Pissing in a River

by Lorrie Sprecher

  “I didn’t think they were allowed to do that. Don’t you lot have some kind of therapeutic code of ethics or something over there?”

  “Allegedly. I asked the clinic to find me a lesbian therapist, thinking, she won’t fuck me over. That lunatic decided the noise in my head from intrusive thoughts was from multiple personality disorder. Now they call it dissociative identity disorder.”

  “Oh my God.” Melissa tried to stifle a laugh. “I’m sorry, but that’s so stupid it’s almost funny. You obviously have a coherent personality.”

  “She wanted me to have multiple personality disorder so she could write a paper on it. I was supposed to remember a traumatic incident from childhood, preferably incest. When I didn’t, she threatened to terminate treatment because I wasn’t ‘trying’ hard enough. So I made stuff up. And I’m a fairly strong-willed person. Anytime people say they could never be brainwashed or pressured into making a false confession, I know it’s not true.”

  “And that’s a controversial and over-diagnosed illness to begin with,” Melissa said.

  “One of the medications I was on, because my stupid psychiatrist believed my incompetent therapist’s diagnosis, had been making me seriously ill for months. I was so weak, I could barely stand up long enough to boil water for a cup of tea or make it to therapy appointments.”

  “That might not have been a bad thing,” Melissa said dryly.

  “Eventually I stopped taking it.”

  “What was it?”

  “Mellaril.”

  “That’s rubbish. We call it Thioridazine over here. It’s an antipsychotic. And we don’t prescribe it anymore because of its dangerous side effects. It causes odd rhythms in the heart and can be quite toxic. You were right not to take it. It’s prescribed for schizophrenia only in patients who have already tried two other medications that failed. And it doesn’t sound like you were psychotic or delusional anyway. I’ve never seen you in anything even vaguely approaching a dissociative state.”

  “Even though the shrink was quite happy to put me on different medication, my therapist said I was being ‘difficult.’ And since I refused to take Thioridazine, she was terminating my treatment. Before I left her office, she tried to make me sign a contract promising I wouldn’t kill myself.”

  “So after driving you to suicide and throwing you out into the street, she wanted to cover her arse and continue having power over you?”

  “I couldn’t believe she’d just completely cut me off and didn’t know what to do. She said if I refused to sign it, she was going to call the police and report me as a danger to myself and others as soon as I left her office. And when I walked out, she did.”

  “Fucking stupid old cow.”

  “The other drug I was on for my depression was in the wrong dose, so I had to cut the capsules in half and spill out half the medication.”

  “Why were they prescribed in the wrong dosage?”

  “Fucking stupid doctor. I can’t remember why. Much of that time is a badly medicated blur. But that night as I was sitting in my living room with a razor blade cutting up my antidepressants on a mirror, there was a knock on my door. And it was the police. I didn’t know what to do, so I let them in. The coppers asked for me. I told them I wasn’t in but that the misunderstanding with the therapist had been resolved, and they left. If only they’d stepped a foot farther into my apartment or looked over my shoulder they’d have seen a mirror, razor blade, and white powder everywhere. They would have arrested me for cocaine possession.” The Oasis song “Morning Glory” played in my head, with Liam singing, “All your dreams are made / when you’re chained to the mirror and the razorblade . . .” “If I’d been across the border in Washington, DC and black, they would’ve shot me. When my ex-therapist found out I hadn’t been committed, she called me up and threatened me over the phone. I was so devastated by her betrayal that I agreed to check myself into a mental hospital.”

  “She had you right where she fucking wanted you.” Melissa sounded sublimely pissed off. “Fucking vicious crazy cunt.”

  “Oh, she was brilliant. Totally into S/M but not just as sex roles for play. Sadomasochism as a lifestyle.”

  “Let me guess,” Melissa said. “She was the sadist?”

  “How’d you know?” I said.

  “How the hell did you know about her private sexual practices?”

  “She told me. Her favorite song was ‘Master and Servant’ by Depeche Mode. The Depeche Mode song I like best is ‘Never Let Me Down.’ I suppose that says it all.”

  “I can see I’m going to like her even more than I do already. I’ll have her bloody license revoked. She shouldn’t be allowed to bloody practice. She’s a fucking bloody menace, she is. What’s her fucking bleedin’ number? I’ll ring her up right now.”

  “I don’t remember her telephone number,” I said, chuffed at her loyalty. “But ta for the lovely thought.”

  “Was it bad in hospital?” Melissa brushed my pink-and-green fringe out of my eyes.

  “At first. But then they kept me too drugged-up to care.”

  “And this was back in the 1950s?” Melissa suggested, and I thought of the Nirvana song “Frances Farmer Gets Her Revenge on Seattle” about the actress who was given a lobotomy because she didn’t fit in. “How long were you in hospital?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?”

  “I’m surprised they let me out at all, except of course that they hated me, sarcasm not going over well in mental institutions. I think it implies a sophisticated intellect.”

  Melissa smiled. “No, you wouldn’t want to be too high functioning.”

  “It’s rather tricky. You want to present as either dramatic or catatonic. Using sarcasm as an anesthetic doesn’t count as self-medicating like alcohol and drugs do. You have to prove that you’re in pain. Better to spring a leaky vein in front of them. But one of the other inmates and I became friends—you know how you do when you’re locked up with somebody. I have the kind of personality you have to be incarcerated with to truly appreciate. We used to empty out the fruit baskets in the cafeteria, put them on our heads, and run around the ward saying we were basket cases. They’d put us in the Quiet Room.”

  “Quiet Room?”

  “A padded cell they’d lock you in.”

  “Was it a locked ward?”

  “Oh, aye. There were alarms on all the doors and signs warning of the danger of ‘patient elopement.’”

  “I suppose they couldn’t come up with a sillier term.”

  “I know. For some reason elopement makes me think of gazelles, like they were afraid the patients would lope away across the lawn like gazelles. Once my friend got put in the Quiet Room and managed to unscrew the metal plate over the wall socket with one of her rings. Then she tried to electrocute herself by sticking her wedding ring into it.”

  “How apt.”

  “Another time she tried to throw herself out the window, but the windows there don’t break,” I started laughing. “She bounced off the window and back into the room with a big bruise on her forehead. She’d been in hospital a lot, and her stories were hysterical. I mean, she really cracked me up.” I paused. “Is there a way to say that without sounding mental?” The old Modern Lovers tune “She Cracked” started playing in my head.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We would sit by the Coke machine because all the drugs we took made us thirsty and tired. We weren’t allowed to sleep in our rooms during the day. And we weren’t allowed to doze off in the common areas either. If you looked like you were asleep, a nurse would come by, shake you and say, ‘This isn’t a state institution. Look sharp.’ I was so drugged I could barely hold my head up. I used to lie down on the gurney that was always parked near the Coke machine. It was in a corner where the nurses couldn’t see us without making an effort. There was a sign on it that
said ‘Do Not Sit or Lie on Table’ which, of course, I ignored. One day an orderly came over and said, ‘You can’t lie there.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘It has a specific purpose.’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s for lying on.’ He said, ‘It’s not a piece of furniture.’ ‘Well, yeah,’ I said, ‘it kind of is.’”

  “What happened?” Melissa asked.

  “Got put in the Quiet Room again, didn’t I? But the worst part was the group therapy sessions they made us endure. It was my idea of what a twelve-step program in hell would be like. At the first one, the counselor wrote the words ‘affirmations’ and ‘self-talk’ on a chalkboard and asked us what we thought self-talk meant. I said, ‘It’s the voices we hear inside our heads telling us to kill,’ and the other patients laughed. We weren’t in an institution for the criminally insane, so I didn’t think I was stepping on anyone’s toes. He said it was the negative messages we give ourselves. Then he explained that mental illnesses were nobody’s fault and that everyone was only trying to help us. He told us to say the affirmation, ‘Everyone is doing his best.’ I said, ‘Even when he is raping you?’ and pointed out that rape and sexual abuse caused the mental problems that put the majority of women there in the first place. Then he tried to make us say, ‘I am not trapped by my past.’ My friend said, ‘I’m sorry, but some of us are here with biochemical illnesses.’ And I said, ‘I am not trapped by my past. I can change my genes.’ He wouldn’t concede that psychiatry has been used as a tool for social control and political repression. I just wanted someone to acknowledge it, to say I was historically correct. Now that homosexuality isn’t the disease anymore and homophobia is, I’m supposed to agree to be a happy, well-adjusted lesbian. But how can you be a well-adjusted lesbian in a patriarchy?”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It can’t mean,” I said, thinking of Gertrude Stein’s poem “Patriarchal Poetry.” “‘Patriarchal poetry not in fact in fact. Patriarchal Poetry in time.’”

  “Why do you always get literary or biblical when I’m supposed to be sleeping?”

  I laughed, “I don’t know. But here’s another story about my lesbian therapist. Once when I showed up for an appointment, two men were fighting in the clinic parking lot. As they rolled on the ground flailing at each other, I walked up and said, ‘Do you know how ridiculous you look?’ But then I noticed one of them had a knife and was trying to stab the other one. I stepped in between them and kicked the knife away. I scrambled after it, and one bloke took off. The other came after me. He wanted his fucking knife back. Like I was really going to give him back his knife so he could stab someone, probably me. I ran to my car and held the driver’s-side door open as a barrier between us. A group of shrinks were leaning out the window of the clinic smoking, and I shouted up to them, ‘Call 911!’ That’s our 999. They just gaped at me like I was mental. I screamed, ‘Help! This man is threatening me!’ My therapist, Ms. Head-Up-Her-Ass, hearing the commotion, stuck her head out the window and yelled at me for disrupting her session. I held up the knife and finally one of the shrinks—not mine—called 911. The bloke just stood there shouting at me until the police arrived and carted him away.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Melissa said.

  “Suicide by shrink,” I said, and smiled.

  TRACK 33 Capitalism Stole My Virginity

  I was awake when Melissa got up for work, having hardly slept. All night I obsessively went over everything I’d told her. And now I was apprehensive—well, scared shitless—about my visa as well.

  “How you doing, love?” Melissa said, as I quietly nursed a panic attack. “How are you feeling? Alright?” Melissa sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on my forehead.

  I tried to smile, but my anxiety was pushed up against my teeth like a wave. I struggled to hold it in. I didn’t want to appear too needy so early in the relationship. Let her get used to me before I become a human barnacle, I thought.

  “Are you unwell?” She looked at me with concern. I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say and I was trying to keep my heart from projectile vomiting out of my throat. “What’s the matter?” She felt my pulse. “What are you anxious about? Calm down,” she said gently, resting her hand on my head. “Everything’s alright. Are you upset about what you told me last night? You needn’t be. I can’t talk about it now ’cos I’m late, but we’ll talk when I get home, yeah? Don’t worry. We’re still mates. I hate to leave you like this, but I’m sorry love, I’ve really got to go.”

  When she left, I was beside myself. What did she mean we were still mates? I was so distraught I thought I was going to pass out. So I did the one thing I knew how to do under extreme circumstances. I went to a record shop. I took the tube to Leicester Square because that required no thought. It was on the northern line, a straight shot from Hampstead station. I walked across the road to the big Tower Records at Piccadilly where I did my underground busking. Piccadilly Circus was bright even during the day with its red, blue, and green Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Foster’s, and TDK neon signs. The streets were full of black cabs, people and noise, but I was in my own lonely capsule, shut off from the world.

  I spent hours looking at every single punk CD in the huge shop. That usually soothed me, but I agonized over the one perfect thing to get Melissa so she wouldn’t hate me and chuck me out of her life. With my anxiety at a dangerous level, my OCD went berserk. My brain spat out intrusive thoughts faster than I could neutralize them. I would have given just about anything if I could have unscrewed my own head and taken it off for a few minutes. Was that too much to ask? It was so bad I was whispering under my breath. But I tapped my foot and pretended to be singing along with the music that was blaring throughout the shop.

  I looked at Power of the Press by the Angelic Upstarts because it has the song “Brighton Bomb” on it, which is worth the entire price of admission. But I’d heard it on Melissa’s computer and was sure she had the album. I considered the Eyes Adrift CD, which had just come out. That was the band with Krist Noveselic, Nirvana’s bass player, and Curt Kirkwood from the Meat Puppets. I loved the versions of Meat Puppets tunes from Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged concert. I’d seen Eyes Adrift perform in the States, and Krist had played his familiar black bass through a Hiwatt amp.

  Krist and I had a mutual friend, Danny, who owned a guitar shop outside Seattle. I’d found Danny while shopping online for guitars. Both Heart and Nirvana bought instruments from him. He had given me a piece of red wire from a switch on the black “Vandalism: Beautiful as a Rock in a Cop’s Face” Strat Kurt Cobain had smashed. I’d had it made into a ring, which I only took off when I boxed. Danny had donated the remains of Kurt’s guitar to Seattle’s Experience Music Project. It had been put back together by Kurt’s guitar tech, Earnie Bailey. I’d always meant to tell Nick why that guitar meant so much to me, but she’d thrown away her Nirvana T-shirt, the one with its picture, because of the blood that got on it when she was attacked.

  After much consideration, I bought Melissa the Stiff Little Fingers Complete John Peel Sessions that had just been released and two Kurt Cobain calendars for myself. I knew Melissa would let me make a copy of the Complete Sessions before she kicked me to the curb, and I could use the new Kurt pictures to weep over.

  As I walked back through the rounded passageways of Leicester Square station looking at graffitied MTV posters, I was so nervous my head felt numb. Melissa wasn’t home. I waited upstairs for her, sitting on Jake’s bed with the Kurt Cobain calendars in my lap, pretending I was looking at them when all I could see was Melissa’s face. When I heard her key in the lock, my heart beat so fast I felt dizzy and shut my eyes.

  “Where are you?” She came upstairs, still in her beige raincoat. “What are you doing?” Melissa took off her scarf and fingerless gloves. She sat down beside me. “I was worried about you. What have you got there?”

  I looked down at her heavy black shoes and dropped the K
urt Cobain calendars on the floor. Then I put a finger tentatively on the knee of her jeans, handed her the Tower Records bag and burst into tears.

  “Oh my God.” Melissa put aside the plastic bag and leaned toward me. “What is it, kid?”

  Whenever Melissa called me “kid” it reminded me of the Pretenders song “Kid” and always sounded affectionate. I clutched at her black jumper.

  “Can’t you talk?” She put her arms around me, and I sobbed.

  “You scared me to death this morning when you said we were still mates,” I mumbled into her thick sweater.

  “What? I’m sorry, love. I can’t hear you. I’m not trying to make it worse.” She lifted up my head with her hand beneath my chin. “Say it again.”

  “You scared me to death when you said we were still mates,” I enunciated more carefully through my tears.

  “Oh dear, is that it?” Melissa pulled her sleeve down over her hand and tried to mop my face. “I’m so, so sorry, love. Wait a minute.” She untangled herself and got off the bed. “Here.” She handed me a box of tissues.

  I blew my nose and blinked at her. “I’ve got you all wet.” There was a head-sized water stain on her jumper.

  “This morning,” she said softly. “That was me being awkward and unsure of our relationship. I don’t know what our relationship is. I wanted to reassure you, but I didn’t want to be presumptuous. I was sleepy, it was late, my brain wasn’t working, and I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid.” She hesitated. “I was afraid of rejection, of saying something out of order, of scaring you away. What you told me last night, love. It makes fuck all difference to me.”

  I wiped my eyes with a Kleenex and looked at her doubtfully. “Are you winding me up?”

  “No,” Melissa said fervently. “Honestly, I couldn’t give a toss. I knew I’d said the wrong thing as soon as I heard it coming out of my mouth.” Melissa held me out by the shoulders so she could look in my eyes. “And I wanted to say something else, something that would signify our relationship, whatever that is. But I feel uncomfortable because I haven’t been able to—well, you know. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”