How to Talk the Psychiatrist Out of Placing You in the Psyche Ward

I had to visit the shrink yesterday. I was not particularly thrilled because I awoke feeling happy for a change and I knew he would be an immediate buzz kill. Deciding that yesterday was the day I did not need any of the seventeen pills to keep me stable, I decided to flush all $1500.00 worth down the toilet. I love my manic highs and do not want anything standing between me and my euphoria. I become blind to the early symptoms of impending doom and havoc that mania can bring upon me and everyone around me. However, I became "too happy" too fast and the good ole doctor actually was awakened by my madcap voice and had to pay attention. I sure didn't want him taking notice of my expansive and irritable mood. Irritable because he was new and we were just not jiving as of yet like Dr. Rosa and I had.

I jumped out of bed early to make myself presentable for him. Believe me, your appearance is the first thing they mark off on their check list because I have snuck a peak at that sacred document. I didn't want to go in there looking like a tatterdemalion so I scrubbed for forty five minutes in the shower. I even shaved my legs. And it's a hard thing to do for a fat woman to shave her legs in the shower. The blood loss was tantamount to when I cut my wrist, but I managed to stop the bleeding with about twenty band aids and an ace bandage.

It was then time to move on to the finer maintenance of the face. I plucked out the gray and overgrown eyebrows that had me looking like Einstein. Then I felt that one course hair on my chin. I searched and searched for that damn thing before I finally grabbed it and then the tweezers weren't strong enough to pull it out. I'm telling you this sucker had spread out roots.

I was careful not to put on too much makeup and dressed conservatively although it took every once of will power I could muster up. I made sure everything matched, including my shoes. Sometimes I buy two pair of the exact shoe but in different colors and then wear one of each color. He would have looked at this as a bad sign. However, he could not make a checkmark on his list by: bizarre appearance/activities.

I walked into his office and instantly became nervous. I felt as if I was going to the principal's office. He is a short man in his mid fifties, American, and very proper. My gut told me by the seriousness on his face that he did not have an ounce of humor in him. It is probably easier for him to fart in public than to etch out a smile to a patient. So yesterday I ask him, "Do you smell something? Doc, did you fart? It wasn't me."

He dropped his head down and started checking and scribbling furiously. I become slightly pissed, vaulted from my chair, and leaned over his desk to investigate what he was writing. He had checked off: inflated self-esteem or grandiosity. When he saw me approaching across the desk he then checked off: agitated and marked impairment in occupational functioning or in usual social activities or relationships with others.

"What? You need to erase all those damn check marks or I'll show you agitated. You do not know your ass from a hole in the ground, " I screamed only inches away from his face.

"Do you want to go into the hospital?" he asked.

"Hell no!"

"Then sit down before I call security to come and personally escort you there!"

"Yes, sir."

I sat down abruptly and tried deep breathing exercises to calm myself. Inside my head I kept repeating, "Shut the hell up, Serina!" Then all I could hear was the loud ticking from his clock on the wall and smell the aroma of someone's cologne that was about to make me throw up. Unfortunately I could not lie down, first of all because I was too restless, and second of all because they really don't have couches in the psychiatry offices. At least not the ones I've been in. I don't know though, maybe they do in Hollywood, but I've never seen one. So I sat in the rather stiff chair and placed my arms on the rests and tried to breathe slow and deep. I didn't want him sensing any more anxiety because my family is asking to have me committed in the hospital. I am sure that he had received word from them on their concerns before I even had a chance to plead my case. I sat silently as he was finishing up paper work and waited for him to initiate civil discourse. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, I was pissed off again. I thought, "How inconsiderate. No, this is really just a test. He wants to see how I'll act. Well I'll not give him any more to use against me." So I sat there with sweat rolling down the sides of my face, with the unrelenting desire to tell him where to stick it.

"Let's start over shall we. How are you today?" He asked in a surprisingly pleasant voice.

"FINE!" I was too pissed to elaborate beyond that.

"What do you mean by fine? Are you happy, sad, mad, glad...."

"Well, I'm really depressed."

"Why?"

"Because my cat, Pru Girl, was hit by a car and died. It's tearing me up inside and I just don't know how to deal with the pain. God, I loved that cat. It's not fair. Yes, I know, life is not fair, but damn. Why!? She was just a sweet, little, innocent creature of God that never hurt a soul. In fact she loved everyone," I rattled on then stood up and slammed my fist on his desk, "I just can't take the gnawing pain in my heart!"

"O.k., that's a good start," he said calmly as he put his pen down and relaxed back into his chair to give me his full attention.

"Tell me what else has been going on this week and how you feel about it."

"O.k., I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll start with how everything is going to hell in a hand basket. The handle on the screen door fell off. The central air conditioning is gushing water and the hall floor, part of Anna's bedroom floor, and part of the computer room floor are literally standing in water. I hope the floor does not rot out before I can call a repairman but this month's check has vanished and I want receive another until the third of next month. We ran out of toilet paper and we have had to use paper towels instead. Well that caused the toilet to back up and overflow and that floor has already been rotting. And man, talk about being raw down there. Those paper towels might as well have been brillo pads. I've been walking around like I've been riding a horse for a week. I wish I had been rode by a cowboy for a week instead. Hahaha. You know what I mean? That reminds me of my favorite song, "Save of Horse Ride a Cowboy". Have you ever heard that song? Anyway, I was backing out of the driveway the other day and ended up getting stuck in the garden. Don't ask me how. Well, one of Anna's good looking friends was on his way to work and saw the dilemma I was in. Of course he drives a Dodge. He turns around and comes to pull me out. My heart was beating so fast. He was my knight in shining armor. I mean damn, this guy is hot. I told him, 'I don't have any money to pay you with, honey, but I'm sure we could work out some other type of arrangement. Hell, I'll even shave my legs." He just laughed at me and went on to work. My daughter got pissed because of the way I acted. You know, I just can't stand it when my skin crawls. It makes me itch all over. Oh, two milligrams of Ativan is not doing anything for me anymore. You're going to have to up it to four. So the other day I went to plant some flowers on Pru's grave and before I put them down I smelled their sweet scent when I snorted a bug up my nose. I blew forever trying to get it out but had no success. Now all I hear is buzzzzzzzzzz, buzzzzzzz in my head and it's beginning to try my last nerve. I thought by now the damn bug would have suffocated in my snot but apparently not. I guess that pretty much sums it up.

"I think we should consider putting you in the hospital. You're obviously very manic, " he said as he began writing.

Straining my neck to see what he was saying now, I saw him check off his list: flight of ideas and more talkative than usual/pressured speech. "Damn," I thought to myself. I could have sworn I had a grasp on things.

"No can do, doc. You don't think I don't know what is going on here. My family. They vehemently disparage me, spreading farcical lies to discombobulate your perceptions of me to make me appear a bedlamite."

He starts writing and mumbling something along the lines of, "yada, yada, words, yada, intelligent."

"Be careful. Those canards my family spread may cudgel even your brain," I said with a smartass attitude. "And as far as words go I even know a few more. Like pompous, ostentatious, inexorable, pertinacious, malevolent asshole."

He puts his pen down and looks me straight in the eye.

"That's right. We ain't all dummies down here. Shoot, I can even count to twenty without havin to take my flip-flops off, " I said.

"I'm afraid your family is right. You need to be hospitalized."

"Why? Because I offended you. You can't do that. I can be as manic as I want, just as long as I don't threaten to harm others or myself. Did I threaten you? Well, did I?"

He looked at me with the evil eye because I had caught him off guard. "Well no you didn't threaten me, but given time and I think you would."

"You can't prove that. Besides, I've broke no laws. Hell, I just feel good. Now you want to hospitalize me for that. I don't think Medicare would be too happy with that decision. Do You?"

He sat rocking in his chair, deliberating about the decision to make.

"Please Doc. I swear I'll be good. Cross my heart and hope to die. Don't punish me for feeling naturally good for a change. So what if it is better than normal. Don't I deserve it? You've got to admit, at least I'm not on the couch crying and threatening to end my life. Let me enjoy a little happiness for a change while it last. More than likely it won't get much worse since I've been taken my meds."

Once again, silence ensued. That eerie kind you can scrape off the wall like syrup. My heart raced as I waited for his decision. What would it be? "Ok, try and act calm," I said to myself.

"What you need to do is to get me off this Ativan, which no longer works, put me back on my Zyprexa, and up my Lamictal 100mg a day."

"You think that will work?" he asked sincerely.

"Yes."

"Well, we will try it. You have to promise to take your meds. I'm calling your parents to tell them of the change, what symptoms to watch out for, and what meds you should be taking. I'll take your word this time but don't make me regret this. Do you understand?" he said sternly.

"Oh, yes sir, I do!"

He wrote out my prescriptions and handed them to me. "I'll see you in two weeks."

"Thank you," I said with a wink and a smile.

Walking to the car I began to think, "Now what can I do for a thrill. Oh, I know. I'll go to the one way street and drive in the wrong direction. It's always a hoot seeing the different expressions on people's faces when I pass by."