Chapter Seven
Self-Help
“What is it that you want?”
“Not to feel like this.”
“So you want medication?”
“No, not pills.”
“Therapy?”
“Can they fix it or will they just tell me what the problem is? Because I know what the problem is.”
“With depression there is no quick fix. The pills will take the edge off, but if you have real problems they’ll still be there. Therapy can help examine the problem and help to form a plan but it’s down to you in the end.”
I’m at my local GP looking for a fix. Some of that magic ointment mum would put on a scraped knee. She’s all out of magic, the GP that is, all out of white lies that blow the cares away. I’m looking for placebos even though I know I’m way too cynical; within two minutes of getting home I’d be reading up on the stuff the quack gave me.
‘May cause rectal leakage.’ She didn’t say anything about that. Yeah, no placebos would get in under the radar. I don’t want real antidepressants: the low times are hard but they’re real - I don’t want the fake highs. Whilst trying not to focus on my drinking and the occasional pot use, I think to myself what a massive lie that is. I don’t want to be numb either; some middle of the road, nondescript feeling. Wait, that’s the best description of where I am now, too lethargic to be apathetic.
“I could slap you around a little if you like; maybe show you some photos of people who are worse off than yourself.”
“I feel like happy or even more contented are not the kind of thoughts I’d be having afterwards.”
“So what do you want me to do, Noel?”
People go on about GPs becoming less caring, blaming it on not having a family doctor. A family doctor, in the sense of a GP, is really about you never changing your doctor. If your doctor is the same one you had when you were a child that’s your family doctor. They know you when you walk in; they ask about your folks and then begin the medical consultation with a spoken recollection of your former visit: “Ah, Noel, is it your foot again or do we have a new war wound?”
Dr Anderson, a female doctor, though that could be debatable, is not really my family doctor. I mean she is my family’s doctor in that the rest of my family are registered with her, but she’s only known us for about five years. If she reads my file she’ll see that I’ve had the mumps but she wasn’t there to cure them. To be honest I have only seen her a couple of times. I don’t do doctors unless death is on its way; if I’m ill I self-medicate and stay in bed, and if it’s broken I go to A&E. Dr Anderson doesn’t know me, but talks like she does. Blunt, that’s what you get from the family doctor.
“Have you spoken to your mother about this?”
“Is that what you’d say to someone with cancer? ‘What does ya mum think?’”
“I didn’t say that, but yes, I do ask if they have family to help them through.”
“No, she doesn’t know. I think she just sees it as me never growing out of my teenage phase.”
“Have you?”
“Have I? Yeah, the spots are all but gone, but the body hair just keeps on coming.”
I should backtrack a little, explain why I’m here. I told you I needed a fix, but why am I here, when I know what they are going to offer I ain’t buying?
After the lifting of heavy shit and after reaching the top of the four flights of stairs to my flat, and after the realisation that I did not have my Acorn Archimedes, yet still under the belief that it’s in the van, I enter my home to the smell of freshly baked goods.
The flat is empty but mother has been here. The evidence is a box of fairy cakes placed on my kitchen counter, the words, ‘Love you, Noel’, in Hannah’s handwriting, on its lid. How do I stay so harsh in a world where trespassers leave fairy cakes with lemon icing? Why do I feel so drained of emotion when I have got my Hannah Banana to top me up whenever my feelings of indifference start to take over? So I call for help and I am informed I need to call back at 9:30am. I set the alarm for 9:00am and I’m doing late shift tomorrow - it’s going to be a long day.
“Sorry, you need to call back at 9:30.”
“Yeah, I know. I called yesterday; it’s 9:27.”
“I’m sorry, but the computer doesn’t come on till 9:30.”
“The computer is automatic?”
“No, but the system is so I cannot access anything until 9:30.”
“I called first, ok, so can you please put my name down on a piece of paper and then put it into the computer when the system is ready?”
“I’m not allowed to do that. The policy is 9:30. If I start taking names before 9:30 then it’s not fair for everyone else.”
“So now it’s about policy. What happened to Mein Fuhrer da PC?”
“The system dictates the time and the policy adheres to the time, 9:30am.”
“How are you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“How’s the day going so far?”
“Fine?”
“Have you worked at the practice long?”
“Just over two years.”
“Wow, two years, you like it?”
“Sir, I’m really busy.”
“6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 it is now 9:30. Can I please make an appointment to see the doctor?”
“I’ll certainly check, Mr Winters.”
There haven’t been any cancellations, probably because people wait until 9:30 to cancel and when they do the line is engaged. So she asks me how serious it is.
“Well, I called so it’s bad enough that I’m calling you, but not bad enough to be heading to the emergency room. What gets me an appointment?”
“We just need to know that if an appointment does become free it goes to the most urgent case.”
“You’re the GP practice. Who gets to say what’s more important?”
“Cancer patients are more urgent than someone with a cold.”
“It’s bad enough that I’m calling. I haven’t been to the doctor in years but now I’m calling it’s that bad.”
Ten minutes later they call back and I have my appointment along with a massive sense of guilt; how urgent is depression? I’m not suicidal, at least not today. Why do I fight these little battles? In the end, whether I win or lose, I just feel small and petty.
In the waiting room I slouch wondering how ill I look; not as ill looking as the guy to my right. The phrase ‘looks like death warmed up’ springs to mind, minus the warm part. I don’t think he’s blinked once since I got here. His lips are blue and cracked, he looks both cold and clammy, and his left eye is streaming a cloudy substance. Next to him I’m a fraud. The other waiting room waiter is a mother with a toddler; I guess cancer and kids are the trump cards when it comes to getting to see the doctor. Yet, here I am with neither. The receptionist eyeballs me; she must be the one who took the call. She’s thinking what I’m thinking. How ill is this Mr Winters?
I made, what may have come across like a flippant comment earlier about Dr Anderson’s femininity being debatable. She is not a blokish looking woman; she is a post-op transsexual or transgender. A girl born in a boy’s body and here’s me complaining.
Dr Anderson could be seen as a real sign of things getting better when it comes to tolerance in the community. I’ve never heard anyone say a bad thing about her and she certainly doesn’t have a shortage of patients. It really is an odd thing though, I once heard my mum’s friend, Pat, say: “She is brilliant. She can help anyone because she can relate to both sexes. You know, deal with guys’ problems and with ladies’ problems because she’s both. She is marvellous.” And Pat is a Presbyterian, judgemental nut job who claims not to be a racist but voted for the BNP. Yet Dr Anderson gets a pass. There again for all I know she could be getting death threats and dog excrement in the post daily. I love the fact that people think she has such a good handle on both sexes. She always saw herself as a woman, even though she was born with the wrong tools, so I don’t think she’ll be tha
t in tune with her male psyche. And having no ovaries is really going to impede her ability to relate to women’s ‘trouble’.
The receptionist calls my name and points me in the direction of Dr Anderson’s room. A ten foot walk; ten feet of trying to think of something better than, ‘Hi, Doctor, I got a case of the boo hoos’.
How about, ‘My inner child has cancer’? Jackpot.
We are now back up to speed and Dr Anderson returns to ticking off her list of suggestions.
“How about a session with a self-help group?” She says it like a passing thought, but then silently stares at me to indicate that it is a serious proposal.
“Twelve step programme?”
“No, there are no steps, no end goal just people in a bad place supporting each other.”
“This sounds worse than the options I’ve already turned down, I’ll take the drugs, please.”
“No.”
“No? The drugs were on the table a few minutes ago.”
“No, they weren’t. I asked if you wanted drugs but I never said I’d give them.”
“This visit’s really not working out for me.”
“Go to the group. You don’t want to because you’ve let the depression become your personality. It now defines you and a room full of people showing you that it doesn’t make you unique will be good for you and, Noel, solitude isn’t a safety net it’s just a net.”
I take the address, but there’s no way I am going to watch a bunch of touchy feely types weeping in unison.
“Solitude isn’t a safety net, it’s just a net” - it’s not a net, it’s a hammock; a hammock where I can sleep away all these days of too many encounters like this one.
British Winters Page 7