Sunday, Oct. 01, 2006 - 8:19 PM
A while back, a co-worker of mine saw me taking a small green pill. �What�s that for?� he asked.
�It�s my medicine.�
�Are you sick?�
I told him it was just a prescription I was on. He looked a little confused, so I said it was anti-anxiety medication.
�What have you got to be anxious about?�
Gee, I don�t know�people asking me dumb questions?
So, I talked to him about his allergies, how that time of year, he was a sneezy, sniffly mess most of the time.
�What�s going on when you have an allergy attack? Your body, on a chemical level, is having a bizarre and totally illogical reaction to some stuff floating in the air. Stuff that isn�t harmful. It�s just a little pollen or some dust or something. But your body acts like a little dust is going to kill you. Your body makes a ton of mucous to protect itself against something that�s basically nothing. And you take antihistamine to block your body�s reaction because the symptoms are annoying and get in the way of your life.�
He nodded.
�Most people don�t have that problem. Whatever you�re allergic to could probably be blown right into my face and I�d be fine. You�d be sneezing your head off and snotting up the place, and I�d be perfectly healthy and okay.�
Another nod, but I could tell he wasn�t sure where I was going with this.
�My body reacts weirdly to stuff, too. Things that are normal, everyday events for most people that have no logical reason to cause anyone a problem�well, my body reacts like someone�s trying to kill me. For no reason other than some odd chemical imbalance that makes me wired differently than everyone else, I sometimes get freaked out by nothing. And this little pill calms my autonomic nervous system and balances me out so I can get on with my day.�
And, to my surprise, he understood.
It�s totally true. I�ll have a tiny panic attack just being next in line at the bank. Which teller is going to open up next�when will it be my turn�what�s she going to say to me�aaaaiiiiiieeeeee! Yeah, it�s stupid. It doesn�t make one lick of sense. But those are the cards I was dealt. Fortunately there�s medicine out there to keep me from locking myself in the house to avoid my little freakouts.
It took me years before I realized that what I�d been feeling all my life wasn�t normal. And about a year after I�d isolated, with my doctor�s help, the stress and anxiety that was the cause of some persistent nausea, my mother was hospitalized for a severe panic attack. That was when she told me that she�d been suffering from panic attacks to some degree since the 1970s. She didn�t like the way doctors had treated her like she was crazy (in that condescending way that some doctors used to talk to women), and she hated the tranquilizers they�d put her on, because she had small children to raise and couldn�t be doped up like that. So she stopped the medication, stopped talking to doctors, and started pulling herself up by those proverbial bootstraps people are always talking about. But bootstraps can only hold you for so long.
With the help of medication, I can take vacations. I can chair a committee at work and run the meetings without feeling faint. I can go to a concert and not spend the entire show worrying that I might throw up. And, on one occasion, I was able to go backstage at a theater in Las Vegas and give Neil Sedaka a big hug and kiss and sit and talk with him for about ten minutes. Without medication, I couldn�t do any of those things. Some people can have lives filled with fun like that, but some of us can�t. Not without help.
So, you can imagine that reading what Simon Cowell said this week about Clay Aiken taking Paxil really hacked me off:
"OK, let me have a choice, I'm going to work in a coal mine for fourteen hours a day or I'm going to be a runner-up on American Idol -- give me a break, idiot.�
"There's no pressure, everyone knows what they're getting. They're not working for a living, they're becoming famous."
"At the of the day, no one is dragging these people on to the show, I mean they're all volunteering and let me tell you... Clay -- [despite] whatever he might have said -- would not swap what he has now for what he had three years ago, He wouldn't do it. No one put a gun to his head."
"This is a competition that if you do well, you're going to become famous -- end of story, if you don't like it, do something else."
Well, let me tell YOU something, Simon�and anyone else who is confused.
I�ve thought for a long time that Clay was someone who might need to be on medication similar to mine. The incidents he�s described over the years, like the one at the party after Capitol Fourth where he was uncomfortable in the room with all those people, and the Thanksgiving when he had more than thirty friends and family members in his home, but he hid alone in his bedroom until his mother made him act like a host�I felt like he and I had something very strong in common.
Even when he talked about being concerned about becoming addicted to some of the earlier medications his doctor had prescribed, it reminded me of myself. Feeling like he should take two one day because one worked so well the day before�that was so familiar. Fear of addiction is something I deal with pretty much every day, but much less now that I�m on the correct dosage of the medication that�s best for me.
Clay never said he was on Paxil because life is hard. He said he had started taking medication because certain aspects of his everyday life were making him feel like he was �having a heart attack.�
Like many, if not most, performers (ever heard of the painfully shy and reclusive Johnny Carson?), Clay is comfortable onstage, because he�s not dealing with people one-on-one, and he�s more in control. A theater is a room filled with people, but when you are separated from the rest of the people by the height of the stage, it�s a completely different environment than being one of a hundred people at a party where you are pressured to make a good impression on people who don�t know you. Being on a talk show in front of an audience and answering the host�s questions is different than just having a conversation because talk shows are a controlled environment, based on a business relationship between the guests (who bring in the ratings) and the show (which provides necessary promotional opportunities).
Showbiz is one thing. Real life is something else. Something a lot of us don�t understand. Even, apparently, someone who�s involved with both, like Simon Cowell.
I�m proud of Clay for talking about it. Not because being on anti-anxiety medication is a huge deal and is something the world needs to know about him, but because talking about it publicly means it�s something he�s come to terms with, and accepts as a normal part of his life.
You can see in his statements about going to see a doctor in the first place that he was formerly someone who suffered in silence, believing that admitting to any sort of �mental health issue� would be a disaster. Some of the things he said in his interview with Diane Sawyer, frankly, upset me, because he was, for a moment, perpetuating the stereotype.
�We�re strong Southern folk�nobody I know in North Carolina sees anyone [meaning therapists], but everyone I knew in L.A. does.�
Yeah, that bothered me. Still kinda does. Gives me the feeling that he thinks if he opened the Raleigh phone book, he�d find NOT ONE psychiatrist, therapist, or counselor. That those sturdy Southern people don�t need such foolishness, because they are better equipped to deal with life than those frail tofu-heads in L.A.
Maybe because it goes along with the things he�s been saying about Raleigh vs. Los Angeles all along. He commonly talks as though people in North Carolina are superior to people in California. (Need we remind him that this year�s tabloid garbage started with someone in North Carolina, and the �Clay It Forward� lawsuit was filed by a woman from his hometown?)
Perhaps, Clay, people in Los Angeles aren�t ashamed of being in therapy. Perhaps all those people you know in North Carolina simply don�t say anything out loud because there�s a stigma attached to getting the help you need.
But, even though he was obviously raised to feel that way, he�s risen above it. He�s chosen to not only get the help he needed, but say it out loud. It�s an empowering thing to talk about. And because of his position and celebrity, there�s a chance he could help someone else talk about it. Win-win.
And then maybe all those people he knows back home will tell him they�ve been on medication for years. One can hope.
�
�
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
