Patrick Dobson - Ferment: A Memoir of Mental Illness, Redemption, and Winemaking in the Mosel

Copyright 2020 by Patrick Dobson

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The chapter Prelude: Diagnoses appeared May 18, 2018 in The Furious Gazelle (www.thefuriousgazelle.com) under the title, Why I Hate Spring, or How I Almost Hung Myself but Went to the Nervous Hospital Instead.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Cover photo credit: Getty Images

ISBN: 978-1-5107-5731-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-5732-5

Printed in the United States of America

This book is for Josef and Marlies Frick and the men of the Gemeinschaft Glas und Glaube.

CONTENTS

PRELUDE

DIAGNOSES

I N JANUARY 2011, my good friend and soul mate Joachim Frick was dying. He had been diagnosed with glioblastoma the previous October, and I arranged to visit him in Berlin during my semester break. His diminished state stunned me. He was closer to me than my own brother, and I took his illness personally. After I returned to Kansas City, I plunged into the depths of despair. My usual spring downturn, combined with increasing grief over Joachims condition, turned into unchecked agitation and deep depression at the same time. At home, I barely talked to my family. I hid in books and read with hungry ferocity. Activities with my eight-year-old, Nick, felt obligatory and difficult. I could hardly function, much less be a father to a boy rife with all the energy and curiosity kids his age possess.

Soon, I wanted nothing to do with the outside world. I couldnt sleep. It felt as if fierce wind and booming thunder washed over my consciousness in wave after wave. I hoisted myself out of bed solely because the alarm clock told me to. My impulse was to burrow in, turn off the world around me, and try to sleep. I went through my community college teaching responsibilities as if under robotic control. Everything moved in slow motion. Even walking to my car was like slogging through warm mud. I dodged my students and didnt talk to my colleagues.

Around the end of February, I found myself devising how Id string myself up in the basement so Nick wouldnt be the first to find me. These suicidal thoughts seemed rational. Of course, I reasoned, there was one way out of my despair. The weight of life pressed on me, as it should, since I have always done penance for being me. The end of a rope was a reasonable way to deal with the darkness and fear.

I hove out of bed at 11 a.m. Sunday morning, March 13, 2011. My T-shirt and jeans hung on me as if made of lead. I could feel my face, heavy and sagging. I obsessed over which rope I would use to attach my neck to the beam in the basement. I went down, found a piece of nylon cord I use when canoeing, and started tying the knot in the receiving end. As I worked, hands shaking, Nick called me from the living room. I ignored him. He called again and again. Rage welled up inside me. I raced upstairs and encountered a smiling child who took all the wind out of me. He asked what we were doing that day. I stood there, empty. I didnt have an answer.

I sat with him, brooding and calculating for about an hour. He was watching cartoons, jumping around like he does when hes in front of the television for too long. Suddenly, something inside me broke like a watch spring wound too tightly. Even in my addled state, I knew something was seriously wrong. I dragged myself into the bathroom, knees weak and body trembling. I stuffed my medications into a sandwich bag. My voice cracking, I called friends and made arrangements for Nick for that evening and night. I woke Virginia, who was sleeping before another night shift at the hospital, where she worked as an oncology nurse. She lifted her head and opened a sleepy eye. I told her, Im going to the mental hospital. I told her not to worry, Nick was taken care of. She looked up and told me whatever I needed to do, I should.

With Virginias blessing, I took that bag of pill bottles and drove, as well as I couldeven stoplights overwhelmed meto the psychiatric facility attached to the hospital where Virginia worked. I remembered that Karl Childers, the main character in the movie Sling Blade, called the mental hospital the nervous hospital. I liked that. My chest buzzed as if filled with electricity. My head spun. I was anxious, nervous, and upset, using all my energy to walk across the parking lot.

I walked up to the counter and shoved my medications at the clerk. Im here to check in, I insisted, not looking at him. When these episodes occur, I dont make eye contact. I look at the floor.

Yes, well... uh... people usually call before they come in, he said. He looked confused and held the bag of medications as if he didnt really know what to do with them.

Yeah, well, I said. Im not leaving.

Well, uh... yeah, fill this out and take a seat. The kid looked scared. Someonell be right with you.

I filled in the blanks in the admitting form. My script looked forced and arthritic. I returned, gave the form to the clerk, and hid in the corner as best I could from the other people, probably families waiting to visit inmates. A security guard took up a position opposite me in the room, watching me, immobile, hands crossed.

After an excruciating hour, a woman came out from behind the counter and asked me if I was Patrick Dobson. She ushered me to her office. During the admitting interview, she asked about my medications, what doctor I was seeing, and if I had any medical conditions the doctors should be aware of. She asked if I struggled with depression. I said yes. Then she asked a series of standard questions about mental illness, probing to see if I really needed to be there.

Have you had any thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself? she said finally.

Of course, I said. Whats a good depression without them?

She stood up quickly, waved me over with a weapons wand, and led me into the nervous part of the nervous hospital.

A doctor showed me to my bed first and then around the facility. I shuffled behind him with my eyes to the floor. When he left, the other patients gathered around.

Doctor, a woman in a gray, faded gabardine jacket said. Whens my appointment tomorrow? I glanced up for a half-second. Her face twitched all over.

Doctor?

I said. You mean youre staying? the woman asked. A group of people had gathered around me.

Sure. Im staying, I said. I shoved through the crowd and made for my room.

But, wait, a man in T-shirt and jeans and slippers said. I stopped and faced him. Youre not a doctor?