Authors: David Blistein
David's Inferno (3 page)
O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING
, October 10
th
, 2005, I took a 40 mg tablet of Celexa, cut it in half, and swallowed. Presumably with juice or cold coffee. Or I just put my mouth under the faucet to wash it downâone of my less civilized habits.
This, unlike many things which followed, was not a particularly crazy thing to do.
Since 1999, Celexa had been a potent ally in my balancing act between streams of creative energy and a tendency to disappear into black holes. A cycle that I'd, previously, been able to “self-medicate” by using various combinations of exercise, cigarettes, diet, alternative therapies, liquor, meditation, and several varieties of non-prescription drugs. By taking Celexa, and at times Wellbutrin, I didn't have to be so concerned about my shifting moods â¦Â about which version of myself would show up the next day â¦Â or hour.
During the summer of 2005, I decided to take a little break from Celexa. It seemed like a good time. My life was about as good as it gets. I'd just left a fairly stressful job. My wife and I continued to successfully negotiate the slings and arrows of a 30-year marriage. We owned our own home, and had virtually no debt as well as adequate savings. Plus, I'd begun doing the writing I'd waited many years to do. Why not take the summer to see if my depression was primarily caused by circumstance, stress, or both?
But, that fall, after nine months of creativity unleashed, my energy plummeted, my enthusiasm dulled, and the darkness began its inexorable descent. Clearly, my depression was chemical. Perhaps seasonal. But if the past were any indication, summers could be just as hard. And, while I had experience with many non-pharmaceutical ways to treat it, none of them had ever proved as reliable as a small pill two times a day. So, as the familiar foreboding sensation arrivedâa soft, pre-gag sensation in the throat that flows up into the tear ducts and down through the chest to the pit of the stomachâI knew this was no time to take any chances.
The previous spring, I'd slowly reduced my dose over about six weeks: from 60 mg every day, to 60 mg one day and 40 mg the next. Then 40 mg both days. Then 40 one day and 20 the next. Then 20 each day. Then 20 every other day. Until eventually I stopped altogether. It went smoothly.
I planned to go back up the same way. 20 mg once a day for a few days, and so on. Maybe stopping around 40, or continuing up to 60. I knew the drill. I didn't even bother telling my psychiatrist I was starting up again. I had a refill left over from the spring and figured he wasn't going to tell me anything we hadn't discussed before.
But, by Sunday, I was sitting on the floor with my head in my hands, my agitation barely managed by Valium, telling a long-time friend that there was no way I could get on a plane and join him for a business trip to California.
I could barely talk.
The phrase “nervous breakdown” is inadequate. The experience is way beyond “nervous.” It's a rampant agitation that careens from constant low-level anxiety to gut-wrenching, dry-heaving despair. After the worst attacks, I'd feel like I'd just been spit up, Jonah-like, on the shore, wondering if next time the whale would be a shark.
Breakdown is way too static a word. Every day is spent on roiling waves. Occasionallyâfor an hour or two, maybe even a dayâthose
waves buoy you up high enough for a gasp of blessed air, only to sweep you back down into such a fierce undertow that drowning, while terrifying, at least holds out the promise of peace.
For the next two years, only my own desperately flailing will and the determined surround of family, friends, and guides kept me from being institutionalized or far worse.
As I wrestled with this relentless onslaught, a procession of compassionate and insightful healers: doctors, psychiatrists, acupuncturists, astrologers, tarot readers, homeopaths, Craniosacral specialists, medical intuitives, and a dear friend who guided me through soul-rendering wails in the Southwest desert, did everything they could to help me stay on the treacherous path that I'd chosenâyes chosen, whether subconsciously or karmicallyâwithout wandering so far into the wilderness that I'd never find my way back.
H
AVING FOLLOWED
V
IRGIL OUT OF THE DARK WOODS
, Dante arrives at the infamous Gates of Hell. This is a pretty chaotic place. Most people are waiting to catch a ferry while trying to ignore a sign telling them to abandon all hope.
The docks also swarm with lost souls who, during their lives, were unable to choose between good and evil. They're joined by a host of cowardly angels who couldn't decide which side to root for when Lucifer rebelled against God. (That would seem to be a no-brainer.) They're not even allowed on the boat. Instead, they're running around naked, carrying meaningless banners, and screaming their lungs out as stinging insects swarm all around them.
To make things worse, while Virgil is persuading a reluctant Charon to give them a ride across the River Acheronâin spite of Dante's less-than-gung-ho attitude and the minor detail that no living person has ever made this crossing beforeâthe ground begins to shake and the wind starts blowing something fierce. If I found myself in that God-awful place, I'd reach for the nearest benzodiazepine. Dante does the next best thing. He faints. When he wakes up, he's in Limbo.
Limbo is one of the most convoluted theological constructs in history. The early Fathers (the Mothers probably knew better) took a simple suggestion by Matthew that Christians should be rewarded or punished based on performance, and transformed it into an organizational chart only a consultant could love. As if that weren't bad enough, at some point they realized that they hadn't set aside a safe place for unbaptized babies or perfectly good people who had the misfortune to be born before baptism was inventedâlike Socrates, Plato, and Hippocrates.
Limboâneither here nor there, neither damned nor savedâ
was their compromise. It's the first stop in Hell. Yes, Hell. Even though, counterintuitively, people don't really suffer there. At least not in the gory ways people in the other realms of Hell do.
People in Limbo are depressed. Really depressed. They sigh all the time. For the simple reason that they can't experience the pure light and love of Godâor, to put it in non-denominational terms, be graced with inspiration and enthusiasm. This type of yearning is the hallmark of pure depressionâi.e., depression without any apparent cause. Or, as Dante puts it, “Sorrow without torment.”
In Limbo, you can feel Dante trying to clarify his own vision and questioning his ability to pull it off. In fact, while there, he consults with four great classical poets: Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Oddly, he says he shouldn't repeat the things he talked with them about. Why not? They're totally supportive. In fact, the whole scene is a backhanded way to get their blessing. So, what's the big secret?
It's not that he shouldn't talk about his dialogue with four of the greatest minds in the history of the Western World. It's that he can't. He doesn't know how yet. He says that his words aren't equal to the experience. This problemâwhich has tormented writers throughout historyâwill plague him for the entire twenty years it takes to write
The Divine Comedy
. And probably continues to plague him to this day.
The poor guy is wrestling with shadows. Very real shadows. Dante may share top billing with Shakespeare as the best writer of all time, but he faces the same challenges all writers face:
He has to find his voice.
He has to make the tools of his trade conform to his vision. In his case, that means eschewing Latin and, instead, trying to bash together a mess of regional dialects into a single vernacular that all his compatriots can understand.
He has to find a way to convince people his stuff is worth reading â¦Â maybe even good enough to toss a couple of florins or hunks of bread and cheese his way.
He also has to find a way not to overly antagonize the Powers-that-Beâpowerful men who are more than willing to toss any suspicious
writing into the flames (and sometimes the writer along with it), as well as potential patrons who might give him a few months or years of peace so he can get this thing written.
In the Dark Wood, Dante learns there's no turning back. At the Gates of Hell he sees that you're either on the boat or you're not. By the time he makes it through Limbo, he is fully aware that his life's work is to be a clear channel for an illusive, inchoate, ineffableâall these adjectives are necessaryâvision that will make him a medium for something far more transcendent than even he can grasp. And that, with all due respect to Virgil and the other great writers who've gone before him, he's on his own.
He accepts the challenge. He accepts enduring an indescribable, cataclysmic personal experience. For what? To come back to tell the world so that they, too, can discover what LOVE really is.
He begins the descent.
It is quite true what philosophy says: that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards
.
âS
ÃREN
K
IERKEGAARD
T
HERE
'
S A FINE
, but significant, line between intense creative focus and fanaticism. And an equally fine, but significant, line between contemplation and creative despair. Lines that I've crisscrossed with reckless abandon since I was a kid.
In many ways, hypomania (mania-lite â¦Â hold the psychosis) has made me what I am today. Symptoms include the pressure to keep talking, thoughts racing out of control, and easy distractibility. Or, as psychiatric manuals officially put it: “involvement in pleasurable activities that may have a high potential for negative psycho-social or physical consequences.” All of which I've always considered charming personality traits. (Inflated self-esteem is another symptom.)