Last Friday was my birthday. I was 12. It was not my belly-button birthday. It was my sobriety birthday – 12 years without a drink. Normally I celebrate my sobriety date but this year I didn’t think much about it. My other mental illness was on my mind – literally.

I started sliding on Tuesday. I felt awful – everything ached and by end of  a very, very long day (Election day is the longest day of the year for journalists) I had a low-grade fever. I told my boss I wouldn’t be in on Wednesday. I went home and slept for 16 hours with a couple of bathroom breaks and a banana. I woke up in a fog, a dark cloud above. The fever was gone but I was in a funk. It wasn’t just a funky-funk, it was an uh-oh funk.

I know what I am supposed to do when this happens. Call my nurse practitioner. Do not isolate. Eat every few hours to keep my blood sugar levels in line. Get out of bed, take a shower, get dressed and get your butt someplace where you are among the living.

Here is my dilemma: I need to be among people but I don’t want to speak or even make eye contact. There aren’t many places you can do that and not feel totally awkward. Go to a restaurant and – first – you feel like a loser sitting at a table, catatonic, by yourself. Then there is the whole waitress/menu thing.

Here are the places I have found work for me: A 12-step meeting, church and …. Clothing stores – preferably discount stores that have endlessly long racks of shirts and pants and sweaters and bathing suits and active wear and dresses and skirts and on and on and on.

I don’t have to buy anything, I can just stand there methodically pulling hangers from right to left on the rack, staring at the shirts and pants and sweaters and bathing suits and active wear and dresses and skirts and on and on and on. Prints, colors, fabrics, buttons and zippers whiz by. I don’t have to speak with anyone. I don’t have to try anything on. I don’t have to buy anything. I just have to be. It is called retail therapy. I don’t care what anyone says, it works for me.

I did these things. I went to these places. I feel better.

Much, much, much better. I think it’s time to celebrate my 12^th birthday.



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    Last reviewed: 31 Aug 2010