Madness (8 page)

A month passes in which I visit Jane several times and we talk about depression – beginning at age fifteen and extending episodically through the later years of school and all of university, through family holidays and birthdays and the weddings of friends.

‘You went to uni?' she asks.

‘Yes.'

‘What did you study?'

‘Medicine.'

‘Really?'

‘Graduated with honours. In between hospitalisations.'

‘How did you manage to pass your exams?' she asks.

‘Bursts of extreme concentration. Some days I'd study for twelve hours straight. Other days I didn't get out of bed.'

‘How about school?'

‘It wasn't ever what I'd call serious depression at school. But I think it was more extreme than the normal teenage emotional rollercoaster. When I was seventeen I knew, I mean I
really
knew, that I could go on living for a couple more years at most. I was exhausted. Turning up to school every day and trying to appear normal when inside . . . I was a witch or a banshee or I was dead and rotting or I was just plain ridiculous depending on the day. It was exhausting.'

‘So are you practicing medicine?'

‘I can't, well I mean I wouldn't – I mean if something happened, if I made a mistake because I was unwell, I'd never forgive myself.'

‘All that training!' she says.

we're killing you bitch ahhaha on the ground

I look at her hard. ‘Yes.'

‘Did you want to work in a hospital or general practice?'

‘Neither. I've always wanted to be a forensic physician.'

‘Cutting up dead bodies?'

‘That's a forensic pathologist. I mean someone who takes care of women and men after a sexual assault and sees people who have been injured in prison or in police custody and—'

‘That sounds tough.'

‘Some days. I spent time at the Institute for Forensic Medicine as a student. It didn't matter to me what people had done or were accused of doing, and it wasn't all violence-related. We also assessed whether people were okay to be interviewed or give evidence or stand for trial and we gave medical advice to police and the courts. Every single day was fascinating. It was . . . I think it was my calling, if such a thing exists.'

‘Yes?'

‘Not in a religious sense. It just felt right.'

‘But you're not doing that now?'

‘No. Couldn't do any of the preliminary hospital training. Kept getting sick.'

‘Is that disappointing?'

‘No, no,' I say. ‘Could be worse.'

No, no. Could be a lot worse, could be a garbo or something, could be unemployed, could be dead, it's fine, fine really, all that studying just in time for one's mind to fail, to haul oneself back up and then it fails again . . . and again.

‘What do you do now?'

‘Working as a medical writer.'

‘What do you write about?'

‘Right now we're developing an update for GPs on the treatment of acute leukaemia.'

‘How's your concentration at work?'

I laugh.

Jane raises her eyebrows. ‘That's funny?'

you are blind dead dead whine red ha ha

‘Hah. I mean, no. No. But–'

ha ha ha ha blind dead blind

‘I . . . have a nasty habit of . . . things get weirdly adulterated in here,' I tap my head. I smile. Then my eyes fill. Of their own accord. ‘Um . . . juggling is required. Severe focus. Attention to multiple inputs of data at the same time.'

‘Oh?'

‘Like you are listening to the radio through one ear and the television through the other.'

‘Mmm. Do you ever get high – I mean your mood?'

I grin, mouthandeyes, and uncross my legs, leaving my knees open. ‘Sometimes it's like being on speed and Es together, without the come-down.'

‘Does it ever go too far?'

‘Been known to.' I re-cross my legs. ‘That's when I start chain-smoking. Once I thought I'd discovered a new dimension. You know, there's length, width and depth, and time – the fourth dimension. Well I found a fifth. So I thought.'

Jane has long black hair with a curious streak of light grey at the front that matches her eyes. Her voice is soft, measured, uncluttered, a little hypnotic.

‘What's your earliest memory?' she asks.

Orange light, a curtain, the dark, no one there, just the orange light and the dark and silence like fog, endless orange light and the dark.

‘About age seven. There was a deep frost, and the dogs made shining green footprints in the grass and the ice-crystals crackled under their feet.'

‘What about before the age of seven?'

‘Fog.'

‘Fog?'

I think for a moment and nod. ‘Fog.'

‘Why are you wearing so many clothes?' Jane asks at the next session.

‘Covers the ugliness up. I'd cover my face as well if I could.'

‘Are you ugly, Kate?'

I stare at the floor, I don't blink, I don't move.

‘Disgusting.' I say it so low it's almost a growl.

Jane sits still but I start to shake, first my hands and arms, then my legs, then my torso, not an epileptic seizure, more like someone with hypothermia. My teeth are chattering, my eyes are watering, I can't blink. Jane comes over to my chair and puts her hand on my shoulder but I shudder further and flinch, and she removes it.

‘Can I do anything for you Kate?' she asks very quietly. I can't stop the shaking, it's as though an animal inside me is trying to get out. Sweat is running into my eyes and down my back and under my breasts. I keen. The people in my head scream.

Jane sits down and waits. After some minutes the shaking subsides. I blink. She gives me some tissues and I wipe my face and neck.

‘Sorry,' I say.

‘Has that happened before?' she asks.

‘Yes,' I say, then I say, ‘We never discuss the body.'

‘We?'

I stare at her. ‘Yes.'

‘Who is “we”?'

I try to speak, but the people in my head gag me. They make me put my hands around my throat and exert pressure on my carotid arteries and my trachea. The room goes fuzzy. They start to wail and cajole—

rip yourself stab knife your heart stick it in

‘Kate, can you hear me?'

I nod.

‘You're perfectly okay here.'

I open my eyes.

‘It's okay.'

bleed for this

The tram arrives

bleed for this

and I get on and

bleed for this

fall into one of the lumpy seats and cover my eyes with my palms. The chatter from the other passengers sounds like rain, except that it is also made up of colour – blues and oranges and violet; all falling from above and falling around me. If I put my arms out, palms up, the colours patter onto my skin and return to white. I step off the tram. My legs are still shaking and I look up through the dark

bleed for this

and there's a halo around the full moon – another (fainter) perfect circle.

My little flat has the pale smell of unburnt sandalwood incense. The cats uncurl and reach out with their front paws

you will bleed for this

and mrrrrl and lift their furry heads. Their eyes are finer than glass. I feed them and sort through the pile of CDs on the floor in the living room and here is Boccherini's cello concerto. It is his Concerto no. 9, in B-flat Major.

bleed for this bleeeed

‘Number nine in B flat major,' I say loudly to drown them. ‘Number nine in B flat major number nine in B flat major.'

The adagio is a simple, slow melody until a solo cello stretches beyond the orchestra – holding a note that little bit longer, like a story within a story or the deepest insides of a flower. It settles me. I think I'll be okay. ‘Number nine in B flat major.'

But in the morning I can't face work.

bleed for this bleed you YOU

I'm up on time and clothed appropriately and

bleed for this we will make you bleed for this

then I sink down into the couch with my back straight, hands folded, feet neatly together on the floor and I don't move, I don't move while the clock's hands proceed from eight to nine to ten – my body is somehow locked up. Eventually I ring to

bleed for this

apologise and the guilt seeps in.

The corner of Carlisle and Chapel is a drop in centre for folk with psychiatric illness. It provides meals and activities and support. I sit out the front on the side of the road, never having mustered the courage to go inside. Coming towards me is an oldish woman pulling a cart with three wheels and inside the cart is a little white dog with eyes like mercury.

‘Shantih, Shantih, Shantih,' she sings in time with her feet. The dog smiles right back at her. His fur and her hair mirror one another. I go into a cafe and the coffee comes with an extra shot and a heart etched into its creamy surface. I turn it around to drink left-handed and the heart is now an onion.

bleed for this we will make you you will bleeeeeeed for this

On the way home I go into the 7-Eleven and buy a pack of Winfield Blues and a cigarette lighter and at home I light a cigarette.

bleed haha

I keep one end in my mouth, sit on the floor in half-lotus, hold the other end, the lit end, against the skin of the middle of my calf. I inhale and exhale. The cigarette flares and dies. I re-light it. The skin blushes pink then red then grey. It is raining. Rain drops fall and pool on leaves and fall again to the ground. The air is musty with the day's heat, the room full of smoke and the people in my head finally stop shouting.

Later I put on Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor. It is music that reaches into the depths of things, like light into water. The sound of the cello is exquisite and absolute but by accident I brush against my leg and a shiver of pain runs up into my groin.

To my next appointment with Jane, I wear a long skirt over jeans and long black boots and an overcoat, scarf and beanie. My knees are wool.

‘How have you been?' Jane asks.

I shrug, ‘Comme ci comme ça, aval kacha ha'chayim.'

‘What do you mean in English?'

‘Terrified.'

‘Of . . .?'

sssssss vile we will make you we have you WE ARE YOU die

I flinch.

‘Can you tell me what you are terrified of?' Jane asks, very quietly.

I don't blink for a long time and then the clock clicks on Jane's desk and the sound fills my ears and reverberates there; little sound waves piling in upon themselves, clickclickclick. I tap the side of my head hard and stretch and smile.

‘Shit,' I say.

‘I'm . . . strangled,' I say. ‘Sorry.'

The burn inevitably gets infected. My ankle swells so that socks leave detailed patterns on my skin, dips and ridges and furrows. It smells slightly rotten; to compensate I spray a lot of green-tea perfume and rub orange oil over my clothes. In the evenings I take a lorazepam and a couple of phenergans and go to bed and dream of being shot in the head.

At the next session, Jane notices that I can't bend my right knee properly, and I explain.

‘Is it painful?' she asks.

‘Yes.'

‘You remind me of the way Hitler treated the Jews,' she says, leaning forward in her chair. I choke on some saliva. The air leaves my lungs. I stare at her for a moment then quietly gather my bag and books and walk out. I walk fast down the road while the people in my head scream and I narrowly avoid an oncoming car, its horn blares, I drop my pile of books and scrabble on the ground in the middle of the road with my squelchy shoe and sweaty palms and runny nose.

At home I light some incense and watch smoke rise cylindrically to the roof. I screw the body up tight and shove my mind into the farthest corner of my brain with Jack Daniels. But the fact remains. Jane has confirmed it. There is something intrinsically wrong with me, something rotten. Something analogous to Hitler.

On my day off work Helen meets me in the hallway of the Community Clinic and we walk together to her office.

‘I feel sick,' I tell her. ‘Jane is Jewish. Anyone can make a comment about Hitler. But a comment from someone whose family may have been murdered in the Holocaust carries so much more weight. And meaning. It's an enormous, awful analogy. It's so black and awful. I don't think I can go back.'

Helen puts her head on one side and sighs.

‘How is your leg?' she asks.

‘Fine,' I say.

‘Kate, it smells. Are you cleaning it?'

‘No.'

‘I'm going to ask CATT to come and see you in the evening.'

The Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team (CATT) is a part of every public hospital psych department. The team is responsible for assessing people in the community who may need admission to hospital because they are in the acute phase of a psychiatric illness or are exhibiting symptoms that may be the result of a psychiatric illness. Symptoms could include hallucinations, delusions, persistent thoughts of suicide or homicide or other symptoms of mania, depression, psychosis and severe anxiety that place the person at risk of harm to themselves or others.

Two psych nurses, members of CATT, come around in the early evening. The evening itself is pure and clear. I sit cross-legged on the floor.

‘Do you understand why we're here?' one asks.

‘Well I think so, but really, there's no need, I'm perfectly alright, my brain's just a bit tight.'

scream a black dream

‘How is your leg?'

‘Fine.'

‘What did you do to it?'

‘Burnt it.'

‘Can we have a look?' They lean forward. I pull at my sock; it's stuck to the wound so I peel it away slowly.

shhhhhhh bitch

‘You need to get that cleaned up. And you need antibiotics.'

‘No,' I say.

‘Why not?'

‘No.'

‘You'll lose your leg or the infection will spread into your bloodstream. Do you want to die Kate?'

‘I do.'

‘Why?'

‘I deserve it. It's my fate.'

‘What medication are you on?'

‘Lithium.'

‘Will you let us clean up your leg?' I don't say anything. ‘Otherwise we will have to take you to hospital.' I bang my hands on the floor, look at the walls, the ceiling. There's a crack in the corner of the ceiling where it meets the wall, black and sudden. The people in my head hiss and laugh–

we're killing you

‘I don't know what to do,' I whisper.

‘How about we start by cleaning the wound?'

I sit there on the floor amongst the mess of flesh with my heart hammering out an irregular beat and my head full of bile and the acute taste of venom.

touch us put your hands around usssss

I put my hands around my throat. There is sweat there, in the folds of skin that feel soft and wet as dough and are equally malleable. I look into the eyes of the members of the CAT team. Green eyes, brown eyes, liquid and light.

dead already

‘I'm dead already,' I whisper.

‘No, you're not. We can help you.' I look up at them from the depths of a well, depths that have swallowed earth and sky.

you deserve this

‘I deserve this,' I say.

‘Kate, you are not thinking clearly. Now we need to clean up your leg and get you some antibiotics. We would like you to come with us.'

‘Okay,' I say, with my hands around my throat. ‘Okay.'

We walk down the stairs and out to the CAT team car. It is a white Toyota, small and functional, just the right size for taking people off to hospital. I sit in the back with my oversize bag of books and the little rivulets of serous fluid running into my shoes.

The Emergency Department is all bright lights and people moving fast. A man lies on a trolley in the corridor by the waiting room with eyes yellow as a cat's. I am left to wait in the cubicle with the solid walls and the lockable, solid door. I wait for several hours. The members of the CAT team return. ‘We'll get a doctor to come and look at your leg and then the psychiatric registrar on call will come and assess you.'

The desire to get up off the trolley that is narrow and cold and walk out into the night is compelling. Two security guards walk by in their grey uniforms with their mounds of keys, a nurse takes my blood pressure and pulse and temperature and brings me a warmed blanket and later a resident examines my leg and prescribes a stat dose of IV antibiotics and some oxycodone for pain relief. My mind is vacuous as a shell; equally made up of circles within circles of smooth, shining material that from the outside appear perfect but are rotten within.

‘Are you feeling down or depressed for most of the day?' asks the psych registrar, sitting legs crossed neatly with sheer stockings and shiny high heels and a dress to match her eyes.

I nod slowly. ‘Most days.'

‘How are you sleeping?'

‘A few hours a night.'

‘What about concentration?'

‘Terrible.'

‘Are you hearing things that other people can't hear?'

‘No.'

‘Are you seeing things that other people can't see?'

‘No.'

‘Is the television or radio broadcasting special messages for you?'

‘No.'

‘Do you think that anyone is trying to harm you?'

‘No.'

‘Are you thinking about dying?'

‘Yes.'

She looks surprised. I don't think she believes me. I stay overnight on the cold and narrow trolley in the room with the solid walls and am discharged in the early morning with a packet of antibiotics and a muddy-red heart. I go straight in to work, fumble with the espresso machine, smile brightly as people arrive to begin the day. The CAT team visit for a week to monitor the taking of the antibiotics as prescribed.

At the Community Clinic Helen and I talk about trying therapy again. I'm loath to enter into another relationship, to consider trust, to open my pale insides to someone new.

‘I never thought I'd end up like this, Helen.' I say. ‘Needing therapy. On medication. Not managing to be a normal adult. Not fucking managing.'

Helen raises her eyebrows. ‘You can do this.'

I walk home with leaves gusting along at my feet. The Australian Psychological Society has a website with a ‘find a psychologist' page. I select ‘Depression' and ‘Self Harm' as relevant categories and am furnished with a list of eight psychologists, each of whom has a detailed profile. Winsome works with cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), gestalt, humanistic and psychodynamic therapy. I like CBT and I like gestalt. Gestalt is a German word for form or shape. In English, it refers to a concept of wholeness. Gestalt therapy is a method of awareness of the individual's experience in the present moment. It is holistic; it emphasises personal responsibility and mind-body-culture relationships – all things I pound through life without considering. I ring Winsome and make an appointment, take a lorazepam and a bottle of Chivas Regal and curl up on the couch.

My diet consists of chocolate bars, alcohol and coffee. Occasionally I supplement with ice cream. I am enmeshed in Freud's oral stage of psychosexual development, stuck with a single erogenous zone – my mouth. Freud would say I am fixated.

The fruit and vegetable aisles in my local supermarket are a mystery. I am terrified of the supermarket. The lights are white hot and insistent, the isles bursting with shelf upon shelf of objects that pelt me with their colour and their words. It's hard to breathe. There is the hum of trolleys and air conditioning and people talking. The voice over makes me jump and once my legs start to shake I forget what I came to buy and leave with nothing but a pair of sweaty hands.