Let them believe that all we produce is cheese, chocolate, cows, and cuckoo clocks. Let them believe that there’s a bank on every corner in Geneva. We have no intention of changing that image. We’re happy without the Barbarian hordes. We’re all armed to the teeth (since military service is obligatory, every Swiss man has a rifle in his house), but you rarely hear of anyone shooting anyone else.
We’re pleased that we haven’t changed for centuries. We feel proud to have remained neutral when Europe sent its sons off to fight senseless wars. We’re glad not to have to explain Geneva’s somewhat unattractive appearance, with its fin de siècle cafés and elderly ladies strolling about the city.
To say “we’re happy” might not be entirely true. Everyone is happy apart from me, as I travel to work wondering what’s wrong.
ANOTHER day at the newspaper, trying to ferret out some interesting news other than the usual car accident, weaponless mugging, and fire (which dozens of fire engines manned by highly qualified firemen rushed to put out and flooded an old apartment. All because the neighbors were alarmed about the smoke issuing from a pot roast left too long in the oven).
Back home, there’s the pleasure of cooking, the table set, and the family gathered around it, thanking God for the food we’re about to receive. Another evening when, after supper, each person goes about his business—the father helping the children with their homework, the mother cleaning the kitchen, tidying the house, and putting out the money for the maid the next morning.
There are times during these months when I feel really good, when I really believe that my life makes perfect sense, that this is the role of human beings on Earth. The children feel that their mother is at peace, their father is kinder and more attentive, and the whole house seems to glow with its own light. We are an example of happiness to the rest of the street, the city, the canton—or what you might call the state—of the entire country. And then suddenly, for no reason, I get into the shower and burst into tears. I can cry there because no one can hear my sobs or ask me the question I hate most: “Are you all right?”
Yes, why shouldn’t I be? Is there anything wrong with my life?
No, nothing.
Only the nights that fill me with dread.
The days I can’t get excited about.
The happy images from the past and the things that could have been but weren’t.
The desire for adventure never fulfilled.
The terror of not knowing what will happen to my children.
Then my thoughts start to circle negative things, always the same, as if there were a devil watching from one corner of the room, ready to leap out and tell me that what I call “happiness” is merely a passing phase, that nothing lasts. Surely I know that.
I want to change. I need to change. Today at work I got ridiculously uptight, simply because an intern took longer than usual to find the material I wanted. I’m not normally like that, but I’m gradually losing touch with myself.
It’s silly to blame it all on that writer and his interview. That was months ago. He merely took the top off a volcano that could have erupted at any moment, sowing death and destruction around it. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been a film, a book, or someone else I happened to talk to. I imagine that some people spend years allowing the pressure to build up inside them without even noticing, and then one day some tiny incident triggers a crisis.
Then they say: “I’ve had enough, I don’t want this anymore.”
Some commit suicide. Others get divorced. Some go to poor parts of Africa to try to save the world.
But I know myself. I know that my only reaction will be to repress my feelings until a cancer starts eating me up inside. Because I do actually believe that many illnesses are the result of repressed emotions.
I WAKE at two in the morning and lie staring up at the ceiling—something I’ve always hated—even though I know I have to get up early to go to work. Instead of coming up with a productive question like “What’s happening to me?” I let my thoughts spiral out of control. For days now—although not that many, thank God—I’ve been wondering if I should go to a psychiatrist and seek help. What stops me isn’t my work or my husband, but my children. They couldn’t understand what I’m feeling at all.
Everything grows more intense. I think about a marriage, my marriage, in which jealousy plays no part. But we women have a sixth sense. Perhaps my husband has already met someone else and I’m unconsciously responding to that. And yet I have absolutely no reason to suspect him.
Isn’t this absurd? Can it be that of all the men in the world, I have married the only one who is absolutely perfect? He doesn’t drink or go out at night, and he never spends a day alone with his friends. The family is his entire life.
It would be a dream if it weren’t a nightmare. Because I have to reciprocate.
Then I realize that words like “optimism” and “hope,” which appear in all those self-help books that claim they’ll make us more confident and better able to cope with life, are just that: words. The wise people who pronounce them are perhaps looking for some meaning in their own life and using us as guinea pigs to see how we’ll react to the stimulus.
The fact is, I’m tired of having such a happy, perfect life. And that can only be a sign of mental illness.
That’s what I fall asleep thinking. Perhaps I really do have a serious problem.
I HAVE lunch with a friend.
She suggests meeting at a Japanese restaurant I’ve never heard of, which is odd, because I adore Japanese food. She assures me that it’s an excellent place, although quite some way from where I work.
It takes ages to get there. I have to take two buses and ask someone the way to the gallery, home to this supposedly “excellent” restaurant. I think the place is hideous—the décor, the paper tablecloths, the lack of any view. She’s right, though. It’s one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in Geneva.
“I always used to eat in the same restaurant, which was okay, but nothing special,” she says. “Then a friend of mine who works at the Japanese consulate suggested this one. I thought it was pretty ghastly at first, as you probably did, too. But it’s the owners themselves who run the restaurant, and that makes all the difference.”
It occurs to me that I always go to the same restaurants and order the same dishes. I don’t even take any risks in this.
My friend is on antidepressants. That’s the last thing I want to talk about, though, because I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just a step away from sliding into depression and I don’t want to accept that.
And precisely because it’s the last thing I want to talk about, it’s the very first subject I bring up.
I ask how she’s feeling.
“Much better,” she says, “although the medication can take a while to work. Once it kicks in, though, you regain your interest in life; things get back their color and flavor.”
In other words, suffering has become yet another source of income for the pharmaceutical industry. Feeling sad? Take a pill and problem solved.
I ask, very gingerly, if she would be interested in collaborating on a major article on depression for the newspaper.
“There’s no point. Nowadays people share their feelings on the Internet.”
What do they discuss?
“The side effects of the different medications. No one’s interested in other people’s symptoms, because symptoms are infectious, and you’d suddenly start feeling things you didn’t feel before.”