Too Smart

So I go yesterday evening for my first-ever appointment with an actual psychiatrist. And I give him my spiel, and it takes him less than 15 minutes to diagnose me. He started by debunking my contention that I wasn't have panic attacks because I'm not afraid of dying or going crazy, I'm just having these physical anxiety symptoms. He then debunked my contention that I was no longer depressed. And then the coup de grace, the point at which the man then looked at me and said, gently, "And, you know, there's a definite obsessional quality to both your panic and your depressive symptoms."

Not to mention that he took very seriously the possibility that I might still go down the road to bipolarity one of these days.

There was a part of me--an admitted sick part of me, though apparently there aren't so many parts of me that aren't sick--that was a little proud. Because I don't like to do anything half way. Not even being crazy. So walking out of there with a bunch of letters after my name--PD, OCD, depressive, bipolar status TBD--was pathetically gratifying. Because, isn't that the whole point? To win at the crazy game?

So, tell her what she's won, Joe. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, TC will now be the proud owner of some of the best psychopharmaceuticals available: a DOUBLED dose of Zloft, a lifetime supply of X*n*x, and a prescription for lithi-yum with her name on it, just in case." Party at my house, dudes.

And as a complete aside, here's the conversation we had when he started talking about obsessional qualities:

Me: It's funny you say that, because I used to have a lot of truly, unequivocally obsessive and compulsive behaviors, like leaving my office in Manhattan at lunch time and taking the train to Brooklyn to check to be sure my iron was turned off. But I always assumed that it wasn't actually OCD, because I was able to cure it just by getting an automatic shut-off iron.

Dr (laughs, then shakes his head with a smile): That's the problem with being too smart. You can rationalize anything.

And there in a nutshell is me, the girl who once uttered the immortal words: "I'm not a hypochondriac. I have things." I sort of hate that I can be reduced to a single throw-away line, but I've got to give it to him on that one...