I sometimes joke that I’ve had more therapy than Woody Allen. Part of that therapy involved attending an Oakland outpatient psychiatric program. Like Simone, I was aghast the first time I walked through those gates. The people there weren’t professionals like myself. Many hadn’t graduated from high school. One was living in a car. A couple smelled like they hadn’t showered for several days. The eyes of some had an alcohol/drug addicted glaze. Several people heard voices. I couldn’t imagine what the therapist who’d suggested I visit the program thought I would get out of it. After all, how could people so unlike me in so many ways help me to understand myself?
Appalled, I called my therapist, exclaiming that I was supposed to be the crazy one, but that it was she who apparently had taken leave of her senses. When I recall that conversation today, I can almost hear the smile in her voice as she told me to give it a week before I decided.
It didn’t take that long.
It was only three or four days before I came to understand how much insight and compassion my fellow patients offered. Some of the realizations I came to through their insights are mirrored in Simone’s journey.
While a few of the characters in Edgewise were inspired by people I got to know at that program, none is closely based on a particular person. Satch especially is a composite of women I met outside of the facility dubbed in the book Oakhell.
I don’t want to go into what in the book is “true” and what wholly imagined, but I would like to emphasize that people should cling to hope however they can, even if it seems like there is nothing more than a few tattered shreds. Yes, life can be traumatic, but eventually that darkness lifts. Maybe not as quickly as we’d like, but it will, especially if we seek help. To act on the conviction that one is forever going to be in agony is to risk taking actions that are impulsive and, unfortunately, irrevocable.
For all the despair I felt then, I feel that much joy now. That can be true for most people. Anyone who is suffering needs to reach out for help from others, including those s/he feels couldn’t possibly understand. The force of the struggle—and the capacity to love—don’t change or lessen based on whether someone has a college degree or a comfortable income. We are all in the same leaky boat. What matters most is to help ourselves and our fellow passengers bail hard whenever stormy seas threaten to swamp us.