Small Town Nervous Breakdown

 

 

 

A small town is a bad place to have a nervous breakdown. I know this firsthand. Two years ago I was working part-time as a consultant for a firm that marketed causes I didn’t believe in.  The more I learned about the causes, the slimier I felt. Every day when I went in to work, I felt as fraudulent as Dick Morris selling my soul for a cushy consulting gig.  Between that and the stress of two small kids, a babysitter I didn’t trust, and a husband who traveled, I came down with a wicked case of insomnia. 

 

Two weeks of no sleep and I went in shaking and hollow to see my crack doctor who gave me ten minutes and three prescriptions.  Taken in combination (her idea), the drugs made me far sicker than the not sleeping.  Actually, at that point, I stopped sleeping all together because the side effects of the drugs were so bad. I can relate to how Heath Ledger might have felt, seriously.

 

Getting off all that bad medication was no picnic either.  I spent two blurry, scared months weaning off the poison. I was shaking, sweating all night, bouncing off the walls and NOT SLEEPING. 

 

 

The whole thing was, as bad as it got, it was ten times worse because I live in this perfect town where a nervous breakdown is in such bad taste.  I suffered mostly alone, hiding from even the mailman in my house.  When I did go out, I put on lipstick and a dry smile and did my best to make proper chit chat in the grocery store, but if anyone would have looked closely at me, they would have noticed my knee was jiggling and my eyes were wringed in dark purple circles.  Good news/bad news…not many people really did look all that closely.

 

I’m better now.  I quit the job, am off the junk and have the precious gift of hindsight that lets me laugh, sleep and feel wiser.  I’ve reconciled that I was in one of life’s “narrows” from which I emerged more self-aware and circumspect. But I’m also more jaded about life in this tiny town.  It would have been so much easier to have come undone in the wide, open spaces of a crowded city than in the socially-constricted precincts of “JCrew-ville”.  Here, living successfully is a local tradition.

 

In the city, I learned that people carve out space for themselves by remaining somewhat anonymous.  It was easier to get by if you didn’t know the people smashed up against you on the bus or crowded in tight with you in the elevator.  It was really, pretty liberating.  You could have a good cry on the street and people would act like that happened everyday. Not so in a small town. If you pass gas, people talk and if you were to cry on the street, it could ruin you forever.

 

What I think happens in a small town is that people create emotional space by hiding everything unpleasant in their lives and feigning perpetual enjoyment. Our desires, sadness, and ambitions are all kept hidden in a vault deep below our on-going pleasant living.  We busy-up ourselves, art directing an outwardly perfect life and feeling fulfilled by the portraits of our own success. 

 

I know there are a lot of people out there that are just perennially happy, but there are a lot of them that are pretty miserable, too.  I’m not being bitter, just statistically honest. I suspect many are afraid to admit to a rough patch for fear it will indefinitely define them. But the sad thing is, because everyone is hiding their self-doubt or masking their fears by keeping busy, when it’s your turn to come unhinged, you can feel pretty alone.

 

A few weeks ago, my neighbor woke up in the middle of the night, looked out his window and found the (already labeled “eccentric”) lady from across the street laying flat on her back in his driveway.  He froze behind his curtain and watched for a minute as she lay there flattened with her arms straight out on either side of her, like Jesus on the cross, gazing up to the sky. She was talking quietly, stretched out on the cold cement in the blue light of 3:00am.  At some point, her cat came out from behind a bush and gingerly crawled onto her chest.  They just stayed there for a while, her talking and fixating on the moon, the kitty keeping her company.  Some of this might seem a bit odd, but the fact that it was 3:30am and this was not her driveway actually makes it kinda crazy. 

 

I love this story on so many levels, but mostly because it keeps my (sometimes) misery company.  I take comfort in knowing that maybe this woman felt she could only let out her inner craziness by doing it in the middle of the night.  And it sounds like it was rather cathartic for her, sort of like my crying on the crowded street.     

 

So here’s my advice: if you are contemplating a “simpler” life in a small town, get your shit together first, grow thick skin, know who you are, hold you good friends close, stay in love with your family, find a competent doctor and spend some money on good window coverings. And chose to be brave: be out-spoken, wear your honesty proudly, struggle openly, and question it all.  You might not fit in all the time, but if you’re cool with that – then pleeeeease move in next door to me.  I’ll be right over with a bottle of cold wine and a slab of fine cheese. Know that you can roll around in my driveway any time, day or night, or howl at the moon when you feel the need…but be warned: I just might join you.