Last week I had to go to see a new shrink and when I got there they gave me a giant packet to fill out so they could see how crazy I was but I couldn’t concentrate because I kept glancing around the waiting room wondering which of these people was the craziest but then I got back to filling out the form because I thought maybe I was being timed and then I got paranoid that the form was full of trick questions to find out if I needed to be committed and then I got test-taking anxiety and I was all “Fuck. I have no idea how to answer these questions.” Like, one question asked if I had access to a gun and so I wrote “Depends. What do you need it for?” because it made me sound like I was the kind of person who was helpful but not so helpful that I’d hand someone a gun without a few follow-up questions but then I realized that this probably was a trick question so I changed my answer to “I live in Texas“. Then I tried to get on twitter to get help answering the rest of the questions but I couldn’t get a signal so I walked over to the window because sometimes my phone works better that way and so I held my phone up to the window and then I realized that everyone was looking at me because it looked like I was showing my phone the parking lot. Awesome. I just became the craziest person in the shrink’s office.
Then I filled out the rest of the paperwork but I got depressed about writing about how depressed I was and so I drew pictures of smiley kittens in the margin so that the shrink wouldn’t think I was suicidal because suicidal people never draw smiley kitten on anything, probably. The receptionist gave me a weird look when I handed it back to her and I was all “I take it you’re a dog person?” and she told me to sit down. Then I had my hour with the shrink except that it was only 40 minutes which I think means I’m only 2/3 as crazy as most of the people she sees, or maybe I just freaked her out and she wanted me to get out of her office so she could talk about me. She asked me about what I do for a living and I told her that I’m a writer and she asked what I wrote about and I was all “Just about my life. Sasquatches. Vaginas. Morgan Freeman. Stuff like that. I’m also a czar but I’m not very good at it” and she nodded passively and she asked if I was under any unusual stress this week and I told her that I had a call that afternoon with some Hollywood people who wanted to talk to me about making my life into a tv show and she paused for a second and then nodded again and I was all “You think I’m delusional, don’t you?” and she was all “Why would you say that?” and then I was all “Oh, I’m not falling for that.” Then she nodded again and I was all “Fuck. I’m failing, aren’t I?” and she was all “Do you feel like you’re failing?” and that’s when I realized she was just going to answer all my questions with more questions so I was all ‘two can play at this game‘ and so I said “Why do you ask if I feel like I’m failing?” and then she just stared at me and I was all “BURN! I WIN, MOTHERFUCKER!” but I didn’t say that part out loud because that would be crazy. But then she doubled my medication so apparently I hadn’t fooled her at all. Also, I asked her for some ADD drugs but she said no and that’s why this post is so convoluted. Because I live in America and have shitty health-care. If I lived in Canada this post would probably make more sense and my house would be cleaner. And I would have carved a couch out of a larger couch. I don’t actually know how ADD drugs work.
Also, throughout the whole session I had this strong urge to mention that the head shrink at the clinic looks almost exactly like Nosferatu but with better teeth but I didn’t because I thought maybe she’d think I had impulse-control problems but then at the end when she asked if there was anything else I wanted to discuss I started to wonder if maybe I was supposed to mention something about Nosferatu and that maybe it was a test because maybe really crazy people wouldn’t say anything because they were afraid of being pigeon-holed as crazy and so I just sat there in silence while I debated whether or not to ask if her boss was a vampire and then she was all “Okay, I think we’re done here” so I’m pretty sure I failed the vampire test. This is exactly why people hate going to the doctor.
Comment of the day: I saw a therapist for a while right after my late husband was diagnosed with his terminal illness. But I ended up spending most of the sessions trying to make the therapist feel better because she found my situation so stressful and sad, so I quit going. I really didn’t need the extra work. ~ annie