I'm Trying to Look Like Slim

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 12, Verse 1

"To learn, you must want to be taught.

To refuse reproof is stupid."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

The psychiatrist likes to ask if I'm "cured yet".

Maybe it was cute on the first follow up visit (it wasn't really) but it certainly wasn't on the third, and especially not after he kept me waiting for thirty-two minutes, only to see me for a grand total of three-and-a-half.  

"Well," I said, crossing my legs like a girl the way I do, "I think I'm cured in a manner of speaking."

"Yeah?" he said, staring confusedly at the keys on his flip phone, which I wanted to grab out of his hand and eat.

"It's cured me of a desire to talk about myself."

He furrowed his brow-- you know, wrinkled it up a little bit, put his phone down in his lap and he looked at me.

"Well, that's a little unusual," he said blandly before adding, for good measure, "Maybe you're incurable." 

Cute, isn't he?

---

It is, I have to admit, getting to be a little much.  I mean, I go to therapy once every other week-- every week, if I'm feeling someone shy of thrifty, I see a psychiatrist-- what is it-- every two weeks to talk about pills that do nothing for me-- and I blog about myself twice a week.  That's enough to make anyone who isn't a complete, bow-wrapped narcissist throw the hell up.  So I'm giving serious consideration to bagging the whole enterprise: therapy, psych, the meds, all of it.  Who was I before?  A skinny, sour little bastard.  Who am I now?  Well, I think you can see where this is going.  Since, however, I am getting awfully sick of talking about myself but still, apparently, like to write, I suppose I ought to spend tonight talking about somebody who isn't me, myself, or I.  

But, who?  Who's the lucky little fuckeroo?

It's Veterans' Day, so I thought maybe I'd talk about my father.  He's a veteran, after all.  Of the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.  You know, not an American veteran.  He's American now, but he wasn't then.  So I don't know that he counts.  I don't know what he thinks about on Veterans' Day.  I don't know if it means anything to him.  Probably not, since other "days" that are applicable to him: his birthday and Father's Day, for example, he eschews with a certain vile, vulgar verbosity.

"FACK DAT SHIT!" he screams, twisting his face in disgust, "BUNCHA FACKIN' RETARD DAY, PLEASE!  LIKE I NEED SOME FACKIN' ASSHOLE TO TELL ME TO FEEL SPECIAL?!  GIVE ME A BREAK ALREADY!"

And you're standing there holding a card or a present or something and then he kisses you tenderly on the cheek.

"I love you, Mummy.  Thees ees bee-yoo-teeful."

I'm not really related to many other veterans, I don't think.  My mother's father was in the Navy, as were his brothers.  I'm not sure they saw much combat.  My great uncle Morris was, though, shot in the stomach in South Philly by some asshole who was trying to rob his fruit stand.  Legend has it that Morris collapsed on top of the guy and wouldn't get up until the police got there.  

That's what my people do: we scream obscenities, then kiss you, or we lie on top of people and bleed.

---

I don't think I'd do too well in the armed forces.  Fortunately, I don't think it'll ever come up.  Between the asthma, flat feet, scoliosis, mental health "problems" and the projectile bed-wetting I think I'm pretty much off Uncle Sam's dance card, but, if it did, I think there'd be some problems.  I don't mean necessarily with cowardice.  There have been plenty of situations that occurred at the hospital that required me to summon up some courage and risk getting seriously assaulted by some psychotic guy (or gal) who was much bigger, stronger, and hyped up than I, not to mention someone who didn't have to play by crisis intervention rules, and somehow I did it.  So I don't think that would be the main problem, I think the main problem would be that I wouldn't know where to shoot.  

See, I know what you're supposed to do in the army.  You're supposed to be there, standing there, holding that M-4, or RPG or whatever the fuck it is, all square-jawed, trying to look like Slim, and I don't think I'd be able to pull it off.  I'd probably kill someone I'm not supposed to.  I'm not a real visual learner-- and I hear in the military they use a lot of maps and pictures and visuals and shit like that.  But see, I'm not a very spatial learner either.  And forget kinesthetic.  My body's about as useful as a eighty-seven-year-old paperclip that's been left out in the rain.  And auditory?  When people talk to me I tune them out almost instantaneously.  I asked a coworker a question today.

"Didn't we talk about this, like, on Friday?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered, "but I wasn't listening."

"I'm gonna kick your fucking ass," she said.  Then she repeated what she told me.

"Okay," I said, "got it."  Then I stood up, walked four steps towards the door and forgot most of what she'd just said.  She was talking about 50/50 raffles.  I could care less about 50/50 raffles.  I won one once.  I bought tickets, but I didn't know what I was buying them for.  Then someone gave me $96 a couple hours later.  It was the greatest fully clothed moment of my life.  

---

He wanted to up my dose, or change to something "a little more potent."

"No, I don't think so," I said, staring at the ten year old phone he was playing with, "let's just stick with this and see what happens."

"Hm," he said, pushing buttons, "most people aren't that patient."

"I'm not patient," I said, "I just don't care."  

The Mental Health Conspiracy

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 8, Verse 1

"Can't you hear the voice of wisdom?"

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

When you work with people who have serious mental illness, you become paranoid.  No longer is "the walls have ears, my friend" just an avuncular piece of advice from a desk-jockey lifer: it's real.

Or at least, you think it's real.

But, isn't perception reality?

So.  It's.  REAL.

But in addition to a terrifying fear of my superiors, to wincing every time I drive down the long, twisting driveway festooned with Tim Burton-style gonna-get-you barren trees that lead up to the Draconian building I call home for far too many hours each week, I feel, I don't know... conspired against?

Is that the right word?  

Maybe.

So far, no grants that I've written have gotten funded.  Many are still "in the pipeline" as we professional grantwriter assholes call it (I'm sure there's many a vivacious Urban Dictionary definition for "in the pipeline" that do not relate to development and fundraising) but the ones I've heard back on have all been a resounding, "NEIN, FRAULEIN!"  Okay, so maybe I'm not a good grantwriter.  Or maybe nobody's jumping up and down to throw money at forensic mental health.

Then there's the op/ed, commentary pieces I've written to the newspaper.  I did one in August, one in September, and one this month.  None we run by the paper.  Now, granted, there's a lot of competition, but I don't want you to think I'm bragging when I say that I have a 9-out-of-10 success rate when it comes to getting commentaries published in the paper.  At least, that was my success rate before I started writing about mental illness.  Now the tumbleweeds start to dance by.

It's possible that my writing skills have tanked in recent years.  That's possible.  

Other people do seem to get published when writing about mental illness.  I just today read a very interesting piece about Assisted Outpatient Treatment today and, underneath the author's name all the way at the bottom was a picture of a young woman standing outside closing a flannel shirt over her bra and the caption below read "10 SMALLEST CELEB BREASTS" and I was thinking to myself, I'll bet at least a hundred times more people clicked on that link than read the article I just read.  

And I got sad, because as much as I love small breasts, particularly those attached to celebrities, I just shake my head in despair when I think about what mental health competes with on a daily basis.  On Philly.com, for instance, there is a whole page about "HEALTH".  What are some of the "articles"?

The big story is an expose about how Cliff bars and their counterparts aren't really as "healthy" as people think.

Catch me, I might swoon.

"New Method May Improve Face Transplant Methods" which, I'm sure, is relevant to so many people on Philly.com, certainly more pressing and urgent than a story about mental illness, which impacts 1 in 4 Americans, probably more people than who need concern themselves with face transplant methodologies.

And, the question to the answer that nobody asked: "Breast Implants a Boost to Women's Sex Lives?"  Not satisfied with merely one story about silicone slappies (featured twice on the page, mind you) there's also "Breastfeeding After Implants Won't Cause Sagging, Study Finds".  Gee, that's good to know!

Oh, and let's not forget the gem, "Smaller Testicles, Better Dads?"  Well, I guess it's a nice complement to "10 Smallest Celeb Breasts."  I wonder if smaller breasted celeb moms are better moms than big breasted celeb moms.  Stay tuned, I guess.

Now, if you bother to scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN, past the stories about Tom Hanks having Type II Diabetes and "Use By and Sell By -- What Does it all Mean?"  (IT MEANS USE BY THIS DATE, AND SELL BY THAT DATE-- WHAT THE FUCK?!!!) you finally will get to a little section of stories about "Mental Health".

What are they?

There's a piece about a link between gum disease and Alzheimer's.

Oh.  That's... uh... helpful?

An article about autism (always), and two actually interesting pieces about Parkinson's and depression and depression in pregnancy possibly leading to psychiatric issues in those children later on.  But, like I said, you have to really work to find those pieces, and they're the sort of pieces that offer straight information about rather benign subjects.  They're not talking about how the jails are the biggest mental health "treatment" centers in the country, or about how under-trained police officers are gunning down the mentally ill, or about how competently-trained police officers aren't, or about how the stigmatization of individuals with mental illness by the news media and the entertainment industry is actually killing people, or about the public health crisis of 38,000+ suicides every year in this country, or reasons why psych patients don't want to take their meds and, well, you get the fucking idea.

Hey, we're Americans.  We wanna read about small celeb breasts and Tom Hanks taking Glucophage.  

I get it.

It's the Mental Health Conspiracy, hard at work.  Beating you down, every day, reminding you that you are, in fact, its wholesome little bitch, bending to its will, responding to its caprice.  You are not acting of your own volition, you are powerless to stop it.  It comes in waves.  We have them all in jails, so we build mental hospitals.  People don't like the mental hospitals, so we de-institutionalize and put them back out on the streets with inadequate supports, and they get arrested and thrown back in jail because we've gotten rid of the hospitals.  And here we are again.  But, if you talk about it, God help you, because if you say the wrong thing in the wrong room near the wrong person, it's LIGHTS.  OUT.  

It's diplomatic seclusion.  It's political restraints.  

It's time for your non-profit needle.  

I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing, so most of the time, I just say nothing.  But I can say it here, right?

Well.  Probably not.  Maybe for now, only because nobody's listening.  Nobody but you.

Just us chickens.  

No no-- sheep.

Behold, I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves.

Baaa.

Saying Yes

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 24, Verse 6

"Don't go to war without wise guidance; there is safety in many counselors."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

A few months ago, I found myself at the library where my mom works, dressed up as the Cat in the Hat, reading Dr. Seuss stories to a bunch of kids.  

These things happen sometimes.  

One of the books I read was "Green Eggs and Ham".  I guess, when reading Dr. Seuss stories, you don't really trouble yourself too much thinking about what internal struggles the characters are going through during the course of the story.  But try it some day.

Try it, try it, and you may!

I was thinking about how much I identified with the poor stuffy bastard in the crumpled top hat with the big furry ass who doesn't want to eat the green eggs and ham.  

I mean, I get it.  That's me-- my ass is even furry, though big it's not-- and that's how I've always been.  Anyone who's ever tried to convince me to have an alcoholic beverage or watch "Titanic" can tell you that I'm as truculent as they come.  When I try to convince my children to ingest even just a small morsel of food at dinner time when they don't want to, and they twist in their chairs and swipe off every comestible speck from their trays and defiantly shout, "NO!" I have that sinking feeling that tells me unmistakably that, yeah, they're mine.  

"NO!" is my middle name.

I say "NO!" a lot.  To social engagements-- I've said it so often that the inevitable has happened: people stop asking, stop inviting-- stop.  There are no texts that come in saying, "Let's hang out".  And I'm not crying in my Caffeine Free Diet Coke about it, it just is what it is.  

If a solution to a problem is offered to me, "NO!" is generally how I respond, even if I never petulantly come out and say it.  I've learned to at least behave polite, but I might as well be standing there with a frowny face and my arms crossed in front of my chest peeing my pants just to make the point that I want you and your solution to STAY AWAY FROM ME.  

STAY.  A-WAY.

I don't like you.  

In therapy, I've said "NO!" to mindfulness, to meditation, to alternate ways of thinking, to behavioral modification.  I've said "NO!" to homework, and even to something as simple as "give this some thought for next time".  I just... don't.  

But, after three years, I'm finally saying "yes" to medication.

Why now?  Because I am an absolute anxiety-ridden mess.  And I'm depressed.  I am so consumed with panic that some days I can barely function, barely focus.  Barely get through the day.

Now that I have a desk, it's very tempting to just curl up into a neat little ball underneath it.  That space underneath desks makes a great hiding place.  No one will try to feed me green eggs and ham if I'm all folded up like a pretzel in there.  Especially if I'm peeing my pants.  

My therapist is happy, my wife seems happy, but I'm not happy.  Maybe that's because I haven't found an in-network psychiatrist yet.  Maybe it's because I haven't looked for one yet.  But I have made up my mind to try it.  While I am extremely apprehensive about taking medication that "the way __________ works is not completely understood", I've resigned myself to it.  It's the best we've got at this point in time, and clearly what I'm doing for myself (saying "NO!") isn't working terribly well, so it's time to try something else.  And if I go running down the street naked while ululating and playing the triangle, we'll know I probably need to, um, not be on meds.  Or different ones.  Maybe it'll take some fiddling and some switching and some tweaking and-- hopefully not THAT kind of "tweaking"-- we'll see what happens.

He was so gentle in his suggesting.  He's quiet.  His tactics were barely perceptible.  But I noticed, and I pushed him off.  Away.  

No.

And he would yield, and be quiet about it-- for months sometimes.  And it wasn't because I'd be doing well.  I wasn't.  I don't.  I don't do well.  Not in therapy.  But he knew when to be quiet and when to speak up.  It's a dance, you see.  He leads, I lead-- it's a whole thing.  

"But I shouldn't need it.  I should be able to do this on my own."  He raised an eyebrow.  "Well, with you."

And maybe I could.  But how much longer would it take?  Five years?  Seven?  That's a lot of $50 co-pays. Maybe I'll be paying those forever regardless.  Who knows?

One thing I do know, though, is that every day feels like I'm going to war.  And that may sound a trifle dramatic, but it's how I feel.  And even Robert E. Lee didn't feel like that every day.  That's too much.  You get tired.  And I need to not be so tired.  I have 20-month-old twins that I need to be awake and alive and silly for.

Thoroughly silly.

I was rolling around on the bed with them kissing their necks and their ribs and they were laughing so hard that I wanted to eat the world, hug the globe, kiss the sun.  Go to war-- but in the good way.  The lusty fife-blowing, drum-banging, button-gleaming bagpiping your brains out up and down the square way.  

Cannons.

Sabres, glistening in the sun.  

Left wing, right wheel.  

BAYONETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Charge.