Big Tex is a lumbering skyscraper of a man who towers over everyone at the hospital like a whale in a sea of tilapia. He is all southern twang. He wears shitkickers and overalls. The first time I see him, I want this guy on my side. And so we become friends, mainly because I listen to his stories.
We have little in common. He is knowledgeable about psych drugs and knows the therapists and nurses from previous visits. He arrived at the hospital straight from prison and will transition into a group home when he is discharged. His diagnosis is schizophrenia and bipolar I. My diagnosis is major depressive disorder, though, after discharge, I found out that I actually have bipolar II. We compare diagnoses like they are report cards. Who has the higher dose? What are you on for sleep? For anxiety? For psychosis? For moods? We belong to the same species of illness.
His is the more severe version of mine. He had hallucinations and was paranoid. His mood was matterhorn swinging from east to west. He believed that his time in prison brought about his schizophrenia. Having been jumped in the showers so many times made him paranoid; he couldn’t predict when the violence would arrive.
He came to the wedding two hours late and pissy drunk. I sat in one of the Sunday school rooms and waited, the skirt of my ivory dress a bell around me. People kept checking on me and the more they checked, the more I worried.
I had wanted to get married years ago. We had been together for eight years and had three kids together. Our families always asked, “When are y’all gonna get married?” We had a long history. We’d known each other since we were 13 and were friends in high school and I couldn’t see myself without him. Marriage seemed like a natural progression. I thought we saw the same future.
After my first daughter was born, I just assumed it would happen. And then he told me that he wasn’t ready. Then our second daughter came and still no proposal. I felt stuck. The idea of raising two kids by myself was terrifying. Then, when our son was born, he finally proposed.
He tore up the flower beds on his way into the church. His cousin was so mad at him for being late, she slapped him as he got out of the car. “Where have you been!” she demanded. He stumbled into the church and down the aisle. When I saw him at the altar, I knew he was drunk. His eyelids strained to stay open and he swayed like a toddler learning to stand. I walked down the aisle with what felt like a boulder on my chest; the closer I got to him, the more I could smell him. I wheezed through the ceremony, holding his right hand, with a locked elbow and stiffened arm, holding him up. This is a sign, I thought.
Big Tex’s scars are his ticket into the hospital. When his son died, he tried to embroider the entire length of his forearms with glass. He’d just gotten out of prison, and his ex-fiancée called him to let him know that they had a son who was dying from a brain tumor. He rushed to the hospital just in time for the baby to say, “I love you Daddy.” In some versions, he holds the baby in his arms; sometimes the baby dies before he gets there. He has money hidden under a mattress in his house. Sometimes it’s ten thousand, other times it’s five, others it’s seven. He always sends his ex-fiancée to get the money to pay for the funeral.
It wasn’t supposed to be a date. We’d known each other since high school; we were just reconnecting after three years of being away at college. The way he scanned me when he saw me—from head to foot, relaxing his gaze on my chest—I suspected it would only be a summer fling. I taught him how to drive a stick shift and roll blunts. We went to the shore in New Haven at night to sit with the stars and imagine what lies beyond the Atlantic. Back then we complemented each other the way cream tempers coffee. No arguments; no no-calls or no-shows; no leaving me, fuming, alone each night caring for the babies. No finger-pointing money problems. And most importantly, no affairs. No secret child I didn’t know about for two years. Just us, the ocean and a picture of what we thought we would always be.
Once when we were on a smoke break, Big Tex told us that his grandfather, the original Big Tex, was the inspiration for the iconic Big Tex statue at the Texas State Fair. His grandparents lived to be 100 years old and, up until the day they died, took care of their farm. Big Tex would go out to visit them often as a kid. While hunting one day, Big Tex happened upon a litter of abandoned wolf pups, which he brought back to his grandparents’ farm and raised. When they saw him coming, the wolf pups would get excited and jump up against the fence, and Big Tex would throw them slabs of cured pig flesh. It didn’t matter to me whether the pups were real, or the statue, for that matter. I didn’t care whether Big Tex’s stories were true. We all have our truths.
My ex-husband hid in plain sight, yet there were always signs. He kept all of his ex-girlfriends’ love letters. He spent many nights at the bar with female co-workers and bragged about them buying him drinks. He was secretive about his phone, abruptly putting it away whenever I came around. He talked freely about women he was attracted to. Women he wanted. After his first child was born, he started paying me more attention. He cooked, cleaned, and took care of the kids. All of the things that I had hoped for. Of course, it didn’t last. And I didn’t listen to the signs. Oedipus ignored the blind prophet. I also believed I knew.
In group, there is a man who wears a hat that says Desert Storm Veteran. He is short and stocky and sits with crossed arms. His mouth is a razor across his 5 o’clock shadow. His eyes are hidden by the glare of his glasses. He sits in the corner by himself and doesn’t say much. After listening to one of Big Tex’s stories for the umpteenth time, he tells Big Tex he’s sick of his bullshit. Big Tex’s face turns plum and he storms out of the room. We aren’t allowed in each other’s rooms, so I stand at the door and try to lure him out of his cave. The waxed cream-colored linoleum runs into his room like a tributary. His room is antiseptically clean, with two neatly made twin beds. His closet has the bare essentials, a few shirts, pairs of pants, and shoes without laces. A pack of Newports sit on the dresser. Big Tex is angry and wants to fight the Desert Storm Veteran. I tell him to calm down. Not to let it get to him. I listen to him vent, and he finally comes into the hallway.
A few years prior, I’d found out about my then-husband’s secret child in a Facebook message. The child’s grandmother messaged me. The news was like fallen bird shit. When I asked him about the message, he mumbled that he’d heard a rumor. When he came home that night, he confessed and I shriveled. I got stuck on the merry-go-round of the why. Why would he do this to me?
In group, I tell the story matter-of-factly. Like, oh yeah, my ex-husband fucked up our family because he wanted to fuck some dumb bitch who knew he was married and then he had a kid with her. But I’m over it now. Look at me, I am smiling, and I am intelligent and I speak well, and I can’t be depressed because people like me don’t have mental illnesses.
As my discharge date approaches, I worry that I am not ready. My problems were put on hold when I went into the hospital, but I am not sure I am strong enough to face them. I am terrified. At some point or another, everyone breaks down. Even the Desert Storm veteran had his moment. I have two days left before discharge, and I have held myself together for almost the entire stay.
At lunch, I see a woman in the cafeteria who reminds me of my mother, even though she doesn’t really look like my mother. Why? Is she somehow motherly? I think of how long it has been since I had hugged her. I ache for her—ache to crawl into her arms, to feel her heartbeat, to feel her breath on the top of my head. I weep in the middle of the cafeteria. Big Tex comes across the room and secures a perimeter around me, making sure no one gets too close. Then he envelops me in his arms.
I wait in line for the pay phone in the hallway, leaning against the wall and staring at the sign on the locked double doors that says STAFF ONLY. When it is my turn, I call my mother. I give her the light version of how I got here; I downplay the scene that landed me in the hospital the Sunday before. I don’t tell her about my ex climbing the balcony to my second floor apartment and almost breaking my bedroom windows as he tried to force his way in. I don’t tell her that, just before my ex found me, I dumped out all of my medications onto a plate and separated them by color and size. I don’t tell her how I burrowed under my comforter and heaved sobs, how I texted my daughters goodbye, how my hands shook as I picked up a pill. I don’t tell her how I convinced myself that the world would be a better place without me.
After I learned about my husband’s other child, I tried for two years to piece our marriage back together. We went to therapy. We forced affection. But he’d lied, and not only about this child. Searching his emails, I found out that he’d had a reunion with an ex-girlfriend from college. Side chicks are like roaches. Where there is one, there are ten more. I couldn’t trust him anymore.
He came home drunk one night and broke all of the glasses. The living room looked like a crime scene with broken picture frames, chairs, toys spread-eagled across the floor. The tree frogs screamed macabre mating songs. A trail of glass followed him as he made his way to the bedroom. The door was no match for his foot and splintered. There was no way I would let him whoop me again. But there was also no escaping. I backed myself on the bed, against the wall, while he attacked the television. I started swinging; I backed him up, down the canal of the hallway and into the living room. He lunged and wrapped his hands around my neck. He tightened his grip and bent me backward over the arm of the couch. He leaned in so that I could feel his wet breath on my cheek. “Kill yourself bitch. Go fucking kill yourself.” A black universe rose behind my eyelids. I thought I was going to die. He finally let go of my neck and flicked me to the ground. I picked up a piece of glass, charged, and aimed for his face.
Visiting hours are our only contact with the world outside the hospital. Each patient sits at separate tables with our families. It is like prison, except we can touch each other. I see Big Tex across the room with his mother and father. All three have serious looks on their faces. Big Tex has lost his gregarious smile and grandiosity. Next to them, he looks like a boy—like a son. His mother cries, he hangs his head, and his father stares at the wall behind him.
When the psychiatrist asks me if I had daughters, I proudly tell him that I have two. “Do you want them to die?” he asks. “Because if you kill yourself, you increase their chances of dying by 90 percent.”
My ex-husband brings them to visiting hours. They rush up on me with open mouths and baby teeth, like we hadn’t seen each other in months. They gift me with letters, pictures, and stickers that tell me how much they love me.
“You bitch!” he yelled. “You cut me!”
I looked down at my hands and leg which were painted with war. “That’s my blood!” I hollered back. He fell. Lying on the floor in the foyer, he looked dead. I slapped his face until he regained consciousness. I dragged him, stumbling, to the bathtub. He plopped inside and put his head in his hands. It was the only time I ever saw him cry. I turned on the shower, and the blood washed away. So much blood.
My condition is chronic. I have to pay close attention to not only my moods, but my body as well. When I am manic, I go from hot to cold. I shake. I don’t sleep. My speech speeds up. I get big ideas that I don’t follow through on. I think I am productive, but when I later look at what I’ve written, it is disorganized and choppy. When I am depressed, I oversleep or I undersleep. I isolate myself.
Before coming to the hospital, I spent most of my time depressed and crying, locked in fog, unable to concentrate. Sometimes, the mist broke, but there was no lasting relief. Because I’m a high achiever, it is difficult for many people to believe that I am ill. I had a baby in the middle of a grad program and didn’t miss a day of my online coursework. I was in labor and turned in a research paper. I have a demanding career and I maintain my workload. I manage a household with three kids. But in the evenings, I sink into the bed. My nightly ritual is to weep until I sleep.
For so long, I wanted things to go back to the way they were. Back to that memory of us in Connecticut staying up all night and sneaking into his parents’ basement. Back to the 19-year-old who used to take the train down to Virginia to visit me. Back to the guy who used to write me letters every week and send me care packages. I wanted him to be the man I wished I had married. I held onto this ideal even after the wedding, the abuse, the cheating. I was willing to lose myself in pursuit of the past, of the ideal.
Until I wasn’t.
“I can’t be your wife anymore,” I told him the night we tried to kill each other. I moved out a few months later, and a few months after that I landed in the hospital.
Big Tex gets discharged before me; he’ll go to a group home on the other side of the metroplex. We exchange numbers and promise to stay in touch. This, too, is a lie. Our lives outside of the hospital don’t intersect. Our illnesses are what we have in common, and we are no longer in crisis. Though we both struggle with maintaining our health, our relationship isn’t the same outside of the hospital. There are no lines in the outside world. No nurses to measure our meds. No supervised smoke breaks. No group. Our tribe is disbanded.
I kept a notebook during my nine-day stay and taped my intake picture to the front of it. My hair looks like a dust mop. I am too thin. My arms are crossed. My lips press together. My eyes are half-closed Venetian blinds. My cheekbones are streaked with tears. I don’t look like myself.
It’s been six years; I haven’t felt suicidal in that time. Though I still struggle, I know my triggers. I take care of myself. I have a doctor I see regularly and a cocktail of meds that evens out my moods, for the most part. I have a disease that has an 80 percent survival rate, and I want to live.
I look at the intake picture from time to time. It feels like an error, an aberration. I also know that it is not. She is real, but this picture is not the whole truth. No picture ever is. No story ever is, not even this one.
Maybe Big Tex and I have more in common than I thought.
