Tag Archives: Therapy

The Devil’s Details: Tell Me About Your Parents

pictureIt’s still early days in therapy for me, but last week the Lovely J (to borrow a phrase from a good friend) asked me something straight out of a Ben Stiller comedy.

So, tell me about your parents.

I almost cracked up. I understand that it’s a perfectly valid question to ask, and important in the ‘getting to know me’ part of it all, but there was a part of me that wanted to retort, “Tell me about yours!”

What did I do in the end? Naturally, I told her about my parents. About how my mother was a obsessive, controlling compulsive liar who loved me nonetheless (if in all the wrong ways), and my father was an emotionally distant power figure. Could it get more clichéd?

Sigh. It was kind of fun, if not terribly insightful. I wonder what she’ll conclude?

Satis Logo with ©

Thought of the Week: Fix me, Doc. Fix me.

pictureThose of you who’ve been with me for a while will know of my ongoing struggle with depression and other, as-yet unidentified mental difficulties. From crippling myself to the point of catatonia to self-diagnosing as autistic, I have been struggling with these difficulties for pretty much all of my life. Many years ago I was on heavy antidepressants and undergoing extensive therapy, and while it certainly didn’t turn my life around, it did help me through some issues at the time at least.

And then I just sort of let it slide. I stopped the meds, and…nothing seemed to get any worse. I stopped the therapy, and I could still talk to people. My head was still f***ed up, but it seemed like I didn’t need those things.

I met my wife. We had our child. And throughout all of this, on and off, I was on the brink. The interesting thing is that my “condition” has mutated and changed over the years. What was once straight-up major depressive disorder turned into depression with a whole lot of other weird stuff thrown in there, and now there’s kind of just the weird stuff left. Is that a good thing?

Sounds about right.

Sounds about right.

I haven’t genuinely wanted to kill myself for over six years now. In fact the thought doesn’t really pop into my head anymore. However, I was bawling my eyes out because we didn’t go out to lunch the other day (all right, there was a lot more to it than that, but it sort of sums it up). I haven’t self-harmed in over ten years, but I still sit and stare at things for minutes on end. I repeat phrases to myself over and over again when I’m upset, and my speech turns into torrents of vowels and consonants that might mean something in Urdu, but I really couldn’t be sure.

So while I’m not “depressed”, I’m certainly not right in the head. And…sigh…I’ve never quite figured it out. Sometimes I behave like a sociopath. Sometimes I behave like I’m autistic. Sometimes I behave just simply depressed, and sometimes I share characteristics with full-on psychopathic disorders. None of them really quite fit. Not bipolar…nope.

Suddenly I can’t wait; I feel like I need to talk to this person, desperately, as though my very soul depended on it.

So a year ago my doc gave me meds. After ten years, I started medications again, and it hasn’t been…unsuccessful. I started with a mood stabilizer. Did a little, but not a lot. Added an antidepressant; sort of helped. Added a booster for the anti-depressant, but had to reduce the mood stabilizer or I might freak out. Still…I don’t freak out quite so much. Anything else? No real change.

Sort of feel like I've got those things on my arms sometimes.

Sort of feel like I’ve got those things on my arms sometimes.

For years and years my wife has been urging me to seek help. Step one was the medications. Step three is, presumably, mental stability and the ability to not feel like that creep from Iron Man 2 with the frazzling tentacles everywhere.

So what’s step two? Therapy, it turns out. And two days ago – after years of procrastinating – I booked my first appointment.

And you know what? I feel so, so relieved. As if all of sudden I’ve been freed from a form-fitting vice that has been slowly crushing me for decades. I haven’t met the psychologist, have no idea whether we’ll get along, but just the knowledge that the answers (if there are any to be had) aren’t solely in my hands anymore is like a great release.

Is this what AA members feel like?

Remember this scene from Blade? Yeah, sort of crushed.

Remember this scene from Blade? Yeah, sort of crushed.

Suddenly I can’t wait; I feel like I need to talk to this person, desperately, as though my very soul depended on it. Who knows…maybe it does. It might all go wrong; she might say there’s nothing wrong with me and that I should stop being such a baby, or she might say I’m beyond help and should be institutionalized. She might just not like me (I might just not like her). But for now, I’m going to leave myself open and hope beyond hope that this will help. Because for the past several years now I’ve felt my mind slowly descend deeper into complete insanity, and I’m pretty sure at some point it’ll be too late.

You don’t think I’m expecting to much from the psychologist, do you?

Thought of the Week: An Open Letter to Descartes

Dear Monsieur Descartes,

I wish to bring to your attention a matter of accountability regarding your well-known writings on philosophy and rationalism. It is my belief that you are responsible for a great deal of emotional distress and suffering, and I am seeking reparations for both myself and my fellow sufferers in the form of an acknowledgement of the negative influence of your treatises, and a public apology. For the moment I am willing to forego monetary compensation for the therapy and medication we have collectively paid for, as I am aware three-hundred and fifty years’ compound interest might be beyond your financial means.

Allow to explain. I in no way wish to dismiss your excellent contributions to the fields of philosophy and mathematics. Your system of plotting equations on a graph, though it troubled me greatly in high school, has undoubtedly revolutionized geometry and mathematics as we know it today. Equally, I appreciate the effort you displayed in separating man from god, and your debate on free will is second to none.

However, in your pursuit of truth and certainty, you devised a particular phrase that, despite its simplicity, has had quite a devastating impact on the sanity of myself and many others. I speak, naturally, of this simple sentence:

I think, therefore I am.

You see, whether you intended it or not, this has led to the rise of the philosophy of existentialism, and the potential denial of the reality of anything that is not directly tied to the self. If my existence is proven by my ability to think about it, what of the existence of everything and everyone around me? According to you, their existence is also proven by my ability to think about them; however, the necessary implication of this is that anything I think of is therefore also real.

This leads to what I consider to be the existential dilemma: if an object’s reality is determined solely by the fact that I am thinking of it, how can I then be certain of the reality of anything at all? There is a modern legend that describes this quandary very succinctly. A popular story in our times describes a world in which humans are plugged into machines from birth. These machines provide all the sensory input necessary, directly to the brain, to convince a person (in this case a very wooden Keanu Reeves) that they are, in fact, experiencing reality.

The essence of the problem you have created for us is that we cannot be certain of the existence of anything other than ourselves – by which I mean the collection of our thoughts and minds. According to your philosophy, I cannot even be certain of my flesh and blood, or even if I am actually writing this letter or just imagining the whole thing.

You have failed to follow through with your philosophy, and for this I hold you accountable. In questioning the nature of existence itself, you have failed to provide us with an answer to that question, and show absolute proof that everyone else does, in fact, exist. I hope you understand that such matters are generally beyond the reasoning of most folk (including myself), and so I bow to your superior intellect in providing for us the answer to the dilemma you have left us with for so long.

In conclusion, I request that you submit an acknowledgement of your failure to provide a suitable answer to this problem, and an apology for the loss of sanity you have caused me and many others (if they exist). I have spent a large amount of time and money (if money is real) on therapy and medication (I’m not sure my therapist was real), directly as a result of my inability to resolve your issues. If I do not receive a response from you within fourteen days, I will be forced to seek legal representation (lawyers most certainly exist) and pursue damages as compensation.

I will await your reply (if you exist), and hope we can arrive at a mutual understanding.

Most sincerely,

Satis (if I exist)