As many of you know, I took some preventative measures with respect to my mental health and sought out a doctor to speak about what I am going through. My thought has always been “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It’s interesting because going in, I felt extremely stable in the sense that I was, am, and remain fully aware of my feelings for the most part. But there was a lot of people around me going, “You’re seeing somebody right?” so part of going was also to put those around me at ease, as well.
It’s been a couple weeks now with a session a week. Overall, it is exactly what you would expect: a little of me talking, a little of him asking questions. It’s an intelligent conversation between two people, with one person at the table formally-trained in this kind of stuff.
One of the more interesting things he commented on was around how “level-headed” and “well-adjusted” I appear to him. I remember our first session, and I could see the disbelief in his posturing when I was explaining the Cliffs Notes of my life to him. It was as if he wanted to say, “This just can’t be true.” This went on for a few weeks while we did the backstory. At the end of every session, he always asks what I think of the sessions so far and my answer is mostly the same:
“I don’t know?” The reason being is that I really have no expectations outside of the fact that, should something overwhelming flare up internally, I would have somebody who is medically fully aware of who I am and more capable of helping me through whatever it is.
This last time, however, I asked him, “How do you think I am doing?” and that’s when he brought up the “level-headed” comment. I went home that night and have been thinking about it ever since.
How should I be? Why am I so “level-headed”? I think for the most part, it’s kind of like an E.R. doctor who is so used to seeing emergencies that, for the most part, it’s just life as usual. I remember driving on the Autobahn once, and I was driving a BMW wagon I had rented: I was thrilled to be on a road that had no speed limit, so I opened the car up and brought it right to the rev limiter and just kept it there for pretty much an hour. The initial feeling was exhilarating. After a while it became… well… Normal. In fact, when I finally exited the highway, driving regular speeds felt like I was nearly standing still.
I think this situation is somewhat like that. For better or for worse, I have spent the last four years of living in various stages of blunt force trauma to my life. This has become my normal, for better or for worse—life has chosen me to be the whipping boy for tragedy.
It led me to an inner-dialogue about “self”: “Who is the person behind the typing on this keyboard really?” I’ve given so much of myself up to dealing with all the events surrounding me that I actually wonder what I will become when the turmoil subsides, as I truly hope it will. I have to imagine the TP from 2007 is a much different person than the person TP will be in 2012.
It’s a profound feeling, really, because I am nervously anticipating where I am able to exit the freeway, take a look in the rear view and bid adieu to what’s back there, roll down the windows, open the sunroof, and just take a little Sunday stroll.
