Now Luke
Now
Luke
It is not unusual for an adoptee to wait until the wheels have fallen off and the car has crashed catastrophically before he seeks help. This is because an adopted child grows up masking or burying their true feelings; in effect, they lock them up in a safe and throw away the key.
Who Am I? The Adoptee’s Hidden Trauma by Joel Harris
There are whole days when I cannot get out of bed. The tasks of showering and brushing my teeth and getting dressed overwhelm me. Sometimes I am paralytically sad, grieving with ceaseless tears that drop down my face for a man I never met. Other times I am subsumed by panic. Not the short, sharp attacks I am used to, two or three minutes of raggedy old-man breathing before the anxiety begins to subside. This is different, a pervasive terror that can last hours at a time. I cannot voice it because mostly I am unable to speak; words have become meaningless and impossible, a language unknown. I feel as if I am slowly losing my hearing, my vision and my mind. If only I could speak, I might break the penetrating quiet that surrounds, engulfs and suffocates. Instead I wait in desperation for Hannah to come and see me, thinking she will understand. But when she does come, I turn my head away and look at the wall, and after a while she kisses me and goes back downstairs to my mother. I am drowning in ignominy.
The doctor comes back again and this time he prescribes Xanax to be taken regularly throughout the day. These small blue pills bring the first moments of relief, knocking me into a thick, exhausting sleep. I sleep through the day and night, waking for water and sips of soup before plunging back into chemical darkness.
On his third visit, the doctor tries to find out more about my genetical history. My mother is present, which is just as well, for I am unable to speak about Jacob’s depression without crying, unable to speak full stop.
‘We only have the patchiest details from Alice – Luke’s birth mother – about what happened,’ Christina says. ‘We know that he was a depressive and was prescribed medication, which he stopped taking. It was during an episode that he killed himself.’
‘It sounds like he was bipolar – a manic depressive as it was known back then. This kind of depression is often determined by genetics. You say Luke’s breakdown has been triggered by finding out about his natural father, but it’s also likely that it has been coming for years. Has he had depressive episodes in the past?’
My mother turns to me with so much compassion in her face I have to look away.
‘He’s very sensitive,’ she says. ‘He always has been. He takes things to heart, if that’s what you mean.’
‘The real danger with manic depression is that it can tip over into a state where someone is so full of negative feeling they present a threat to themselves. I think Luke is ill enough to warrant inpatient care. I’d like to organise a place at the Priory Hospital in Roehampton.’
‘No, no, no. That is not going to happen.’ My mother jumps up from her chair, her face lined with anger. ‘I am here by his side and I do not intend to leave until he is fully recovered. Luke is not suicidal. He is depressed, and with good reason. There’s a difference.’
The doctor nods. ‘I thought it wise to point out the risks. Let’s keep a close eye on his medication and find him an outpatient appointment as soon as possible.’
Once the doctor has left, my mother returns to her bed-watching post. I’d like to thank her for this outburst of loyalty, I’d like to apologise for not realising how much she loved me. But words are as unstructured as cotton wool and I say nothing.
Next door, Samuel begins to wake up, and my mother smiles at his midday coos, the clucking and trilling that signals not just his alertness but also his sunny, optimistic mood. The baby who loves to laugh.
‘Shall I bring him in?’ she asks, and I nod.
I’d speak if I could, and I do try moving my tongue around my mouth, but it’s as if I have forgotten this most fundamental of skills. She stops at the door and turns around to look at me.
‘This is a blip,’ she says. ‘Brought on by traumatic circumstances. But you are strong and you will get through it.’
‘How do you know?’ My voice when it comes is thick and rasping, an old man’s voice.
There is no doubting the tears in my mother’s eyes.
‘I know because you are my son,’ heartbreaking emphasis of the pronoun, ‘and you have always got through everything.’