Dating Confessions by You "I think that tattoos are ridiculously trashy. I want another one though."
The Hooksexup Insider by Nicole Ankowski What's new in the Hooksexup universe. Today: What do hiccups and herpes have in common? Behind the scenes with Stuff Nobody Likes.
I met with Dr. Sullivan, the psychiatrist in charge of the study. After talking to me for half an hour, he diagnosed me as suffering from panic disorder, which I'd already figured out for myself. He also told me it's not unusual for a person to develop this disorder after an emotional upheaval, specifically a loss or a breakup. I told him about the injuries to my ass and my heart.
Finally, I was given a series of blood tests, which revealed that I was healthy enough to be a test subject, along with the even more shocking news that my liver is functioning normally.
The study was broken down into two parts. I would undergo both a PET Scan and an MRI so that doctors could look at my brain and try to determine why people have panic attacks. I signed up.
For the PET scan, they inserted a catheter into an artery on my wrist — possibly the least therapeutic experience imaginable for someone who's suffering from a panic disorder. The doctors, aware of my fragile mental state, handled me like a newborn baby chick. They brought me lunch and hooked up a DVD player so I could watch movies while they poked and prodded. I'd brought along HBO's Rome, hoping a little gladiatorial man-ass might quell my anxiety. It worked, until the doctors injected me with a radioactive compound and told me it would soon start emitting nuclear gamma rays through my skin. The smell and taste of it were horrifying, like a pen had exploded in my esophagus and was leaking ink into my bloodstream. But terror soon gave way to another emotion: sorrow. What am I doing here? I wondered, remembering all the fun sexperiments in which I'd participated as a pretend lab rat. Now I was a real guinea pig in an actual lab.
I wanted to go back to being a slut who cavorted at orgies and dove headfirst into giant balloons half-naked, all in the name of magazine journalism. But I realized I could never be that girl again. Falling in love had been a mishap that obliterated the voluntary guinea pig in me, leaving a blob of need, heartbreak and mental disorder in its wake.
Tears rolled down my cheeks and onto the soft foam of the PET scan machine. It was the first time I'd cried since being dumped.
Diagram of a PET scan machine (click to enlarge)
The doctors injected me with a radioactive compound and told me it would soon start emitting nuclear gamma rays through my skin.
I returned a week later for the MRI. While encased in the giant beige hard-resin coffin, photographs of people making scary faces were projected onto a screen in front of me as the machine read my mind. Then I had to play a matching game involving the images using a tiny keypad attached to my hand. I imagined this was what being abducted by aliens feels like, and waited patiently for the anal probe.
But there was no probe, and when all was said and done, I was given pictures of my brain and my choice of two types of therapy: drug therapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy. Figuring I do enough drugs already, I chose good old-fashioned behavioral therapy.
It was work. I had to keep a journal of symptoms, learn new breathing techniques and drag my ass up to 168th Street once a week for therapy with Dr. Sullivan. But somehow it must have worked, because after about two months, I began to feel sane. Or at least sane enough to go to Dunkin' Donuts and order a large coffee.
"Where have you been?" the Dunkin' Donuts barista squealed, practically throwing her arms around me.
Drinking coffee led to other normal activities like going to the grocery store and the post office, only now I didn't take these things for granted. I cried with joy while wandering Staples looking for envelopes.
And eventually, the panic disappeared. I stopped going uptown for therapy and instead focused on painting. It was the one thing that got me through my existentially angst-ridden teen years, and now it helped get me through my existentially angst-ridden thirties. I hadn't painted in years, and now it was just flowing out of me. Most of the paintings depicted my Chihuahua and me floating around on the astral plane. My friend Jason called them an interior decorator's worst nightmare.
I had fully expected to be bitter and angry for pretty much the rest of my life over having taken a chance on love only to end up in a psychiatric hospital. But I soon realized that having my heart broken was the best thing that ever happened to me. The space Alex had insisted on giving me was now filled with art, and for that I felt nothing but gratitude. n°
Reverend Jen Miller, patron saint of the uncool and head curator of the world famous Troll Museum, is a contributor for artnet.com and author of Reverend Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood, a Lower East Side travel guide "for the poor, deviant and bored." Visit her website at www.revjen.com.
