Sobriety with Depression (part two)
I bounced back from the “summer-time” blues. I was depressed, but things weren’t going that great, and it may have had as much to do with my circumstances as my brain chemistry. I felt okay for several months after that, and I think that new girl in my life played a part in that. To be perfectly honest, I think the sex that came with the new girl may have had something to do with it. As I’ve alluded to before, I think that sex, or that lack thereof, played a part in several of my depressive episodes. It’s anecdotal at best, but I tend to believe it because things usually started getting better when I started getting laid again. Is that pitiful or what?
Sex didn’t cure me however, and by the following winter, some six months later, I was again approaching rock-bottom. I was waiting tables at the time, and it’s possible the crazy hours were partly to blame. I just remember that I began to get really tired over several days and weeks. Eventually, I was barely able to drag myself around the restaurant at night. Before too long, I’d cussed somebody, either customer or manager, and that job was history. Incidentally, I was trying to get a real estate license during this time, but dropped out after two or three classes. I just couldn’t make myself go. If I wasn’t at work, I was in bed.
Before long, probably two weeks or so, I got a job selling classified ads at a little weekly newspaper. Actually, I was selling some sort of Memorial Day special bullshit to business, in addition to classified duties that took up a good portion of my time. It was an easy gig and before to long one of the retail ad guys quit and they gave me his job. I doubled my salary, but I still wasn’t making much money, I think about $20 grand a year, plus another five or six in commission. I did really well at first. Anybody who has stood on street corners all over the country selling tickets can probably sell anything, at least for a little while.
After about three months I started getting tired again. Then I got more tired. Eventually I was going to bed by 8, sleeping until close to 7, and I was still exhausted. Even under those conditions I was able to easily produce enough for the paper to be happy with me. But it was starting to wear on me. Finally my insurance kicked in and I went for a physical, both because I hadn’t had one in years, and I wanted to try some sort of antidepressant. I was relatively healthy, considering I’d neglected my health for most of my life. He put me on Prozac.
Than Paxil, then something I don’t recall. They weren’t working for me, or at least not fast enough. After a couple of months I gave up on the meds, came up with a harebrained business scheme, quit my job, lost my insurance, and began what had up to that point been the worst depressive episode of my life.
It should be noted that during this entire time, I didn’t attend a single 12-step meeting. It’s always been easy for me to drop out when I feel decent and hard to go back when I didn’t. And while sometimes I did think about drinking or smoking crack, the memory of the death-defying debacle I’d survived just a couple years back was still very fresh on my mind.
Over the course of the next 8 months I worked as a courier to supplement the business I was about to give up on. At one point I went to bed and didn’t get up for weeks except to eat something and go to the bathroom. I probably still bathed pretty regularly at that point. I didn’t really give that up until I was loaded on tons psych meds a few years later.
At my lowest thus far in life, I began to fear for my finances. So, since I was about to need money, and I didn’t have the energy, most days, to floss my teeth, I decided to go back to real estate school. This probably wasn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made. Of course I had to pay several hundred bucks all over again since I’d forfeited the original tuition payment a year and a half back. Why pay for something once when you can pay for it twice? So I got my license and started trying to get strangers to let me list their houses.
Actually I was pretty good at that. What I couldn’t do, though, was show property or answer the damn pager 18 hours a day. I was still sleeping close to 12 hours a day, trying to maintain, and feeling worse all the time. The stress of real estate didn’t help much. All the idiots expecting you to sell their freaking ugly house in two weeks. All the greedy, shallow simpletons in the profession. I was reaching a breaking point and I knew it. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but something had to give.
I approached my father and step-mother and tried to tell them I was in trouble. They weren’t buying it. Whether they didn’t believe me, or just didn’t like the thought of maybe having to help pay for some sort of therapy, I’ll never know. They probably make close to half-a-million year in a good year, maybe more. And they almost certainly spend at least 10 percent more than they make. They’re just smart that way.
Anyway, the reach out didn’t work, so I said fuck real estate, fuck Memphis, and I moved home to Mama and Grandmama’s and went to bed.
