In a few hours I’m going back into the dentists. Yesterday I had an appointment with what is called complex care. It’s a piece of internal medicine but located in Cardiology so the offices are nicer. I’ve been there twice now and I’m beginning to question why I go at all.
This cardiology nurse was very chatty, she had brought me back for vitals. Somewhere in the course of conversation she said her and her husband were from Michigan but had never been to Pictured Rocks or Tahquamenon falls. In fact it sounded like she hadn’t been over the bridge. All that’s in the Upper Peninsula and is beautiful. She couldn’t have been younger than 25. It’s a bit disturbing.
I know most people of my kids generation haven’t been to, say, Europe, and I understand the reasons, but shit. It’s not just the spirit of adventure, though I don’t understand not having one, it’s something darker. Speaking as both an outsider and an insider, there is very little difference between the people of the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan, except in the way any more rural area or touristy area is different from the seat of industry.
An intern came in, she might have been under 25. She compared my answers to the stupid seven question tests about anxiety and depression to the last time I was in. Trying very hard not to be snotty I pointed out the inadequacies of the questions and that of them all there is one on the depression scale that by the time you rank over zero the test is meaningless. It’s something like ‘Do you find yourself lacking desire for …’ they are careful not to mention sex, though that’s a concern for most people. And I suppose you could parse the question as it also include interest in people and activities, but Christ, if you haven’t been through it you don’t know what it means.
I’m not all that interested in most people or a lot of activities. I follow some things, I find interesting people interesting, there’s a big difference between being a socially functioning misanthrope and being clinically depressed though. Borges once said of blindness something like “…It’s not a blackness, that’d be color, it’s a nothingness”. Euphoria, dysphoria, pleasure, desire, interest, well, they are all like colors. I don’t think the kids working complex care have any idea what that question means or the means to treat it properly.
I had other things to bitch about and listened to responses that sounded like a trainee for a crisis intervention hotline confirming a pizza order “… Its sounds like you want pepperoni, I hear you saying extra cheese …” I don’t think I will ever say to them the mantra that kept me going for at least the first year “I can’t lose my shit, not here.” They’d suggest depends. That’s a joke. Sort of.
I don’t have much faith in them. They asked again if I needed a therapist. It’s a bit like a hotdog vendor asking if you wouldn’t be better off getting a hamburger before establishing whether or not you are hungry. They have me diagnosed and are giving me some sort of SSRI but really don’t have a clue why. Despite repeatedly telling them my anti-anxiety meds are for sleeping they want to play shrink without asking real shrink questions. They seem to think an SSRI will replace the need for sleeping medication. There are two things I’m surprised haven’t been raised, shit like Ambien or marijuana both of which are legal for medicinal purposes here, neither of which allow me to sleep. That doesn’t mean anything to me medically, but it does speak to a certain politic.
The line was too long to hand in my paperwork so it’s still sitting in my car.
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