Everyday Madness Ch. Two

         On a Wednesday I walk into the psychiatrist’s office and the usual smell of sweet wood shavings and old feces - reminds me of a pet store - is thick in the lobby like an invisible cloud.  The receptionist with the dumpy ass and fat around her belt stares at me from behind the desk then slides open the glass partition that guards her from freaks like me.  There’s a candle burning next to her and when I lean forward to talk the slight heat radiates onto my arms.
         “Reilly Reynolds.  Two-thirty appointment.”
         She makes a check on her clipboard with a pen and tells me to take a seat.  There’s cheap generic artwork of sail boats and golf courses on the walls.  The tall chair is padded and covered with rough woven wool.  I watch the other people in the room, wonder if they’re as batshit crazy as I know I am.  The Devil is real and he knows my name.
         A fly lands on my leg and I try to skewer it with a pencil, but it moves at the last second and I end up stabbing the lead through my jeans and into the fatty flesh of my thigh.  I put the blood tipped pencil back into my pocket.  I need a gas mask to protect me from the fumes that rise from the excrements of hate and fear left to linger by the people that were here before me.
         “Reilly?” Dr. Clance calls with a smile.  Then, “How are you today?” as we walk to her office.  She’s a short black woman, older than me, wearing navy slacks and a checkered blouse.  Her slick hair is pulled back in a tight bun.
         “I’m okay.”
         Her office is small and crowded with books. The walls are decorated with posters that read things like “It will be OKAY,” and “Tomorrow is a new day.”  We sit facing each other, me on a loveseat, her in a black, executive-style desk chair.
         “What happened to your leg?” she asks.
         “Nothing.”
         “It’s bleeding.”
         “No it’s not.”
         “Okay…” she scans her notes, “How’s everything going?  Still feeling the depression?”
         “Yeah.  Some.”
         “The meds don’t seem to be helping?”
         “Maybe a little.”
         “Have you had any more incidents?”
         “Manic episodes?  You mean manic episodes, right?  Isn’t that what you call them?”
         “Yes.”
         “Not lately.”
         “Good.  No more attacking random people?”
         “No.  I’ve been pretty evened out lately.”
         “Excellent.”
         She walks to her desk, picks up a booklet, then returns to her chair.
         “Have you thought anymore of hurting yourself?”
         “No,” I answer automatically.  Tell them yes and they send you to the bad hospital with the nice name and halls filled with screams.
“Well, would you say you feel overall?  If you had to sum it up.”
         “How do I feel?  I feel like I am all the depravity and unhappiness in the world condensed into a single body.  I feel like I’m the shit stain on the bathroom wall of the world that everyone sees but tries to ignore in the hope that someone else, anyone else, will come and clean it up.”
         “That’s a pretty grim outlook.  I’m not ignoring you, am I?”
         I shrug.  “I pay you.”
         “Fair enough.  Why do you think you feel that way?”
         “Chemical imbalances?  Or maybe life is just wearing me down, killing whatever it is that lives inside and controls me.”
         “You mean your soul.  I thought you didn’t believe in a soul.”
         “Okay, it’s ruining the collection of emotions and beliefs that form my persona and guides my actions.”
         “That’s a fair compromise.  Can you give me an example?”
         “Example of what?”
         “Something that wears you down.”          
“Okay, college.  College is a fucking waste.  I’m not really learning anything and I don’t even know why I’m there anymore.”
         “Then why are you?”
         “I guess so I don’t have to deal with the real world.  Or something like that…fear, maybe.  And because without that piece of paper, that goddam diploma, I’m not worth shit in other people’s eyes.  I’m just buying a piece of paper so I’ll be accepted as normal.”
         She remains silent, jotting down notes between encouraging glances.
         “I guess I’m disillusioned.  Nothing is ever what I hope it will be.  Everyone told me that college is this utopia of free thinking and acceptance of others, but it’s not.  That’s a fucking lie.  The people there are just as close minded and bigoted as the rest of the world.  Actually, it’s worse because these people try to pretend they’re not.”
         “I think college is very accepting and open.”
         “Jesus.  How can you say that?  I had a class in rhetoric a couple semesters ago.  The teacher was this hyper-liberal lesbo who was always bashing on the President and the government.  That’s fine with me.  They’re her opinions and she expressed them intelligently in an environment of open discussion.  That’s what college should be, right?”
         Dr. Clance nods.
         “You know what happened?  Our class started getting death threats.  Students or teachers or some crazy assholes actually wanted to kill us over some meaningless bull sessions.  There were only eight of us in that course!  Eight students and a teacher but that worried someone enough to threaten our lives.  We had to have campus police escort us from the class to our cars for weeks.  That’s insane!  What does that say about this school?  What does that say about this country?”
         I stop for breath and cross my legs, pick at a scuff on the toe of my Topsiders.
         “That’s hard to believe,” she says.
         “Only because you’ve convinced yourself to believe that this illusion of freedom –free speech, free actions, whatever- is real.  It’s not.  Clearly not.”
         “You sound like a conspiracy theorist.”
         “I don’t believe in Loch Ness monsters or aliens, goddamit.  What I’m talking about is simple observations gathered and combined to form a logical conclusion.  The conclusion that life sucks and there’s no point trying to change anything.  At least I understand that this is just my personal opinion, with out trying to force it down other people’s throats.”
         She looks into my eyes.  “Have you been using any drugs, Reilly?”
         “Of course not,” I lie.
         “You always seem to have very, very interesting ideas.”
         I laugh, play with the pleats on my pants.  My leg throbs.
         “I think we should bump up your medications a little.  Have you been having any bad effects from them?  Any reason to change them?”
         “No.  I don’t think so.”
         “Are you still hearing things other people don’t hear?  Seeing things other people don’t see?”
         “How would I know?  If I see it, it’s there.  I don’t go around asking people to double check me all the time.”
         She rips pages out of her prescription pad and hands me the stack.
         “Let’s try this and see if you feel any better.”
         “Great.  Thanks a lot.”
         I stop at the receptionist on my way out and hand her a check for two-hundred dollars.

         I stare at the row of assorted plastic, beige bottles of various sizes and sort the colorful pills with my finger.  Rave blue, eel green, bone white, and, my favorite, a big strawberry tab speckled with little tan spots.  I swallow them one by one with little sips of hot, sugary opium tea.
         Zoloft (200mg), Xanax (1mg), Paxil (60mg), Strattera (60mg), Adderall (40mg), Lithium (160mg), Geodon (10mg).  The pills fill my stomach and I can feel them tumbling in the acid as they slowly dissolve and fuel my blood.
         Whatever soul may once have lived inside me has molted from this body and moved on.  I function through the days like an old wristwatch ticking through well rehearsed motions, winding myself up each morning with the regimented onslaught of prescription drugs.
         Emotions exist, somewhere, but they float inside an impenetrable glass box where I can see them, know they’re there, but am unable to touch.  When there should be sadness or remorse, there is only an echo of…something, then chemicals fire in my brain and the feeling is gone before it’s ever truly felt.
Often now, I find myself questioning whether I’m asleep or awake.  I live disconnected from morals or worries, and even pleasure is hard to find.  I know and accept that I’m the worst kind of person, but the acceptance brings no relief.