My Miracle Drug

The mind can be a poison. Sometimes I wish I could turn mine off. I wish it had a switch that I could flip off when I needed to, when my thoughts turned negative, or simply when I needed to enjoy a Vin Diesel movie.

This morning I missed class because all my work pants were in the washing machine still soaking wet. When I found them it was too late to dry them and then leave, so I put them in the dryer and tried to make use of the extra time. I already didn't feel very well since it was Monday, but I grabbed my notebook, went out on the back porch, and started looking over my algebra work in a patio chair. It was nice outside, sunny but cool. I went over factoring, absolute values, and inequalities making sure I had the process down in my head for figuring out each type of problem. After about 10 minutes of that my mind started to wander and in my head I was far away from that porch and that notebook with the math problems.

I thought about my life and, just like my mind does sometimes, I seemed to pick out all the times I've failed and remind myself just what kind of stupid things I'm capable of. Funny how the bad things always stick out over the good things, like they somehow carry more weight to define us as people. I don't really believe that but I thought about all the relationships in my life that aren't what I'd like them to be, the length of time it's taking me to earn my degree, and all my various character flaws. I thought about how my goal, my ambition, is to become a teacher. But even when I did that I doubted if I could really do it.

Do you really even want to be a teacher? I don't think you want it bad enough, you probably won't even graduate. And even if you do, you'll probably hate it. And you probably won't even be very good at it. And by the way, you are majoring in history, so you might not even find a job.

It wasn't a very good morning for me. Instead of actually studying, I spent a lot of my time wondering if what I was working for was really worth it. I paced around the house, half-bored but not wanting to waste the hours I was gaining from missing class. I stared out of windows, only to walk to the other side of the house and stare out of another window. My mind was in a bad place and I just felt lost.

I even walked outside onto the porch where our dogs were. Bilco was laying on his back with his feet up against the wall. He has a knack for making himself look like he has the IQ of a gnat. I looked at our old German shepherd, Foster, who is 16 years old now and looks every bit of it. He looked up at me but didn't wag his tail. Several years ago he got hit by a car and broke his hind leg. Now that he is older, he has arthritis and that leg is almost useless to him. I watched him try to stand up. He propped himself up with his front two legs and then tried to lift the rest of his body with only one leg. He got about halfway up, straining the whole time, and then gave up. He eased himself back down. Every minute or so he would try and eventually he got up and limped down the stairs to where he could lay under some shade.

He laid down and as I was watching him I started thinking about getting old. I wondered if the right thing to do would be to put Foster out of his misery, but I knew I could never decide to do that. He only had one life to live - might as well leave him to enjoy all of it.

I say this because I felt crazy this morning. Between the doubting, the staring out of windows, and my old dog who reminded me that even though I'm 23 I am still going to grow old and die one day, I didn't feel sane. I felt like I should feel better than I did, not standing around wondering about my future or the philosophical consequences of euthanizing a dog.

I have been through clinical depression before, a few years ago when I was a student at UAB. It was easily the worst few months of my life. I didn't have any enemy that could harm me as bad as my mind did. It was hell. Last year I read an article that said J.K. Rowling's dementors were based on her experiences with depression. She described it as "that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad." I very much agree.

The only way I coped with it was to pray and write. In fact, I looked forward to nothing at all except the end of the day when I would shut myself in my room, turn on some older Andrew Osenga music, and write down my thoughts for an hour or two. I found that if I could get out my thoughts by writing them down on paper, I had a lot more success in dealing with them. In fact, I could look them over and see that I was often being irrational and extremely unfair to myself. If I talked about anybody else the way I talked about myself, I would be an enormous jerk. It was at that time in my life, that dark time, that I learned that I could make it through hell as long as I was able to write it down.

One of my many favorite U2 songs is called Miracle Drug. I have a live recording of them playing the song in Chicago on their Vertigo tour. As Edge starts playing the opening guitar riff, Bono says this:

"I fell in love in Chicago. I fell in love in a hotel room in Chicago, listening to Miles Davis, Kind of Blue. I didn't understand Jazz, I didn't understand Miles Davis or how his music could make me feel until, sitting in this hotel room looking out the window at this city, an Irish boy 24 years old. Just looking around Chicago I kind of understood Miles Davis and I understood his music...

"We don't really look back that much in our music. We don't look at the past. The best bits of the past we try to bring with us. They're our songs, songs like Pride (In The Name of Love), Sunday Bloody Sunday, Where the Streets Have No Name. They're the best bits of the past and we'll take them with us. Because we're interested, we're excited, and we have faith in the future. That's where we're headed. So for a city of the future, this is our music... we think that we are strung out. This is our drug, Miracle Drug."

That really meant a lot to me hearing that because I could think about times when I had a rough day, a day full of setbacks, and then I heard a song and it just completely changed how I felt about things. My problems didn't change one bit, but because of that song I felt like I could make it through - I felt a little bit of hope.

I feel the same way about writing. In a way it would be my miracle drug, I suppose. This morning I stopped the pacing around the house and the looking out windows, and I finally sat down to write. I channeled all my thoughts down onto a piece of paper, and it was like the weight that they carried was lifted off of me. And I was able to dismiss the awful ones as nonsense. It's true, I would never speak or write half the thoughts that come into my brain because they are ridiculous. From the 20 minutes I spent writing, I realized that I was still sane. I wasn't losing it, and I wasn't the failure my mind was telling me I was. I also realized that I was human, and that everybody feels this way at some time or another. And after that I was alright. I got some food, went to work, and had a great day.

I guess everybody has moments when they seem to lose their sense of up and down. Life doesn't make sense, we doubt our own abilities, and even wonder what it's all for. We cope with it in different ways. Some of us try to escape through alcohol or drugs. Some of us go completely cold and numb. Some of us try to bury those feelings by buying new products that will only make us feel better for a little while. I think that my miracle drug is pretty good for dealing with things. Those notebooks will always be there (unless they get lost or my house burns down or something) as reference for me to go back and read in the future. And they've already helped. This is my drug, my Miracle Drug.