Admitting all of this to Dr. Arpaia, still a stranger to me, was hard but also easy. It can be easier to admit the embarrassing things to someone who doesn’t know you. He listened quietly, much like my dad might have, and calmly explained to me that I was sick. He told me I was experiencing an acute crisis—high-risk situational depression—which is when everything is going great and then suddenly, specific things occur in your life that make you feel like you’ve fallen off a cliff. This was the first time I’d been given a diagnosis that I understood. Oh my god. I was sick. I was sick. I was
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