My Reward

Only those who live in the shadows of a real life can utterly understand how one simple little thing can make the difference between choosing to live and choosing to die. It does not have to be anything that would be considered important to someone else either. It only need be something that can be fixated upon throughout the day or the week, just getting through the hours until, voila, you have succeeded. One more day in the book of life.

For myself, I cling to the idea of eating a piece of chocolate cake with a glass of cold milk every Sunday evening while I watch the late-night news. Never a lemon bar or chocolate chip cookie, ice cream is not even a close second as choices go, it must be a piece of rich chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I know it is not a good idea to be chock full of sugar just before bed, but that just does not register on my "things to avoid" list.

I do not worry about the aesthetics of the slice. Each weekend, I buy a box of Betty Crocker Chocolate Cake and a can of icing. I usually bake it in a flat, rectangular cake pan on Sunday afternoon. After the frosting is added when the cake has cooled, it will be nice and fresh for the first slice of the week.

A man in my weekly group session bought a cat. He felt that if he bonded to the cat, he would not be willing to cause it any distress. He would have a reason to get up and work through each day. He would feel needed because he had to take care of the cat.

Personally, I think he would have been better off getting a dog. I have met the cat and he was not a good choice. You could leave out a bowl of water and an automatic cat feeder and that feline would live happily free of any human contact for a week before anyone noticed. I do not say anything about it. Whatever works, right?

For the past twelve months, I have been receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The doctors said that I had attempted suicide. I do not agree that this was my intent. Certainly, I had not taken any overt action to end my life. I had simply lost interest. I had just ... stopped. I stopped being concerned about every aspect of my life. From sleep to food to human relationships, nothing aroused any spark of emotion.

My brother intervened. He found me sitting alone in my studio apartment, dehydrated, and emaciated. I could not tell him when or what I had eaten last or when I had showered or changed my clothes. I had just - existed. I do not remember much of what happened after my discovery. I remember the bright lights of a hospital room, people talking in hushed tones. People crying softly. I think it was my sister and mother crying. My father's deep expletive-laced voice was easily recognizable. Throughout it all, I felt nothing.

On a cognitive level, I knew I should be feeling something. I did not and still do not understand how I could just feel nothing, it is even hard to explain - how do you describe to people what it feels like to feel nothing?

My disinterest in my own circumstances landed me in a local hospital psychiatric ward. My brother sought conservatorship over me, which given the circumstances, had been easy to obtain. My family was shame-faced as they explained what they had done and why I had been placed in the hospital. I can only imagine that they thought I would be angry with them. I had not cared.

One day blended into the next. There were rounds of therapy visits, group therapy sessions, and life skills training. It had taken weeks of listening, talking, listening, and talking before I had felt a glimmer of emotion again. I found myself smiling when a fellow patient made a joke. Our particularly observant therapist noticed and gave me a quick nod to let me know that she had, indeed, taken note of my brief engagement.

It was this same therapist that noticed my weakness for chocolate cake. She told me later that I had seemed to brighten just a little as the evening meal approached when chocolate cake was on the dessert menu. She had observed me taking my time and savoring each bite. From the first bite until the last, each morsel was granted my undivided attention.

Believe it or not, chocolate cake became my salvation. During a private session, my therapist asked me to talk about my love of chocolate cake. After many hours of discussion on what you would think was quite a mundane topic, I slowly began to equate my love of chocolate with a time in my life when I felt safe. It reminded me of Sunday dinners with my family, laughing around the dinner table. Sunday dinner always ended with a slice of chocolate cake. The cake came to symbolize the end of the weekend together and the beginning of a new week.

My therapist and I agreed that if I would increase my focus and apply myself with greater purpose, she would guarantee that I could have a piece of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting every Sunday evening; just as I had during my childhood. Some Sunday evenings, she made a special trip to the hospital to bring me a slice of cake because it was not on the menu.

Seeing her dedication to my well-being, I felt I had no choice but to agree. Thus, my journey back to the living began. Within weeks, I was allowed to leave to stay with a family member on weekends and eventually I had been allowed to return to my own humble apartment.

I secured part-time employment, which eventually led to full-time employment. The job was not terribly demanding but provided me with daily obligations and an income that could support my unassuming lifestyle. It also provided me with daily interaction with other people, which is an important part of reconnecting with life.

I had needed to learn to care about others as part of learning how to care about myself. I have even come to appreciate moments of pain, recognizing that they too remind me that I am recovering and living, not just existing. I try to focus on daily living, simple pleasures, and short-term goals to remain engaged in a moment. By doing so, I prevent myself from withdrawing back into a world of numbness and neutrality.

The most important thing I had learned was that anything can be used to anchor oneself to life. It does not have to be a person or a monumental accomplishment. It can be just a moment sitting in the sun. It just needs to be something to live to enjoy.

And I seek a moment of reward for myself to acknowledge that I have a connection to this life I am living. For some people, that connection is a cat. For me, it is a weekly slice of chocolate cake.