The tracks of my tears

In the end, this round of antidepressants didn’t do me much good. I tried the latest kind, upped and downed the dose with my doctor, and stuck with the most promising for a year and a half before deciding to ditch them at the end of the summer. Maybe there were days when they evened me out a bit. Though this particular medication has been helpful for others on the spectrum, I’d be trying something else. A good thing, as I had grown tired of the side effects: weight gain, fatigue, insomnia.

And a more sinister development: I couldn’t cry.

For a year and a half, I could not summon a tear. This, though I endured the death of a beloved family member, celebrations of new births, and a hundred small scenes that may otherwise have prompted wet eyes of sorrow, nostalgia or joy. Though I don’t cry that often, I value the cathartic release when it’s necessary. And I’ve noticed that for me, it’s often connected to prayer. [ . . .] Tears can be something of a reset button, grounding our next action in greater compassion. For one who needs all the help he can get, the loss of this gift hurt. Since I could not cry, I felt I could no longer see rightly. 

But this story has a hopeful ending: I’m on different meds that dampen both the manic and depressive phases of bipolar. And I’ve reclaimed the gift of tears. The way recent months have been, I’m thankful – though the tears have shown up much more frequently than before, as if making up for their absence. I’m sure it will even out again, but for now I’ve coveted each one. 

I cried in prayer over the open-heart surgery performed on my friend’s six-month-old daughter – and again when I got the news that she had pulled through and was doing well. I cried alone after a student sat in my office, looked out my window at the campus water tower, and told me of personal atrocities she had endured at the hands of an oppressive regime in her home country. I cried sitting next to a recent cancer survivor at a performance of Margaret Edson’s play Wit.

When my beloved creative writing students came over to watch Anne of Green Gables, I found myself crying even though I’d read the book and watched the movie many times. I was caught off guard by one of Matthew’s great lines. 

Marilla, surprised at the appearance of a girl where a boy was expected, thought immediately of sending Anne away. “What good would she be to us?” she asks her brother. 

Matthew quietly turns the tables: “We might be some good to her.” 

Yes, I have a sentimental streak a mile wide. But in that moment, Matthew’s shifting the focus from his own needs to those of someone far worse off came to stand in my mind for every act of selflessness and grace for which our world is so desperate. In the darkness of my living room, salt streams trickling down my face, I prayed for each one of my students hugging pillows on the couches and floor. I prayed that when things got bad, they could find someone who would be good to them. I prayed that we’d all decide to do some good to the people around us. 

Though I could barely make out the TV screen through blurry eyes, I could see again. 

Excerpted from On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith and the Gifts of Neurodiversity by Daniel Bowman Jr. “Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group,” 2021 (pages 160-162). Used by permission. http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com.