Gasior, a psychologist and director of assessment and training at High Focus Centers, an addiction and mental health recovery center with locations throughout New Jersey. “However, research has been able to determine some of the biological clues which can help us to get a better understanding of why some people are more likely to get SAD, as well as ways to assist those suffering from it with getting some relief.”

    SAD is associated with three brain changes. People with the condition usually have lower levels of serotonin, the neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood, energy, sleep and digestion. Because these individuals have less serotonin, their brains are less effective at managing their mood, energy and sleep patterns. In addition, many people with SAD over-produce melatonin, a chemical that encourages sleep. This can make them feel more fatigued and disrupt their circadian rhythms. Finally, many people with seasonal affective disorder are deficient in vitamin D, which effects mood and energy and helps facilitate melatonin production. Because this vitamin is absorbed from sunlight, the short winter days can compound deficiency. Doctors also believe there is a genetic component to SAD.

    SAD and Substance Use Disorder

    Many people with SAD also struggle with substance issues, especially unhealthy drinking patterns. Gandotra said that the science in this area is speculative, but suggests that people who are depressed have higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

    “That is a significant trigger for co-occurring substance use disorder,” he said. People may try to self-medicate with alcohol when they are stressed. In addition, SAD symptoms often peak during a time of year that is already stressful.

    “Seasonal affective disorder often impacts people during the holiday season in the U.S., a time which is often filled with increased family expectations, financial stressors and a corresponding increase in depression and substance abuse,” Gasior said.

    As with any co-occurring mental health condition and substance misuse, it’s wise to treat SAD and the substance use disorder at the same time, Gandotra said.

    “When one gets worse, the other gets worse; when one gets treated, the other gets better, too,” he said.

    Treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder

    Treating seasonal affective disorder starts with low-level interventions that are often very effective in improving mood. One of the most well-known treatments for SAD is light therapy.

    “Light therapy is very beneficial,” Burns said. “The brain cannot distinguish the difference of a light box versus the outside light, so [this therapy] is geared towards providing the neurological stimulation that would be provided by natural light.”

    Patients who do light therapy spend time in front of a special lamp that puts off at least 10,000 lux. This can be done while working or watching television, but Burns said that this therapy is most effective during the early part of the day.

    Gandotra recommends another morning intervention — dawn stimulation. Many people have to rise before the sun in the winter, so getting a light that is timed to gradually brighten the room before you wake — mimicking sunrise — can help regulate your body’s internal clock.

    Getting more Vitamin D can also help alleviate symptoms of SAD. One way to do this is by spending more time in the sun. But that can be tough for people in cold, dark climates, so taking a Vitamin D supplement is an effective option. The dosage needed can vary widely, so make sure to speak with your doctor to determine the right dose for you.

    Other treatments for depression — including exercise, mindfulness and psychotherapy — are also used to treat SAD.

    If these non-invasive options aren’t effective, doctors recommend an antidepressant medication, usually an SSRI like Zoloft or Prozac. These are usually prescribed year-round, although the dosage may be reduced or increased depending on the season.

    “Just like major depressive disorder, there is typically a chemical imbalance contributing to the symptoms of SAD that medication aids in correcting,” Burns said. “Some clients need medication to manage the symptoms and others are able to utilize coping skills with therapy to have similar results.”

    No matter what, people who have symptoms of seasonal affective disorder should not hesitate to reach out to their healthcare providers.

    “Seeking help from a professional is the best way to combat symptoms and start feeling better,” Burns said. “As a society we often think of mental health differently than physical health, thinking we should be able to handle it on our own. However, if you have appendicitis, you would not google it and try to fix it yourself. Seeking help shows you are strong and know yourself enough to recognize that you are not feeling well.”

    Have some advice for treating seasonal depression? Please share your tips in the comments.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • My Life with Phil

    My Life with Phil

    If anyone could relate to loneliness, abandonment, depression, it was Phil. We got each other. 

    If my cat could talk, he’d say “You’re so fucking crazy.” Also, feed me, asshole. And not that gluten and grain-free slimy shit. Meow Mix from the corner bodega, where you’ll often spend seven dollars on an activated charcoal latte paired with a fifty cent Camel Light loosie, which I judge your embarrassing fat ass for. You’re actually insane. I’ll kill you.

    Phil, that’s his name, has tried to kill me before. He’s a very dramatic attention-seeker. Anxious, needy, moody. Damaged goods. I’ve got similar symptoms because, according to several psychiatrists, I’m bipolar II and, according to me, crazy. Phil’s been through a lot, and admittedly, I am partially to blame.

    Oh, and Phil is a pyromaniac. Though I can be and have been terrible, I’m pretty sure I’ve never deserved to die via apartment fire—puking under the bed would’ve been more reasonable— but Phil takes his feline frustrations to the extreme.

    The first time Phil turned the gas stove on, I thought, maybe his back paw had innocently hit the knob on his way up. But that was my brain on drugs. Despite being perpetually overweight, he’s not clumsy. He’s light on his feet; a decent ballerina in a past life. This was intentional. This happened more than once. This was really testing what my problematic as-a-result-of-anxiety-and-amphetamines pulse could handle.

    Redundant scenario: Phil would just LOVE greeting me when I entered my apartment at 7-ish AM by standing perfectly still over a flaming stove burner in taxidermy pose, staring right into my bewildered AKA tweaked-out eyes, and then maniacally meowing with the subtext: I’m seconds from plopping my fat ass on this flame if you don’t get your shit together. I dare you to abandon me for a day or two once more to get as high as Mount Everest and fuck everything at an open 24-hours bathhouse in Chelsea.

    Phil’s penchant for pyromania emerged circa 2013, when I was at my most mentally ill and near-ish-death-ness. But I was growing tired of perspiring out regret, poppers and lube, anyway. And Phil was just offering me tough, traumatic love! Okay, maybe he was just miserable living with mentally fucked, miserable me, and into the idea of both of us dying in a local news-making manner. Maybe Phil was doing us both a favor. End us.

    “Suicide kitty.” That’s what my ex-roommate, Messy Mark*, called him because of Phil’s impressive rabid flying squirrel-like antics. I inherited Phil from messy Mark. Pre-Phil, I hated cats and the only cat I tolerated was the dead one I had to dissect in Anatomy class in high school. But when the formaldehyde wore off and his thighs developed mold, my teacher discarded him and I received a D+ on my report card, which made my hating-on-cats restart. It was a short-lived although intimate relationship. I never even knew his name.

    Phil was already named Phil when Mark brought him home to our janky South Williamsburg apartment in the summer of 2009. Mark had been sober for like, a month, and he told me, with his enchanting albeit decaying-inside eyes, that a cat would keep him sober. I told him I hate cats, they scratch everything, and I knew I’d end up having to take care of the cat, so please God, no. Taking care of Mark was already my pro-bono job. I did my best! Well, the best that I, a party animal (spirit animal: a cat in perma-heat) who proudly has never blacked out, could at the time. (Note: We were in our early twenties and fresh out of college, living it up in a pre-Starbucks/Wholefoods Williamsburg and convincingly adopting the PBR-chugging, Patti Smith-worshipping hipster ways. You know, when kombucha was still a thing.)

    Mark, on the other hand, was the drink-to-blackout type. He was an all American twink-next-door type. Charming, cute, book smart. His book cover was colorful and playful, concealing the tattered pages and its painful Comic Sans font. He’d invite himself to my friends’ house parties, because he had no friends of his own, which should have been a WARNING: DON’T BE ROOMMATES sign, and I’d warn/beg my friends to not fall for this troubled trick, because he wouldn’t remember anything in the morning and then I’d have to clean up his mess, including the sometimes charcoal-latte-colored puke. But alas, Mark’s blue eyes and bubble butt was a fuckable force. He’d also sleep with guys I thought I was dating, but I’d forgive him. I was a battered tabby cat to his primped-and-polished persian. We, oops, hooked up a few times too. This wasn’t something I initiated… initially. I knew there’d be trouble post-orgasms. But when your never-not-wasted roomie wakes you up via aggressive seduction, well, I was too tired to object.

    Anyway, despite my cat concerns, I came home one day to find Phil crazily rolling around on the Ikea carpet in catnip. My fury segued into an “Aw, it’s fine” when Mark looked up at me with a genuine, heart-tugging smile. I was touched! Perhaps that purring Swamp Thing-y thing on the rug would cure Mark, because 12-step meetings sure as shit weren’t enough. And I’d be free and maybe even happy. Ha!

    I was a spineless, clueless enabler. I didn’t understand why Mark couldn’t hold his liquor like a normal early twenty-something millennial. And I didn’t want Mark to die, so I’d do whatever to help. I didn’t want him to ever punch me in the face again when I forced his inebriated ass to look into the mirror at his sadness. I didn’t want to have to drag him through glass after he collapsed into our Ikea cabinet post-bar, as Phil screeched and judged from atop of the fridge. I didn’t want to wake up to a sea of is-this-real-life texts like the time he was in Dunkin’ Donuts and had just pissed his pants after escaping from the ER—apparently he had passed out at the bar the night before and someone normal called 911. This someone also called Mark’s mom, which I realized because of a devastating voicemail, in which she wondered if her son was alive. Not fun. Heartbreaking.

    Phil was damaged goods himself, and, as expected, it’d be me, the professional plant killer, responsible for getting him back on track. He was an army brat, and had two unstable homes before being dropped off at a ASPCA in Virginia, where he lived in a cage for a year. Apparently no one wanted a middle-aged, jittery, ordinary tabby cat. I guess the bloody bald spots from Phil’s habit of biting out his fur and furiously scratching himself like a meth addict weren’t so appealing. (Meanwhile, Mark cruelly took Phil off of his anxiety meds because he’d rather save money for happy hour.) Phil’s coat of fur looked like my shredded, smelly Harley Davidson (reminder: I lived in Williamsburg) thrift t-shirts. He was so death-door-y thin, like me at the time (because, drugs), his meow was/still is so grating and loud. It’s nearly as demonic as the iPhone default alarm. And his moniker at the shelter was “alien kitty” because of his macadamia nut head paired with green, extraterrestrial eyes. Anyway, Mark and his manipulative victim ways convinced his Virginia-based friend—his only other friend—to drive Phil to Brooklyn; a non-refundable gift.

    While Mark did calm down and get sober for a bit post-cat adoption, he didn’t miraculously develop thoughtfulness or anything. He’d attend evening 12-step meetings after his 9-5 job and then go to sober people Chipotle hangouts. HE WAS SO HAPPY! And I’d never ever see him. I’d been replaced. And I think I was subconsciously jealous of his healing. As a freelance writer, I worked from home, so it was just me and Phil. I took care of him. Not like it’s difficult—food, litter, cuddles, oh my!—but this wasn’t my goddamn cat! Mark would lock his bedroom door at night, so I’d allow Phil’s manic ass to sleep with me and claw at my scalp.

    And so, I fell in love with Phil; Mark fell in love with a recovering meth addict. Two months later, Mark casually told me he was moving in with this boyfriend and that I had to find another roommate within two weeks. NBD. But I could keep Phil, because his boyfriend was allegedly allergic to cats. I don’t know why, but I started to ugly cry. (Well, my ex-therapist told me I was, yawn, in love with Mark and I’m scared of intimacy and abandonment etc etc fuck off etc.) It wasn’t until Mark finally “got better” and didn’t need me anymore that I acknowledged and confronted my own issues.

    Just kidding. I’d little-by-little distract the pain with sex, drugs and rock bottoms.

    Another roommate moved in for a year or two, but then we were bought out of the rent stabilized decrepit apartment for 40k. So, Phil and I moved to a shit but rent stabilized studio apartment on the other side of the Williamsburg bridge in Lower East Side—I signed the lease during what I now understand to have been a manic high, believing that I clearly needed to live alone; to take care of just myself, Phil and my plants. I was so psychotically positive! (I blame my psychiatrist for adding another mood stabilizer.) Living alone would inspire me to get a fantastic full time job, and then I’d be able to afford the studio on my own once the 40k ran out!

    Didn’t happen. What did happen was Phil putting up with my unraveling as a result of eternal loneliness with no future, except funerals, in sight. I’m very dark. Phil forgave me, probably, when I’d lock him in the bathroom during a Grindr quickie. He plopped on my chest when I was coming down; he dived off my chest when I convulsed and howled in fetal position because of anxiety/panic attacks. If anyone could relate to loneliness, abandonment, depression, it was Phil. We got each other. Phil’s still with me.

    I haven’t seen my ex-BFF since he left me, but he’ll text me like, every five months, informing me of things like how he now lives in a forest or that his boyfriend he ditched me for died of a drug overdose. Mostly, he brings up memories. “Remember that time when ___?” I never remember. I don’t want to remember. My responses are mostly an emoji or two. I’ve intentionally disconnected. His most recent text to me wasn’t a ‘sup. It was a handful of sexually explicit photos, featuring his dick. Ew. If he was ever my real friend, he would’ve remembered that I’m an ass guy. “Are you high?” was my response. He wrote no. I didn’t even care if he was lying, his top talent. I blocked him. I mourned him years ago. I’m all about protection these days. I’ve got some friends, a long-term boyfriend, and a drug-free, inconsistent zest for life.

    Today, I’m sometimes very happy. I’m sometimes going under those dark, depression waves. The bipolar isn’t going anywhere. Unless I’m traveling outside of America, I barely leave my house.

    And I still have major anxiety. So does Phil, but we’re in this thing together. We’re a lot better, we’ve grown up. He gets me out of bed and gives me a purpose. Feeding him his healthy grain and gluten-free food reminds me to take my meds. We take care of each other! We need each other!

    Meanwhile, this triggers my morbid mind. He’s 73 in cat years. Phil’s cremated remains will be in a jar on my Buddhist altar soon enough. It was ME who was supposed to be rotting in a coffin by now, not Phil! But at least it’s been years since I last truly worried about Phil killing me… killing us. (Just kidding—I remove the stove knobs when I’m not in the apartment because, anxiety.)

    Just a month ago, I was convinced Phil was dying. It’s a gnarly image that involved scattered around my apartment puddles of puke, heavy breathing, and him hiding from me in the litter box. I didn’t want to remember him like this: lethargic and not wanting anything to do with me for two full days. This wasn’t like him. He’s a cuddle monster in the mornings. And here I was, imagining a life without him. My first pet. Would I replace him? Could I? He’s the only one who, through it all, never left me. He’s tried, but only a handful of times. (He attempted to jump out of the window after sitting on a flame, but it wasn’t open wide enough for his fat ass.)

    He’s back to normal-ish for now. I’m trying to appreciate our time together. So many memories. I try to think of only the best memories, but sometimes I’ll look at Phil and I’ll remember Mark, but only for a moment, then I shut that shit down. I’ve let Mark go.

    I couldn’t save Mark. Neither could Phil. But we saved each other.

    If Phil could read this, he’d eject a hairball because of my cheesiness. He’d roll his alien kitty eyes. And if Phil could talk, he’d say “You’re welcome for saving your life, bitch.” And then go back to sleep.

    View the original article at thefix.com