Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn

CHAPTER 18 What Have I Done?

Once the mayhem of being admitted to the psych ward at St. Vincent’s subsided and I realized I did need help, my doctors sat me down and told me that I was suffering a series of symptoms similar to bipolar disorder, though I’ve never officially been diagnosed as bipolar, then or now. When they explained the symptoms to me, I knew instantly it’s what I’ve been suffering from all along. It explained my crazy highs and lows, my wild spending, the way I would act out sexually, and my depression. I remember the doctor asking me a series of questions and one by one I answered yes to them all with a growing pit in the bottom of my stomach. He asked: Do you have sex a lot? Do you shop a lot? Do you overreact? Are you easily agitated? Do you throw things? Can you not control yourself at times? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. It clicked, and I cried about it a lot. I couldn’t believe that I was so psychologically damaged.

I thought a lot about my mom during my two weeks in the hospital because my mom has all of these symptoms too. I guess it was just in my genes. They say there are five stages of grief, and that is exactly what I went through when I processed this diagnosis. The first stage is denial. I certainly thought the problem was everyone else, not me. I didn’t think I was wrong in my outbursts against Evan. I didn’t think I was acting crazy.

The second stage is anger. Evan can, and has, attested to that one. I was angry at Digital Playground, angry at myself, angry at the world, and then angry at the one person who loved me enough to stand by me, help me, and believe in me.

The next stage is bargaining. I begged to get out of the hospital and promised I’d be better if they’d only let me out of there. The bargaining part was my “if only” phase. I’d tell my doctor: “If only I wasn’t in this lawsuit, life would be so much better. If only I could work again, I’d have more money and that would make me happy. If only I wasn’t on meds, I would have my appetite back. If only I could have my stepson full-time, it would make Evan happy and we’d be a happy family.” I’d tell Dr. Nelson Lugo, “If you get me out of the hospital, I promise to be better.” And then my overwhelming emotions would kick in and I’d flip on him and say, “If you don’t get me out of this hospital now, I promise I’ll kill you!” My bargaining turned to threats, and that kept me in the psych ward even longer.

The fourth stage is depression. Once it hit me how serious my situation had become, I went back to crying and curling up in a ball on my hospital bed. I spent several days in the hospital in the woe-is-me phase, feeling even more depressed than ever.

And of course, the final stage is acceptance. I finally came to accept my situation. I started taking the medicine they gave me, and it really did help.

Once I started following doctors’ orders, my psychiatrist promised the hospital that he would look after me and suggested that I was stable enough to leave. Dr. Lugo said to me, “You know, Linda, you just have to accept that you have to face it and go on with your life.” And I did. But not without one more outburst.

When I got home from St. Vincent’s, I spit venom at Evan. “I can’t believe you locked me up in that place! I hate you!”

“Oh, God. Here we go,” he said.

Just when I thought I was understanding what was happening to me and feeling positive about it, along came those paranoid and angry feelings again. I don’t think you can get better overnight or even in two weeks. And I do know that it takes a little bit of time for medicine to kick in and really begin to work. I think when I came home fighting mad, it was because I was still processing my situation and working through it.

Evan and I fought for days following my return from the hospital. We’d go round and round like this:

“You had me committed!”

“You needed to be committed! You were crazy!”

“Stop calling me crazy!”

“But you are. You needed help!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“If you don’t get it together, I’m going to leave you because you’re so crazy. I can’t handle this anymore.”

Deep down I knew he loved me so much, and I think I was afraid of that love. I was afraid to surrender myself to that love. We were fighting so bad that I made him sleep on the couch. I just couldn’t deal, and I was so angry. It was the first time we didn’t sleep together.

On our third day of fighting, I was looking down at him sleeping on the couch and he looked so exhausted. I had a moment of clarity. I felt like the worst person ever. I am crazy. Oh my God. I do need help. What have I done? This man loves me and was just trying to help me. I went to down to where he was sleeping and I kneeled beside him and woke him up. “You’re right. I need help. Please help me and please don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going to leave you,” he said. “I’m going to get you through this.”

I knew I was in good hands: the hands of a strong man who loved me and who would help me get better. Evan made sure I took my medicine. He made sure I saw the therapist. He kept me positive. Evan vowed to help me get better and to become successful on my own terms. And that’s exactly what we did.

2003 DIARY ENTRIES:

These are the diaries I kept in 2003 as I struggled with my craziness, adjusted to medication, and dealt with the lawsuit and my insecurities about Evan. The number of days noted in each entry was the number of days I’d been sober at the time of writing it.