This is an excerpt from my upcoming book Dear Charlotte, which tells the winding story of the triumph and folly of forever trying to better yourself. This letter is from the chapter on "The Pursuit of Happiness."
The last 48 hours have been one of the mo st insane experiences of my life. Right after I emailed you a couple days ago, I took one pill of St. John's Wort1. Thirty minutes later, I slipped into a nearly waking coma. I had hours upon hours where my mind was empty. All the thoughts that had been racing around my head ceased to exist. I remember simply sitting down and staring at the paint on the wall. I remember lying face down, listening to every song on my iPod. Nearly every sensation I had came in loud and clear because there were no thoughts to get in the way. Small sounds, like that of a plate being set down, echoed like a giant tunnel. And even though I couldn't form conscious thoughts, I had an awareness of myself and my surroundings. The contrast between my heightened sensory experience and my inability to form thoughts felt like I was in a straight jacket.
Having dinner with my parents was interesting. I tried really hard to seem normal, but I was unusually quiet. I simply didn't have the motivation to form words. Plus I was really irritated anytime they said anything. After awhile, I could sense they noticed something different in me, and so I had to come clean and tell them what I was up to.
I told them that I had been battling neuroses and depression for years, and that only up until recently was I finally taking appropriate medical steps. Initially they denied my condition. My dad said something like, "Are you sure you're not just stressed out?" I realized I wasn't going to make them fully understand, given that they grew up in a time period and culture that had no concept of depression or therapy2. So I tried to repackage my explanation by comparing myself to Woody Allen, who in his movies, is a constant chatterbox, always over-analyzing and over-thinking his life. And I was careful not to mention ever having thought of killing myself.
Nonetheless, my mom got tears in her eyes. My explanation overwhelmed her, and so instead of dwelling on my condition, she talked about herself. She described how she was depressed after giving birth to my brother. She remembered taking Valium, and being in a funk, bed-ridden nearly for an entire year.
In order to turn the mood at dinner around, I spoke confidently about what I was doing next. I told them how I had a plan, and how I had a series of herbal remedies I was going to try first, and that my Plan B was to maybe re-consider seeing a therapist. This seemed to cool them down, and we quickly moved to other topics of conversation. Looking back now, I'm glad I came to the table with my own plan and determination to fix myself. If I hadn't, they would've felt helpless and this short talk could have stretched on for days and weeks, possibly including frantic referrals to therapists or even priests.
After dinner, I went into my room, closed the door, and stared at the wall again. Another 24 hours of near catatonia passed, 12 hours of which I slept through, I gradually came back to normal. The transition took about three hours, and it was a very blissful time. I felt like I had one foot in the void of St. John's Wort, and another in my old introspective self, which allowed me to pivot back and forth with ease between thinking and non-thinking. But then I returned to my normal self, playing video games to block out thoughts and anxieties about my career and direction in life.
When I reflected on the conversation with my parents, it struck me as weird that I had never talked to them about it before. I'm pretty comfortable sharing my life with my parents, so this surprised me. I wonder if this is similar to why gay people wait so long to tell people they're out of the closet. Half of the process involves the years in which you gradually come out of the closet to yourself. It took me ten years of roller coaster emotions and neuroses before I got the nerve to embark on what I'm doing today. Such is the nature of human denial, I guess.
As for St. John's Wort, I have mixed feelings. The near-coma state I was in wasn't exactly ideal, and so I may grind up another pill and try smaller portions. But what I am excited about is the fact that I'm proving to myself that I can and will attack my problem head on. I feel like I'm now at the beginning of a war, and that this was my Fort Sumter, a strong first battle and rallying cry. If I can keep up this self-experimentation and willingness to try new things, then maybe 2009 will be the year I bury my emotional-mental troubles once and for all.
1 St. John's Wort is an all-natural, over-the-counter anti-depressant that, in a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies, improves depression and anxiety profiles about as well as Lexapro, with none of the side effects. I think I'm especially sensitive to the drug, as when I recommended it to others, they did not experience what I did.
2 My dad grew up on a refugee camp in New Delhi, India, and my mom grew up in a poor farm in Philippines.
