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Adventures in Psychiatry: Jungle Thickens, Treasure Awaits
Wise trolls, and Reactionary Behavior
On Friday, I had an appointment with a psychiatrist, to get meds. I showed up at 9:30, but I couldn't remember the shrink's name, so I told the lady at the desk, and she said to go ahead and sit down, while she tracked down who my appointment was with.
I sat down next to a schizophrenic troll woman. Her eyes were sunken into her head, she was wrinkled before her time, she had a scraggly, salt-and-pepper goatee, her jaw was a bit crooked, probably because she was missing all of the upper teeth on the right side of her jaw, and half of the bottom ones. You could tell she had probably been beautiful at some point, and that she was probably only in her late 30's or early 40's, but looked around 58.
She struck up conversation about the little coffee stand that is always set up in the lobby.
"You should get some coffee. It's only a dollar. Cofee, or tea, it's a dollar. I got some, I found a dollar in my pocket. I don't know where it came from. It wasn't there before. I think maybe Saint Theresa, my patron saint, put it there."
"Really? That was nice of her."
"Yeah, I try to give her money sometimes. A dollar, two dollars, but she won't let me, she won't take it. So I throw it on the ground. I want her to take the money, but she won't take it, so I put it ont he ground for her. Are you a doctor, or a patient?"
"I'm a patient."
"Are you on SSI?"
"No, I'm not, but it's pretty cheap."
"You should get on SSI, you should ask your doctor! It's hard, you have to pay for everything. It's really hard for people. The mothers, they have to pay for the children, it's so hard. I come for birth control."
"Really?"
"Yeah, but they say I don't need so much birth control. Some is okay, but not so much. Just a little bit, you only need a little bit of birth control, if you're Catholic, otherwise you're just pouring in the birth control."
She mimes dumping an entire jar of pills in her mouth.
"But I need it for this..."
She points to her stomach.
"It's gets big, just keeps getting bigger, and it hurts, and then I need a cigarette. It hurts, inside me. The babies, they keep growing inside me, I don't know where they come from, I don't want them there, but they grow inside me, and then I have to get an abortion. I don't want them to scrape me out, with the things, and I don't want to kill babies, but I want to kill the baby.
"I don't know where the babies come from, since I was a baby, they've been putting the babies in me, I don't want them though."
That was at 9:30am. Before my morning coffee. How was your morning?
She was very casual in her conversation, just like we were talking about a recipe for bouillabaisse. If this woman can keep her cool with all those babies growing inside her, having to have all of those abortions, and having her patron saint refuse her gifts, then surely I can manage a little anxiety brought on by growing up like I was running from the FBI.
My psychiatrist popped out then. All 6 feet of her, stern, Russian woman, with a shaved head and a double loop of pearls around her neck. She looked like she doubled as a dominatrix on the weekends. That may be great for some patients, but it isn't really my thing, I'm a top.
She informed me that my appointment had been at 9:00, not 9:30, and she rescheduled me for this Friday, at 3. Which is good. I still haven't decided if I want to go through with the meds, or if I can beat this on my own, without them yet.
I had my therapy appointment later that day, and I had a few hours to kill, so I went and met up with my friend Steve Leyba. He's a Native American artist/satanist/culture jammer that paints pictures of vaginas, and does performance art. Pretty cool guy. I met him on stage on 06/06/06 at a gig I was emceeing. He was wearing pink bloomers and pulled an exacto knife on me. I grabbed it and squeezed it until I bled, and grinned at him. Heh, weird night. We hung out at this coffee shop and had an interesting conversation about art, life, dogma, mental illness, and the ridiculousness of the Satanic Church. It was fun, and it was nice to talk about something other than how fucked up I am, although that still crept into the conversation a few times.
We said cheers, and parted ways, and I was off to see my doc.
That day's session was a little intense. Up until then, I was mostly just working on my anxiety, we hadn't talked too much about the depression. I had been keeping myself pretty calm, and hadn't worried too much about my emotions, keeping them under wraps.
So today was the day I was supposed to cry in front of my therapist. And I did. I also told him I wanted to hit him with a chair.
I've been depressed my whole life, or at least as long as I can remember. Due to that, I've always considered myself pretty emotional, and therefore, somewhat in touch with my emotions. You know, a soft, sensitive man of the 90's.
Wrong.
It turns out I'm REALLY fucked up when it comes to my emotions. The sadness, at least.
He told me to go ahead and feel it. Bring something up. Of course the strongest thing in me right now is the girl. So I thought about her, and tried to express it. I made it about 6 seconds before I shut off.
So he backed off, and we talked logically. He's figured out that I'm a lot bbetter with logic than emotions. We talked about why I shut it off the way I did, and he explained that therapy is a safe place. He asked if I felt vulnerable. I said of course I do. I fucking AM. It's ingrained, animal instinct. You're vulnerable when you're crying. Open for attack, anything could take you out. Just like you are when you're taking a shit. Which is why people don't shit in public (well, and the fact that it's gross).
He followed my logic, and we started to get somewhere. He said that we aren't in public, I countered with the fact that maybe not, but I'm not alone, which is still public enough. He nodded.
So we tried again. The goal here, he explained, is to get me to respect my emotions enough to process them. It seems right now, sadness for me is wrapped in a myriad of shitty, judgemental, aggressive, reactionary feelings. I never really caught onto this before. I mean, honestly, I grew up with redneck ideals about manhood, but I also grew up around a single mother, and a lot of people from different backgrounds, including a lot of gay men. I thought I was pretty cool with the whole sad thing. I cried a lot as a kid, I've cried a lot as an adult. I assumed that since I've cried, I was okay with crying.
Nope.
When I cry, there's an army in my head that lets loose with a thousand arrows, screams obscenities, and thrashes me with sticks. And once again, the army is me.
So like I said, the goal is to be able to cry, without all of that shit. Without the self loathing, the judgement, the emotional fucking beat down that just makes everything a thousand times worse.
So I tried, I talked through it, trying to hold onto it, trying to quiet down all of the things that popped up, which seemed infinite. It's hard to tell what is me being sad and what is self abuse. But I did my best. I explained that I missed her, that it's hard to deal with being without her, that it's hard to accept that she may never be back. I explained that I couldn't deal with the fact that I fucked it all up. Then I shut down again. I made it maybe 12 seconds that time.
He nodded again. He talked about leaving accountability out of it. I can be accountable when I'm feeling good about myself, but when it comes to feeling my way through this stuff, it's time to leave the self judgement at the door.
He joked around with me a little, explaining that it's okay to do all of this here. He went back to what I'd said. He made some sort of analogy about taking a shit, saying it's fine, as long as you don't do it in someone's living room.
We talked a little more about how I was safe, and I snapped at him. It's hard to feel safe when someone is sticking theri finger in an open fucking wound.
Then we really got somewhere. He pointed out how I'd just gotten defensive. Then I picked up on it. I hadn't done that to him before. Bear with me, this is getting somewhere.
He pointed out that he's not hurting me. And I agreed... a little. He said he's trying to get me to feel the pure sadness, not all the shit around it. People that aren't afraid of their sadness don't equate it to a gaping open wound, and don't feel like someone that is talking with them about it in a supportive manner is "sticking their finger in it and digging around".
My eyebrows perked up. Touche.
He started talking about something really interesting then. My inability to deal with this, my reactionary attitude, even when I was trying to be calm and open, was showing something. A constant vigilance. I felt threatened. He calmly, and logically went through how that feeling was actually illogical itself. He said that there was no threat, he said that he believed, that even if he WERE to stand up and go after me while I was crying, that he was pretty confident I'd take care of business just fine. He told me the vigilance isn't serving me, it isn't helping, it's just hurting.
I told him he hit the fucking nail on the head. He calls it vigilance, I'm not sure what to call it. All I know is that THAT'S the thing that needs to be fixed. It's why I'm in therapy in the first place. It's the gut reaction, it's the lashing out, it's the big scary monster in the closet that breaks my shit, smashes my life, and cuts me open, it's the source of my fucking problem. I'd never spoken about it openly before. Apparently it's textbook PTSD.
I said I'd love to deal with it, but I can't even put it into words, it's at the core, it's deep, way down inside. I don't know when it pops up, until after the fact. There's no warning sign, I'll say something or do something, and THEN go, "Oh shit."
He nodded and said, sure, of course, so let's try to bring it out, into the open, and see it, see if you can get your hands around it, identify it. He ran through a few things others have said to describe it, to see if any of it resonated.
The feeling that no where, ever, is ever safe.
Check.
The feeling that you can't trust anyone.
Fuckin A.
The feeling that you have to lead a double life, because in order to socially interact with people, you have to act like you trust them, therefore you never feel like yourself.
Check, check, and double check.
Jesus christ. Once it's said aloud, I realize I have the emotional fingerprint of a Bosnian rape victim. Really? I'm THAT fucked up from a bit of a rough childhood?
I guess it's time to stop questioning, and just keep working on it.
He asked me to imagine life without that feeling, and I laughed at him.
I said that it sounds incredibly relaxing, absolutely horrifying, and like a complete fairy-tale.
He told me we can fix it, and I swallowed once, real hard.
I didn't think that was possible. I don't even know who the fuck I am, underneath that thing. I can't imagine living a life without the constant fight-or-flight. That feeling that is always there, like I should hit someone in the head with a brick and run like hell until my legs give out.
Want to know my dirty little secret? I'm scared of EVERYTHING. All of you scare the living shit out of me. I can't stand cold weather, hot water, cold water. I imagine the people I walk past in the street taking a swing at me, or strangling me. I'm always looking for something I can use as a weapon. Always. A trash can, a chunk of concrete, a bar stool, a stack of canned chicken broth in the supermarket. Always. I'm known for hitting people that touch me. I don't like being touched. I get worse if I go more than three hours without eating.
Finding out that I may be able to get rid of that sounds exciting.
It also sounds REALLY fucking hard.
We tried one more time. The "feeling my sadness" thing. He says I did really well, I made it about 30 seconds the last time. Doc says that's amazing progress for one session....
Of course, what he doesn't know yet, is that I felt like total shit for the rest of the day.
I went home, trying to be chipper, but I was awash in emotional excrement again. I figured I'd take some time to practice. I went and sat on the couch, and did my best....
"Feeling my sadness"....
It's more like there's 25 pounds of barbed wire wrapped around the base of my spine, that's been dipped in mud and cow dung. And when I try to feel how sad I am, I start slowly pulling that barbed wire out of me, through my navel.
I didn't feel good again until the next day.
I will not be connecting with my emotions without the direct supervision of my appointed professional. I think I'm just causing more damage. Luckily, I see my appointed professional twice a week. Thank god.
All in all, exciting news, but I think things are about to get real tough.
To be continued.
Wise trolls, and Reactionary Behavior
On Friday, I had an appointment with a psychiatrist, to get meds. I showed up at 9:30, but I couldn't remember the shrink's name, so I told the lady at the desk, and she said to go ahead and sit down, while she tracked down who my appointment was with.
I sat down next to a schizophrenic troll woman. Her eyes were sunken into her head, she was wrinkled before her time, she had a scraggly, salt-and-pepper goatee, her jaw was a bit crooked, probably because she was missing all of the upper teeth on the right side of her jaw, and half of the bottom ones. You could tell she had probably been beautiful at some point, and that she was probably only in her late 30's or early 40's, but looked around 58.
She struck up conversation about the little coffee stand that is always set up in the lobby.
"You should get some coffee. It's only a dollar. Cofee, or tea, it's a dollar. I got some, I found a dollar in my pocket. I don't know where it came from. It wasn't there before. I think maybe Saint Theresa, my patron saint, put it there."
"Really? That was nice of her."
"Yeah, I try to give her money sometimes. A dollar, two dollars, but she won't let me, she won't take it. So I throw it on the ground. I want her to take the money, but she won't take it, so I put it ont he ground for her. Are you a doctor, or a patient?"
"I'm a patient."
"Are you on SSI?"
"No, I'm not, but it's pretty cheap."
"You should get on SSI, you should ask your doctor! It's hard, you have to pay for everything. It's really hard for people. The mothers, they have to pay for the children, it's so hard. I come for birth control."
"Really?"
"Yeah, but they say I don't need so much birth control. Some is okay, but not so much. Just a little bit, you only need a little bit of birth control, if you're Catholic, otherwise you're just pouring in the birth control."
She mimes dumping an entire jar of pills in her mouth.
"But I need it for this..."
She points to her stomach.
"It's gets big, just keeps getting bigger, and it hurts, and then I need a cigarette. It hurts, inside me. The babies, they keep growing inside me, I don't know where they come from, I don't want them there, but they grow inside me, and then I have to get an abortion. I don't want them to scrape me out, with the things, and I don't want to kill babies, but I want to kill the baby.
"I don't know where the babies come from, since I was a baby, they've been putting the babies in me, I don't want them though."
That was at 9:30am. Before my morning coffee. How was your morning?
She was very casual in her conversation, just like we were talking about a recipe for bouillabaisse. If this woman can keep her cool with all those babies growing inside her, having to have all of those abortions, and having her patron saint refuse her gifts, then surely I can manage a little anxiety brought on by growing up like I was running from the FBI.
My psychiatrist popped out then. All 6 feet of her, stern, Russian woman, with a shaved head and a double loop of pearls around her neck. She looked like she doubled as a dominatrix on the weekends. That may be great for some patients, but it isn't really my thing, I'm a top.
She informed me that my appointment had been at 9:00, not 9:30, and she rescheduled me for this Friday, at 3. Which is good. I still haven't decided if I want to go through with the meds, or if I can beat this on my own, without them yet.
I had my therapy appointment later that day, and I had a few hours to kill, so I went and met up with my friend Steve Leyba. He's a Native American artist/satanist/culture jammer that paints pictures of vaginas, and does performance art. Pretty cool guy. I met him on stage on 06/06/06 at a gig I was emceeing. He was wearing pink bloomers and pulled an exacto knife on me. I grabbed it and squeezed it until I bled, and grinned at him. Heh, weird night. We hung out at this coffee shop and had an interesting conversation about art, life, dogma, mental illness, and the ridiculousness of the Satanic Church. It was fun, and it was nice to talk about something other than how fucked up I am, although that still crept into the conversation a few times.
We said cheers, and parted ways, and I was off to see my doc.
That day's session was a little intense. Up until then, I was mostly just working on my anxiety, we hadn't talked too much about the depression. I had been keeping myself pretty calm, and hadn't worried too much about my emotions, keeping them under wraps.
So today was the day I was supposed to cry in front of my therapist. And I did. I also told him I wanted to hit him with a chair.
I've been depressed my whole life, or at least as long as I can remember. Due to that, I've always considered myself pretty emotional, and therefore, somewhat in touch with my emotions. You know, a soft, sensitive man of the 90's.
Wrong.
It turns out I'm REALLY fucked up when it comes to my emotions. The sadness, at least.
He told me to go ahead and feel it. Bring something up. Of course the strongest thing in me right now is the girl. So I thought about her, and tried to express it. I made it about 6 seconds before I shut off.
So he backed off, and we talked logically. He's figured out that I'm a lot bbetter with logic than emotions. We talked about why I shut it off the way I did, and he explained that therapy is a safe place. He asked if I felt vulnerable. I said of course I do. I fucking AM. It's ingrained, animal instinct. You're vulnerable when you're crying. Open for attack, anything could take you out. Just like you are when you're taking a shit. Which is why people don't shit in public (well, and the fact that it's gross).
He followed my logic, and we started to get somewhere. He said that we aren't in public, I countered with the fact that maybe not, but I'm not alone, which is still public enough. He nodded.
So we tried again. The goal here, he explained, is to get me to respect my emotions enough to process them. It seems right now, sadness for me is wrapped in a myriad of shitty, judgemental, aggressive, reactionary feelings. I never really caught onto this before. I mean, honestly, I grew up with redneck ideals about manhood, but I also grew up around a single mother, and a lot of people from different backgrounds, including a lot of gay men. I thought I was pretty cool with the whole sad thing. I cried a lot as a kid, I've cried a lot as an adult. I assumed that since I've cried, I was okay with crying.
Nope.
When I cry, there's an army in my head that lets loose with a thousand arrows, screams obscenities, and thrashes me with sticks. And once again, the army is me.
So like I said, the goal is to be able to cry, without all of that shit. Without the self loathing, the judgement, the emotional fucking beat down that just makes everything a thousand times worse.
So I tried, I talked through it, trying to hold onto it, trying to quiet down all of the things that popped up, which seemed infinite. It's hard to tell what is me being sad and what is self abuse. But I did my best. I explained that I missed her, that it's hard to deal with being without her, that it's hard to accept that she may never be back. I explained that I couldn't deal with the fact that I fucked it all up. Then I shut down again. I made it maybe 12 seconds that time.
He nodded again. He talked about leaving accountability out of it. I can be accountable when I'm feeling good about myself, but when it comes to feeling my way through this stuff, it's time to leave the self judgement at the door.
He joked around with me a little, explaining that it's okay to do all of this here. He went back to what I'd said. He made some sort of analogy about taking a shit, saying it's fine, as long as you don't do it in someone's living room.
We talked a little more about how I was safe, and I snapped at him. It's hard to feel safe when someone is sticking theri finger in an open fucking wound.
Then we really got somewhere. He pointed out how I'd just gotten defensive. Then I picked up on it. I hadn't done that to him before. Bear with me, this is getting somewhere.
He pointed out that he's not hurting me. And I agreed... a little. He said he's trying to get me to feel the pure sadness, not all the shit around it. People that aren't afraid of their sadness don't equate it to a gaping open wound, and don't feel like someone that is talking with them about it in a supportive manner is "sticking their finger in it and digging around".
My eyebrows perked up. Touche.
He started talking about something really interesting then. My inability to deal with this, my reactionary attitude, even when I was trying to be calm and open, was showing something. A constant vigilance. I felt threatened. He calmly, and logically went through how that feeling was actually illogical itself. He said that there was no threat, he said that he believed, that even if he WERE to stand up and go after me while I was crying, that he was pretty confident I'd take care of business just fine. He told me the vigilance isn't serving me, it isn't helping, it's just hurting.
I told him he hit the fucking nail on the head. He calls it vigilance, I'm not sure what to call it. All I know is that THAT'S the thing that needs to be fixed. It's why I'm in therapy in the first place. It's the gut reaction, it's the lashing out, it's the big scary monster in the closet that breaks my shit, smashes my life, and cuts me open, it's the source of my fucking problem. I'd never spoken about it openly before. Apparently it's textbook PTSD.
I said I'd love to deal with it, but I can't even put it into words, it's at the core, it's deep, way down inside. I don't know when it pops up, until after the fact. There's no warning sign, I'll say something or do something, and THEN go, "Oh shit."
He nodded and said, sure, of course, so let's try to bring it out, into the open, and see it, see if you can get your hands around it, identify it. He ran through a few things others have said to describe it, to see if any of it resonated.
The feeling that no where, ever, is ever safe.
Check.
The feeling that you can't trust anyone.
Fuckin A.
The feeling that you have to lead a double life, because in order to socially interact with people, you have to act like you trust them, therefore you never feel like yourself.
Check, check, and double check.
Jesus christ. Once it's said aloud, I realize I have the emotional fingerprint of a Bosnian rape victim. Really? I'm THAT fucked up from a bit of a rough childhood?
I guess it's time to stop questioning, and just keep working on it.
He asked me to imagine life without that feeling, and I laughed at him.
I said that it sounds incredibly relaxing, absolutely horrifying, and like a complete fairy-tale.
He told me we can fix it, and I swallowed once, real hard.
I didn't think that was possible. I don't even know who the fuck I am, underneath that thing. I can't imagine living a life without the constant fight-or-flight. That feeling that is always there, like I should hit someone in the head with a brick and run like hell until my legs give out.
Want to know my dirty little secret? I'm scared of EVERYTHING. All of you scare the living shit out of me. I can't stand cold weather, hot water, cold water. I imagine the people I walk past in the street taking a swing at me, or strangling me. I'm always looking for something I can use as a weapon. Always. A trash can, a chunk of concrete, a bar stool, a stack of canned chicken broth in the supermarket. Always. I'm known for hitting people that touch me. I don't like being touched. I get worse if I go more than three hours without eating.
Finding out that I may be able to get rid of that sounds exciting.
It also sounds REALLY fucking hard.
We tried one more time. The "feeling my sadness" thing. He says I did really well, I made it about 30 seconds the last time. Doc says that's amazing progress for one session....
Of course, what he doesn't know yet, is that I felt like total shit for the rest of the day.
I went home, trying to be chipper, but I was awash in emotional excrement again. I figured I'd take some time to practice. I went and sat on the couch, and did my best....
"Feeling my sadness"....
It's more like there's 25 pounds of barbed wire wrapped around the base of my spine, that's been dipped in mud and cow dung. And when I try to feel how sad I am, I start slowly pulling that barbed wire out of me, through my navel.
I didn't feel good again until the next day.
I will not be connecting with my emotions without the direct supervision of my appointed professional. I think I'm just causing more damage. Luckily, I see my appointed professional twice a week. Thank god.
All in all, exciting news, but I think things are about to get real tough.
To be continued.
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