7 comments/ 12479 views/ 13 favorites Depression and Anti-Depressants Ch. 01 By: SusanJillParker There are no underage characters in this Humor & Satire. All characters portrayed are over 18. * Are you sad and thinking about taking anti-depressant medication? If you are, then you need to read this. Are you depressed and already taking anti-depressant medication? If you are, then you need to read this. During a recent visit to the Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania for my annual checkup, my doctor's nurse asked me a simple, albeit loaded and quite personal question. "Are you depressed?" I heard what she said but I was surprised that she'd even ask me such a personally intrusive question. I mean, the first time meeting the woman, I didn't even know the woman. Depression is something that I'd talk about with my girlfriends in hushed whispers while drinking wine. Now, unless she was going to open a bottle of wine, change into our nightgowns, and light a candle, my lips were sealed. My depression is none of her business. Nonetheless my involuntarily reaction to her inappropriate question, I just wanted to hear her ask me the question again, if only to make sure that I heard her correctly. "Pardon?" She looked at me and smiled as if she was a psychiatric nurse at a mental hospital filling out the necessary paperwork to legally commit me and confine me before locking me away in my padded, rubber room. "Are you depressed?" She asked again with her fingers poised on her laptop keyboard ready to write my answer. "Am I depressed?" I looked at her as if yes was my obvious answer. I wondered why she'd ask me such a too personal question. Do I look depressed? "Yes," she said staring at me with her fingers still poised on her keyboard ready to record my answer. Running through all the people that I know, relatives, friends, and co-workers, I couldn't think of a sadder group. Especially in this sour economy, no one that I know seems happy. Everyone, including me, sad to say, seems depressed. "Unless they're rich, good looking, wicked smart, and blessed with a great body, isn't everyone depressed. With all of us living while waiting to die, why wouldn't we be depressed?" I looked at her as if she had just trapped me by asking me a trick question. "Life is sometimes depressing." She gave me that plastic smile, the one that makes me wonder if I'm crazy to be so annoyed by just a smile. Definitely, I was already upset by her question. If was just glad that she had already taken my blood pressure because if she took it now, it would be off the charts and my doctor would be prescribing me more medication that I don't need, don't want, and can't afford. "Yes, but are you depressed?" She enunciated the word 'you' to make her question even more intrusively personal. "Of course I'm depressed. I'm a writer," I said laughing. "I think way too much," I said while thinking of all the other things that have happened in my life to have caused my depression. * * * * * Suddenly inspired by her probing question while thinking more about depression, I thought of writing this verbal exchanged as a story, a humor & satire, and/or a review & essay about prescription drugs, specifically anti-depressant medication. My saving grace and my salvation, I'm always thinking of stories everywhere I go, which is why I always carry around a pen and paper and a small pocket tape recorder with me. Maybe because I'm always preoccupied while thinking of stories is the reason why my nurse mistook my preoccupation for depression. One day I hope to have money enough to buy a laptop computer to lug around, especially while waiting to see the doctor. Perhaps, if the nurse had seen me typing on a laptop, she wouldn't think me depressed, just busy in the way she was busy when she typed my answer on her laptop. Definitely, while watching her type, I didn't think she was depressed, just busy. Now they have I-pads and I-pods but, basically computer illiterate but for e-mail and Word for Windows I don't know enough about them to even want one. Having never texted or twittered anyone, not even having a Facebook page, an ATM card, or even a cell phone, I'm a dinosaur bypassed and confused by modern day technology. If it wasn't for the superiority of word processing software, I'd still be handwriting and/or typing my stories on a typewriter. * * * * * While trying to look over her shoulder to see what she was writing about me, I watched the nurse type something in my permanent, never to be erased, record on her laptop computer. Not wanting her to see me peeking, I didn't want her to add paranoia to my depression. She didn't seem amused by my off the cuff comment that I was depressed because I'm a writer. What does that even mean? Is that to say that all writers are depressed? I bet J. K. Rowling isn't depressed being that she's a billionaire and doesn't have to write another damn word other than her name on a withdrawal slip. "I'd like to withdraw a million dollars American please in large bills for tips. I'm traveling to America. Everything there is so expensive," I imagine her saying while filling her briefcase with neatly stacked, one-hundred-dollar bills and handing it off to her bodyguard to carry the twenty-two pound heavy load. Yet, not only is it true that I'm depressed because I'm a writer but also I thought it was funny that I'm depressed because I'm a writer. Sitting alone while thinking and writing for hours as family members and friends are living life large and having fun without me, what writer isn't depressed and/or insanely sad to want to remain alone while writing? Actually, truth be told, I'm my happiest when creating plots, developing characters, and writing dialogue, imagery, description and scenes with tension. Moreover, when writing, I'm not lonely at all. Once I develop my characters and once I breathe life in them and they step off the page, I have plenty of company. It's then that they stand behind me and look over my shoulder to read what I'm writing about them while whispering in my ears what to write next. Alas, much like comedians and clowns who laugh on the outside and cry on the inside, they are a depressed bunch too. Actually, now that I think of it, the only people that I know who aren't depressed are politicians, especially Republicans. Speaker Boehner and Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, always have that cat that just ate the canary look as if they just pulled more wool over the eyes of middleclass Americans by passing more behind closed doors legislation to remove entitlements when they are the most entitled. Yes, our public servants are quite the happy bunch of self-serving assholes. With them having access to power, influence, all the money they'll need for the rest of their miserable lives, and the best healthcare in the world, they have nothing to be depressed about. They are a happy bunch of bitches and bastards, aren't they? The only other people that I know who aren't depressed are that group of folks, a different group each day, who ring the bell of the stock market to close business for the day. Everyone is standing there smiling, laughing, and happy that they're making enormous amounts of money while too many of us don't have jobs, money for food, rent, and gas for our cars. Nothing more than a dream, I imagine having an AK-47 and blasting them all away for being so rich when I'm so poor. "Go ahead. Ring that fucking bell now. I dare you. Go ahead, I double dare you to ring that fucking bell," I imagine saying while filling them all full of bullet holes from my AK-47 that I bought at a gun show with my legal right to arm myself under the Second Amendment law of the United States Constitution. Charlton Heston, if he were still alive, would be so proud of me that it brings a tear to my eye. "A lone gunwoman, a depressed woman who was recently prescribed anti-depressant medication, shot and killed a dozen people at the New York Stock Exchange while they rang the bell to close the day of business," I imagine the news reporter saying on TV. Another very good year for the haves and another very bad year for the have nots, 2013 is a banner year for those who have their money in the stock market. Let's see a show of hands. How many of you have money in the stock market, not counting 401K money that is if you even have a job. Even if you have money in the stock market via a 401K, with brokers continuing buying and selling our stocks just to bilk us unnecessary and excessive fees, we have absolutely no control over that front loaded, hidden fee retirement scam. Instead of ticker tapes, Dow Jones and NASDAQ, all that I see are people with the hope of winning the lottery. All that I see are scratched, losing scratch tickets. There's a reason why rich people don't buy lottery tickets. They don't have to buy lottery tickets. They've already won the lottery by being born rich. * * * * * Sports fans, whether hockey, soccer, football, baseball, or rugby fans are another group that go from deep depression to utter happiness. When their teams are winning, they're happy. When their teams are losing, they're depressed. Manic depressive, sports fans are a recognized bipolar group that have severe mood disorder. Maybe their moodiness is the reason why they drink so much. I dunno. Maybe there moodiness and their drinking are the reasons why they fight so much. I dunno that either. Maybe their moodiness, drinking, and fighting are the reasons why they gamble so much. Who's to know? Maybe their moodiness, drinking, fighting, and gambling are the reasons why sports fans are so depressed, especially when their beloved teams are losing. Now, that could be the answer. Now that I think of it, too dumb, too good looking, and too hot to be sad, cheerleaders are a happy bunch. Now that I think more about it, I've never seen a depressed cheerleader. Maybe instead of handing out happy pills, my doctor should be giving me a cheerleading outfit to wear. "Give me an H. Give me an A. Give me a P, P, Y. What does that spell? Happy! We're happy because so many men lust over us and want us. Hooray!" Now that I think about it, models are another group who aren't depressed. Be honest, has anyone ever seen a depressed lingerie, fitness, or swimsuit model? The same thing goes for Olympic athletes. They are quite the happy bunch. On a role now, astronauts are another happy group. How many times have we seen astronauts smiling and waving to us from space while the rest of us watch them on TV? If I wasn't depressed before, I'm depressed now just thinking of cheerleaders, models, Olympic athletes, and astronauts. * * * * * Am I depressed? Such an odd question for the nurse to ask me when I'm there for a physical examination and not a mental one. Besides is she even qualified to invade my mental state by asking me such a personal question about my emotional stability or instability? If only she knew I have an AK-47 in the trunk of my car, I wonder if she'd still be asking me such a personal question about my mental state. Being that she asked me such an invasive question, I wanted to invade her privacy by asking her some very personal questions too. "Listen here, nurse, before I answer your personal question about if I'm depressed or not, allow me to ask you some personal questions first. Okay? How about you? Being that the real measure of happiness today is money and sex, are you financial secure? Are you sexually satisfied? Are you fucking happy? Don't look at me as if I'm crazy bitch, just answer my questions." Aha! When she didn't answer me, I knew that I was onto something. "Since we're on the topic of sex and being that you were first to be so very personal, as if we're BFF, best friends forever, even though we're not, do you suck cock? Do you allow your husband, your boyfriend, and/or your son to cum in your mouth or just on your tits? Do you swallow are you a spitter? Have you ever had an orgasm while having sexual intercourse with your boyfriend, husband, and/or son? Do you take it up the ass?" Knowing full well that she'd never answer any of my questions and knowing full well that she'd think me crazy, especially after she called for security, it was fun to think of all that I wanted to ask her. Ah, somehow, I felt better knowing that there are no boundaries between a nurse and a patient while waiting to be physically examined by my primary care doctor. Promising to show them my AK-47 when done with the doctor, when security came, I assured them that I was normal by engaging them in conversation about our respective gun collections. * * * * * With my nurse asking me if I'm depressed, I'd expect a psychiatrist or a psychologist to ask me such a personal question if I was there having my head examined instead of having my body invaded by my primary care doctor's latex gloved hands. Being that she set me off and being that I answered her question, if only by my enraged emotional state, without even having to answer her question, how dare she ask me such an emotionally invasive and upsetting question? Maybe wearing my feelings on my sleeve while typically hiding how I truly feel from strangers with humor, no doubt blowing her personal, probing question out of proportion, I wondered why she asked me if I was depressed. I must be slipping in hiding my misery with my street mask, my feigned happy face with my happy smile plastered on my lips. As if I'm a demurely submissive, Japanese woman waiting to be sexually violated by a stranger on a bus or a train or a mentally challenged person working at the supermarket bagging groceries, I'm usually smiling all the time. Happy to be alive, I'm always so frigging happy. "Happy! Happy! Happy!" "I'm just curious," I said to the nurse while interrupting my happy party of one to the nurse and while giving her my best and biggest smile. "Why do you ask? Do I look depressed to you?" I imagined grabbing her by the shoulders and slapping her across her face for her to answer me honestly. Instead, I widely and wildly smiled at her to show her that I wasn't depressed. I smiled at her to show her how happy I was to be there waiting and waiting and waiting at the doctor's office. No doubt, I'll smile while he touches, feels, probes, gropes, and violates every hole of my nearly naked body covered only by a thin, cotton Johnny that's open in the back. Depressed? I'm too fucking happy to be depressed. Why would I be depressed while waiting to die? Eventually, hopefully later than sooner, I'm going to die? You're going to die. My doctor is going to die. Everyone we know are going to die. Everyone who now resides on the planet and who will reside on the planet are all going to die. We're all living to die. "God, I'm so fucking depressed!" Again, if I was a submissive, Japanese women being examined by a perverted Japanese doctor, how convenient would it be for him to bend me over an examination table and have his wicked way with my nearly naked body while wearing only this idiotic Johnny. I wondered if I'd still be smiling if my doctor was sexually abusing me. Being that I wouldn't want to seem depressed, I wondered what the proper protocol was for my doctor to think that I was totally normal while he was having his wicked sexual way with me. I dunno, there must be a book out there somewhere, feigned happiness for depressed people while trying to act normal. "Doctor! What are you doing?" "I'm giving you a rectal examination," I imagine him saying to me in defense of his inappropriate sexual actions with him sticking his cock up my ass. "I beg your pardon? Is this a new kind of rectal examination? In the way that you now take my temperature by waving a wand across my forehead ala Dr. McCoy on Star Trek, are you really giving me a rectal exam with your cock?" "I'm probing you with my cock to determine your level of depression," I imagined him saying and believing him because he was the doctor and I was the patient. * * * * * Unable to hide how I truly felt and finding some solace and satisfaction in answering my nurse honestly, I knew that I was depressed. Having been depressed all of my life, unable to remember a day when I wasn't depressed, I've always been depressed. Being that I've been depressed as far back as I can remember, I've learned to live with depression in the way that I live with a bad hair day by wearing a hat or in my case by wearing a happy mask and smiling even though I'd rather be crying. Maybe they saw my bumper sticker on my car, I'd Rather Be Crying than Driving. Even after having received years of therapy for all the physical trauma that happened to me in my life, along with the emotional baggage that I carry with me, here I am writing erotica on a porn board. Go figure. If that's not depressing, I don't know what is. With seemingly nothing helping my depressed mood, not therapy, not Yoga, not meditation, and not even Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream, I've learned to live with depression as part of personal makeup and part of my life. Now to know that there's a happy pill out there, an anti-depressant pill that will take away my sadness, as if the medical profession is trying to take away my blankie, I don't want them to do that. Yet, I can't help but wonder what it must feel like to be happy all the time. Always smiling, always laughing, and always being so fucking annoying to other depressed people like me, I can't imagine being a politician, a cheerleader, a model, an Olympic athlete, and/or an astronaut. I'm just depressed me. Then, when my doctor finally came in the room after keeping me waiting for forty-five, excruciatingly long minutes, some healthcare we have in this country when the doctor's time is so very much valuably important than the patients' time. I could be a doctor too, you know. I could have an important job that the time that I spend away from it could be a life and death situation. Why do we even bother making an appointment? Yet, being that he's always late to see me, seeing me at his convenient pleasure, it's as if he knows that I'm unemployed and have no place else to go other than to sit there waiting for him to see me. Maybe he's just overworked and busy but at least he has a job. Boy talk about depression when being stuck in that little examination room with nothing to do while wondering if there's anything medically wrong with me, if I wasn't depressed before, I am now. Is it any wonder why I'm depressed and, if they knew that I'm already depressed, why add to my depression by keeping me waiting? I occupied myself by thinking of the conversation that I'd have with the appointment setter when making my next appointment. "What time would you like to make your next appointment to see the doctor?" I imagine the healthcare, administrative assistant asking me. Of course, you mean to say, I thought to myself, as if I was waiting for the cable man or a furniture delivery to arrive, you want me to give you a range when I can expect the doctor to see me? Is that it? "Does it really matter what time I make the appointment? Figuring that I'm going to have to sit and wait in the waiting room and wait again in the tiny cubicle they call an exam room, I'll see the doctor whenever I get there and whenever he can see me," I imagined saying to the woman making the appointments. "How's that? That way instead of one of us being late for our appointment, one or both of us may be early." I wish I could say that but just as the nurse didn't think I was funny when I told her that I was depressed because I'm a writer, I didn't think the healthcare administrative assistant making my next appointment would think me funny if I told her about my no appointment time comment. If you ask me, some of these healthcare professional seem depressed, angry actually. Definitely, terminally depressed, they are not a happy lot. I suppose with all the sick and depressed people that they see, their patients' mood eventually rub off on them. Maybe with food their comfort, depression is the reason why so many nurses and EMT's are so morbidly obese. Instead of asking me if I'm depressed, maybe my doctor should be asking his nurse if she's depressed. Definitely, depression would explain why she's so fat. Depression and Anti-Depressants Ch. 01 Could have guessed it and wouldn't I know it, the first question out of my doctor's mouth after "Hi, how are you?", of course is, "Are you depressed?" What the fuck? Are you kidding me? Am I depressed? If I wasn't depressed before with everyone asking if I'm depressed, I'm depressed now. Normally when asked how I am, with "good" the expected and ignored answer, I never say that I'm good. If only to see their reaction to my whimsical nonsense, I always say that I'm dying, especially when asked how I am by a healthcare professional or by a person with whom I really don't want to have a prolonged conversation. After that glimpse of surprised shock on their faces, as if they're trained not to react emotionally, healthcare professionals will typically ignore me by not even responding to my comment. No doubt, not thinking me depressed, assuredly, they think me crazy. Those who I really don't want to talk to anyway, as if I have a contagious disease, will keep walking rather than to ask me why and when I'm dying. Being that I just told his nurse that I'm depressed, I don't know why my doctor is asking me the same question. Being that she just typed my comment on my permanent, never to be erased record in her laptop, does she not share what I just told her forty-five minutes ago with you, or now that you're in possession of the laptop, are you too busy to read what she wrote? Bad enough that I must endlessly give my name and birthdate to every healthcare professional I see, must I repeat myself about if I'm depressed or not too? "What's your name?" "Susan Jill Parker." "And your date of birth." "July 26, 1972." "Yes, I'm depressed. I'm a writer. Of course I'm depressed, which is why I write. Writing helps my depression. If I wasn't depressed, I dare say that I'd have nothing to write about and wouldn't be writing, that is, unless I wrote children's books with happy endings. Writing is my preferred version of therapy. An endless process, being that I'm so depressed, I'm always writing, ergo I'm always giving myself therapy." "I see," he said seemingly ignoring me while seemingly not even listening to me. Wasting my best material on him, I wondered if he heard anything that I said. Being that he was asking me personal questions, I wanted to ask him personal questions too. How often do you have sex with your wife, I wanted to ask him? Does it sexually arouse you to see so very many naked women in the course of your day? Tell me and be honest with me, have you ever masturbated over seeing me naked? What do you think of my tits? I wondered his reaction if I dared ask him even one of those questions. Instead of thinking that I was depressed, he may think that I'm insane. "Unless they're rich and as successful as Stephen King and J. K. Rowling, all writers are depressed. You just have to look at Woody Allen to know that all writers are depressed if not crazy. I dare say, exceptions to every rule, even those successful and rich writers, with Stephen King's confessed drug habits, even he was depressed too, notwithstanding his enormous success and being very rich," I said. "I see," he said ignoring me while typing more things on his laptop to my permanent record. "Besides you know my background. You know that I'm a survivor of sexual abuse. Of course I'm depressed. How could I not be depressed? Seriously, doctor, there'd really have to be something seriously wrong with me for me not to be depressed," I said with a laugh but he didn't laugh. Maybe they're trained in medical school to be distant, aloof, and not to feel anything. He didn't even smile. He didn't even look at me to acknowledge my comment. "I see," he said typing a note in my permanent, never to be erased, record. Two words with one syllable each was his only comment to all that I had to say about my depression. Boy, he must be fun at a cocktail party. Doesn't he realize that I'm using my best material on him? Much like the non-reaction of his nurse, I guess he doesn't think me funny. Maybe they're trained in medical school not to laugh. Maybe they're trained in medical school not to show any emotion. I can just imagine someone telling him a funny joke at a party and everyone laughing but him with his only comment being, "I see." I can just imagine his wife telling him that their dog, Wally, a Cocker Spaniel died and his only comment being, "I see." Now I wondered if he's the one who's depressed and not me. With all the misery that he sees and all the sick and dying that he tends to, maybe I should ask him if he's depressed. Yet, even though we've already gone over this, repeating the cycle, my doctor and his nurse will ask me the same stupid and personal question at my next exam. Giving him the lead, I waited for him to say more. "And the reason for your depression?" * * * * * He looked at me over his eyeglasses as if seeing me for the first time and while seemingly ignoring my already stated reasons for my depression that I'm a writer and a survivor of sexual abuse, as if that wasn't enough. Maybe he just didn't hear me. Maybe if he had never been sexually abused, he doesn't fully comprehend all of the everlasting ramifications of someone forcing you to have sex with them. Perhaps, maybe because his life is so much better than mine, what I said were my reasons for being depressed didn't register. Maybe with him studying a science instead of an art, namely medicine and having to remember all the names of all the parts of the body and what they do, he didn't have to think about things in the way that a writer things about what if and what now when writing fiction. Suddenly feeling a little like R. P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I sat there waiting for the men in white coats to come barging in the room to collect me, cart me away, and lock me in a padded cell before giving me a much needed lobotomy. Much like McMurphy, unable to give him a straight and honest answer, I hide my misery with humor. As if it was time for Nurse Ratched to give me my medication, I could already hear the happy music playing so much like elevator music in the background, enough to make anyone who wasn't already depressed and/or crazy depressed and crazy. The reason for my depression? Seriously? Why does he want to know not only if I'm depressed but also why I'm depressed? In the way they ask me on Amazon and e-Bay to rate my recent purchase after I made a purchase, is he doing a study of depression and I'm an involuntary participant? Must I have to answer all of his inane and much too personal questions? Other than if I feel physically ill, it's really none of his business how I mentally feel and if I'm depressed or not. He's not a psychiatrist and he's not a psychologist. He's just a doctor, a general practitioner, and my primary care physician. Nonetheless, being that I was already there for my physical, I felt compelled to answer his question in more detail and without all the humor when answering his nurse. "Being that I'm unemployed and have been unemployed since 2007, it didn't help my normal, genial mood when I lost everything in a flood more than 2 years ago after I moved from Boston to Pennsylvania to live with my mother after divorcing my ex. In defense of my depressed mood, nor did it help my mood to live in a shelter and eat my meals at a mission when my mother took off with yet another man and left me alone to fend for myself. Yet, what else is new when it comes to her? She was never there for me," I said suddenly feeling as if I needed to get comfortable on a couch for this sort of impromptu therapy when I thought I was there for a physical examination. "I see," said the doctor typing faster now. "I'm broke. I'm angry. I live in the spare bedroom of a kind, albeit crazy, Mennonite woman named Hannah who enjoys walking around the house topless and going outside like that during the warmer weather. Being that she's only 4'9" tall, weighs about 200 pounds, and has enormous sagging breasts, trust me, it's not a sexually exciting image to see," I said with a laugh. "That is a bit odd," he said looking from his computer screen to look at me as if he thought that I was making it all up and he was humoring me. "That's Hannah," I said. I was surprised that he was giving her more of his focused attention than he was giving me. "Perhaps she's depressed too." "Perhaps," I said while hoping he'd change his focus back to me instead of Hannah. Then, he said something that echoed through my head as if he said it while standing on a mountaintop at the Swiss Alps. "I can prescribe something to change your mood," he said as if choosing his words carefully and looking at me to see my reaction to what he said. To be continued... Depression and Anti-Depressants Ch. 02 There are no underage characters in this Review & Essay. All characters portrayed are over 18. * Susan Jill Parker refuses to take anti-depressant medication. Yeah, no kidding. Is Hannah depressed? Of course she's depressed. She's a Mennonite. Not to write anything bad about Hannah, about Mennonites, and/or about the Amish but I thought to myself how happy I am not being born a Mennonite or an Amish woman. None of them look very happy, especially the women. Moreover, too many of them look too much alike which makes me wonder if it's time for them to either invigorate the gene pool by having sex with others who aren't Mennonites or Amish or for Dad and brothers to stop having incestuous sex with their daughters and sisters. I know for a fact that incestuous sex is the reason for Hannah's depression and the reason why she never married and had children of her own. Once she was old enough, she ran the Hell away from her family and from the Mennonite religion and traditions. I can only imagine a Mennonite mother's worst fear when trying to protect the virginity of her daughter. Difficult enough to protect her adult daughter's virginity from other men but when those men are her husband and her adults sons and adult cousins, there's no telling what goes on in the barn when mother is busy in the house doing all of her other chores. "Where's Hannah?" "She's in the barn with her brother Seth and her cousins Jacob and Thomas." "Seth! Jacob! Thomas! Leave your Hannah alone and get in the house. Hannah! Why are you naked? Shame on you. Wipe that gunk from your mouth and get dressed this instant!" * * * * * With her never marrying, with her not having any children, and with her having big tits, with all the anger issues she has, no doubt Hannah was sexually abused too, probably by her father, brothers, and cousins. Even though she's loaded after selling the family farm in Lancaster for four million dollars and collecting a million dollars after splitting the rest with her three brothers, she makes still makes her own clothes. She drives an older, plain Jane Honda Civic without any chrome nomenclature on it and with a standard transmission instead of an easier to drive automatic. Leaving a piece of chrome on the car would be considered unnecessarily flashy. If I had her money, I'd be driving a Cadillac with a Corvette parked in the garage to drive on Sundays. Wait. Hold on. Back up. Too busy thinking about the empty life of my Mennonite friend, it just dawned on me what my doctor had just said. Change my mood? How could he possibly change my mood? I wondered what he meant by that comment. Maybe he wants to have sex with me. He's not a bad looking man and he does have a good job. Maybe after three years with him being my general practitioner of a doctor, my primary care physician, he's been dreaming about me, lusting over me, and now wants to make his feelings for me known. Maybe he's been masturbating over my hot body and my big tits. More than that, maybe he loves me. Maybe he wants to leave his wife for me. Maybe he wants to marry me! "Wow!" Not really thinking that he'd be interested in giving me sex, suddenly excited, instead of sex, I wondered if my doctor was going to give me the winning lottery ticket. More believable than him leaving his wife to marry me or giving me a winning lottery ticket, maybe, being that I don't have health insurance, he's not going to charge me for this office visit or for the blood test that always follows. Certainly for him not to charge me would change my mood from thinking where I'm going to get the money to pay for his exam and blood test to being glad that I no longer have to worry about paying the hospital for their services. "Pardon? Sorry Doctor but I was daydreaming. What did you say?" "I can prescribe something to help change your depressed mood from sad and angry to not as sad and not as angry," he said carefully choosing his words again. He reiterated what I thought he said. Hmm. As if he's the Wizard of Oz, too good to be true, I wondered how he could change my mood from sad and angry to not as sad and angry. I wondered if being not as sad and angry would translate to me being happy and calm or was that too much for to ask from my doctor and too much to ask from a mere pill. * * * * * What can my doctor possibly prescribe to change my mood? Are there happy pills out there that will make me feel calm and happy instead of sad and angry? Even though I knew there are happy pills, if only by all the drug commercials that they have on TV where their good looking models appear so happy when we all know that, in real life, they're all so sad. Actually, truth be told, models as part of the beautiful people, except for Naomi Campbell, are always happy. Okay, of course with exceptions to every rule, in the way that politicians and cheerleaders are never depressed and always happy, models are another group that are never sad. Too dumb to be depressed, I've never seen a sad model, that is, unless they have a real personal tragedy in their life. "What happened Heather? Why are you so sad?" Olga, Heather's modeling agent, looked at her with the concern that a mother would have looking after her daughter. "I broke my nail," said Heather looking up at Olga as if she was about to burst in tears. "Don't worry. It will grow back," said Olga. "Trust me. Fingernails always grow back. "It will?" Heather, tall, blonde, beautiful, and busty, but very dumb looked at Olga as if she was lying to her in the way that man asked her to strip naked, jump up and down, and bend over because he just wanted to see something. "Are you sure?" "Yes, yes, of course. For the time being, I'll file it down for you. There, it looks as good as new. And until your nail grows, I have a fake nail that you can put on your finger."" * * * * * I laughed while looking at my doctor as if he was just as crazy as I was. "Actually there are happy pills," he said with a little laugh in the way that Dr. Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory tries to laugh but can't actually ever seem to laugh in the way of a normal person. "We call them anti-depressant medication," he said as if I was Alice in Wonderland and he was the Cheshire Cat ready to give me a pill that will make me feel small enough to fit through a keyhole. "Anti-Depressants?" Having heard more bad than good about anti-depressants, I remembered hearing the long list of the side effects and warnings of anti-depressants whenever they advertise such medication on TV. "No thanks," I said. Now thinking that my doctor was nothing more than a pill pusher pushing pills just to make money for the maddening HMO, medical machine called preventative maintenance healthcare. How dare he use me for his monetary advantage? Pressured to sell them by the big pharmaceutical companies, I'm not an expert but I'm intelligently informed enough to know that these doctors have no idea what's in these medications that they routinely prescribe and what it does to the body and the brain. If it's so good, I wanted to ask him, why aren't you taking anti-depressants doctor? Perhaps if he took an anti-depressant, it would improve his mood enough for him to crack a smile, make a joke, and even laugh. Oh, I see, he's not allowed to take anti-depressant medication while practicing medicine. He can only prescribe them. Is that it? I trust before prescribing these pills that they called up the long, laundry list of side effects and potential dangers that these medications have. Moreover, how can and why should a medical doctor, a general practitioner, my primary care physician, and/or even an internist be able to prescribe mind and mood altering drugs when they have no idea of the patients' mental stability or instability. Seriously, I could be just as crazy as he is or as his nurse is. Little does my doctor know that I have an AK-47 in the trunk of my car, just in case I see someone to shoot, someone who annoys me, and/or someone who makes me angry. Shouldn't prescribing anti-depressant medication be the job of a trained psychiatrist after seeing someone for psychological therapy and over an extended period of time, instead of during a brief physical examination? How can they possibly determine by seeing me for a few minutes while asking me if I'm depressed and solely based on my answer that I'm a candidate of any one of the long litany of anti-depressant medication? More than suspicious about him peddling anti-depressant medication to me, I was against taking anything that could change me from being the well-adjusted woman that I am to the raving lunatic that I could become. A normal occurrence now when seeing a medical doctor during a routine appointment or even when visiting the emergency room for an unexpected medical emergency, even a mere cut, after asking me my name and date of birth, they all ask me if I'm depressed. Next I'd be expecting my car mechanic to ask me if I'm depressed. "Are you depressed," I imagined my mechanic saying while closing my hood. "Usually not until I get your bill," I imagined replying to him. I've had more than one doctor try to prescribe anti-depressant medication to me because I told him that I was depressed when he asked me if I'm depressed. Maybe I should lie and tell them that I'm happy. Maybe I should confess that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger and I used to be a cheerleader, a model, and/or always wanted to run for political office and still might. Yeah, definitely, how can I be depressed if I wanted to be an astronaut, used to be a cheerleader, a model, and/or might run for political office? Maybe I should just smile like the idiot that I am and tell everyone that I'm glad to be alive, even though I'm broke, unemployed, and living in the spare bedroom of an insane Mennonite woman, who enjoys walking around topless and flashing her huge, sagging tits to her neighbors. "God help me. Why is my life such shit?" Yet, when I think about depression and depressed people, who isn't depressed? We're all sad over one thing or another, especially if we're one of the majority of have nots instead of one of those who have it all. I wanted to ask him if he was depressed for being a general practitioner instead of being a specialist. Seriously, we all have our crosses to bear, even doctors. I wanted to ask him if he was depressed because he earned one quarter of what a specialist takes home to his family while they play more golf and don't work nearly as hard as he does. If he wasn't depressed, I wanted to ask him if he was happy because he was a doctor instead of a dentist or was a real doctor instead of a chiropractor. * * * * * I looked in the examination room mirror to see if there was a sign written on my forehead that read that I'm depressed. Maybe it's the big bags under my eyes but that's from not getting enough sleep and not from my depression. The bags beneath my eyes are from waking up too early and going to bed too late while writing, writing, and writing. I guess he didn't hear me say that I'm a writer or comprehend what it means to be a writer who's driven by her passion to write and who doesn't earn enough money writing erotic stories to even feed herself. Truth be told, I'm depressed because I'm a survivor of sexual abuse. Beaten, tortured, and raped by more than one abuser, one of my sexual abusers, my older cousin, even tried to murder me by drowning me. Thinking that I was going to die, it wasn't until I saw the Virgin Mary underwater that I felt at peace and relaxed myself enough to accept my fate. It wasn't until the Virgin Mary spoke to me and said, "Don't worry," that I knew I wouldn't die. I'll never forget what happened as long as I shall live. Floundering in the water, unable to swim, not even knowing how to do the doggie paddle, and with my heavy winter clothes weighing me down, I watched as my life flashed before my eyes. Then, when I saw the Virgin Mary there beneath the water with me, as soon as I saw her, I relaxed. As soon as the Virgin Mary said for me not to worry, instantly the hand of my sexual abuser reached down in the frigid water from the boat to pull me up by the hood of my soaked and ruined wool coat. It was February, the coldest day of the year and I've never been as cold in my life nor as relieved as I was then that I was still alive albeit shivering, frightened, and in shock. If that forced sexual and death defying experience with my cousin wasn't enough when I was an 18-year-old virgin, a few days before that life changing episode, my uncle force me to give him oral sex. With no sexually abused victim having just one abuser, it's as if all we have a sign on our foreheads that reads, sexually abuse us. With my mother never around to stop them and with my incestuous slut of a mother having sex with them anyway too, my four, much older, drunken brothers raped me more than once, until I finally left home to live with my girlfriend. Then, if that wasn't enough, to compound my depression, years later, I hooked up with a man, a bad, Boston cop who took his daily frustrations of his job out on me. Somehow and for some women, it doesn't help to be born beautiful. Wishing that I was ugly, especially being that I felt ugly after being sexually abuse, whenever I ventured out, I went out of my way to hide my appearance from men, not an easy thing to do when being tall, blonde, beautiful, and busty. Not only was I my ex-husband's sounding board, more of a yelling and pounding board, I was his punching bag too. Being that he was a black belt in Judo, he knew exactly where to hit me to not show a mark outside my body but to do damage inside my body. Coughing up and anally shitting blood, most of the time I was with him, with going from one emotionally and sexual abuser to a sexual, verbal, and physical abuser, and with him coercing me to participate in the swinging lifestyle, my life hasn't been wine and roses. Then, when the men wanted me more than the women wanted him, he was no longer interested in swinging and called me a slut and a whore for doing what he coerced and forced me to do. I couldn't win with him. Normally martial arts experts don't hit women and never hit anyone outside of the dojo or a tournament, that is, unless attacked first out on the street, but he relished hurting me, especially if I dared to talk back to him or sassed him. Talk about depressed, he was crazy mad, one too many steroids, no doubt. Maybe I should introduce him to my doctor. Yet, if my doctor dared ask my ex if he was depressed, my doctor would be eating his meals through a straw. "Pardon? What did you just ask me, Doc? Depressed?" POW! Bam! * * * * * With my doctor and his nurse making me feel bad that I was depressed, they made me feel that there was something wrong with me for being depressed. A life peppered with misery, who wouldn't be depressed with all that I've been through, had to endure, and survive during the short time that I've been on this planet? Obviously needing anti-depressant medication for more than one doctor to ask me if I wanted a little something to improve my always sad and angry mood, I began soul searching. I needed to understand, if only to justify my depression to myself, why I was depressed. I mean, I always knew that I was depressed but I wasn't suicidal. I was just sad and angry. Who isn't sad and angry, other than politicians, cheerleaders, models, and astronauts? Until asked, I didn't think I was depressed because depression was my normal state of mind. Depression runs in my family. All of my family members are depressed. Certainly my mother and definitely my four brothers are all depressed. If I'm depressed at all, and undoubtedly I am, it was because of my bitch, incestuous whore of a mother and my four perverted, much older brothers are responsible for ruining my life. Old now, in her seventies but telling everyone that she's in her sixties because she looks ten years younger, and indeed she does, my mother was a model, turned stripper, and turned prostitute. She had a different man on her arm every week. More than her being a stripper and a prostitute, my mother was an incestuous whore who had sex with her four adult sons before I was even born. Unless it was one of her Johns, and I doubt that, with me an accident of ejaculation with one of my brothers not wearing a condom while inside of my mother, conceivably one of my much older brothers is, no doubt, my father. With none of them admitting to it, no one knows who my father is. How's that for growing up in a fucked up family? How's that for having a reason to be depressed? Having to trek out to Michigan and Ohio to track down my brothers, it would take a DNA test for me to get the truth out of any of them. I can see me now trudging through the deep snow while chasing after them before having to paddle across one of the great lakes. "Hold still so that I can get a blood sample," I imagine saying to one of my brothers while trying to stick a needle in his arm. "Don't you want to know if you're my Daddy? Don't you want to be on the Maury Povich show?" * * * * * Yet, even though fantasy over reality can sometimes be appealing as well as appalling, especially when writing fiction, rather than when taking anti-depressant drugs, I need a clear mind to write. I know that I'm naïve but I can't help but put anti-depressant medication in the same class as LSD, designer drugs, and other hallucinatory drugs. Certainly, without a doubt, for anything to relieve my depression, my sadness, and my anger, it would have to be a hallucinatory drug for the medicine to set me free. Yet, even though I wish I had their writing ability and a portion of their financial success, I don't want to be like Poe, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and King who abused alcohol and drugs. Who knows, maybe if I was high on mood altering drugs, while writing about unicorns, dragons, aliens, vampires, and monsters instead of people, I'd be a better writer. Even though I'm forever tortured with the never forgetting thoughts of all that happened to me, they are all my thoughts and this is my depression. They are not someone else's thoughts created by a drug induced haze from the help of a little pharmaceutical pill created by some Dr. Frankenstein chemist in a lab to make billions of dollars for his company at the expense of depressed people like me. I apologize for my ignorance about anti-depressant medication and I'm sure that they help a lot of people make their way through life but because of their inherent side effects and in the way that they react with other medications and alcohol, no thank you. Moreover, you can't take yourself off of your anti-depressant medication without a doctor weaning you off of them. God forbid you just stop taking them and go cold turkey. That's when depressed people start shooting people. How many times have we heard of a depressed gunman killing people because he stopped taking his medication? Rather than taking them, I'd rather do without them. I'd rather be sad. I'd rather be angry. I'd rather be depressed. I rather not have some mind altering medication inside of me that will make me say, feel, and do the normal things that are expected of me and that are not and have never been part of my physical and mental makeup. If ever I was happy, what the Hell would I write about then? I need to be angry and sad to write. I need to be depressed to be able to think clearly through the problems that are my life. Maybe if I accepted my doctor's prescription and took anti-depressant medication, I'd write about white, puffy clouds, balloons, fireworks, fairy tales, pretty dresses, cheerleaders, and models. * * * * * Nonetheless my miscellaneous ramblings, for those who have been prescribed to take anti-depressant medication, don't you dare take yourself off of your anti-depressant medication without prior doctor's approval. They are very dangerous drugs. I knew a man who took himself off of Zoloft and murdered two of his business associates. The nicest man you'd ever want to meet before he had his psychotic episode, he's in jail now serving a double life sentence without parole. Being in a cell for 23 hours a day, I couldn't do jail. Now that I think about it, as if in solitary confinement, being in prisoned is much like the self-imposed prison that my life is when writing alone with my bad self. Depression and Anti-Depressants Ch. 02 Being that I've been so used and abused by others who have tried to ruin my life, it's taken me decades to get some sort of happiness back in my life that I lost and should have had all along. Being that I endured and survived so much, other than a pill that I don't want and medication that I don't need and reject, there's nothing that anyone can do to me now. I've been through Hell and back. Now for some doctor to want to numb me with anti-depressant medication is something that I don't want and, always, I tell them no. I've numbed myself enough with alcohol when I was younger and want to be clearheaded now. "No thank you." I tell them that I've already missed enough of my life for them to take any more of it away from me by giving me mind numbing and thought altering medication. I'm not a doctor, a pharmacist, or even a chemist. I don't know enough about the human brain other than that I have one, I think. I don't know your personal psychological circumstances and why you were prescribed to take anti-depressants and I'm sure that your doctor is doing the right thing by you, but they are not for me. Having been down this road before with men using me as their sexual playthings, with too many doctors not knowing exactly what they're prescribing and how the side effects can personally affect me, I didn't want a doctor using me as his professional, medical, and human guinea pig. Some of these doctors are too free in prescribing pills, especially pain pills. Sorry. Presently, my only drug of choice is copious amounts of caffeine found in black, Starbucks' French roast coffee ground to a fine grind. Maybe those who take these medications are or aren't much different than me. I don't know. Being that I'm not a trained professional but just a dizzy, ditzy, dumb, blonde writer, I have no idea and no way of knowing how these medications would help or hurt me. Sad that I had to endure all that I've endured to survive, yet, scratch the surface with me and I'm angry for all that happened to me. If I had to describe myself with two words, I'm sad and angry. Yet, if I could go back and change my life, I wouldn't change a thing. There's a reason why I went through what I went through, I just don't know what the reasons are and maybe I'll never know. Yet that sadness and that anger are both all mine. I earned it and I own it and I don't want it removed with a pill that in twenty years researchers will say is inherently bad for you. They'll be lawyers advertising a class action lawsuit on TV called, Bad Drugs. After feeling and dealing with those emotions for so long, I don't want some happy pill taking my thoughts and my real emotions away from me. Rather than being someone else, some eternally happy person, some artificial product of a drug, I like being me. Besides, I need that sadness and that anger to remember all that was done to me for sex. I need my depression to write. For sex, I was beaten. For sex, I was tortured. For sex, I was raped. For sex, I was used, abused, and nearly murdered. Yet, sex had nothing to do with what happened to me. Lucky to be alive, I'm a survivor of violence and I don't ever want to forget what happened to me by taking one of these happy pills. * * * * * In the way that McMurphy had a lobotomy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest, I wonder if anti-depressant medications are nothing more than modern day mini lobotomies. I'm not a doctor, a scientist, or even a pharmacist but I know what I know. Rather than doing it the hard way with psychological therapy, anti-depressant medication is a quick and easy fix in the way of a Fen Phen diet pill. In the way that a drunk doesn't realized that he's too drunk to drive, those who need the medication and who are on the medication may not even know how psychological sick and emotionally damaged they are. Those who are on the medication obviously have a different viewpoint than I do for them to take what I won't take. If not in jail, many of those who have had a similar background as I have had have turned to alcohol, drugs, suicide, and/or become abusers themselves. Instead, by the way of my writing my erotic stories, through writing my fiction and wearing it as my badge of honor, I've taken my pain as my personal mission to improve the quality of my life. Always willing to work and a hard worker when I was employed, yet unable to break the cycle that I wear as a yoke around my neck, unemployment and poverty is not my fault. Inherent in my poverty, being that my Mom was poor and uneducated, I'm poor and not as educated as I could have been if my family had money and if I had the opportunity to go to graduate school. Now no longer looking for a good paying, full-time job with benefits that isn't there, instead of wasting my time and energy looking for a low paying, part-time job that has no benefits and no job satisfaction, I write my stories. I'm happiest while creating, developing, writing, and editing my stories. I've finally found my passion, even if it is writing erotica on a porn board. So what? I could be doing worse things with my time. Definitely, there are worse things that I could do with my time. I could have followed my mother and become a model, turned stripper, and turned prostitute, but I didn't. I could have fucked and sucked every man I knew for money. Being that she had children to support, giving her some modicum of credit, perhaps had I been a single mother, I would have done what she did. Yet, glad that I didn't follow in her footsteps, I wear that as another badge of honor that I didn't exchange sex for money, even when I needed money the most to buy food and pay for rent. I could have stayed married to my ex, had children, and watched him sexually, emotionally, and physically abused my children in the way that he sexually, emotionally, and physically abused me but I didn't. Done with that kind of violent life, running away from Massachusetts to live in Pennsylvania with my mother, before the flood, was the only thing I could do to save myself. * * * * * When writing, I'm never depressed. Instead, I'm happy. I'm happiest when creating storylines. I'm happiest when developing characters. I'm happiest when my characters are whispering in my ear what next to write. I'm happiest when reading all that I wrote while my cast of characters are surrounding me and are listening to me tell them their story. I don't want to lose that happiness by taking a pill that's going to alter my mind, change my mood, and prevent me from writing my stories. I'd rather be sad, I'd rather be angry, and I'd rather be angry if that's the only way for me to continue to write fiction and erotica. Now that I've found my passion for writing, am I going to give all of that up for some happy pill to make me calm and happy instead of making me feel my real emotions of being sad and angry? I need that sadness to write. I need that anger to craft my stories and breathe life into my characters. Sadness and anger are all that I have left after having a shit of a mother, perverts for brothers, and a losing crapshoot of a life. After all that others have put me through, I can forgive those who so hurt me but I'll never forget what they've done to me. Continuing to count on that pain and suffering sorrow, I need that internal and ceaseless sadness to write. If I take a pill, maybe I'll forget what it is that I need to remember to write. Always there, my misery and suffering sorrow never ends. Just as my misery and suffering sorrow is important to me, my sadness, my anger, my depression is me. My misery is who I am. Yet, it is my misery and not some doctor's misery for him to think that he can take it away from me and cure all my angst and anxiety with a magic pill. How dare they do that to people without telling them the ramifications and the side effects of these very dangerous anti-depressant medications? These doctors simply don't know what these medications can do and do to the mind of those taking them that is, until someone goes off, walks into their workplace with a gun, and starts shooting people. For those of you who take anti-depressant medication, have had some success with taking them, and have found some level of peace and wellbeing, I applaud you. I'm so very sorry for your personal, mental affliction and am glad that you've found some solace by taking a pill. I wish there was something that I can do to help you understand that one magic pill that may work for one person may not work for someone else and vice versa. In the way that your magic pill works for you, it may not work for me. Yet, I wonder, if you're such a great person now that you're on anti-depressant drugs, I can't imagine the person you may have been had all that caused your depression not happened to you. I know if all that happened to me never did, I would have been a much different person and a much better person, I suspect. I wouldn't be sitting here now in Hannah's guest bedroom while writing this review and essay. Yet, a reason for everything, maybe this is my reason for writing this. I hope readers will get as much out of reading this as I have in writing it. THE END