I Don't Have a Happy Place (27 page)

“It bothers you when I ask you how you feel?”

“Kind of.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.” I crossed and recrossed my legs. We stared at each other in silence, like the cowboys on those old Sunday afternoon westerns Zaida Max used to watch on TV.

“Because it's dumb.”

“Dumb?”

“Yes. It feels dumb. It's so clichéd, that question. Can't you do better?”

I was agitated and surly and wanted to get out of there. I didn't feel like sharing anything with her. Also, I seemed to not recall one thing I'd wanted to talk about before I got there. Mama Lorax could sense my urge to flee.

“How about I promise to refrain from asking that question for the rest of our time together?”

She was waving a white Thneed at me, so I gave her a break. Don't get me wrong, I was still going to continue hating her, but, regardless, I would participate, because I needed her to like me. I needed everyone to like me, no matter how I felt about them. It was a problem.

So out came the dogs and ponies and organ grinder monkeys. I wanted her to enjoy me so much, be so entertained, that when she was filling up her Ball jar with water at the cooler she'd feel
compelled to tell my stories to the other crackpots in the building. Gold star, favorite, teacher's pet—I wanted her to like me best. I pelted my best material at her and before I knew it the time was up. I stood, but to my surprise she put her hand up to signal that I remain in that rambunctious chair. I guessed it was time for the awkward exchange of money or a check, but instead she had some final remarks. Mama Lorax did more staring, which I believed to be some sort of shrink voodoo, retrieving a pencil from her updo, until she felt she had my full attention. She opened her mouth, and in a voice just north of a whisper she asked me this:

“Can't. Kim. Be. Happy?”

Well, now she'd gone and done it. Her psychobabble barely settled in the air before
Can't Kim
be happy
became the punch line to every joke for the next ten years. It started slow. If I recounted a bad day to a friend, we'd end the story with the facetious
Can't Kim be happy?
When choosing an outfit or a movie or what to order at Bagel World, I'd use the sentence as fodder. Eventually I became expert at it, able to even shuffle the words around. If a friend had a long day: Can't said friend be tired? If they wanted a certain food: Can't so-and-so eat potatoes? Can't phones ring? Can't syrup be sticky? Can't winter be cold? It was the bumper sticker of my life.

The joke wore thin as I entered my fortieth year. Okay, it didn't really lose its punch at all, it still makes me laugh as I write it, but I was pretending to be a responsible and mature member of society because I now had children. At a less-than-mature forty-something, the tagline was still very much in my repertoire, continuing to delight me. Problem was, little else did. A bit of mockery does go a long way, but just not long enough. I was still in a bad mood.

•   •   •

My favorite thing about therapists is how they never answer the phone. This allows the unhinged to leave weird, rambling messages without having to tangle with actual people who can see through them. It also gives the shrink time to judge your level of crazy on their own time, and, in turn, you can screen your calls to do the same. When this new therapist returned my message on a day when I was feeling particularly moody, I picked up the line and struggled to find a time in my schedule that worked for both of us. I hadn't even set foot in her office and already there was verbal judo and Wiccan trickery—and that was just setting up a time to meet. It was as if she could sense all my disorders through the phone lines, like she was already on to something. Not since my Ouija board spelled out the name of our dead family dog had I been so spooked. I still fear that if I even whisper anything resembling the therapist's name in the privacy of my own home, she'll know. Her wolf eyes and psychological superpowers will activate. She scares me a little bit. Let's not use her real name.

Dr. X was scrappy, might have beaten up a few MSWs in her day. We spent our first forty-five minutes together verbally sparring. This was no Dr. Kalisky saying the word
bullshit
, this was plunging an open fist into my innards and pulling out a bloody, mangled liver. I left her office (liverless) to walk from University Place down toward the very bottom of the city, dazed and unsure of what had just taken place. Part of me didn't want to return the following week but the other part was terrified she'd telepathically kill me in my sleep if I didn't. Dr. X had some Svengali maneuvers, and also possibly put some sort of addictive pharmaceutical in the tissue box, because I ended up returning to her chair, week after week, until I ran out of blood-drenched organs to carry home in my messenger bag.

Toward the end of session 2, Dr. X presented me with a small token. If not feeling well brings you to the doctor a few times yearly or forces you to spend much time with the trusty search engine and medical websites of your choice, you hope to leave with a parting gift—a diagnosis. I'm not talking pancreatic cancer or type 2 diabetes, but would it kill someone to hand over a minor condition? Something that simply required a mushroom tincture or prescribed sleep? And could they be so kind as to label it, preferably with a fancy title, allowing you to opt out of social engagements at your leisure? Naturally one doesn't want to hear they need a kidney transplant, just a cute disease to make all your mentions of feeling unwell not be in vain. Validation comes in all shapes and sizes, and wraps beautifully.

“I don't know what's happened in your life,” said Dr. X, with seven minutes left to go. “But being dysthymic might have clouded some things for you.”

Wait, wait, wait. Hold the phone. What did she say right there?
Dys
-something or other. I didn't hear a word she said after that big one, nor did I even bother to ask what it meant. I had something! I actually had something. A bona fide, official disorder. The gift was just my size, with a catchy title but seemingly casual enough to handle with talk and not heavy medication or a room at Bellevue. I was positively giddy. When Dr. X mentioned my malady, I nodded, which was my way of letting Dr. X know that I knew about the affliction so we wouldn't have to actually explore it. I certainly didn't want to do anything about it, I just wanted to have it. Plus I hated opening presents in front of others. I ran home to research.

How many hours had I spent at a computer, foraging for ailments and answers and relief? I'd finally moved up a station in life. No longer was I just a type-in-a-symptom sort, I had some
thing real to look up. I hit those computer keys with relish, eager to see what my search would yield. There were many results, so that was good. Greek roots. A few descriptions. But the hope that had puffed me up not three minutes earlier dissipated. They tried to make the disorder seem fancy by translating it from the Greek, but it all just amounted to four words.

1.
ill
and
bad

2.
mind
and
emotion

Turned out that dysthymia (dys-
thigh
-me-ugh) was just low-level depression. I know, I know, I begged for something lightweight to call my own, but this didn't even seem like a real ailment. It was the gluten intolerance of mental disorders. I started making throaty noises at my desk. Buzz wandered over to see what the hubbub was all about.

“It just means ‘mild depression,' “ I said, hangdog.

“Isn't that a good thing?” he said.

“No, it's not a good thing.” I wanted to throw my keyboard at him. “It's not even a
real
thing. It's just crummy old chronic mild depression. Big deal.”

“Well,” Buzz said. “It's chronic. Isn't that something?”

“No, it's not something. It's nothing! It's lame.
Uch
, even my depression is lame.”

Buzz shook his head, wandering out of the room. “You're insane.”

“Clearly I am not insane!” I said, following him into the kitchen. “If anything, I'm just low-level insane! Mild insane!”

“Look, you wanted a diagnosis and you got one. There's just no winning with you.”

“Yes, there is,” I said. “There is
too
winning.”

“When? When is there winning?”

“Oh, there is winning,” I said. “There is a lot of winning. Anyway, why are you so obsessed with winning? Do we all have to be winners? Winning is so stupid.”

Buzz was agitated as he rummaged through the pantry. He shook a bag of chocolate granola in my face. “There is just no joy with you. You got exactly what you wanted and you're still unhappy. When are you
not
unhappy? Can't you just go lie in a field somewhere and call up your goddamn happy place?”

“I don't have a happy place!”

Buzz slowly put the granola on the counter. He gave me the once-over, taking in my flailing arms and tear-stained sweatpants. And then he laughed. Buzz laughed, alone, for a good seven minutes.

“What a catch,” he said, kissing my head. “What. A. Catch.”

•   •   •

Mild depression.
Mild
. What did that even mean? Temperate? Gentle? Bland? If we're being honest, I found the diagnosis kind of insulting.
Mild
. Did people get mild leukemia? Did my depression not have a good personality? Did it lack sizzle? Why was I being penalized for being able to get out of bed in the morning and not feeling sad and hopeless and lonely
enough
? My depression didn't seem to be trying hard, it wasn't living up to its potential—my depression was me in high school. Maybe I should have considered killing myself more often. Why couldn't I suffer from blinding depression instead of mild unrest? I imagined that in the olden days, at the very least they'd send people like me to the country, to lie down. Nowadays they leave you to your own devices, roaming free, and call you lame names. What about the gold standard,
depression
depression, the one where you wear your what's-the-point sweatshirt for seven weeks and can't even bring yourself to shower anymore? I wished I had that one instead.

I started cataloging all the other problems I'd had over the years, to see if they were equally bland. There was that spell after college where I felt uncomfortable leaving the house sometimes, but I still went out occasionally. I didn't start peeing in Ragu jars or eating the furniture. Probably just
mild
agoraphobia. I was always very scared to fly, imagining my fiery demise at least three days before I was slated to get on that oversized cigar tube. And even though I cry during takeoff and keep my eyes glued to the stews to make sure they look casual, I still get on the plane.
Mild
fear of flying. What was wrong with me? Who knew my deficiencies were so meek?

Surely I had problems that were out of the ordinary. What about my hypochondria? Because I don't feel well, you know. I never feel well. If I am not listless or feverish, then I am definitely coming down with cancer. That small red mark on my arm is probably mange. I know I once had SIDS. Remind me again what side the appendix is on? I spend countless hours on the computer researching the intricacies of lupus and taking “Are You Normal?” quizzes in magazines. My hypochondria spans both physical and psychological ailments. Not only am I dying but I am dying mental. I'll see your mild hypochondria and raise you one hamster-wheel brain whose incessant squeak reminds me hourly that I have little time left alive.

What about my negative attitude? Surely that would get me some sort of non-mild badge. I'm incredibly negative. I don't even think my brain has a side that accepts positive thinking. When receiving a compliment, I wonder what the person is
really
saying. If they tell me I am doing
this
well, aren't they just finding a creative way to say I can't do
that
? When I changed my daughter's first diapers, I wept because she'd be heading off to college. When I signed my book deal, the very first thing that came to mind was how I couldn't go on any sort of book tour because
I'm a terrible packer. And really, I didn't have that author reading voice, that one you hear on NPR or at those readings at the 92nd Street Y, that lilt and cadence of serious writers like Russell Banks, who write stuff about dead children and sound all smart and serious doing it. My head won't even entertain processing good news. It can't. It doesn't know how. I wouldn't call that mild. I'd actually call that super not mild.

I needed to consult someone about this pathetic diagnosis. Obviously I couldn't talk to Buzz, because he'd launch into some sports jargon about winning and then force me to guess how many grapes were in a bag. Lord knows my dear friend Shirley would be of no help. She'd come over to my house with her perspective in her organized purse, flinging her positive outlook in my face. “Why not look at it another way?” she'd say. “Why not think of it as
good-natured
depression, or
warm
, or
soft
depression?”
Uch
. She'd come to my own living room and say this stuff. I wanted Shirley to go home.

I wondered if Dr. X had even heard a word I'd said in that chair. How my body literally rejects happiness, kicks it to the curb. Or how I felt the day I saw that ad on TLC for a new reality show starring these conjoined twins, Abby and Brittany. There they were, coiffed and painted, as cameras documented their every labored move. These sisters would graduate and try to find jobs and go off to Europe with the biggest shit-eating grins on their faces, all the while having two heads on one body. One of them had a third arm removed, one that was growing out of her back. They shared a bladder. And still they looked like they'd won the lottery. I had regular old limbs sprouting out of me, mild limbs, and couldn't seem to find joy anywhere. Wasn't
that
depressing?