I don’t even know what to write today. Yesterday started with sunshine, productivity and some quiet while C spent the day with my parents. I posted about hope. And instead I got smacked down.

The appointment with the psychiatrist was a really awful, no good, totally sucky appointment. I came very close to walking out after about 4 minutes. We started off wrong and it got worse from there.

When someone asks how I’m doing, I don’t know what to say. You’d think it would be easier with someone who is supposed to be a professional and who is supposed to be listening and helping me get better.

She managed to make me feel worse.

Maybe I should have led with something more blunt. Like, “The last six weeks have been the worst of the past three years.” But instead I waffled. So she started asking psychiatrist questions.

Are you suicidal?

No.

Apparently that means I’m doing better.

Are you taking your medication?

Sigh. YES.

How’s your mood?

When? Right now? Yesterday? A week ago? I don’t know how to answer this question. I’ve gone from feeling like a relatively normal person – normal for someone who tends to be emotional, anyway – to feeling every emotion you can name in the past six weeks.

How am I?

Overwhelmed.

Stuck.

Tired. Physically and emotionally and… I’m just tired.

I’m having anxiety attacks like I’ve never had before, and I don’t know how to fix it. Ativan does squat. It always happens when I’m at home alone and all I can do is phone my friend and say, “Help me.”

All I want is for someone, something, to help me. I feel like I should get that tattooed on my face. HELP ME.

Are you taking the clonazepam? she asks.

And then criticizes me for how I’m taking it. As if taking the 3rd dose two hours earlier is going to make the dinner hour easier to cope with.

Take it two hours earlier, she says, and then if you need another dose around 8:00 you have my permission to do that.

Your permission? Wow. Thanks SO much. That’s probably going to do the trick. Except, oh wait, by 8:00 my son is in bed and I’m usually okay. But still, thanks.

How about the trazodone?

I’m not taking it anymore.

She scribbles notes.

It was making it impossible for me to function, I explain. And then I fell down the stairs and that was that.

When were you taking it? That late sometimes? Well no wonder you fell down the stairs.

I had taken it early the time I fell down the stairs, I explain. And that fall was over 12 hours later.

She appears to not hear this. It doesn’t fit with her assessment of how this should work.

It’s the antidepressants I’m really concerned with, I say. I don’t think this is working.

Stay the course, she says.

My husband interjects. This is the worst I’ve seen her, he explains. She had one good day but the rest have been really hard. He tells her some of the stuff I’ve said to him. The stuff I can’t say out loud without crying.

It sounds like you’re doing better, she says. One good day is great, but you probably exhausted yourself doing too much.

I didn’t, I say.

No, the day after, I mean. It was probably too much and you tired yourself out the day after.

No (as I try to remain calm). That day felt normal – really, truly normal. The way I’m used to feeling. The next day was fine. It make me feel like I could actually see my way down this path.

But that tends to happen, she insists. You feel good one day and you do too much and then you tire yourself out.

She’s not listening.

She’s getting defensive and if she is at all adept at reading body language she’ll know I am NOT IMPRESSED.

Do you want me to refer you to the mood disorders clinic?

What does that even mean? And why? Because you’re sick of me? Because you think whatever problem I have doesn’t fit within your “specialization?”

Fine, I say. At this point it seems like my only option.

And since it seems like a lot of your problem stems from your son’s behaviour, you should get him assessed. If he has a short attention span, maybe that can be addressed.

Sure. Fine.

Do you feel like you want to run away?

Yep. Sometimes. Sometimes all the time.

Don’t run away. If you feel like you want to run away you can go to the Jubilee hospital.

What? That makes no sense to me. If I’m suicidal, the hospital makes sense. But if I show up and say hi, I want to run away from my family, what are they going to say? I’ll tell you what they’re going to say: Honey, almost every mother wants to run away at some point. Coming here to our hospital environment that smells like old people and serves really bad food – where, with your luck, you won’t even get a bed by a window – isn’t going to help that.

But what do I know? My title is not “psychiatrist.”

She summarizes: So, stay the course. Stay on 200 of Zoloft. Take your Clonazepam at 4 pm, not 6. Get exercise every day. But not boot camp! If you can do boot camp you can be at work.

This woman clearly doesn’t know anything about me. And I’ll bet you 10 bucks she’s never done a boot camp class in her life.

She continues: I’ll refer you to the mood disorders clinic. And you’ll talk to your GP about getting a referral for Connor.

This is our cue to leave. “Thanks,” we say. “Take care,” she responds. “Come back in two weeks.”

These sound like the most ridiculous suggestions anyone has ever uttered.

We’re not available in two weeks, so we book for next week even though I don’t want to go back.

We walk out the door. My husband takes my hand.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

No. I’m not okay. It’s as though this whole visit was meant to prove that there are more layers to rock bottom than I’d have thought possible.

And then we go home and over the course of a bad-toddler evening things get worse.

I’m sick of this. I want to write about something else. I’m ready for my story to be different.

——

I’m not this pathetic all the time, honest. I just need to get this out. As I started to draft this I got an email from my littlest sister that was beautiful and helpful and contained one more reference to the ongoing theme of change that seems to keep popping up. I’m going to get dressed and get past this and write a post about it that will hopefully demonstrate that I’m wise and in control and I know that this is all leading to something meaningful. Because it is, and while I don’t know exactly how to get there I know I will.

 

[With thanks to Jill from Hagler Happenings for the opportunity to rant through her Postcards from the Effinghamptons blog hop.]