What do you mean, I'm Crazy?

The following post contains no references to pap smears, but contains frequent references to anti-depressants.

SO the second half of my doctor's appointment goes like this: Olivia calmly but deliberately coloring my feet with marker while I desperately try to convince my doctor that I am not losing my mind. It all started with the to-do list. You know I likes my to-do list. So the doctor is asking me all the usual questions, how am I sleeping the cat crapped four inches from head last night at three AM and Olivia is on a sleep strike so not great, am I getting enough exercise does nine thousand trips up and down the stairs to do all the extra laundry count, how is my diet (I think I ate a Peeps marshmallow today, ooh and a glass of juice-definitely the juice and she asks me to schedule a cholesterol test, blah, blah, blah so I pull out my to-do list and write it down.

That is where it all goes wrong. What is that, she calmly inquires, too calmly. My to-do list. That is a rather long list. Well, you know how it is when you have kids. Let's review your family history she says non-chalantly. Then I notice all the questions about substance abuse, then it is questions about my alcohol intake at which point I make the tactical decision to exclude last weekend's bender from my statements. She asks me how many times a day I feel anxious. Are you kidding me? I am the mother of the brainiac who just answered your developmental questionnaire in three different languages and tried to fly this morning. It is anxiety inducing, okay. That's when I realize she thinks that I'm crazy. She tells me that I am, indeed, crazy.

I know that I should be a little more calm about such things, no biggie, clinical depression is an easily managed medical condition that requires little more than daily medication and bi-monthly check-ins with my physician. However, I am really just kind of pissed about the whole thing. First of all, compared to most people I am related to that make up my, oh so important family medical history, I am doing pretty damn good. I have a happy marriage, a house, I have not yet completely fucked up my kid and I am a relatively together person. Second, my being a little type-a is hardly news and I have been scoring off the charts on those stupid depression questionnaires for decades so what if like to-do lists and think about killing myself on a daily basis? So do, well, other people, I'm sure they are out there. And I bet they don't have to take something as lame as a medication called Celexa. Who makes these names anyway, what does that even mean? Celexa?

I say thanks, but no thanks, even if I am crazy I have gotten this far without Celexa. Then she does what a dozen doctors before her never got the chance to do, play the mommy guilt card. She beats me down with the long-term health effects of depression, how I am depriving my child of a complete person. That's when I hated her, more than a little. Now it sounds like I am crazy, vindictive person if I say no, a terrible mother. So I take the fricking prescription, I pull out my day planner to make a two week follow up, she looks at my calendar, can I make it three weeks I say, I am all booked up. You are going to feel so much better she says, that is a really full schedule, what keeps you so busy? I have a life, I say. Being crazy takes a lot of hard work.

The prescription is sitting in my purse, unfilled. My husband was totally ambiguous towards the diagnosis. Whatever, he says, do it if you want to. Aren't we all a little crazy, he says? You definitely are, I say, then we fight over whose family medical history is spottier. Olivia is really screwed, I hope when her turn to do family medical histories comes that the drugs have cooler names.