Emergence

“I came to in a cross-legged seated position on the living room floor. Sunlight was needling through the blinds, illuminating crisscrossed planes of yellow dust that blurred and waned as I squinted. I heard a bird chirp.

I got dressed, put the coat on, went out and down the elevator to the lobby and made my way dizzily toward the light exploding through the glass doors onto the street.

I was alive.”

-from Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation

I awakened in the middle of the night, crawling out of my skin and with restless pressure in my groin. Nausea cinched me, sending ripples radiating down and up my body. My heart. Was it pounding or was the beating only faintly there? Half awake, I stumbled along sleeping dogs on the floor and headed to the bathroom which brought no relief. My body, spiked. The night, softly shaking its nocturne rattles beyond the opened windows, did not soothe me. I was alone; my husband Brian out of the state for the next several days.

That night, I sat despairingly on the edges of things: the spare room’s bed so not to wake the sleeping dogs in the bedroom, a dining room chair, the couch, all the while trying to unhem my mind from my body. I circled the downstairs, a wild animal on the prowl for relief, hoping I could walk out of my body, knowing that it’s as impossible as separating one’s body from their shadow. And how I wished I was just my shadow. How I wished I could just be some soft, featureless darkness with no inside, outside, or dimension.

I knew I had to stay calm. Get your shit together, I said. I picked up my phone and managed to call in to work to alert them that I may not be able to come in. I couldn’t fathom being present at work in four hours. I couldn’t fathom the 35-minute commute in the darkness to get there. My mind was already darkly commuting to who knows where. The soft voice on the other end of the line came from what felt like a warm womb, familiar and with cave-like lighting. Her voice was a warm beverage, a tonic, an electric blanket that through no form of osmosis could soothe me, all of it too foreign, distant, and otherworldly. How I got words out or understood her words was beyond me, which led me to believe that it was all mostly in my head.

I stepped outside, into the forest-bordered darkness. How shoes slipped onto my feet was beyond me. Thinking that there might be an aurora, I found myself standing in the middle of the road staring up at the northern sky as if a pink or green gloaming would lasso the discomfort from the ground of my body and pull it into the light. But I saw no such gloaming even with a long exposure on my phone. If you go back to the wee hours of that Friday morning on our garage cam, you will see a woman standing in the middle of the road, photographing the darkness, holding herself in her arms.

And so the days slowly drug on into an impressionist painting: a small, ceramic bowl of softened blueberries; a bottle of yellow Gatorade; orange prescription bottles of this-and-that antibiotics; a white Xanax pill, split in half; half-eaten peanut butter toast; empty, overturned cups of applesauce; Liz Moore’s novel God of the Woods, a mulberry leaf marking the pages.

Over these long, agonistic, impressionist days, I managed to work, sometimes in the office, mostly at home. The dogs, my charge, became increasingly odd-looking but not menacing. I did not know what to do with the strange beasts. I let them out into the sun and back in again. I gave them their medicines and supplements. I abated them with treats. I felt guilt for not finding them charming or comforting. Nauseated by their breath, I often turned away from their joyous greetings. At one point, when walking across the dining room to get them treats, a small, threatening spider on the floor continuously hopped toward me. Upon closer inspection, it was simply leaf litter from a plant. I stooped lower to see if it would move again. I poked at it.

On another day, hopeful that some fresh air and movement would blanch my illness, I took my dog Silas for a walk up in the game lands. Having barely eaten in days, I walked slowly, my face misty with fever or anxiety, at that point, I did not know which. My heart pounded. Neither rock nor plant received my attention as I powered through the terribly sunlit path. Not long after starting the walk, I turned around and in the far distance I saw a lone figure walking. They would surely catch up to me and I had no energy to even smile at someone else let alone prevent my weird-looking dog from approaching them. But the lone figure never caught up. On our walk back, I expected to see them around every bend, but no one was there. When I got back to my car, there was no other car.

The next day, my father called. Mom had a small accident. She fell while pulling weeds and busted her face on a sidewalk outside my childhood home that they’re trying to sell. She was fine. He put her on the phone and she sounded how I felt. I listened as she told me that she blew seeds off an old weed and made a wish to sell the house. After the wish, she took her tumble, scraping up her nose and blackening an eye. How much I wish I would have been well enough to corral my smelly dogs into the car and drive the two hours to be there for her. Just driving to the pharmacy 13 minutes away was a struggle at that point. But instead, my mother mothered her distraught, ill daughter. With mom on speaker phone, I paced around the house, hyperventilating, telling her I was scared, possibly hallucinating, and that nothing that I loved to do brought me comfort. Sitting on the patio and reading a book did nothing. I couldn’t imagine sitting down and writing. I couldn’t imagine walking through my garden where the old tomatoes were turning to wine. I couldn’t imagine staring into the whorl of a leaf and finding solace there. Sarah, as I knew her, was out the window. The Sarah that contained me in this here and now wanted to jump out a window. You don’t want to hurt yourself, do you? my sweet mother asked. I stopped my pacing. Oh my god, I’ve become the clients I talk to on a daily basis at work. The people I ask Are you having any thoughts of hurting yourself? Do you have anyone to talk to? A support system?

No, I said to my support system, my sweet, bruised mother. I don’t want to hurt myself.  

At one point, my friend Steve messaged me, asking about my interest in joining him at an event. Sonder, a term coined by writer John Koenig, represents the feeling of realizing that everyone possesses a narrative as complex as your own. Steve was a door opening and beyond the door was compassion, interesting conversation, and some zaniness. I imagined him in his home full of rocks. I imagined him working on his various projects and spending time with people he enjoys. I missed Steve and felt a world--a lifetime--away from our conversations about natural history and life. I couldn’t dare sully his narrative let alone any other friend’s narrative with my nonsense. I felt other, as if the Sarah Steve knew was a fraud and that this current Sarah, the Sarah who is afraid to leave the house, afraid to watch anything remotely dramatic or disturbing on TV, was her replacement. My brain, marinading in the constant jabbering cadence of “Gilmore Girls” became paralyzed at the idea of driving 13 minutes to the pharmacy. Steve was the first person outside family to learn of my situation. He offered to pick up my medicine and bring it to me, along with cuttings of coral honeysuckle for me to plant. I said no to the pharmacy offer but yes to the cuttings, trying to be optimistic that the former Sarah was simply hibernating beyond the gauzy walls of illness. This was a positive step, forcing myself to believe that I will be better in time to plant them. That I will put roots in the ground. Dirt will be under my nails soon enough. I will gaze curiously into the whorl of a leaf soon enough. I did go to the pharmacy to get my next antibiotic. I needed to get out of the house. Waiting in line at the pharmacy, a toddler in front of me smiled at me and it took everything in me to smile back. It took everything in me not to abandon my grocery cart in the attached grocery store, I felt so awful. I did have to abandon half my grocery list, going home with only Gatorade, orange juice, and frozen wontons. When I got home, a bucket of coral honeysuckle cuttings were on my porch. When I bit into a wonton later that evening, its potency frazzled my senses as if I were in a gas chamber. I couldn’t eat.

Finally, Brian came home. I apologized profusely for my way of being. I motioned at the house as if it were a mess, but I was the only mess. What was only a few days of his being away felt like weeks. The old Sarah always enjoyed her alone-time at home and made the best of Brian being away. Now this Sarah became anxious at his leaving the room. I needed a witness, a distraction, someone to ground me. Watching him eat and drink and move faster than snail’s pace was like a tonic for me. I felt slightly newer and improved by just helping him to unpack. I filled the bird feeders. I fed my worms. Someone else was finally here, creating sounds and movement. My appetite improved. Was it his presence? The different antibiotic? Was it all in my head? I hoped it was all in my head but I feared gaslighting myself when something real might have actually been happening in my body after the vaccine.  

One evening, after taking my antibiotic and eating half a tuna melt sandwich (a success), I felt incredibly awful. I Googled every symptom, sending my mind and body into an even deeper spiral. My leg muscles spasmed. I felt weak, hot, then cold. My heart pounded. My vision blurred. I stood up from the couch. Brian, I don’t feel right. Was I going to collapse? I told him all my symptoms in case something horrible happened. For the third time in all this time, just go to the hospital whirled around in my brain. He embraced me and encouraged me to go outside with him and the dogs, to breathe deeply. Silly man, I am probably about to go into cardiac arrest. Just tell me that you’ll take me to the hospital, I thought to myself in a panic. I didn’t want to say the h-word to him. I didn’t want to sound insane when maybe this truly is just a panic attack. I wanted for it to be his idea. I followed him outside, though, into the darkness of our patio. For the rest of that evening, I sat on the edges of things, but with him by my side this time. I took a Xanax. The symptoms did eventually subside for the most part and we went to bed.

The next morning, I worked from home because I still felt off. Due for my morning dose of the antibiotic, my body was tense with fear of taking it. My appetite was lost again after some progress. Then don’t take the antibiotic, Brian said, calm and supportive. But then how was this infection going to heal? Flummoxed regarding what to do, I broke down crying and told Brian that I would feel so much better if I went to the hospital where someone can tell me that sure, I’m ill, but I’m not dying. Or that I’m not physically ill at all, just mentally ill. In every relationship I have ever been in, I have prided myself in being quite low-maintenance, cucumber-cool, and go-with-the-flow. It is easy and natural for me to consider the other person with no harm or foul to myself. It is easy to pivot, do things by myself, or stop what I’m doing for the other person. It is easy to brush things off, confront what makes sense, see the good, and learn from difficulties. There I stood, embarrassed about my brain and body, wishing that I wasn’t asking my husband to take me to the hospital. But he did take me to the hospital. Not begrudgingly, not annoyed, but full of love.

At the hospital, I repeated my weeks-long medical narrative a handful of times to a handful of people. Vaccine, the expected flu-like symptoms, what felt like a bad kidney infection, an antibiotic that didn’t help, a stronger antibiotic that made me lose touch with reality and clutched at my body, a third antibiotic that seemed to help the infection but made me feel like I was going to die. Each time I talked about it, I felt more and more ridiculous. I eventually learned that there was no infection and that I had taken three antibiotics without needing them. My directives were to stop taking them, to eat, and to seek anxiety treatment.

So, I was right in saying that I would be better after knowing facts. Right after leaving the hospital, we got me a cheeseburger and fries that took me over an hour to eat.

I am still having almost-debilitating but short-lived panic attacks. I am still rebuilding my gut biome after destroying the micro-flora in my stomach with antibiotics that I didn’t need. I am still rehabilitating my mind after what I will try to call, without embarrassment, a traumatic event. But I am still embarrassed. It is approaching a month since I’ve walked in my garden. I look at the tomatoes from my living room window. The weather, gorgeous while I was ill, has been dark and moody with residual hurricane rain. I began writing again. I am reading a book about loneliness without its contents sending me into a tailspin. I still have to hold back tears when talking about what I went through. I successfully sat through a body-horror film at the theater by myself. I went to a fall festival. Yesterday, I admired how the sun hit the fog on the mountain while driving on the highway. I have yet to plant the sad coral honeysuckle cuttings. Dozens of times a day, I stop what I am doing, grateful that I am okay and that this-and-that sensation is no longer there. Soon enough, the gauzy wall will be behind me as I emerge to gaze into the whorl of a leaf, enamored, in wonder.