The first visit

[Sepia Grey]

After spending many years in denial and some more in finding out what was wrong with me, I'm finally visiting a psychiatrist. 

Riding there in a cab, I think about myself for the first time in many days. I think about this person, who was me, willingly riding towards what I thought would be a painful ordeal. It was.

The ride itself is oddly calming – open spaces on both sides of the road, tress, grass, people going about their daily mundane-ness, the cool breeze that made my hair fly around my head. I raise the window glass after a while to keep my hair in place.

The driver asks me something, I don’t remember what, I give monosyllabic responses.

We are there. I settle the fare and get out of the cab. I look up at the building, looming, the name of the multi-specialty clinic so peppy, and the visitors hardly so.

I go up in the lift and as soon as I get out of it, I see a lady come up the stairs. I immediately know it’s her. I’ve seen a picture of her on the internet. Wow, she is tall. She looks about my age and she’s in good shape.

We smile at each other, and my urge to run away peaks. I take a deep breath and walk in, holding the door for her. She says thanks.

She walks into her cabin. I walk to the reception desk and tell the receptionist about my appointment.  He says, ‘Oh, with the psychiatrist?’ The words feel like nails driving into my coffin. Somehow, I always had a block against this, as if going to a shrink would mean that I've hit rock bottom, which I had, truth be told. I am asked wait as there is another patient in the doctor’s cabin. I see a line of colorful chairs. I sit on a red one and wonder what Freud might say about that.

Again, thoughts of getting up and running away resurface. I distract myself by looking at toys and activity sets for kids. There is a little house made of plastic, it’s colorful. I think of my little ones and how much they’d have enjoyed it. I get up and walk towards the playhouse.

I see that there are low shelves kept on the floor and there are children’s books in them. Fairy tales, Disney books, rhymes, other stories. I don’t touch them. There also is a tiny table with little chairs around it.

I locate a water fountain and drink some water. My throat is parched. I return to the chair.

A woman has come in with her little child. She asks for the pediatrician. The receptionist asks her to wait. She sits down opposite me.

I hear voices from the pediatrician’s room. A little later, a man and a girl emerge from the room, the girl looked about 10. Father and daughter, I decide. The child seems to have something wrong with her, she looks fine in the body but her head is a strange size, and her features look crumpled. As always when I see such kids, I think of my own great luck that my kids are healthy and normal.

The father and daughter leave. The young mother with the child goes into the pediatrician’s room.

A couple comes in with a small boy – he’s just about walking. He gets very excited about the toys and books there. The couple ask to see the pediatrician and are asked to wait. The boy repeatedly asks to go inside the playhouse and his dad keeps trying to make him sit at the tiny table and look at a book. Why do people do this? I wonder. Why does he want his child to look at this book and not go into the playhouse?

The lady with the small child comes out of the pediatrician’s room, and the receptionist tells the couple to go in. The man picks up his protesting child and they too vanish into the pediatrician’s cabin. I can tell that he’s the busiest man in that multi-specialty clinic.

No change in my set-up. My doctor’s cabin is still unopened. Obviously, it takes much longer to pick someone’s brain than it does to prick a child with a needle. I feel no hurry. She can take her time. In fact, if her current patient has a fit and she cancels the appointment, I’d be greatly relieved.

The door opens after I’ve had another two rounds of water. A woman who looks about 30 walks out – she has a very neutral expression. I try to gauge how good this doctor is by looking at her face, but she shows no outward signs – good, bad, who knows?

The doctor comes out herself and goes to the reception with this woman, she stands there till the woman is billed and then asks me to come to her room. She smiles, I smile too. I am feeling awkward.

She apologizes for the delay, and I say no problem. I sit down opposite her, again the feeling of strangeness and otherness rises in my gut. What the fuck am I doing here?

She asks me, my name, my age, my marital status, how many kids I have, whether I work. And then, ‘Tell me what the problem is.’

I don’t know where to begin. I begin with my depressive feelings, my over the top daydreaming that is wrecking my life. She listens and says daydreaming is not a matter of concern, everyone daydreams. I try to tell her, make her understand. She asks me to describe the content of my daydreams. I am embarrassed, ashamed even. How do I tell her? I beat around the bush, I tell her some truths and some half-truths.

She changes tack, ‘Let’s start with your childhood. Where did you grow up?’

Why am I indulging in self-sabotage? Not speaking the absolute truth to my therapist might be the stupidest thing to do. I came here for help, and she’s trying. But if I do not allow her into my head, there is no way she can help me. I realize this, grit my teeth, take a deep breath and tell her everything. I am shocked at how easily these words are tumbling out of my mouth, it is as if a dam broke and all that I held inside for so many years, was all flooding out. Flood is also a good word to describe my tears.

She slowly moves a box of tissues towards me. I take a tissue and then decide to not cry any more. Just like that.

She takes copious notes, keeps asking me questions, makes a remark or two. I have been talking for an hour. My entire life summed up in an hour! I didn’t think that was possible.

She asks me if I am suicidal. Well, I am sometimes, truth be told. But I’ll never do it. I love my kids too much, they don’t deserve that. They don’t deserve the pain.

She asks if I have thoughts of harming others. Oh god, no! I have never even dreamt of harming another living soul.

She says she is very happy that I came to her, that it was very brave and also wise. She thinks that I am bipolar. I don’t say anything, it’s something I’ve suspected for some time. She says she’s going to put me on some drugs. Because right now I am depressed, she’ll give me serotonin reuptake medication, and she’ll give me Olanzepine for curbing my racing thoughts and it will also help me to sleep better. I ask her about side effects. She says to watch what I eat as this medication will make me hungry. ‘Be mindful or you’ll put on weight.’ She says.

She asks me to come back in two weeks when she can start with cognitive behavioral therapy. I don’t know what that means, even though I’ve heard the term. She walks me out to the reception. ‘I’ll see you in two weeks.’ She says with a smile. I thank her and she walks back into her cabin.

I make my payment and get out of the clinic. I call a cab and wait to be picked up. While waiting, I see a pharmacy and buy the medication prescribed.

The cab arrives and I am off. On the way, I think of my new label – Bipolar. What does it mean for me? I know it’s a disorder and that disorders can only be coped with and not cured. But I did live with it for so many years, right? And how was the doctor so sure that I had this condition? It’s not as if she put me through any tests. I think this is what makes psychiatry different from other medical disciplines, everything is based on your doctor’s judgment – if he/she thinks you are bipolar, you are bipolar. If they think you have OCD, you have OCD. No blood tests, no biopsies, no internal examination. Only a heart to heart chat and, hey presto, you have a new label.

[I was]

I am very sceptical about psychiatrists. I believe a mere course completion can't give a person ability to discern what's wrong with another. It might take a special kind of person to actually apply what they learn. I hope therapy does you good.