Side Effects

I had a huge fight with my psychiatric supervisor (ahem, the therapist I've been seeing since 2004),  this morning, the doc who became the director of the famed Menninger Clinic after Karl Menninger died, the man (but I don't even think of him as a man) - - who flies off to Minneapolis and Chicago and San Francisco and New York and God Knows Where and God does know where, because my psychiatrist also happens to be an Episcapalian priest, or something like that.

Or as close to "something like that" as you can get. 
He could be, if he wanted to be.
But he needs to stop treating me, first.
And I'm some kind of handfull.
Ha. As my North Dakota relatives would say.

So today I wanted a prescription for (a gasp from the entire audience!) benzodiazepdines.  Any of them.  They are extremely effective against anxiety, which, I find,  I am suddenly, in my mid-to-late sixties, up against again (I suffered from anxiety and panic disorders in my twenties and thirties and then, thanks to arduous cognitive therapies, managed to calm down enough to survive for decades without them) but now - - I find myself once again plunged deeply enough into the physical throes of an anxiety disorder so great that it clutches at my body as if I were fleeing and fighting at the same time.

We all know it, so let's say it together: it's the fight or flight snydrome.

Never mind the how of it.  Never mind the why of it. That stuff is all perfectly reasonable and psychologically obvious and observable to both the good doctor and myself.  Yep, here it is, never thought I'd face this again, but here I am, back in the middle again.  Even so.  Back to the benzos.  Of course, you should always think twice before you take a benzo and if you need escalating doses, you need to figure out why and you probably need to stop.  But.  On the other hand, they can save your life.  They are real good drugs. Because, see, the thing is, they work. You can take them whole, or you can nibble them. They help you deal.

 The side effects are, of course, addiction.

So, you guessed it, this blog is about side effects. Take love.  Okay, let's take love.  Love has plenty of side effects, but no doctor, other than Irving Yalom, who wrote the famous book Love's Executioner, is going to go on record as saying love is ultimately bad for you because it has so many damn side effects.  But it does.  It has plenty of bad side effects.  Like: Rejection. Blindness. Repetition.  Wounding. Withdrawal. Judgement. Clouded vision. Fear of vulnerability. Criticism. Seeing Through a Glass Darkly. Seeing Through the Same Glass Clearly. Censorship. The Wish to Keep the Surfaces Smooth. Oh My God, I could go on and on. Abandoment. Ultimant Disinterest. Sexual Dismissal. Sexual Dismantelment. And, finally, and believe me, one of the awfulest of all if you really love that person, death.    

Side effects.  How about..........having children. Raising families. Joining groups, like: churches. Charity organizations. Theatre groups. Becoming a professional. Obtaining AND becoming successful at having a career. Eating. Television. Buying. NOT buying. Becoming a know-it-all. Becoming a dumbbell.  Becoming an expert-in-your-field ("Show me a room full of experts," said Carl Jung, "and I will show you one huge idiot.") 

First dates have side effects. Second dates have side effects.  Sex has all kinds of various and sundry side effects, good, great, terrible, horrible, and indifferent.  And which is worst and which is easiest?  Well, indifferent is easiest, I suppose.  But don't tell that to some of the women who come to see me year after year.  Because the state of indifference can wear you down, folks, and can be a terrible side effect to your nervous system, not to mention your psychological and emotional systems, as well.

It's not all metabolic, you know.  Not by a long shot.

So my doctor, who is also, I think, my friend, or at least a man who cares for me deeply, as do I him, said  he believes I have been less than ....fabulous (my word).....in my reporting....of my goings on and comings off of anti-depressants,  especially in the years since Jim died.  And I admitted, yes, that is absolutly true.  I have not, shall we say,  kept him informed of THE BIG PICTURE. I mean, I didn't know he was so dedicated to wanting to know about T. B. P.  I always thought he would just lightly keep in mind that I was doing my best and that I would let him know if anything went truly awry.  I mean.  Come ON.

But he is a stickler.  Which is why I have remained with him for lo, these many years.

Because I am not essentially a wayfaring, casual, groovy kind of person.  And in the places where I AM casual, I want somebody at my side who is definiately NOT wild, NOT groovy, NOT spontaneous.  I want a balance, see.  I'm just like anybody else.  I'll rescue you and I want you to rescue me.  And sometimes I want you to see things my way.  And other times I'll bend and I'll see things your way.

Well, this morning, I tried to get Dr. B. to see things MY way. (While he, of course, was trying to get me to see things HIS way).  So, first we stared at each other for a long, long time.  Problem #1:  We are both Very Good At Staring.  So, number two, I tried my skills at talking.   Problem # 2:  We are both Very Good At Talking (except he knows Greek and Latin, and I don't.  But I can make up good poems and songs, and he can't. So I figure we're even, even though the two skills don't at all match up.) Finally, I tried humor. Problem #: We're both funny. He's quick. Very, very quick. AND he catches on to my manipulations really well. He can figure out the difference between what's genuinely funny and what's genuinely a manipulative ploy in a nanosecond.

He accused me of bullying.  I accused him of being withholding and not recognizing what a courageous woman I am, what a reasonable woman I am, what a serious woman I am. He smiled. I smiled. We began again. He said he would, of course, write the prescription, but he was not "entirely for it."  I said that, in that case, wild horses could not get me to fill it.  I would not fill it in a lake.  I would not fill it in a cake. (This is not, of course, verbatim, but pretty close.  Pretty close).  His last words were: "Don't forget to call me with the number of the pharmacy you want the prescription sent to." 

My last words were a scrambled up version of the ending of a T.S. Eliot poem.  Really though, just more side effects. 

So what do you do when your life feels like it's going sideways and you feel like you're all alone and the facts tell you otherwise but your chest and your stomach are yelling at you that it isn't facts you need, it's drugs? 

Here's what.  You call your doctor within the hour.  You say that you agree with him.  You say he's right.  You tell him to NOT fill the prescription, that you'll be going to the Swedish Hospital Pain Clinic in two weeks time and that in between time you WILL listen to the new tape on pain and meditation you just bought and that you WILL go to your husband's little bungalow on the water between Shelton and Olympia over the weekend and that you WILL write in your journal and even write a blog, if necessary and bare your chest, such as it is, and tell the world that you are just as sane and just as crazy as the rest everybody else and probably more, and that every single choice in Life has side effects, including the bill for this very phone call.