Starting antidepressants three months into a global pandemic is like someone telling you your fly is down after giving a presentation. You could have used that information earlier but you’re glad you have it now.
Back in mid-March, when my world became my bedroom and adjacent living room, it was no wonder I felt claustrophobic. All I’d do was pace around the house, trying to see something new in the same wall decor, but the walls were closing in. I slowly noticed that, even when sitting down, I couldn’t take a breath that cleared in my chest. I tried pretending I was hitting an invisible bowl like an actor in an improv show, forcing the imaginary smoke into my lungs until I felt an imaginary buzz. But I couldn’t. Which scared me even more because one of the three symptoms everyone couldn’t stop talking about was “shortness of breath.”
Every night. Choking out sentences. Talking myself out of the fear that if I closed my eyes, I might not open them in the morning. Feeling afraid that by tomorrow, I might be just another tick on the New York Times Coronavirus Map, which I was constantly checking.
Every day. My eyes would open. The sun peeking through my blinds, forming a lined notebook on my carpet, in which I would scribble my body’s every ache. Last night wasn’t the one. But what if it’s tonight?
And that’s how I’d START the day. What could possibly improve THAT mindset? Any mention of coronavirus, I’d shut down. I left rooms, Zoom calls, anywhere to avoid a panic attack.
Looking back, it’s easy to see the circular thinking I was stuck in. My breath was short, which made me paranoid that I had COVID, which made my heart race, which made me anxious, which made my breath short. I was drowning in an ever-spinning wash cycle and couldn’t find a way out. I see this now, but hindsight is 20-20, and so is the worst year of my mental health.
I’m not writing this because I need you to know how hard I’ve got it in the ol’ noggin, especially at a time where the ability to shelter-in-place is a profound privilege. I’m writing this to remind myself where I’ve been and that these feelings I experience so intensely do not make me an island, surrounded by the dense fog of isolation.
I don’t know a problem of mine is a common problem until I hear it in music, on TV, or from a friend. I learned the word “panic attack” from one of my closest friends. I learned therapy can help me grow from past familial trauma by watching Good Will Hunting on TNT. Fuck, David Bowie told me I was bisexual.
In this case, Chris Gethard’s comedy special “Career Suicide” was my life-preserver in the literal sense of the word. In his special, Gethard talks about how, before he saw a therapist and was prescribed medication, he’d wake up not knowing if he was going to be angry that day, or shy around his closest friends, or crumbling at the hint of stress. I heard this and thought “That sounds a lot like someone I know very well.”
I like to wash my own dishes and typically I do, even when someone else is already doing a communal load. One afternoon, as I ask my housemate to scootch over, borrow the sponge, adjust the water temperature, wash my dish, and place it on the drying rack, he looks at me. A look that wades through the bullshit.
“I can wash your dish for you. I want to.”
In that moment, I built an entire world around me, one predicated on the notion that I was a burden. In this world, my housemates hate me and things would be much easier for everyone if I stayed in my room.
Twenty minutes later, after the same housemate cradles me while I shake and sob, I realize Chris Gethard might have a point. I’ve never resisted medicine. I used to look forward to sore throats so I could take the Grape-flavored cough syrup. But I didn’t know these panics, these feelings of hopelessness could even be medicated until Chris Gethard told me so.
I’m writing this piece, six days into my medication (shoutout Zoloft gang), from my roof. I’m facing a backyard frat party. “She Wanna Party” by Young Thug is blaring, cups are flipping, and the only mask present is the feigned interest a girl wears on her face while a boorish dude slurs his legato’d words at her. And my head hurts. It’s not the music because Thugger goes. It’s a side effect of the meds. And I anticipate a lot more. Maybe even a medication switch. Or two. I’m told the side effects eventually go away. Then again, I was told the same thing about depression.
I try to drown out the party with my headphones. Celebratory screams and a far-off bass attempt to infiltrate while Moses Sumney sings to me, “If there’s no pain, is there any progress?” All I know is I’m on an Arctic expedition. Sometimes, the snow makes it hard to see where I’m going. As long as I know there’s footprints behind me and a blank canvas in front, I journey on.
Matt Harmon || Ann Arbor, MI || March 20, 2020