I know this probably should NOT be funny. (But it really is.)

I recently re-discovered my therapist. I had stopped seeing her cause I felt pretty much fine. Then I fell down to the very bottom of the blackest of black holes and didn't go see her because I had given up on anyone being able to help me. Then, some months later, I ran into her at the place we both get coffee in the morning. I promised to call, and then I did.

I made the appointment fully thinking that I could just get away with bullshitting about nothing for an hour and then leave. For some reason, I was feeling really resistant to going back to therapy. I think I was/am afraid that it won't be enough to prevent me from falling back down the hole, and I am doomed and therefore FUCK IT. Nihilists aren't very good patients.

So, it was with this attitude that I walked into the office, sat down and expected nothing.

Yup. I was wrong. My therapist was all listening and writing shit down and, like totally helping me out. SO NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. She identified my major issues and said she would come up with a game plan to help me combat (she doesn't like the war analogy, but I do. And it's MY disorder, so I'm gonna use it. Phhhhhhhhttttt.) my demons.

I had to talk about the "episdode" though, (I love getting all Victorian about my falling off the deep end. It makes it seem much more socailly acceptable. If it were 1901.) and I used the analogy of the angry robot in my head that sometimes leaps out and destroys Tokyo and then leaves me to clean it up. And then I said, when I am acting really nuts and spewing acid, I can hear a tiny voice (not really. it's a metaphor not a halucinatiion. unfortunately.) in my head saying, "SHUT UP. You are behaving like an idiot. Just go somewhere else and stop making things worse.", but of course I can't and don't stop and end up stomping all over Japan. Afterwards there is this, like, exhaustion and sometimes a bit of woozy-post-party-What-The-Hell-Did-I-Do? stuff going on, but mostly, I just feel sad and pathetic and keep apologizing to whomever will listen and feel guilty about what a horrible person I am and how noone should love me because I am such a jerk. Classic.

So, being a trained professional in the area of psychosis, M. asks me, "So, do you hear or see things? You know, voices, things that aren't really there?" She goes on to try and describe, in the nicest way possible, what hallucinations are and how to identify them. Laughing, I said, "M. I've taken shrooms, I've seen the walls bleed, I KNOW what hallucinations are. This isn't like that."

Then she brought up the possibility that we might be dealing with a "personality disorder", took copious notes on my various "personalities"; angry robot-zilla, guilt ridden self loathing girl, and regular old rational Schooligan (Ha!), and said she would look more into it for me. Again, I had to laugh, not at her, but just at the situation. "Oh, like The Three Faces of Eve??" "Yeah. (laughing too) Like that. I just want to make sure we are looking at all angles here."

Finally, she gave me a book to read "An Unquiet Mind" about a woman with Manic-Depression. I had to ask, "Do you think that's what is really going on here?" Always the diploamt, "Well, I think it is safe to say, that you have some kind of 'mood disorder.'"

That's such a nice way of putting it. Plus I think "Mood Disorder" sounds WAY COOLER than just plain ole Depression.