Depression and Anti-Depressants Ch. 01

Could have guessed it and wouldn't I know it, the first question out of my doctor's mouth after "Hi, how are you?", of course is, "Are you depressed?"

What the fuck? Are you kidding me? Am I depressed? If I wasn't depressed before with everyone asking if I'm depressed, I'm depressed now.

Normally when asked how I am, with "good" the expected and ignored answer, I never say that I'm good. If only to see their reaction to my whimsical nonsense, I always say that I'm dying, especially when asked how I am by a healthcare professional or by a person with whom I really don't want to have a prolonged conversation. After that glimpse of surprised shock on their faces, as if they're trained not to react emotionally, healthcare professionals will typically ignore me by not even responding to my comment. No doubt, not thinking me depressed, assuredly, they think me crazy. Those who I really don't want to talk to anyway, as if I have a contagious disease, will keep walking rather than to ask me why and when I'm dying.

Being that I just told his nurse that I'm depressed, I don't know why my doctor is asking me the same question. Being that she just typed my comment on my permanent, never to be erased record in her laptop, does she not share what I just told her forty-five minutes ago with you, or now that you're in possession of the laptop, are you too busy to read what she wrote? Bad enough that I must endlessly give my name and birthdate to every healthcare professional I see, must I repeat myself about if I'm depressed or not too?

"What's your name?"

"Susan Jill Parker."

"And your date of birth."

"July 26, 1972."

"Yes, I'm depressed. I'm a writer. Of course I'm depressed, which is why I write. Writing helps my depression. If I wasn't depressed, I dare say that I'd have nothing to write about and wouldn't be writing, that is, unless I wrote children's books with happy endings. Writing is my preferred version of therapy. An endless process, being that I'm so depressed, I'm always writing, ergo I'm always giving myself therapy."

"I see," he said seemingly ignoring me while seemingly not even listening to me. Wasting my best material on him, I wondered if he heard anything that I said.

Being that he was asking me personal questions, I wanted to ask him personal questions too. How often do you have sex with your wife, I wanted to ask him? Does it sexually arouse you to see so very many naked women in the course of your day? Tell me and be honest with me, have you ever masturbated over seeing me naked? What do you think of my tits? I wondered his reaction if I dared ask him even one of those questions. Instead of thinking that I was depressed, he may think that I'm insane.

"Unless they're rich and as successful as Stephen King and J. K. Rowling, all writers are depressed. You just have to look at Woody Allen to know that all writers are depressed if not crazy. I dare say, exceptions to every rule, even those successful and rich writers, with Stephen King's confessed drug habits, even he was depressed too, notwithstanding his enormous success and being very rich," I said.

"I see," he said ignoring me while typing more things on his laptop to my permanent record.

"Besides you know my background. You know that I'm a survivor of sexual abuse. Of course I'm depressed. How could I not be depressed? Seriously, doctor, there'd really have to be something seriously wrong with me for me not to be depressed," I said with a laugh but he didn't laugh. Maybe they're trained in medical school to be distant, aloof, and not to feel anything.

He didn't even smile. He didn't even look at me to acknowledge my comment.

"I see," he said typing a note in my permanent, never to be erased, record.

Two words with one syllable each was his only comment to all that I had to say about my depression. Boy, he must be fun at a cocktail party. Doesn't he realize that I'm using my best material on him? Much like the non-reaction of his nurse, I guess he doesn't think me funny. Maybe they're trained in medical school not to laugh. Maybe they're trained in medical school not to show any emotion.

I can just imagine someone telling him a funny joke at a party and everyone laughing but him with his only comment being, "I see."

I can just imagine his wife telling him that their dog, Wally, a Cocker Spaniel died and his only comment being, "I see."

Now I wondered if he's the one who's depressed and not me. With all the misery that he sees and all the sick and dying that he tends to, maybe I should ask him if he's depressed. Yet, even though we've already gone over this, repeating the cycle, my doctor and his nurse will ask me the same stupid and personal question at my next exam. Giving him the lead, I waited for him to say more.

"And the reason for your depression?"

* * * * *

He looked at me over his eyeglasses as if seeing me for the first time and while seemingly ignoring my already stated reasons for my depression that I'm a writer and a survivor of sexual abuse, as if that wasn't enough. Maybe he just didn't hear me. Maybe if he had never been sexually abused, he doesn't fully comprehend all of the everlasting ramifications of someone forcing you to have sex with them. Perhaps, maybe because his life is so much better than mine, what I said were my reasons for being depressed didn't register. Maybe with him studying a science instead of an art, namely medicine and having to remember all the names of all the parts of the body and what they do, he didn't have to think about things in the way that a writer things about what if and what now when writing fiction.

Suddenly feeling a little like R. P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I sat there waiting for the men in white coats to come barging in the room to collect me, cart me away, and lock me in a padded cell before giving me a much needed lobotomy. Much like McMurphy, unable to give him a straight and honest answer, I hide my misery with humor. As if it was time for Nurse Ratched to give me my medication, I could already hear the happy music playing so much like elevator music in the background, enough to make anyone who wasn't already depressed and/or crazy depressed and crazy.

The reason for my depression? Seriously? Why does he want to know not only if I'm depressed but also why I'm depressed? In the way they ask me on Amazon and e-Bay to rate my recent purchase after I made a purchase, is he doing a study of depression and I'm an involuntary participant? Must I have to answer all of his inane and much too personal questions?

Other than if I feel physically ill, it's really none of his business how I mentally feel and if I'm depressed or not. He's not a psychiatrist and he's not a psychologist. He's just a doctor, a general practitioner, and my primary care physician. Nonetheless, being that I was already there for my physical, I felt compelled to answer his question in more detail and without all the humor when answering his nurse.

"Being that I'm unemployed and have been unemployed since 2007, it didn't help my normal, genial mood when I lost everything in a flood more than 2 years ago after I moved from Boston to Pennsylvania to live with my mother after divorcing my ex. In defense of my depressed mood, nor did it help my mood to live in a shelter and eat my meals at a mission when my mother took off with yet another man and left me alone to fend for myself. Yet, what else is new when it comes to her? She was never there for me," I said suddenly feeling as if I needed to get comfortable on a couch for this sort of impromptu therapy when I thought I was there for a physical examination.

"I see," said the doctor typing faster now.

"I'm broke. I'm angry. I live in the spare bedroom of a kind, albeit crazy, Mennonite woman named Hannah who enjoys walking around the house topless and going outside like that during the warmer weather. Being that she's only 4'9" tall, weighs about 200 pounds, and has enormous sagging breasts, trust me, it's not a sexually exciting image to see," I said with a laugh.

"That is a bit odd," he said looking from his computer screen to look at me as if he thought that I was making it all up and he was humoring me.

"That's Hannah," I said.

I was surprised that he was giving her more of his focused attention than he was giving me.

"Perhaps she's depressed too."

"Perhaps," I said while hoping he'd change his focus back to me instead of Hannah.

Then, he said something that echoed through my head as if he said it while standing on a mountaintop at the Swiss Alps.

"I can prescribe something to change your mood," he said as if choosing his words carefully and looking at me to see my reaction to what he said.

To be continued...