November 17th, 2007

“Everyone looks better with their hair wet.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sure it is.”
“I’m going to have to say that I disagree.”
“Well then say it.”
The psychiatrist folds his hands together.

“My mother’s been swindling me for years, of my emotions, of my well-being; she yanks money out of my trust fund for ‘medical expenses’ and blowing it on spiritual seminars and workshops; first it’s Health Kinesiology, next, EFT, where one taps themselves and talks to themselves out loud. I walked into my mother’s room the other day and she was consoling someone, working with them step-by-step, because they felt that they were a bear. And not just a bear, a bear in hibernation.
“I honestly just don’t know what to do anymore.”
The psychiatrist folds his hands together, and lackadaisically, with feigned attentiveness, raises them behind his head. He, one by one, props his legs onto his custom-made leg support, which costs more than the chair that came with it. His clothes are eerily dryadic, off-browns and off-greens. He’s an adept birdwatcher; $500 binoculars, must be. A geologist, perhaps, or a wildwood activist, or a brambly, protuberant pair of glasses. Collects one-of-a-kind, ostentatious fountain pens.

The psychiatrist interrupts.
“You’re spoiled.”
Matt mentally retaliates with psychotherapy; instead, goggles at the psychiatrist, then reassuming a flat affect.
“I’m spoiled.”
“I’m afraid so,” the psychiatrist sighs. He crosses his arms and glowers at Matt. “It makes all bad news even worse news. You’re not accustomed to setbacks, or hardships.”
“Spoiled my ass.”
“Sure you are. I’m sure you pour the milk out of the gallon before it’s finished because you can’t bear to see it in the refrigerator with less than a cereal-bowl full left. Or you skip over it, and move onto the next gallon, ignoring it in denial.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Being spoiled makes life harder for everybody, Matt. Sometimes you just have to deal with what you’re given. There’s a quote at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire that’s proverbial in comparison to what I just said, but I can’t remember it for the life of me.”
The psychiatrist stares into an ecru corner of the room, majestically. He consults his chin.
“Being spoiled intensifies your lows.”
“You just said that.”
“That sounded more professional. More concise.”
Matt burrows his chin into his neck, and can’t concentrate his vision. He gesticulates to speak, but holds back. The psychiatrist, having gone through years of arduous medical training, must be correct, at least vaguely. Matt suddenly feels tumidly indignant.
He’s not even remotely spoiled. To be spoiled is to not know how to live in any other state than the state one’s parents have accumulated into a microcosm. He, however, does. He’s shot up heroin and Xanax on his best friend’s kitchen floor, surviving on a single gallon of milk as nourishment for two days straight. There were cockroaches that scuttled around his nose, albeit blasé.
Then again, you could argue that indulging in drugs is spoiling oneself, but this felt more like self-inflicted wounding.

The psychiatrist, feeling dismissive, dismisses the patient. This session is free of charge! We’ve got a lot of work done today Matt, get some rest. I’ll recapitulate with your mother.
Matt rides the one and ½ hour long subway ride home. On the subway car that he is in, there is a man who is clearly not a beggar, begging for food. An elfish, spiky woman with sharp earring gives him her half-eaten salad. They talk loudly; her act of altruism is nigh, menacing, ineluctable.

At Matt’s next appointment, he brings up his ex-girlfriend.
“I kissed another girl while I was with her. But it wasn’t because I’m sexually insatiable, as she accuses me of. She only believes that because I never attempted to coax her into anything. I never sexually asked for anything. We’d kiss, and once we got drunk and she touched me. That was once, and we didn’t talk about it afterwards. I seriously never pressured her into anything. She seemed too delicate, feebly aerial. She was bisexual, and vehemently terrified of men—always claimed that all they wanted was sex.
“Her fear was justified. Her mother was a crackhead living in a basement somewhere upstate, her brother was a drug-dealer, eventually ended up moving to Kansas to get away from it all; her father was a womanizer, new ones popping in and out every night, one-night stand marriage proposals; he’d leave the door open; she’d shut hers; screamed at her, I’m sure beat her, I hope he didn’t—
“I think it’s what she wanted to believe, that she couldn’t have any faults to drive anyone to cheat on her. I don’t believe there’s any plausible reason to cheat on anyone. I was drunk. It lasted three seconds. I told her immediately as soon as it happened. Well, two hours later.”
“Matt, why did you cheat on her?”
“Because she was incapable of giving me what I need; she never paid any attention to me. I am a very needy, clingy person. She’d never tell me what she was doing at night until afterwards, and it was always something I didn’t want to hear, not being an aspiring sociopathic socialite; rarely gave me the time of day, rarely contacted me and if she did it was only through text-messages received at suspicious hours saying ‘I miss you.’ How should I know that? I’m cursed with a vivid, phantasmagorical imagination. All the things I thought she was doing without me—she constantly talked about shows and parties, clubs requiring fake I.D.’s with her friends. What was I suppose to think? She let off as much to me as a porcupine.”
“A porcupine?”
“It’s just an expression.”
“Does a porcupine not get its fair share of emotional regard from others, Matt?”
“Look, you get the picture, alright.”
The psychiatrist solemnly crosses his legs.
“Matthew, I believe this originates from something that you repressed deep down as a child. Were you ever neglected? By either parent? By your dog? By whomever,” the psychiatrist burps, stammering his hand to precise the words, “entered your apartment.
“Actually, don’t answer that. I think it’s full of shit.”
Matt, bewildered, waits for the psychiatrist to continue.
“All that Freudian coked-up dithyramb that girls use to flirt with from second-hand textbooks out of, drinking green Thai tea—I motherfucking hate tea. No…you shouldn’t be seeing me. You should be seeing a psychopharmacologist; he will more…more, will be more lenient with the inevitable opiate treatment that’s bound to ensue.” The psychiatrist chuckles, jaundiced.
“So what you think you got, kid. Everybody’s got something these days; keeps you in the swing of things. The poor chaps that actually have the disorders, well, they tend to get overlooked, and those with nothing wrong with them remain over cured.
“Or should I phrase—if I handed you a list of DSM diagnoses, which one would you feel most inclined to choose?
“Let’s cut the bullshit. You’ve got something, you say; I am impartial to whatever you’ve got, as I don’t believe you have anything…but seeing how you’re paying me, choose away. Let’s narrow this down, first of all. Mood disorders, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, dissociative/somatoform disorders, schizophrenia, the adolescent goldmine: ADHD, substance-abuse disorders, though I wouldn’t recommend that one, the treatment for it is just another online dating service.”
Matt, still somewhat shaken, evaluates the usefulness of the medications that accompany the listed disorders.
“Alright I’m going for the broad-spectrum. OCD, off the bat, supplemented by major depression; throw in depersonalization disorder, as it is a symptom of OCD; best…with OCD, to include agoraphobia and ‘anxiety crescendos’ as it’ll be too difficult to fake panic attacks. I wouldn’t mind a personality disorder for fun, but I’m guessing the treatments for personality disorders aren’t specifically medical.
“One last thing, toss in episodes of mania, for the Lithium. Should help calm the OCD and anxiety in general.”
The psychiatrist, hands folded, is staring at the ceiling listlessly, suspiring.
“Done?”
“Yes.”
“You’re an intelligent young man! The medications all augment one another for this ‘broad-spectrum’ diagnosis you have chosen.” He pauses. “Want to go float around?”
Matt, enthusiastically grateful for his medical insurance, agrees vivaciously.

The psychiatrist’s office happens to outlet into a backyard where there are two hammocks swaying drowsily in torpor. The psychiatrist removes a jar from his pocket that is filled with translucent, gelatinous liquid. A label on the jar identifies it as hydromorphone, in the generic. He saunters over to one of the hammocks, flopping on it and rolling into position, stretching out his entire body simultaneously. He gestures me to mule a marble stool over to him, on which he places his jar and subsequent syringes.
“Your arms betray you.”
“Keeping tracks on me, eh.” I prepare the first syringe for him, finding that without the ritual of the spoon, citric acid, cigarette filter, and scented candle, it loses much of its suspense. I prepare mine, hand his to him, and crawl onto my hammock.

“Matt what exactly is it that you think I can help you with besides prescribing you medication, because if that’s all I can help you with then I see no reason in continuing to see you so frequently, as I can phone in prescriptions easily.
“I’m under the impression you know how to dose yourself properly, how to cycle prescriptions to fit your impending addiction to benzodiazepines, etc.”
“So then, you think I’m treated?”
“Darling,” the psychiatrist simpers, “there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Then why…am I being treated?”
“Don’t you want to be?”
“I guess…but the concept of being treated for nothing is somewhat, amoral.”
“Not according to medical insurance,” the psychiatrist winks, filing papers around his office.
“And my mom?”
“Talk to whoever governs your trust fund; tell them she’s cozening you. You’ve got proof, don’t you?”
“I’m sure I can scrounge up a few incriminating receipts lying around—”
“I’m putting you on five pharmaceutical drugs. Only one of them is expensive. Already phoned them in; you can pick them up whenever.”
Matt turns to leave. “Then why do I feel that there’s something wrong with me?”
The psychiatrist shakes his head, flippantly assorting his scutwork.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.”