Jay's Helpful Hints from the Edge
(This story was written years ago for our local Arts Festival. After seeing a number of psychiatrists of varying abilities over the years for the treatment of depression and bipolar disorder, I felt I had enough experience to offer some useful tips for others seeking help.)
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If your psychiatrist's name is Dr. Gonnorago, do not call him Dr. Gonorrhoea.
If your psychiatrist asks you to chart your moods for a week, do not draw a line graph that includes outlines of a ducky, a piggy, and a cow.
If you usually wear pyjama bottoms for pants, do not wear them to your appointments, even if they are your going-out-for-good pair. Ditto the mismatched socks.
If you are walking to town beside a highway for your appointment and find a stuffed grouse nailed to a perch, by all means, put it in your knapsack to add to your home decor. Do not, however, respond to your psychiatrist’s enquiry into the efficacy of your medication by reaching into your pack, retrieving the grouse, and saying, "I keep giving him the anti-psychotics like you said, but he still won't admit he's stuffed."
If you are chopping wood and find two gigantic grub worms the size of cocktail weenies, put them in the unused stool sample container you've been saving for a rainy day. Punch a hole in the lid for air. Put the container in a large envelope and leave it at your doctor's office with a note that says, "I figured out what's wrong with me. See enclosed stool sample." It's worth it.
When the only time we hear about people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in the media is when one kills somebody, remind the general public about the millions of us who would do no such thing.
If you're in the psych ward and find a copy of the "Buy, Sell and Trade" in the garbage, read the ads in the livestock section, but don't keep calling the guy in Bowser and ordering homing pigeons. He won't deliver.
Should you have the strange fortune to watch your psychiatrist go insane before your very eyes, until she's sitting on the floor in front of you yelling, “You turn people against me. You make me spend money. I do not have enough money. I do not have enough money,” step out onto the hot, dusty sidewalk in the blazing noonday sun, like a gunslinger in a western. Blow the smoke from the barrel of your finger pistol. Say, "My work is done here."
If you've tamed a flock of finches that land on you whenever you are outside, don't tell your shrink that you sit in the yard, head in hands, weeping, with songbirds perched on you. He won't buy it.
Clear up common misconceptions about depression and bipolar disorder. Severe clinical depression is not the blues. It is not like grief. You cannot pull up your socks and snap out of it if you would only try. You cannot think your way out of a severe episode any more than you could think your way out of a stroke or a seizure. It is not rational. You may no longer see in colour. You may become unable to speak or move. It is a severe and terrifying brain disorder, sometimes involving misfirings of neurones and neurotransmitters and blah blah blah blah, until you finally kill yourself. Or worse yet, live.
You'll drink chamomile tea and St. John's wort tincture. You'll try high dose vitamin therapy and essential oils. You'll go to naturopaths, homeopaths, and even a few psychopaths. You'll meditate and exercise. You'll go off wheat, sugar, dairy. You'd eat slug slime and dung beetles if it would help. But if nothing provides enough relief, and a decent psychiatrist finds just the right drugs to balance your brain and give you some peace, take the goddam things.
Send that psychiatrist a homemade thank you card with a photograph you took of dead mice you stuffed into a toy Volkswagen. But don't add, "P.S. Mice will do anything I say."
Always remember you get by with a little help from your friends. Okay, a lot of help. They'll sweep up your smashed dishes, launder your neglected clothes, make you bathe. They'll build your chicken coop, your cabin, your rain catchment, your life. They'll give you land, buy you a trailer, build your road. They'll feed you, house you, encourage you, include you. They will save your life again and again and may not even know they are doing it.
The mental healthcare system is crazy in itself and can be harmful, but if you educate yourself and define your expectations, it can be useful. If you can't stand up for yourself, and who can during the worst times, you'll need an advocate. Mine is my friend, Kathy. She'll never let them drag me off and strap me into a straight jacket. She prefers to do that herself.
***********
If your psychiatrist's name is Dr. Gonnorago, do not call him Dr. Gonorrhoea.
If your psychiatrist asks you to chart your moods for a week, do not draw a line graph that includes outlines of a ducky, a piggy, and a cow.
If you usually wear pyjama bottoms for pants, do not wear them to your appointments, even if they are your going-out-for-good pair. Ditto the mismatched socks.
If you are walking to town beside a highway for your appointment and find a stuffed grouse nailed to a perch, by all means, put it in your knapsack to add to your home decor. Do not, however, respond to your psychiatrist’s enquiry into the efficacy of your medication by reaching into your pack, retrieving the grouse, and saying, "I keep giving him the anti-psychotics like you said, but he still won't admit he's stuffed."
If you are chopping wood and find two gigantic grub worms the size of cocktail weenies, put them in the unused stool sample container you've been saving for a rainy day. Punch a hole in the lid for air. Put the container in a large envelope and leave it at your doctor's office with a note that says, "I figured out what's wrong with me. See enclosed stool sample." It's worth it.
When the only time we hear about people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in the media is when one kills somebody, remind the general public about the millions of us who would do no such thing.
If you're in the psych ward and find a copy of the "Buy, Sell and Trade" in the garbage, read the ads in the livestock section, but don't keep calling the guy in Bowser and ordering homing pigeons. He won't deliver.
Should you have the strange fortune to watch your psychiatrist go insane before your very eyes, until she's sitting on the floor in front of you yelling, “You turn people against me. You make me spend money. I do not have enough money. I do not have enough money,” step out onto the hot, dusty sidewalk in the blazing noonday sun, like a gunslinger in a western. Blow the smoke from the barrel of your finger pistol. Say, "My work is done here."
If you've tamed a flock of finches that land on you whenever you are outside, don't tell your shrink that you sit in the yard, head in hands, weeping, with songbirds perched on you. He won't buy it.
Clear up common misconceptions about depression and bipolar disorder. Severe clinical depression is not the blues. It is not like grief. You cannot pull up your socks and snap out of it if you would only try. You cannot think your way out of a severe episode any more than you could think your way out of a stroke or a seizure. It is not rational. You may no longer see in colour. You may become unable to speak or move. It is a severe and terrifying brain disorder, sometimes involving misfirings of neurones and neurotransmitters and blah blah blah blah, until you finally kill yourself. Or worse yet, live.
You'll drink chamomile tea and St. John's wort tincture. You'll try high dose vitamin therapy and essential oils. You'll go to naturopaths, homeopaths, and even a few psychopaths. You'll meditate and exercise. You'll go off wheat, sugar, dairy. You'd eat slug slime and dung beetles if it would help. But if nothing provides enough relief, and a decent psychiatrist finds just the right drugs to balance your brain and give you some peace, take the goddam things.
Send that psychiatrist a homemade thank you card with a photograph you took of dead mice you stuffed into a toy Volkswagen. But don't add, "P.S. Mice will do anything I say."
Always remember you get by with a little help from your friends. Okay, a lot of help. They'll sweep up your smashed dishes, launder your neglected clothes, make you bathe. They'll build your chicken coop, your cabin, your rain catchment, your life. They'll give you land, buy you a trailer, build your road. They'll feed you, house you, encourage you, include you. They will save your life again and again and may not even know they are doing it.
The mental healthcare system is crazy in itself and can be harmful, but if you educate yourself and define your expectations, it can be useful. If you can't stand up for yourself, and who can during the worst times, you'll need an advocate. Mine is my friend, Kathy. She'll never let them drag me off and strap me into a straight jacket. She prefers to do that herself.