Great Escape
Crazytown, Vacationland, and Points in Between
There may be no escape from my mental illness, but acceptance is a start
Summer’s over, school’s about to begin again, and I see from Instagram everyone I know is in Maine for a last hurrah. My feed is a symphony of shiplap and lobster, fog and boulders, L.L.Bean and familial smiles. The posts flutter past my eyes like Tibetan prayer flags, small squares of happiness, hashtagged. I’d love to escape to Maine as well, with my wife and two young sons. But, for a variety of reasons, we can’t. So, in Brooklyn we remain, where our air conditioners hang from the windows like skin tags and the dregs of summer drip onto the street below.
It’s enough to drive a man like me — super-competitive, insecure about his place in the financial firmament, loves long walks on rocky beaches — crazy. Except, of course, I already am, and that right there is both the virus and the vaccine. Maine offers no escape from my mind. There is no Vacationland from crazy, no exit off I-95 N or anywhere else, though Lord knows I’ve tried to find one.
About the crazy part. A year ago, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder by a nice lady named Julia. Julia is my therapist. The reason I found myself spilling my heart out like an old purse in…
