I could see the panic peaking through the GP’s wire-rimmed glasses. Med school hadn’t written a playbook for this kinda shit. Benevolently retreating from his keyboard he exhaled,
“Any thoughts of Suicide?”
I paused, his unintentional ambivalence to the complexity of question had thrown me. This is a two-box kind of answer for him I thought.
“No….”
He eased back into his casual muscle-tight shirt, smugly relieved at my two letter response. Confident in his newly-formed maternal facial expression, he continued.
“So Matteo, tell me how you’ve been feeling so I can try to understand”
Try and understand? I glanced up at his 18″x 24″ poster of a vein-packed Lance Armstrong careering up a vertical French mountain, a picture which sat above a framed photo of his son holding a trophy at a Jujitsu competition- both genetic freaks. Strap in for this one mate.
“I’m just very sad…all the time”
He looked confused, gently nodding his head back and forth. The training was kicking in.
“I see… and is there a reason for this? Maybe problems at home or University? I just want to understand.”
I looked at him. Does he really want me to bring out the big guns this early out the gate? Could get sedated, better not.
“Well… I mean there’s always a few chinks in the armour”
That’s definitely not how you use that phrase. Look at the floor forlornly, buy some time.
“I just can’t sleep. I can’t sleep and I shake a lot. They’re panic attacks I think… Or early signs of Motoneurons disease… I can’t tell. It’s really been stressing me out.”
I wasn’t joking, weeks prior to this seminal meeting I had fully diagnosed myself with a comprehensive list of possible muscle wasting diseases- a diagnosis based off my constant shaking and fatigue, coupled with an increased number of sightings of people in automated wheelchairs; something I took as a providential sign of my demise.
I could see the excitement on Dr Lee’s face, finally, symptoms. He made love to his keyboard.
“Well you don’t have Motoneurons disease for sure.”
Relieved, yet a little insulted at his complete disregard for my medical assessment, I smiled,
“That’s good to hear.”
On he went,
“And for the shaking, well that’s probably acute anxiety, something which’ll probably contribute to the fatigue.” He was back in the saddle, his gym-friendly body opened up. This all seemed a bit easy, I thought. Does he think I’m just another precious 20-something who’s struggling off the teet? Not on my watch.
“There’s moments where I don’t want to live… I don’t want to die but I don’t want to live. I can’t speak or think or move and I’m too scared to leave my room incase I have an attack!”
He stopped typing, his shirt strained at the shoulders once again. He methodically softened his gaze.
“Are you taking any drugs?”
I was waiting for this one. It’s an extremely valid question but in my circumstance held little weight.
“I used to but I stopped now”
I could see him edging back to the keyboard. I fired back.
“It’s not drugs. It’s got nothing to do with them.”
Reluctantly, his hands returned to his signature pose; a sort of empathic version of Rodin’s The Thinker.
“Ok…I think therapy is the next step forward.”
Fair call, I thought. He continued,
“Yes, Therapy… and a prescription for Citalopram, Zopiclone and Diazepam” He announced nonchalantly. Fuck me Doc, how long you been waiting to fire those bullets? Seems a little trigger-happy don’t you think?
He explained what each was for and said that the dosage was manageable and it would help with my symptoms- I was in no place to deny help. I was so deep into the darkness that the nearest hand was instinctually one I had to grab- not out of pressure or naivety or whimsy, but simply out of fear and desperation. As with many who suffer from depression, there is this overwhelming feeling of nothingness. An almost ethereal weightlessness, which you walk upon, cloaking each break of light into an eternal dullness. It was as if my mind saw any possible emancipator of my sadness as a vicious intruder into the selfishness of my plait. This was what I hated the most. I had reached a point of such self-introspection that I was blind to the effect it was having on people around me. It translated all outside attempts of help into these fickle gestures spat from the patronising mouths of the mass ill informed; a translation which I am now embarrassed and forever apologetic about. I had backed myself into a corner and was simply kicking out; but with every kick I inched deeper into the grasp of the very thing I thought I was fighting.
He took my blood pressure and I made an ill-judged joke about how I now knew how it must feel to wear that shirt of his and he gave me a contractual laugh and then we were done. Receipt in hand, I made my prescribed purchase at the medical Drive-Thru and I was out of there. Maybe non-the-wiser, but at least I left the party with some cake.
Over a coffee I studied the packets of these newly assigned soldiers in my mental health infantry. They seemed on my side. Each tablet a fairly neutral colour, no bigger than a tic-tac; even the brail seemed pretty passive. So, like any God -fearing Christian with a Bible, I did what the boss told me to do. It all appeared so simple.
By Matteo Luigino Addis
Me, Myself and Why 