Denied

 

           Denied

 

 

                Deirdre Brown watched the door to the grocery store for her ex-boyfriend, David. It was Strasburg, CO in July of 1991. David called her after a year of being in mental hospitals. It all started her senior year in college. She was found wandering the campus screaming. Police found her and took her to the hospital. She was diagnosed with depression and given an anti-depressant. The drug threw her into a manic phase and she was diagnosed with Manic Depression. David found out from her parents that she was in the hospital. He was unable to see her and waited until she was out to talk to her. Three months after being in the hospital she saw him and broke up with him. She told him that she didn’t want to cause him any grief. She was barely able to get out the bed and the lithium made her loopy and lethargic. She applied for SSI and SSDI. She was denied both and was told that it is common to be denied first. Her parents used a lawyer and appealed. She was waiting to hear from the judge. Since she had been taking the Lithium she did get used to it. She started eating right and exercising but she had only lost twenty pounds. She wore a black blouse and skirt to hide her forty pound weight gain. She stopped having manias but was chronically depressed. She had chores around the farm house where her parents let her live. It was a little easier to do them but she still took all day to clean and make supper. On the campus of CU-Boulder, where she went to school, there were coffee shops and bagels. In Strasburg, everyone went to the grocery store. It was a meeting place for younger people and the rest of the town.

                Deirdre saw David and waved him over to her car. David trotted up to her and gave her a hug. “It’s so good to see you, Dee-Dee” David was the only person to call her that. “HI, Dave, I’m glad we could talk. Do you want to come to the house?”

“Yes, that would be great.”

They drove to the farmhouse after picking up some take-out at the diner. Deirdre set it all up in the kitchen.

“I never would have found out what was going on without your mother calling me. “

“I know, it’s weird like that. They want to keep it all under wraps”

“Are you feeling better, Dee-Dee?” David asked with concern in his voice.

“I am not one-hundred percent. I may never be. That’s why I broke up with you.”

“I think that was a mistake.”

“I was out of the hospital three months and I felt like s**t. I just didn’t want to hurt you. I was hurting my parents already. “

“Dee-Dee, I know that, but it broke my heart. I wanted to marry you.”

Deirdre felt a warm feeling inside when he said that. They started dating when she was in high school. After school, David worked on his parent’s dairy farm. He was thinking about going into the Air Force.

“I’m sorry I hurt you Dave, the diagnosis was big for me and I haven’t been well. I need to have some time to get my head together. I can’t date anyone right now.”

“I can only wait so long, Dee-Dee. “ David said slowly.

They finished their lunch in silence. Deirdre felt like crying. She held back her tears until the end of the lunch. David and Deirdre hugged good-bye and David kissed her on the cheek. She cleaned up the kitchen when, all of a sudden, she felt exhausted. She meant to lie down for twenty minutes but ended up sleeping for three hours. She woke up to her father, Jon Brown yelling, “Dee, Dee! Get up it’s time for you to make dinner!” Deirdre got up and went to the door of her bedroom and heard her father and mother arguing.

“Don’t yell at her Jon, she is not well.”

“We agreed that she keep the house clean and make dinner. She has been slacking off lately.  It’s just like in the beginning when she slept all day and didn’t even wash herself.”

“Jon, she was sick and the medication was making her slow. She has gotten better since then. “

“I don’t think she’s sick she just doesn’t want to go to school and get a job. She wants to lie around here all day.”
“JON LEE BROWN! Don’t you DARE accuse our only daughter of “slacking off”! She has an ILLNESS and that is why we applied for disability.”

“And what if she gets denied? You can kiss our retirement goodbye”
Deirdre opened her bedroom door and said,” I’m sorry, Daddy, I fell asleep. I was going to make chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes. It won’t take long. “

“We agreed that you would make dinner and clean the house, Dee”

“I know, Daddy, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, honey, just go downstairs I will help you.” Maggie Brown said, glaring at her husband.

The Browns had Deirdre late in life. Maggie was 45 when she got pregnant. She was all but convinced that she would never have any children. Deirdre was their miracle baby. When she was in the mental hospital, Maggie just prayed and prayed, but Jon got more and more angry. He said that sending her to college was a waste of money and that if she wanted to finish she would have to pay for it herself.

“David stopped by,” Deirdre said quietly during dinner.

“Oh, that’s nice honey,” Maggie said cheerfully.

“I don’t know if I want to get back together with him. I still feel a bit loopy”

“I’ll say,” Jon said sarcastically. Maggie shot a mean look at him. He shrugged his shoulders innocently.

“I found some old manuscripts in the attic. I was thinking that if I get denied I would try to get them published after I rewrote them.”

“That’s a great idea, honey”, Maggie said with enthusiasm.

“I talked to Marv at the general store and he said that you could volunteer there part �"time and after six months you can apply for a job,” Jon said with some gentleness.

“I’ll go there tomorrow, Daddy, thanks.”

Deirdre’s parents got her a computer so she could write and cable so she wouldn’t be bored during the day. Maggie insisted. Jon just wanted to get her a word processor. Maggie said the computer was the wave of the future especially the internet. Jon acquiesced but said that Deirdre would have to pay them back.

 

                Dinner was quiet. Jon and Maggie went to bed early. Deirdre had the house to herself. Her parents slept in the big house on the Farm grounds. Deirdre watched her weight and exercised at least twice a day. She wanted to lose forty pounds. She had already lost twenty. Her doctor said it would be a challenge because she was taking Lithium which slowed down the metabolism. She was given the option of going on Depakote but she turned it down because she was doing so well on Lithium. It was hard for the first six months but she got used to the medication. Deirdre settled down to watch her TV shows when the phone rang.

“Hello?” Deirdre had no idea who would be calling her at this hour.

“Dee-Dee? It’s Dave, how are you?”

“I’m doing fine.” Deirdre said cautiously.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go to a movie with me tomorrow.”

“I am going over to the general store to see about volunteering part �"time tomorrow. “
“Oh, we can go in the evening, if you prefer”
“Dave I am not getting back together with you.”
“Why not?”
“ I am not the same person I was before the hospital. I don’t read as much, I am not as happy, I don’t feel like the same person. I feel like I would have to act the same way with you and I don’t want to fake it with you.”

“Maybe on the surface you have changed but deep down I believe you are the same person”

“Dave……”
“Listen, just go to the movies with me. No strings attached. “

Deirdre couldn’t resist David’s charm. She said alright.

The next morning Deirdre got up later than she wanted to. It was about ten o’clock in the morning. She went to the general store and talked to Marv. He told her to come on Tuesdays and Thursdays from eight to four. After six months he would evaluate her for a full time job. Since she used to work in a coffee shop, she would take over the coffee bar. He told her to be back the next day for training. That night, Dave picked Deirdre up at six o’clock. They went to see Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Afterward they went to the town diner and had dinner. Deirdre ate popcorn during the movie so that she wouldn’t be tempted to hold David’s hand. David kept his distance and was polite during the whole date. When they got to the door of the farmhouse, Dave asked if he could hug her. She said yes. He tried to sneak a kiss but Deirdre stopped him. David apologized and Deirdre went in for the night.

                The next day, Deirdre bought an alarm clock so that she wouldn’t oversleep on her work days. She went to the general store and got trained on the coffee bar by Marv. It was that entire she knew anyway from working at a coffee shop in college. Marv was impressed with her knowledge. He said that she could start next Tuesday at eight o’clock. Deirdre kept checking the mail for her disability claims but she didn’t see anything. It has only been six weeks so she knew that she should wait longer. In the meantime, she worked on one of her manuscripts. It was a vampire story from when she was a Goth kid. She used to die her red hair black and wear black lipstick and nail polish. It drove her father crazy. He refused to buy her clothes because she wanted to wear black all of the time. She had to get a part-time job to pay for her Goth clothes and makeup. During her senior year in high school she met David and stopped wearing Goth clothes. She loved David but felt that there was no future in them being together. David deserved someone mentally stable. She wasn’t sure if she could have kids and she knew that David wanted a family. She liked being with David. He had a great sense of humor and always made her laugh. During the movie David kept making jokes about Arnold Swartzenneger and the blonde chick. She was mourning the loss of her relationship and the loss of her personality. That was why she was depressed. She would have to talk to her psychiatrist about that. Her doctor was Doctor Aaron Stewart. He did double time as a therapist and psychiatrist in such a small town as Strasburg.

                Time went by that week as Deirdre worked on her manuscript. She decided to retype it into her computer. She felt better now that she had a job and something to do. On Tuesday, she showed up early and set up the coffee bar. She was glad too, because it was very busy. Marv was impressed with her speed and accuracy. Deirdre worked until noon and took a half-hour for lunch. She was sitting in the café when David walked up to her. She was really glad to see him. “Your father told me you would be working here today. I always wanted to get coffee from a sexy red-head.” Deirdre blushed and motioned him to sit down.

“It’s good to see you, Dave.” Deirdre smiled.

“I brought you a birthday gift since you are having a birthday in a couple weeks”

“You didn’t have to do that, Dave. “

David took out a box and gave it to Deirdre. She opened it. It was a gold unicorn pin. David knew that unicorns were her favorite.

“It’s really nice, you are so sweet, Dave. “ Deirdre put it on so that she could wear it at work.

“I know you don’t want to date, Dee-Dee, but I just want to be friends. I love you and I just want you to be in my life whatever happens. “

“Dave, like I said I have a mental illness. I am doing ok on medication right now but there is no cure for this and I am going to be on medication the rest of my life. When I was in the hospital I stripped naked and told everybody I was an Archangel. I get so depressed that I can’t function. I can’t have kids or I will give them Manic Depression too. “

“I would rather live with you than without you, Dee-Dee. You don’t scare me. There are things that you are not considering. Like my love for you. So we don’t have kids. We get dogs, I don’t know. Dee-Dee, I love you.”

David took her hand and kissed it. Deirdre cried. She wanted this man but he had no idea what he was getting into with her. She wasn’t the same person and she had a chronic illness. Marv called her to back to work. She hugged David and said she would think about what he was saying. She went back to work.

                The next day, Deirdre had an appointment with Dr. Stewart. She expressed her feelings about David. He said she was mourning her old self and not to put her relationship with David on the funeral pyre too. Manic Depression was manageable and, yes, there was a higher chance of passing on the disease but that wasn’t always the case. Now that we know that you get manic on anti-depressants we can avoid that. Lithium, if tolerated, can be taken during a person’s lifetime. It just needs blood monitoring. Depakote is a good alternative although it causes menstruation problems as a side effect. Deirdre shot her diet to hell and bought some ice cream and cookies. She spent the afternoon watching old movies and eating. She cried. She wanted to be with David so badly. She needed to talk to him. When she called him he said he couldn’t talk because there was an accident at the dairy. He would call her later. Deirdre was crestfallen. She knew it had to be serious if David didn’t want to talk to her.

                Two weeks went by and no calls from David. Deirdre’s parents put together a special party for Deirdre’s birthday. There was a cake and presents and friends from college and high school. David wasn’t there, though. She was really worried about him. At midnight there was a knock on her door. She went to the window and saw that it was David. She opened the door. David apologized for not calling her but the dairy had a major accident and many cows were lost. He would have to postpone going into the Air Force to help his father rebuild. Deirdre said she was just glad that David was alright. She offered him some leftovers from the party and David accepted. After eating they sat on the couch.

“Did you have fun at your party?”

“You knew about it?”

“I arranged some of the people from high school and college to come,” David said with some mischief.

“You can sleep here tonight if you want. You look exhausted, Dave. “

“I will be alright, Dee-Dee. Most of the damage has been cleaned up. “

“Dave, I have changed my mind. I want for us to be together.”

David’s eyes teared up. He took her hand and squeezed. Deirdre smiled and leaned over and kissed him. The kiss got more involved until they were laying on the couch. They had never made love because of Deirdre’s strict upbringing. Tonight was an exception. Deirdre was on the pill to regulate her periods so she felt comfortable making love tonight. David was gentle since it was her first time. After making love, David stayed the night. The next morning, Deirdre made breakfast for David. They kissed and he went home. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her. She was finally confident of David’s love for her.

                On a Monday Jon brought the mail in. In it was a letter from the State of Colorado. He read it and sighed heavily. Deirdre was denied SSDI. Deirdre was very upset. How can she find a real job when she couldn’t get out of bed half the time? Jon offered to find a lawyer to appeal. Deirdre said no, she just needed to find a way to make money. She would try to publish her manuscripts. Jon said he was so sorry. He said she would be taken care of for however long it took for her to heal and find work. He would pay for her schooling if she was up to going back to complete her final semester.

“I’m sorry, Daddy, I disappointed you.”

“Dee, you didn’t disappoint me. I have not been angry at you but at the situation”

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“No, sweet pea, I understand now that this is an illness and you have had no control over it”

Jon walked over and hugged his daughter for a long time. Half her depression was over David, The other half was over her father and how he had been treating her. She felt like a huge burden had been lifted from her heart. Later that week Deirdre got another piece of mail. She had been accepted for SSI. “Well that’s something, honey, “Jon said. “You can have your own money. When you get published you can get off it. “

                A month later, David told Deirdre that he signed up for the Air Force. He was shipping out in two weeks. He asked her to marry her and presented her with a ring. He said they needed to get married before he shipped out because there was a situation developing in Kuwait. Deirdre said yes. They were married at the chapel on the farm grounds. They stayed in the farmhouse until David shipped out. Her SSI money was cut a bit because she was now married. She lived in the farmhouse until David could come home. Several months later, the Gulf War started. David was deployed to Kuwait. He came home a year later. They had decided not to have children but got two pugs. Deirdre got a job at the general store and helped on the farm until David was sent to Italy. Deirdre went with him. Her depressions came and went but over time she did get better. She was thankful for her family in encouraging her.