Twenty years. Aint it a motherf*cker? - June 20, 2008

Twenty years. When you're thirty-one, that seems like an eternity.

I just walked up the street from my bungalow with my dog to get a bottle of wine at 2pm, not because I wanted to have a glass or two with dinner, but because sobriety was not for me today, and now I'm drinking the whole thing, sans-glass with one of those little bags of lays potato chips mom used to put in my lunch bag. You know, the kind from the supersnack pack? I used to eat those things, and mom would say, "Jeez, Eerin...those greasy chips are the reason you've got acne." No, my greasy skin was reason my face used to be such a mess, and it's currently the reason why I get carded every time I try to buy a bottle of wine. I pass for twenty if the light is right and my cheeks are all puffy due to some shutdown in my thyroid gland. "Can I see your ID, please," the clerk asked suspiciously just an hour or so ago. I've got one!, she thought. 1977? As my dog would say, "Blurrfft?"

[Aside: It must be said, I bought a cheddar cheese stick and a bottle of wine and a snackpack bag of potato chips. Maxie is quite fond of cheese. Also, I'm going to pre-apologize for any sort of descent into madness this entry might take. I'm drinking a whole bottle of wine, which is like two bottles of liquor for you folk with good livers. It might get crazy. I don't really know.]

And then I think back to twenty, when I did indeed try to buy liquor just like twenty-somethings do, and had enough red lipstick on, and seductive enough a facial expression, and low cut enough a top to convince the mullet-headed, toothless boy at Lakewood liquors to sell me booze. God, I felt so cool. I felt self-possessed and adult, a full-grown human being, no...a woman. I took my booze to a party, where I sipped it like a woman (never been a fan of the keg). I chatted up college boys. We discussed adult things while some cornfed boy played Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" on a "boombox" (a primitive device primitive people one played music upon). "I'm joining the Peace Corps, soon," I said, self-importantly. "I hope to be stationed in Africa," I said, like the Peace Corps was going to take me with all my mental problems. But so grown up, I was. Really, really formulated into a self-possessed being.

And at twenty years of age, I was as grown up as the disease I've had all my life, for it was not precisely but approximately twenty years ago I came down with a case of depression that greets me each morning, "Hi there, fuckface! Wanna do things all day while I tell you how much you suck?" Every morning, for twenty years. It's our anniversary, and you could say my depression, my wife, is a full-grown woman, a clingy one I'm plain fucking tired of living with, a fucking bitch, frankly, and you can take her and kill her and eat her if you want. Where's a creepy Czech when I need one? Perhaps this is a brutal linkage. That poor boy. Honestly, I think it's mere physical manifestation of the sort of immaterial consumption of the soul that happens between mother and son...or daughter. We fucking eat each other. Why not cannibalism? It's the physical manifestation of the emotional act.

In honor of our twenty-year anniversary (it is getting rather difficult to type, no shit), I decided I was going to visit a psychiatrist.

Last time I went to a psychiatrist, a specialist in bipolar, he told me emphatically "You have bipolar axis I," and tried to put me on mood stabilizers I didn't need, because I had a thyroid problem, and my day was like: 2, 10!, 1, 10!, 2, 10! Much due to the thumping and bumping of the thyroid, you know? The rest, he didn't care about, and in "the rest" was the whole reason I was upset and had a painful and pretty debilitating personality disorder it took me another year of private research to self diagnose. It's always been a self-diagnosis, so I've never taken it too seriously (you're so not supposed to do that). To add, it's a recently discovered PD, and there are, like, twelve psychiatrists that agree it exists. And they're fucking right. Because here I am, I have this, and I exist.

So I'm not bipolar, fuck him! And I went five years without a clinician tending to my brain because he fucking sucked so much. A fancy psychiatrist from New York City recently moved to Hippieville and set up office in her unbelievably luxe desert home, a psychiatrist whose papers I read and greatly respect. I rode my bike out to see her (102 degrees, yuck) to celebrate my twenty years of depression, and also because she's one of the smart brain doctors, one of the ones I've been watching, researching, who seems to understand. I sat before her and spilled everything, my whole life story. The goods. I wanted so badly for her to be the one who said, "You're right about how you feel, and everyone who tells you to 'shut the hell up' is wrong." I had no idea what kind of affect my story would have on her. I've always been told I bitched about nothing. I've been told I am whiny. I've been told I'm self indulgent. I've always thought differently, but nobody has ever confirmed.

"So that's about it," I said, and she looked as if she was going to puke. She got up, went over to her desk, and pulled out a rate card. She crossed off something on the card, and then handed it to me, saying, "I cannot believe you're still alive." She cut her rate by 75% so I could keep seeing her as much as possible.

"Do you think my self diagnosis is correct?" I asked her.
"I think you know more about family dynamics than ninety nine percent of family therapists."

So there it is. Fuck all you haters. I'm genius...

...and yet, still walking up to the liquor store at 2pm to get a bottle of wine and say no to today, I just can't do today.

It's twenty years now. Last time I rose carefree into the world, Billy Ocean's "Get out of my dreams, get into my car" was playing on my boombox. I guess I'm prayin' for the end of time. What a sick partnership I've entered into, and yet what an amazing time we live in, that doctors as distinguished as this are dedicated enough to cut their rate by hundreds of dollars just to listen to what a little girl from Buffalo thinks about mental illness. It's really something. I like this lady.

I'm pretty much trashed. I'm gonna wander uptown and hit on some hippies. Nice chatting with you.

Posted by The Bunny at 6:45 PM

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Comments

Bunny this might be one of my favorite posts that I have read, and the last sentence just kills me.
Have fun in hippieville!

Posted by: Lee Plummer at June 20, 2008 07:14 PM

I have to agree, this is one of my favourites, if only for the "Bat Out of Hell" references.

Posted by: Fatman at June 20, 2008 07:42 PM

Just remember Bunny, that lady was DAMNED impressed you're alive. You're tough as nails and don't forget it.

Posted by: Glugory at June 20, 2008 07:44 PM

I'm glad that you're seeking out help, and have found a doctor that actually knows her shit. I know first-hand how much depression sucks, even though I don't have your same super thyroid depression. You are in my thoughts, and I will try to send as much happy energy your way as I can.

And drink one for me.

Posted by: Angelus at June 20, 2008 07:56 PM

Ahhh yes... fucked up thyroid diseases (me too)... as I sit here drinking and depressed as well.

Keep us posted on your developments with Ms. Wonderpsychiatrist.

Your talent with words and ability to show your feelings through them mean a lot to many many (much less talented) people.

Love you Bunny.

Posted by: C at June 20, 2008 07:59 PM

You're beautiful :).

Posted by: Laura at June 20, 2008 08:48 PM

Creepy that you did this on me 20th birthday. I'm almost too drunk to read it, but I did and I enjoyed it. Yay!

Posted by: CaptainCanada_here at June 21, 2008 01:45 AM

Vindication! Its my favorite sensation!

Posted by: D-Rock at June 21, 2008 03:37 AM

Bunny, it's been a wonderful few years that I've been reading, and you've helped me in so many ways, more than you could possibly think. But to be honest, I want it all to stop - not because I'm bored, in fact I could keep reading you all my life, but because I think I speak for all of us when I say I want to see the post where you say you're better. The post where you say "I'm fine now. See you, bitches." The post where we don't have to see you sad anymore. For the love of God, keep going. We're all behind you.

I'm waiting for that post, Bunny.

Posted by: Rob at June 21, 2008 11:16 AM

I thrice had a nightmares that touched on your mornings,
I never want them again, I can not conceive your mornings.

I suspect if each of us could assume one of your mornings we would.

Posted by: colin at June 21, 2008 02:56 PM

Depression is horrible. Only people who have been truly debilitated by it can understand how difficult it is to even eat or sleep when you're depressed. I feel for you Bunny.

Posted by: Erin at June 22, 2008 12:56 AM

I'm not sure why it's an issue that you were going for a bottle of wine at 2pm. I think it's very European of you. You, ma'am, are a class act.

Posted by: Sean at June 24, 2008 08:31 AM

I'm just glad you found someone who knows her shit. When I had a therapist (I was about 11 and she worked with the school, so nothing totally serious), she didn't admit I had a problem and tell me how to cope with it, she just deluded me into thinking I was innocent and that it was everyone else's fault that I felt so bad, not me. In some way she may have been right, but I doubt it, and I've never felt better after leaving her.
I hope you feel better.

Posted by: Alice at June 25, 2008 12:03 AM

Bunny,

I too, as much of the free world, have had times of depression...GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD! That's my best advice....Once you're out of there, it's much better...I know and understand....to an extent. Hang in there girlie!

Posted by: christina at June 28, 2008 12:17 AM

You my dear are my motherfucking hero.

Posted by: Franki at June 28, 2008 07:25 AM

I've read your blog for years now but this is my first time commenting. I love reading your posts and knowing there's someone else out there who thinks the same way I do, its comforting to know I'm not completeley insane (or if I am then there's someone who's as nuts as I am).
Thank you for sharing your life, it's helped me through some hard times.

Posted by: Sarah at July 6, 2008 10:19 PM

I never believed in "depression"...always thought it was the weakminded excuse, until one day blam! i can't stand me, wander off tucker's blog and found you. Again, I am sunken into this disease with nowhere to go, and I appreciate the honesty of your writings and your courage to seek help, wheather from a doctor or from your writing. Thank You.

Posted by: james D at July 15, 2008 01:25 AM

Hey Genius,
Hope that you weren't born in the fall a '77; cause then you are f....., just like me. I don't know thyroids or physiatrists, but I do know stones...big ones. Depression? Who can say, (that word is too clinical for my taste). I prefer to call it the crushing weight of humanity. But worse still is the weight of those closest to me: friends, family, and yes even that "fuck face" in the mirror each morning.

Do what you have to do to keep going but don't eradicate your feelings, for in doing so you will loose your genius. You don't want that and neither do I...

Posted by: E~Z at August 1, 2008 07:08 PM

what happened to you on that day? if you can remember the specific day that your depression began, then it follows there is an inciting incident. Will you share that? It could be the start to some real answers.

Posted by: Monkey at August 9, 2008 11:58 PM