Add Me To Your List

so i made the appointment. then today i got in my car and went to the appointment. i told the nice shrink exactly why he hadn't seen me since august...

• after leaving the hospital i was hopped up on ect [electro convulsive therapy] for a good long time
• my memory was fried / is still fried as a result
• i did and said things that i barely recognize now
• you put me on four different medication and had just prescribed a fourth when i stopped seeing you
• my mother just finished four years of ect and she went from teaching nursing to working at a mall bookstore
• there is no way that i'm taking drugs for the rest of my life

his reply was short and to the point. i wasn't surprised by it because it's the same thing that i hear from most everyone i meet when i sing the little ditty above:
would you rather take pills all of your life or be depressed all of your life?

i smiled and nodded my head like some bobble head doll. i told him that i questioned how i could be diagnosed based on my perception of symptoms. aren't depressed people prone to perception disorders? he replied that my concerns are logical but that although i see things in a different light i can still tell normal from abnormal. i can tell that i shouldn't be crying in the bathroom at work and that i shouldn't feel dread with the thought of waking up in the morning.

all this helpful counseling AND he gave me a prescription! very good. i'm happy to have more of my lovely sleeping medication. i had taken the last one on monday. but i am not happy about the new anti-depressant, not at all. instead of the nice, unobstrusive zoloft i walked out of his office with a script for fluoxetine.

i never, ever, ever thought that i would be on that medication. never. because fluoxetine is known by a different, much scarier name. prozac. i could talk about stigmas here but i think that we all know the kind of people we think should be taking prozac...

i guess you can add me to your list.