Welcome to My World

by Curtis Bunn

  I was six months from turning forty-six. For my forty-third birthday, my wife, Darlene, insisted on throwing me a small birthday party. We didn’t celebrate my fortieth because she had bronchitis and I spent the week tending to her. She felt bad about that, but I didn’t care about a party over her health. She was that type of person, though—always putting herself second.

  So she threw me the party at the Live Edge Restaurant in Southwest Atlanta. It was wonderful night of enjoying friends. I remembered so clearly Darlene, saying, “Your life is just beginning, baby. The whole world is in front of you.”

  It was one of the best evenings of my life. I believed her. It all seemed so in front of me. We had two daughters: Diana was seventeen and Joy was fifteen at the time. We had been married since we were twenty-two. We battled through the shit that comes with marriage, especially when you say “I do” so young. But we stuck it out and made a great family. A great family. . .

  Long before that party, I started feeling different and seeing things and people differently. Strangely. It was like this other world popped up—or this other way to look at the world—and no one could see or understand it but me.

  With all I had in my life, I became unhappy. And because I wasn’t happy, I became depressed, meaning every so often, I wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around. I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t know why. Somehow, the kids were kept unaware of my issues. But my wife took it all.

  At times, nothing she did or said was good enough. Once she made my favorite: baked salmon with this lemon butter sauce, Brussels sprouts and these mashed potatoes that she mashed herself. Halfway through the meal, I picked up the plate and slammed it on the floor.

  I told her: “There’s poison in that food. I can smell it. You’re trying to kill me.” Then I calmly came over to her and put my hands around her throat. I choked as I screamed: “Who are you? Are you a spy? Are you a plant? Who sent you?”

  Tears streamed down her face and onto my hands. Something inside me made me stop before I choked her to death. I let her go and she gasped for air. And when she caught her breath, she ran upstairs into our bedroom and locked the door.

  I crumbled to the floor and cried. I had lost control of who I was, and I realized it.

  An hour or so later, Darlene came downstairs to find me on the floor, weeping. She came over and put her arms around me. “Honey, baby, we have to get you help. You have to find out what’s going on with you.”

  I nodded my head. I felt like a child in my wife’s arms. Her words and love comforted me.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I managed to get out.

  Darlene hugged me tighter. “I know you are, baby. I know.”

  At the doctor’s office, a psychiatrist named Dr. Kaminski saw me. I was nervous but aware that I needed his help. He was a patient man. Guess he had to be in his line of work.

  “Mr. Bridges,” he said, “you have what we call a paranoid personality disorder. You’ve heard of bipolar disorder, I’m sure. This is a version of it. It’s among a group of conditions we call ‘Cluster A,’ which are about, let’s say, eccentric ways of thinking. Part of what comes with PPD is paranoia, a strong distrust of people, a strong suspicion of people—although there is no reason for that suspicion.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think. Was he trippin’? Was he really talking about me? Did he just call me crazy?

  “You calling me crazy?” I asked. I had hostility and fear in my voice.

  “No, sir. Not at all. PPD is very common, and it’s common in men more than women, and it reveals itself generally in adulthood. We don’t know why it happens, but research on several fronts indicates it could be something from a traumatic childhood experience that festers and is triggered later in life.”

  My wife was teary-eyed. “How do we treat this, doctor?”

  “Mrs. Bridges, that’s the good news. Treatment for PPD can be very successful. A lot will depend on your husband, however. I must say that most individuals with this condition have issues accepting treatment. You see, someone with PPD often does not see or believe his symptoms. If an individual is willing to accept treatment, which includes medication and psychotherapy, it makes success much easier.”

  I sat there as if I was not in the room. It made no sense to me. I’M CRAZY? That’s all I could think.

  “What will the therapy do?” my wife asked.

  “It will help your husband learn how to accept the disorder and cope with it so he learns how to exist in social situations. It will minimize the feelings of paranoia that you’ve discussed, Mr. Bridges. Now, there also are medications that can serve as part of his treatment.”

  “Like what?” Darlene wanted to know.

  “Antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines. And when you combine the medication with the therapy, you can really see strong results.”

  As I sat there listening to all that talk about me, I remembered seeing Mike Tyson sit on the couch as Robin Givens told Barbara Walters and the television world that he was a “monster” and that living with him was “hell.”

  That thought made me cry. Dr. Kaminski asked what was wrong. “I don’t want my wife to be Robin Givens.”

  “Who?” Darlene asked.

  “The actress who was married to Mike Tyson,” the doctor said.

  She remembered. “Oh, honey, no. No. I love you. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”

  “The fact that you care how your wife feels is significant, Mr. Bridges. You love her and you’re able to express that. That’s very encouraging.”

  It wasn’t encouraging to me. That was normal. I left there feeling like something was seriously wrong with me—and it was. But I also was determined to not let it rule my life. I was going to go to counseling and take the meds and do whatever it took to feel like myself again and not have my wife scared of me.

  I repeatedly apologized for strangling her. She said she forgave me, but I didn’t think she ever looked at me the same. That’s what I meant when I said apologizing doesn’t matter—the damage had already been done. There would be no reversing it.

  Later, I told my therapist, Dr. Hindsman, that and she said: “Could it be that you haven’t forgiven yourself? That could lead to all kinds of thoughts you think Darlene is having. If you’ve forgiven yourself and she said she’s forgiven you, then you have to accept that. Also accept that she’s still there with you. Don’t you think she would have gone if she was afraid of you?”

  “Is this the paranoid part of what’s going on with me?”

  “Exactly. All any of us can do is accept what people say at face value—especially someone we’re as close to as you and your wife are. You know her. You should know or have a real instinct about what she’s expressing to you.”

  The doctor made sense. And after about four months of therapy and taking Citalopram, an antidepressant that heightened energy and good feelings, I felt like myself and my life was back on track.

  A few years later, we had a great summer with our daughters, who were looking ahead to college. We went to the Cayman Islands and laughed and enjoyed each other so much. My wife and I had agreed to not tell Diana and Joy about my condition. We believed it would serve no good purpose to have them worrying while they should have been focusing on their studies.

  Besides, we had found the solution to the problem. I didn’t want them looking at me differently and neither did Darlene. So I took my medication when they weren’t around and we had our best family vacation—swimming in the Atlantic, dining at Camana Bay and swimming with the stingrays.

  I cried one night when Darlene was asleep. They were tears of relief. When I got the diagnosis, I put up a brave front, but inside I was terrified. My family meant everything. I would never put my hands on my wife. But I had choked her and therefore put my family at risk. I was lucky Darlene loved me and knew that was not me—not the real me. It was a version of me that came from some disturbed place.

  So, our last night, as she slept, I put one
hand on her hip and cried. Despite my “condition,” I felt super lucky because my wife did not leave me. She stayed and fought for her family. Fought for me. I felt like I had a new life, and that vacation solidified that I had defeated the demons.

  When our daughters went back to school about a month later, I became overconfident, though. I believed I was good. I was myself. It was me that brought me back, not the meds. Not the doctor. I didn’t need therapy anymore; we talked about all we could talk about. The medication helped me to see that I could return to who I was, but it didn’t actually do it. It was a path to me finding myself.

  Darlene came home from work one evening with that look on her face that I had not seen in some time. She looked anxious, worried.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Dr. Hindsman called me. She said you didn’t show up for your appointment today. Or last week. What’s going on, Rodney? We agreed this was the way to go—and it has been working.”

  I immediately got volatile. “It hasn’t been doing shit. I’ve gotten back to myself on my own. The drugs only pointed me in the right direction. The therapist helped me talk it through. I’m back on track.”

  “But honey, why stop what has been working?”

  “I can be doing something for you or for us instead of going to those sessions.”

  “No. That’s not what we agreed to. Next thing is you’ll be putting aside the medication.”

  “I have. I haven’t taken it in a week and look at me. I’m fine. I told you, those things just helped me get back on track. I’m good now, baby.”

  “Rodney, you’re scaring me. You know—you have to know—that the meds and therapy have helped you. They didn’t help you get to see the light. They are the light.”

  “You don’t trust me. You think I don’t know anything, like I’m some dumb kid who needs people telling me what to do to be OK. Well, those days are over. I know myself. And those meds kept me up at night. I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t want you to worry, but I would get headaches during the day—and you know I never got headaches before. Also, I would almost every day get this jolt, like an electrical shock. Those side effects are tiring.”

  Darlene stared at me. “Rodney, listen to me. I have read up on Citalopram. And it says you should continue to take it even if you feel good. And it says as big as day that if you suddenly stop taking it, your conditions will worsen. We can’t have that, honey. I know you don’t want that.”

  “I haven’t taken a pill since last Wednesday. Today is Wednesday. That’s a week. And I haven’t had any issues. And I don’t have any more headaches or that electrical shock feeling.”

  “I can’t take this. If you won’t start taking your meds again, I’m not staying here. You choked me. Do you remember that? That’s how we found out what’s going on with you. There’s no cure for PDD, honey. There’s only the treatment.”

  Darlene then turned and ran upstairs. I didn’t follow her. I believe she ran because she saw someone looking at us through the window. So, I closed all the blinds in the house. I made sure the front door was locked and then I wedged a chair up against it. I went into the garage, to a box I had on a high shelf under a blanket. In it was my gun. A Glock 9. I made sure it had bullets in it and I turned off the lights in the house. I sat on the floor with my back up against the wall facing the front door.

  I was ready for him to come in. I felt like someone had followed me home and was ready to come in and take our stuff or kidnap my wife. I wasn’t going for that. I was ready. The first person I saw, that person was going to get a bullet right in the head.

  CHAPTER FIVE: BAIL OUT

  BRENDA

  Six o’clock came and my desk was neat and I was ready to head out of the office. Usually, I would stay at least an extra thirty minutes, tidying up or making sure I wasn’t needed to do something last minute for one of the partners. Not that day, though.

  After reading up on the homeless, I was anxious to see Rodney. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to him. But I would say something. I would let him know I was willing to do all I could to get him back on track with his life.

  The thick rush-hour traffic frustrated me. Sometimes I stayed at the office until seven or later—to let the traffic die down. Leaving on time only put me in this bumper-to-bumper that drove me crazy.

  It was only about three miles to McDonald’s from my job, but it took me about fifteen minutes to get there. I was hungry, too, since I had passed on lunch—a first. But my desire to talk to Rodney was more intense than the hunger.

  But I didn’t see him. I saw that man every day during the week for about three months, and the one time I needed to see him, he wasn’t there. My disappointment was so strong—but not enough to spoil my appetite.

  So I placed an order of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, two large fries and a vanilla milkshake, with the extra order of large fries to make up for the lunch I missed. I figured that would hold me until I finished cooking dinner about an hour later.

  I saw Chester, the strange homeless guy I met with Rodney earlier that morning, on my way out. I was not sure about talking to that man, but I felt compelled to try.

  “Hi, Chester. Remember me from this morning? I know Rodney.”

  He looked at me, waved and lowered his head.

  “Do you know where Rodney is?”

  “Jail.”

  “Jail? Did you say jail?”

  “Cops took him. Said he stole something, I think. Then they said he had no respect. I told them to stop. But the cop pushed me down.”

  I didn’t know if the guy knew what he was talking about or if he’d made it up in his head.

  “When did this happen? Where?”

  “This afternoon. Southwest Atlanta.”

  I asked myself if I was crazy and not Rodney as I headed back into traffic to the Atlanta City Jail on Garnett Street to see if I could get Rodney out. I couldn’t trust Chester’s interpretation of what had happened, but I was going to find out.

  I ate my food as I drove. I wanted to get it down, knowing I could see something at the police station that could spoil my appetite. But mainly I was starving. The jail was downtown, near the courthouse and no more than five miles from the McDonald’s.

  So when I finally got there, why were all the people I saw in handcuffs black? It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it angered me. Still, I knew I had to be calm as I dealt with the cops.

  After a thirty-minute wait, the desk sergeant was polite and helpful. “Yes, Rodney Bridges is in for disorderly conduct. He was caught urinating outside and when confronted, got ugly with the officers. Resisting arrest. His bail is set at one thousand dollars.”

  “Which means I can get him out with a bond for one hundred dollars, right?”

  “That’s right. But let me ask you something,” the officer said. “Is this your family or friend? I ask because he needs help. He’s homeless. He stays sometimes at the Peachtree-Pine shelter. But he’s been in here more than once. Believe it or not, being in here is better than being on the streets.”

  “You think that’s why he got arrested. He wanted to?”

  “I asked him that. He told me he’d have to be a fool to prefer being confined over free on the streets. But to my way of thinking, sleeping on the ground is not better than sleeping in jail. Neither are ideal. I know that. I’m just saying.”

  “Well, I agree. But I want to help him get back to freedom. So I will get the bond paid.”

  I dealt with the creepy bail bondsman and got back to find that the officer I had been dealing with was gone. But I had secured the bond. Even at that, it took another ninety minutes before Rodney was released.

  “It’s a process, ma’am,” an officer told me. He was not as nice or patient as the other guy. “It doesn’t happen quickly. We have protocols.”

  Finally, when Rodney emerged from the prison, I could see the confused look on his face. He turned to the desk sergeant.

  “How did I get out of here? Who bailed
me out?”

  The officer pointed to me. I expected to see a smile on Rodney’s face. I didn’t get one.

  “You bailed me out? Why would you do that? How did you know I was in here?”

  “I saw Chester at McDonald’s. He told me.”

  “And you came? I’m thankful, but why? What are you doing?” “I’m trying to be nice to you.”

  “But why?”

  “Why can’t you accept kind gestures?”

  “This doesn’t make sense. You don’t know me. Why would you do this?”

  “I want to help you. Simple as that.”

  Rodney yawned and his breath smelled, as my nephew would have said, like hot garbage. His clothes didn’t smell that fresh, either. But I offered him a ride. It was instinct.

  “The officer said you sometimes stay at the shelter near downtown. I can take you there.”

  “He talks too much. And I’m not getting into your car. I can smell myself. I’d rather just say thank you and move on.”

  “What? That’s it? I come down here to make you a free man, and you’re ready to go?”

  “Oh, you think you deserve more because you bailed me out? You think you own me now? Well, forget that thought. I’m my own man.”

  “Yeah, and that’s really served you well,” I said. It just came out.

  “Your life is shit, remember?” he responded. “You’re the one who complained about not being able to sleep. I get my rest. And I have more adventure in my life than you have in yours. I’m sure of that.”

  “Because you say it, doesn’t make it true.”

  “Actually, it does.”

  “The truth doesn’t give a damn about your opinion.”

  I got mad then. I could have been at home eating dinner. Instead I argued with this guy who didn’t give a damn about me or that I was trying to help him.

  “You know what? Fine. You win. I’m going home. Have a nice night.”

  But something wouldn’t allow me to leave. I’d never felt like that, like I was stuck. So instead of leaving, I just looked at him.