Psychotic Views Part Eleven:
It was late evening when I made the second call. It wouldn’t be any easier than the first. Calls of this nature are never going to be easy. They’re never even going to be in the same area code as easy. No matter how many of them you make.
“Hello,” said the voice at the other end of the line.
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Making an actual phone call, huh? What happened? The text function on your phone not working?”
“It’s not that.”
“I can’t even remember the last time we had an actual phone conversation.”
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it.”
“Eons.”
“Well, a text message wasn’t going to cut it this time.”
“No? It must be something serious.”
“As serious as it can get.”
“What’s going on? By the sound of your voice, it doesn’t sound good.”
“I’m in a care facility.”
“A care facility? A hospital, you mean? Are you in the hospital, again? What’s the problem? Another operation? Was it an ulcer? It wasn’t your heart was it? Don’t tell me it was your heart.”
“No, I didn’t have another operation. I was in the hospital for a couple of days though.”
“Are you home now? I can come up and visit tomorrow.”
“No, I’m not home.”
“Where are you then?”
“After they released me from the hospital, they moved me to another place.”
“What kind of place? Rehab? Did you hurt yourself?”
“Yeah, I hurt myself.”
“Is it serious?”
“Very.”
“How long are you going to be there?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can come and see you tomorrow. Give me the address and visiting hours.”
“Wait, wait.”
“What?”
“This place isn’t a physical rehab facility, it’s a psychiatric facility. They say I’m a manic depressive.”
“They? Doctors, you mean?
“They have good reason, I tried to kill myself.”
Just like the first time I admitted this over the phone, the line went completely still at both ends. This time I was the one to break the spell of silence.
“It happened a few days ago,” I said. “I should’ve called sooner. I should’ve called right after, but I had so much shame in me. I still do, I’m sorry.”
“How are you now? Is everything okay?”
“As well as it could be under the circumstances.”
“Do you need anything from home? I can stop by and bring stuff down for you.”
“Music, you can bring my music down.”
“The MP player?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s it for now, I guess.”
“Is it okay if I bring it down tomorrow sometime?”
“Sure.”
“Can I come in and see you when I do?”
“Maybe, I’ll have to check.”
“I can just ask someone when I get there.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“You know.”
“Yeah, take care of yourself, okay.”
“Okay.”
“If you need to talk to someone, to just talk, call me, even if it’s late.”
“I will.”
“See you later.”
“Bye.”
Well, it had to be done, and I did it. I made the calls. I should’ve done it right away, I know. I should’ve called then the first opportunity I had in the hospital, but I didn’t. It’s been written and typeset in the past and I can’t change it.
It was good to hear their voices again. Damn good, part of the reason I hadn’t told then was shame, as I had said before, another reason I didn’t tell them, though, was that I didn’t want to add burden to their lives. Especially because the burden was all my fault, no one was to blame but me.
Still, the calls did help ease my mind and take some of the darkness out of my mood. Sometimes, if you’re talking to the right person it doesn’t matter what the two of you say. It lightens your mood. It makes a burden a little less heavy. It makes the horizon a little less dark and this, for me, was one of those times., but for some reason, I was reluctant to have them come and see me here. To see me in his place. Somewhere inside of me, I was wishing I wasn’t allowed to have visitors. If there were only two people I could have visit me here, or anywhere else, these were the two people I would choose. Yet, here in this place, I wasn’t sure I wanted them to come.
The priest visiting me, tough, didn’t bother me. Strange, isn’t it? Someone I only met a couple of days ago is more welcome than the two most important people in my life. It’s very difficult to understand, at least, for me it is, and not only is this person someone completely new to me, he’s a priest yet, a priest, me? I am probably as anti-religion as anyone on this magical orb called Earth. In the entire span of human existence, organized religion has caused much more harm than good. So, why then, on that day he poked his head into my hospital room, didn’t I just politely shoo him away and tell him never to come back. No, I let him come in, sit down, and start talking to me as if we’d known each other our entire lives. At the time of his first visit, I thought the overriding factor in my decision to let him in was my want of company, but that couldn’t have been the reason. The two people who mean the most to me want to come and see me and I’m hesitant about their coming. The priest, though, has already visited me twice. Once here and once at the hospital, I’ve had no other company except his. Like I said, strange.
Early the next morning, there was a knock on my door. A rapping, a gentle rapping on my door. It wasn’t Poe’s ‘ Eleanor’, I can tell you that. It was a must. She came in.
“Who is it?”
“Your nurse.”
“My nurse? I’m broke. I don’t have the money to pay for my own private nurse. I can’t afford to pay for my own nurse,” I said. “I can’t afford to spend half the morning standing here feeding lines for your jokes.”
“That’s too bad, you were off to a good start. What do you want?”
“I’m remembering you that the doctor wants to see you in her office in a half hour.”
“Tell her I can’t see her today. The President coming for tea and I have nothing to wear. Then right after that I’m off in my private jet to solve the global hunger problem.”
“Look, I told you what I came to say.”
“That’s it, I’m leaving.”
“Okay, but don’t forget to take your charming personality with you.”
I think I actually heard her growling as she left. It was either her or my stomach, I’m not sure. I sure as hell didn’t want to be reminded of my meeting with the doctor. I tried to forget it and I had done a good job of it until now. Couldn’t that damn nurse just have come and told me when it was time to go. Now, I had to sit here for a half hour thinking about it. Thank you nurse.
Now, there was a half hour that crept slowly by, like a turtle going uphill wearing lead shorts, carrying an anvil on his back. Anyway, the time finally arrived. The doctor was in. What was her name again? Dr. Freud? No, that wasn’t it? Jung? No, that wasn’t it either. Let me think.
“Your mood is better today,” she said. The way she said it I wasn’t sure if she was asking me or telling me.
“Are you asking me?”
“No, I’m telling you.”
“So soon, I just got here.”
“I watched you come in and I watched you sit down. I watch.”
“You weren’t watching me go to the bathroom before I came in here, were you? Are there any cameras in there?”
“You see, you are making jokes.”
“Isn’t that good?”
“Not necessarily.”
I can’t win, I thought. They don’t like it if I’m depressed and staying in my room. They don’t like it if I’m argumentative. They don’t like it if I’m joking. Is there a way out of this maze, or are there no exits?
I took a good look at this doctor for the first time and he was in mid to late 40’s, I’d say. Her hair was light brown, straight and cut extremely short. Her eyes were large and deep blue, like the sea. Her face was long and smooth, too smooth for her age and she had glasses, middle tinted frames with narrow lens, like some people do. She wore the glasses at the bottom of her nose instead of on the bridge near the eyes. I hated it when people did that, I also hated it when people wore their glasses on top of their head, especially bald men. It was like looking at a four eyed, hard boiled egg.
“How have you been feeling, generally speaking,” she asked.
“With my hands, like everyone else.”
“More joking? Is going to go on the entire time you’re here?”
“Maybe, it depends on how long I’m here.”
“Would you answer my question now, without joking?”
“is there something wrong with joking?”
“Joking can have many different implications.”
“Such as?”
“Avoidance, fear, death.”
“Okay, I get it, you can stop now.”
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“Yes.”
“Seriously, this time?”
“Yes, I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. It was a long road that led me here and it will be a road to get me home.”
“Any problems with the medications you are taking?”
“Are they going to help me, hurt me, or keep me as I am ?”
“They are supposed to help you. That’s why they were prescribed to you.”
“Suppose, there’s another word full of implications. It was supposed to help you, but instead it gave you a heart attack, sorry.”
“You’re avoiding my question again.”
“Okay, I’m not having any problems…, but it’s still early in the game yet.”
“I’ve been told that you haven’t come out of your room yet.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Why?”
“Shame.”
“Because you tried to kill yourself?”
“That’s high on the list of good reasons to fell shame.”
“It’s also a part of your personality though, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s true. I am generally a quiet, stand along kind of person.”
“Have you always been this way?”
“Yes, my mother told me that when I was born, I came out talking and I told the nurses to put me in a room away from all of the other babies.”
The doctor smiled, it was a slight modest smile, but a smile nonetheless. I smiled too. Slight and modest just like the doctor, so she did have some humor in her after all.
“People want to have the wrong impression of you when you’re quiet. They say, ‘ It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for’”
“And that’s always bothered you?”
“Yes, I have a right to be quiet and alone, don’t I? People think when you’re quiet and off by yourself that you’re arrogant and you think your letter than they are, or they’re suspicious of you, like your defective.”
“People have a way of not liking something or someone that’s different.”
“When they catch serial killers and they talk to the neighbors, they say: ‘ He was a loner. He was always quiet and kept to himself.’ I’m sure they could’ve gone to Hitler’s hometown in Austria after the war and asked his neighbors what he was like and they would’ve said,’ He was a longer. He was quiet and he kept to himself.’”
“It isn’t arrogance or superiority on your part though, is it?”
“No, it’s nothing like that at all.”
“What is it then?”
“Well, there are different aspects to it. The biggest part of it, I think, is that I find most people to be, if you’ll excuse the language, fucking bores.”
“You should sit through a drawn out psychiatric seminar.”
“The things people talk about. Monstrous and boring to the nth degree, but, to them, it’s just so utterly fascinating. Their little 4 year old is a certified genius and is the second coming of Einstein or Van Gogh. The dog pooped on the rug and they just had it cleaned. In moderation, it would be easier to tolerate, but now, with cell phones, there is no moderation. Some people wake up in the morning and their lips are already moving before they get out of bed and they’re lips don’t stop moving all damn day. Open 24 hours used to only refer to businesses, but now, it could also refer to peoples’ mouths.”
“Society has gone from one extreme to another, from everything repressed to everything out in the open.”
“Yes.”
“And you are on the repressed side?”
“It’s complicated.”
“How so?”
“Well, my blood is part German and part Irish.”
“How does that make things complicated?”
“The German part wants to hold everything in and the Irish part wants to let everything out.”
“And this causes a conflict?”
“I’m at war with myself.”
I’d noticed right away that the doctor was not taking notes. I’d let it pass, until now, when curiosity became too much for me to set it aside. Doctors such as he can be intelligent enough to work from memory, but they like to protect themselves from lawsuits either by taking notes or recordings.
“Are you recording this?, I asked.
“Yes, does that bother you?”
“No, I just noticed you weren’t taking notes.”
“No, I don’t take notes. I find it distracting. By recording, I can keep all of my attention on my patients.”
“Eyes always up, always watching.”
“Yes, gestures and expressions along with the words.”
“Observing is a job requirement?”
“Yes, I think you too are a good observer.”
“Based on what?”
“Your eyes, I see how they move and I see how they view.”
“Maybe it’s true, maybe not.”
“What have you noticed about me, about my office?”
“You want me to tell you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re serious, you really want me to tell you?”
“Yes, don’t hold anything back. Say everything you have observed since you have been here.”
“You were married, but not anymore, you’re divorced, it’s recent. Your ring finger still shows heavy indentations of where a ring used to be. You’ve had work done on your face. If I had to take a wild guess, you did it to try and please your husband, but it didn’t work. He left you for a younger woman anyway. You’re not wearing a bra. I don’t know about panties. You used to wear pierced earrings, but you don’t anymore. You have three children, two girls and a boy. You like opera, you showered and shampooed this morning and your cat is shedding tabby colored hair. How’s that?”
“My god, no wonder you’ve never married. No woman could hold up under that kind of scrutiny and that was just casual observation.”
“And without my glasses.”
“I wouldn’t want to try and get away with murder with you around.”
“If you knew me well enough, I might be the one you’d try to murder.”
“I think I’d be afraid to try and get away with anything at all with you. You were right about everything. How did you know about opera and my children?”
“Pictures on the bookcase to my left. An autographed picture of three tenor with all three signatures and a picture of three young people who suspiciously have similar facial characteristics to the doctor sitting before me.”
“And you smelled the shampoo?”
“Most people shower in the morning and most people wash their hair while they shower.”
“Stop please! If you continue on like this for much longer, we’ll have to switch positions and I’ll have to be your patient.”
A silence ensued, not an uneasy one by any measure. It was just a short, intermission for the both of us. The doctor’s mind, for a moment or two, drifted to something personal. Something I’d said had triggered it. Maybe she thought of her ex-husband and then marriage, or maybe it was her children, or maybe all of these things. Then the moment was gone and her mind quickly shifted back to the care of her manically depressed patient, me. I thought about nothing at this time. My mind was quiet. She was the first to break the silence.
“You have a quick mind,” she said. “You learned a lot about me in a very short period of time. I, too, have a quick mind and I have learned a lot about you.”
“You have?”
“At the core of your problem, I believe, is this: you have examined life from all angles. Religiously, culturally, racially, historically, politically, nationally, in every way possible. You have examined life in the largest possible terms. All of life on earth, you have also examined your own life in every way possible. At the end of all of this examination, you have found nothing. You cannot find meaning, you must find reason, you cannot find purpose.”
“If it could be summed up in a single paragraph, that would be damn close to on the nose.”
“Did I miss something?”
“Well, I’d like to add a sentence or two to that paragraph, is that okay?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I see no real progression in human nature, since it first started. War, pettiness, hate, jealousy, greed, envy, savagery, dominance, selfishness are as strong in the human psyche as ever. The 20th century was the bloodiest, most vicious, most murderous in human history. When whites came here, they sanctimoniously called all of the people who were already here savages. Well, guess what? We’re all savages. I’m sorry, I’ve gotten myself all stirred up.”
“It’s okay, just be careful with your emotions. Now finish your point.”
“Well, a lot of people say: You have to be optimistic. You have to have hope, but what is this hope based on? Empty air? Humans are not only failing to address our biggest problems, they won’t even address that there are serious problems. The worldwide switch from agricultural to industrial. The overwhelming growth in human population just in the last hundred and fifty years. I just don’t…. I just don’t see much future for the species. There will be no more evolving, no more progression of the line.”
“Human extinction? Is that what you see?”
“I don’t know, but I think we’re in for a lot of dark, dark misery in the years ahead.”
“That was quite a bit more than one or two sentences.”
“Well, this is a part of my manic depressive personality. Wild mood swings. No energy, a lot of energy, saying nothing, saying too much.”
“We call it bipolar disorder.”
“”Yes, I know, but I prefer manic depression, bipolar disorder sounds like someone who has an excessive fear of the North and South Pole.”
“Well, our time is up.”
“Okay.”
“Before you go, I want to tell you something. The reason I knew so much about you so quickly was because I read some of your writings.”
“That’s fine.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Make copies of it, if you like, pass it around. I’d like the whole world to read it.”
“Well, I can’t manage the whole world, but I could manager a few people I know, if you like.”
“Thanks for your time.”
“Thanks for yours.”
“I’m in no position to refuse.”
“Neither am I.”
“So we’re stuck with each other then?”
“It would seem so.”
“Like old, desperate lovers with diminishing prospects.”
I got up and turned quickly to leave without seeing her reaction, but I caught it anyway out of the corner of my eye. The good Dr. --- was blushing red.