Carry the Ocean

by Heidi Cullinan

  The good news was though Jeremey didn’t get discharged, I got to see him several times a week. Sometimes it was to visit, but a few times Jeremey and I had group therapy together. I hadn’t done group therapy in a long time, and normally I don’t like it. But Dr. North thought I might enjoy having group with Jeremey. It turned out he was right. The first time was a little rough, but for Jeremey, not for me.

  The other times I’d done group, I’d been in a big room with five other clients at Mayo, but group this time was only Jeremey, Dr. North and me, and we met in the same room where Jeremey and I got to visit. Jeremey sat on the couch, so I sat in a chair.

  Dr. North sat in a chair too. “Jeremey, Emmet. Good to see you both.”

  “It’s good to see you too, Dr. North,” I said. Jeremey didn’t say anything, only looked down at his hands.

  Dr. North watched him. “Jeremey, is something wrong?” When Jeremey said nothing and hunched forward, Dr. North sat forward in his chair. “Talk to us, Jeremey. Tell us what you’re feeling.”

  Jeremey wouldn’t look up, and he wouldn’t talk.

  “Do you need a notebook?” I asked him. Sometimes he had to use a notebook at our visits, and I always brought one with me now. But I saw Dr. North had one too.

  “I feel stupid,” Jeremey murmured.

  He was in trouble now. Dr. North didn’t like that word.

  Dr. North used his I’m serious voice. “Use a different word to describe your feelings. Why do you feel foolish? What are the feelings that word is hiding behind?”

  It took several tries before he could get Jeremey to talk, eventually only on the notepad, and I counted the ceiling tiles while I waited. I’d counted them before, but there were a lot and I enjoyed counting them every time. Plus several were replacement panels and were a slightly different color. Three hundred and twenty-six total tiles, seventy-three yellowed. I got so absorbed in counting I didn’t realize they’d been trying to talk to me until they called my name twice.

  “I’m sorry. I was counting.”

  “I assumed so.” Dr. North nodded at Jeremey. “Could you tell us why you chose to sit in the chair you’re in?”

  It was a good question, but it surprised me he asked. Usually people don’t care. “There were only four straight-backed chairs. You hadn’t sat down, and you didn’t care which one you had, and Jeremey took the couch, so I took the chair I wanted, which was the chair where I could see out the window. Also two of the other ones are uneven and that bothers me.”

  “Why didn’t you choose to sit beside Jeremey, the way you do when you visit him outside of a therapy session?”

  That was a strange question, but I answered it anyway. “This is group therapy. I should have my own chair. Plus I don’t like to sit on a couch when I’m supposed to pay attention. It makes me sleepy, and I can’t focus.”

  “Oh.” Jeremey’s face went complicated, and he stared at the floor. “Now I feel stupid.”

  “You need to stop using that word,” I told Jeremey. “Dr. North hates it, and you’ll get in trouble. I don’t like it when you use it about yourself, either. I think it’s your R word. Why do you feel that way?”

  Jeremey glanced at Dr. North, but he stayed quiet. Jeremey couldn’t look at me. “I thought you didn’t sit with me because you were upset with me.”

  “But why would I be upset with you? You haven’t done anything.”

  Jeremey got quiet, and after a long pause, Dr. North spoke for him. “Jeremey worries a great deal about people being angry with him. He often assumes he’s done something wrong.”

  I frowned at Jeremey. “You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not angry with you. I’m excited to be here. If I were angry with you, I’d tell you.”

  Dr. North raised an eyebrow at me. “This is true. Emmet is a good test for your tendency toward negative thoughts, Jeremey. He doesn’t come with the same kind of artifice you’re accustomed to from people. And, Emmet, Jeremey is a good challenge for you. To understand him and what he’s feeling, you must pay extra attention to his emotions and his cues. He told you he was upset by your choice of seating, but you missed his silent message because reading those kinds of cues are more difficult for you.”

  Now I was confused, and worried. “Was it wrong of me to sit in this chair?”

  “Not at all. No one has done anything wrong, but this moment is a good opportunity for you both. Jeremey, you’ve learned when you worry you’ve upset Emmet, you can ask him if it’s true, and he will tell you. Emmet, you’ve learned you must watch Jeremey extra closely to read his emotions and his body language. I want you to practice right now in fact. Study Jeremey, Emmet, and tell me what emotions you think he’s feeling. Guesses are okay, but tell me if you’re guessing. If you’re deducting, tell me how you’re doing that. Jeremey, when he’s done, you tell him if he was accurate.”

  I studied Jeremey carefully. Reading someone’s emotions is something I will never be good at, but I know my adaptations. I studied Jeremey, noticing how he sat and how he held his body and his face. He was very close together, all his arms and legs and body parts tucked in close, as if he were a bug someone had flipped over. His shoulders were round, and he didn’t look at me. His face didn’t match any of my expressions pictures, so I looked at each part of his face like Dr. North told me. His mouth was flat, but his lips weren’t pressed together. His eyes were flat. Sometimes he’d glance up, and sometimes his lips would press for a moment, but that was it. He also moved his fingers in a way that reminded me of when I wanted to flap.

  I wasn’t sure how he felt. I had ideas, but that was all. I started to flap my hands.

  “Try to guess,” Dr. North told me. “Let’s start with big emotions. You tell me yes or no. Does he seem happy?”

  No, he didn’t. “Not happy.” I rocked in my chair. “But not sad or angry.”

  “What are your other options?”

  I tried to think. How did Jeremey usually feel? “Nervous, maybe.” I brightened. “Yes—nervous. Not a guess.”

  “Jeremey, is that correct?”

  “Yes, mostly.”

  “Excellent. Good job, Emmet. Can you tell us how you knew?”

  I smiled a big smile, proud I’d gotten it right. “Because of his hands. His face is too complicated for me to tell what he’s feeling, but he keeps fidgeting his hands. That’s like when I want to flap. It’s kind of the same thing, except hand-flaps are bigger and make people stare at me.”

  “Can you talk to us, Emmet, about why you flap your hands?”

  Normally I was fine talking about hand-flapping with Dr. North, but I worried about Jeremey. I rocked a little.

  “Honest feelings, Emmet. Tell us about flapping your hands. Jeremey confessed about his hurt feelings, made himself vulnerable for you. Now it’s your turn. Do you feel Jeremey is a safe space to talk about flapping?”

  “I want him to be.” I rocked a little more. “But most people don’t like it. They think I’m the R word.”

  “I don’t think you’re the R word,” Jeremey said.

  Dr. North winked at me. “Talk about both things. Explain why you flap your hands and how it makes you feel when people misunderstand.”

  This is what I like about Dr. North. He’s good at asking questions.

  I thought about it for a moment, then explained as best I could. “Hand-flapping feels good. Sometimes I flap when I’m excited, but sometimes because I’m nervous. It’s different for each feeling. Excited flaps let off energy. I have so much inside me I have to let it out. But if I’m nervous, it draws in energy. In my head it feels as if I’m making a wall. The happy-flapping takes down the wall, giving my energy to other people.” The idea of sharing my happiness with people that way made me feel good, and in my head I could see it, bright blue-white light going from my hands to other people. But then I remembered how most people reacted to my flapping
, and the happy feeling ended. “People make bad faces at me and stop talking to me. Or they talk to me like I’m a baby instead of a person.”

  Dr. North was in his listening position, sitting straight but not too straight, with his hands resting on his legs. “How does it make you feel when people react badly to your hand-flapping?”

  “Sad, and sometimes angry.”

  “Can you elaborate? What does the sadness and anger feel like inside?”

  I considered Dr. North’s question. “Gray-blue.”

  “Thank you, Emmet.” Dr. North smiled at me before turning to Jeremey. “Jeremey, I have a few questions for you. One, do you mind when Emmet flaps his hands?”

  I was so nervous waiting for the answer, I had to hum.

  “No.” Jeremey didn’t hesitate at all. “I don’t mind when he hums or rocks or flaps his hands, though I’ve never seen him flap his hands much, really. I know that’s how Emmet is.”

  “Maybe that can be something to work toward, Emmet, letting Jeremey in far enough for you to flap in his presence. Now I have a second question for you, Jeremey. How did it make you feel to hear Emmet speak so easily about his feelings?”

  Jeremey sighed. “Jealous.”

  I sat up, frowning. “But why would you be jealous of that?”

  “It’s so difficult for me to say what I’m feeling. You said it as if it’s no big deal.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, but Dr. North asked me a question. “Jeremey says it’s challenging for him to express his feelings. He has a difficult time identifying what those feelings are. This is part of his depression. Acknowledging feelings seems dangerous to his mind, so he has to practice. What’s something challenging for you to do, Emmet? What do you have to practice because of your autism?”

  This was an easy question. “Faces. Faces are impossible.”

  “Talk more about that. Explain why they’re difficult, so Jeremey can understand.”

  “I can’t read faces the way people without autism can. I can’t see a face and know if someone is happy or sad. Which is bad because people assume I can, and they get angry when I don’t notice how they feel.”

  “Do you care how other people feel?”

  “Yes. But I don’t always remember to check for it. Sometimes I’m busy worrying about my own feelings and I forget.”

  “Talk about how you check for other people’s emotions. I think Jeremey might find it illuminating.”

  He did? I glanced at Jeremey but couldn’t meet his gaze, so I stared at the arm of the couch. “I have charts. I look at the charts to learn what each emotion is like on a face. Sometimes Althea practices with me. I know a lot of emotions now because I’ve memorized them, but it’s always good to have a refresher.”

  I glanced at their faces now—Dr. North wore his listening face, but Jeremey was too complex to read. I was starting to call the face he made the depression face, and I didn’t care for it.

  “I don’t think they make practice charts for figuring out what emotions you have,” Jeremey said.

  Dr. North didn’t say anything, so I did. “Why not? They would be the same. You could use my charts. You could have a mirror and look at your face.”

  “It doesn’t always show on my face, how I feel.”

  The idea was alarming. How could I read what Jeremey felt like if it didn’t show on his face? “Is this part of depression? Does it keep the emotion from showing?”

  Jeremey’s face became annoyed. Almost angry. He turned to Dr. North. “I don’t want to practice identifying my emotions. I want to go home. I want to be normal. I want to go to college. I want to have a job and a house and a car.”

  Dr. North calmed him down, telling Jeremey what he’d told me, about how there is no normal, about how modifications help us integrate with society. I listened, but I thought about what Jeremey had said too. About the things he wanted.

  Independence, that’s what he was talking about. I had some—I was in college, and I could get a job when I was done, but no one talked about me moving into an apartment, and obviously I wasn’t getting a car. Mom had said she was looking for somewhere for Jeremey and me to live together, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about it for a while now.

  Maybe there was no normal. But there were a lot of things most people could do which everyone assumed I couldn’t. Jeremey too.

  At the end of every therapy session, Dr. North has us set goals. I gave one, but it wasn’t my real goal. Because as of that session, I had a new one. A secret one, one I wanted very much to make real.

  I wanted to be independent. Maybe I couldn’t be normal, but I could be like everybody else. Maybe not all the way. But my goal, my wish for myself, was to see how far toward everybody else I could get.

  What I didn’t know, though, was how close that kind of independence was for me—and for Jeremey too.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jeremey

  Sometimes it bothered me they could keep me at the hospital for as long as they wanted. Technically I agreed with Dr. North that I should stay, but it still scared me that my freedom rested in the hands of another person. Even if the person was Dr. North.

  Worse, I was stuck in the psych ward until I could learn how to manage my emotions better, and right now I couldn’t be counted on to report what I was feeling. Not that Dr. North didn’t try to teach me. Every day in therapy he asked, “What are you feeling right now? This very second?”

  Finally one day I gave up and said what I always thought. “Stupid.” I tugged at a thread until it came loose. “Ashamed. Sorry. Embarrassed.”

  I thought he’d scold me for saying stupid, but he smiled. “That’s good, Jeremey, how you can identify those negative feelings so easily. Do you feel any other emotions? Any positive ones? You mentioned gratitude in an earlier session. Is it still present?”

  I considered his question. Answering quickly, I would have said I only felt negative, but it was like someone pointing out an image in one of those Magic Eye paintings. Suddenly there was more. “I’m grateful, yes. To you. To Emmet. I feel stupid that I’m here, that I can’t manage myself, but I’m grateful to Emmet for stopping me and to you for helping me. I’m glad his mom is helping my mom.”

  I stopped talking. All I could think about was how my mom was always upset every time I saw her.

  Dr. North didn’t miss a trick. “What are you thinking about, Jeremey? What else are you feeling?”

  I fidgeted in my chair. “I’m anxious about my mom.” I took a deep breath before saying the next part. We’d talked about it a lot, but it scared me every time. “I’m nervous about going home.”

  “You’re doing an excellent job, sitting with your feelings. It’s perfectly fine to feel nervous. Can you talk about why? No judgments on you or your mom. Let’s outline what you’re feeling.”

  I stared at the tile on the floor in front of me. “She wants me to be someone I’m not. I feel as if I’m starting to accept that I’m different from other people. I worry she’ll drag me back into bad feelings.”

  “Are you ready yet to have a group session with her?”

  He asked this every day, and every day I said no. Today was no different. I shook my head. “Yesterday she started complaining about Emmet again. She said she’d help me find a normal boyfriend if I wanted one so badly.”

  “How did you feel when she said that?”

  “Angry. Upset. Hurt.” The emotions flowed so easily inside me, it almost alarmed me. Once I lifted the lid, it wasn’t a soup of feelings. It was a raging sea. “I love being with Emmet. He’s the best part of my day. But she makes me feel guilty, like maybe I shouldn’t call him my boyfriend. That we shouldn’t be boyfriends.”

  “Is there some reason you and Emmet shouldn’t be romantically involved?”

  I snorted. “My mom has plenty of reasons. She calls Emmet retarded. It makes me so
angry, and it hurts. Which is dumb, because she’s insulting him, not me.”

  “You strike me as a young man who feels deeply. I’m not surprised a slight against your boyfriend wounds you.” Dr. North leaned forward. “I notice you’ve referred to yourself in a derogatory way several times now. And in none of those instances would I have agreed with your self-assessment even on a minor level. Is this common for you, to see yourself as deeply flawed?”

  Was it common? It was how I lived and breathed. I glanced at him sideways, sensing a trap. “Yes,” I said nervously.

  “Do you think about killing yourself when you feel this way?”

  This had to be a trap. I clutched at the bedding, trying to wait him out, but it was clear this man had limitless patience. He asked this sometimes, but he hadn’t in a week. “What…what happens if I say yes? If I fail the test?”

  “Am I giving you tests?”

  They always answered questions with questions. “Yes. You’re trying to decide how crazy I am.”

  Instead of telling me he wasn’t, he withdrew a small tablet from his jacket pocket, poking at the screen a few moments before presenting it to Jeremey. The tablet showed a 3-D drawing of a human brain. “This is a picture of a healthy human brain in a normal state.” He flipped to another picture, which was 2-D and top down. “This is a brain under normal activity. All the blobs of yellow you see indicate brain activity.” He flipped the screen again. The brain looked similar, but had fewer blobs. Less than half as the other one.

  “This is a depressed brain, isn’t it?”

  He nodded and flipped to another screen, this one showing whole bodies. “These are thermal images of humans experiencing different emotions. Notice how anxiety heats in the chest but leaves the other parts cold. Notice how love heats everything.”

  I couldn’t look away from the depressed human, who was totally blue, cold as ice. It made me feel sad. Without thinking, I touched the screen.

  Dr. North didn’t pull the tablet away. “Depression is a serious mental illness. We don’t understand it as much as we’d like, but what we do know is a person suffering from depression cannot make the same decisions and shepherd their emotions the same way brains that are not depressed can. Our brains are not who we are, but they must be dealt with, like it or not.”