Adventures in Psychopharmacology 5 🐅

((Well aware that this one is almost a month late.))
My last appointment with Elvira I skipped out on.
I was too ashamed, tired & embarrassed to go last time. I still felt the same this time around, but I manned up and went anyway. I left that office burning with regret, disgust and a depression that I just couldn't shake.
I made it to the appointment with a little bit of time to spare, which surprised me because I left the house late. I hadn't even been sitting down 5 minutes before the nurse called me to get my vitals and weight. Noooo. This is the worst part of the whole medicine deal. I know I should be more upfront with my feelings towards some of the meds and Elvira, but I worry that I won't be seen as I want to be seen, won't be heard or something worse will happen. Fear. A key ingredient for a recipe of disaster. I slope in after the nurse and step backwards on the scale. I don't want to know what it says. She doesn't tell me either. "I need you to take off your hoodie so I can get your blood pressure." My hoodie is my safety. I shrug out of it and extend a limb out for her. "I always love all your tattoos. Such beautiful artwork. I can't wait to get more myself. Have you had any new done since I last saw you?" My brain slips a gear. I can't remember. "Maybe. I got my neck done in June." She eyeballs the piece. "Nice!" How can anyone be so euthanistic when they're taking someone's blood pressure? I like her though. She's friendly and upbeat. She helps me to relax a little bit.
She takes the cuff off and tells me that it's good, which surprises me. "Really? I thought it would be through the roof I've been under some pressure lately and I've been anxious as fuck." "Aw, what do you have to be anxious about?" I mention the bakery, the cookbook and the other book. "Good for you! So busy these days!" She offers me a bright smile that belongs on a toothpaste ad, not in the mouth of a real human being. "Good luck, honey. Oh, and your pulse is fine." I sign a bit of relief and dash back out to the waiting room where I've left my bag. I'm greeted by a small child in a bright orange shirt and glasses. 
"Hi! You have a lot of tattoos!" "Oh." I chuckle. "Yeah, yeah I do." "Can I see, em??" He's so bright and full of life. Who am I to say no? "Sure?" He plops down next to me and starts rambling on how he likes to draw and that he wants to maybe get a tattoo when he's older. "Do you play video games?" he asks after a breathless sentence. "Yeah, I play a bit." "What do you play?" "PlayStation mainly." "Cool! I want a PS4, but I don't have one, I play with my friends though, my grandad is going to get me one if I'm good for Christmas." "Oh, I play the one that came out before you were born, kiddo. I play the PS1." "I've never seen one of those before! You're old, you must know that Nintendo game thing they had before the Gamecube, right?" I snicker. I must seem old to a 6 or 7-year-old. "Yes, I love playing Nintendo 64. I'm going to get one of the consoles. I'm old school. I mean, I use technology for work, like my MacBook here, but I'm low-tech."
He climbs up onto my lap. "What's that tattoo?" "A skeleton, who's the pumpkin king of Halloween Town and his girlfriend, who's a ragdoll." "That's weird!" "It's a brilliant film, you should see it. It's called the Nightmare Before Christmas." "Is that a Halloween film? I love Halloween." "Same. It's kind of a Halloween-Christmas film, but the best part of it is you can watch it any time of the year." "That's cool. What's your job? Do you have a job?" I can't tell him about the other work that I do so I settle for a simple answer. "I'm an author." "What do you write?" "Books." "Anything my mum would have read?" "Um, no, probably not." "Why?" "Because they're adult books." I look over and catch the eye of his granddad who smirks and turns away. "Well, my mum is an adult." "That she is." I was going to say 'Well I fucking hope so! But I caught myself before it slipped out." 
Before I have to try and make more eye contact and small talk with the little ball of energy, Elvira comes to the door. 

"Dan?" I almost scream a prayer of thanks. "Later, kiddo." I snap up my things and dash through the stained glass door. "How have you been, Dan?" "We don't have enough time for that." "I have a student with me, is that okay?" I can't really tell her to fuck off, I mean I could, but that might ruin the nice guy persona that I've built up. "It's fine. Hi, Student-Friend." She glances up at me and loses a bit of colour. She seems anxious. I'm not sure if it's because of me or because she's in a hands-on lesson. I give her a small wave before settling on the oversized leather couch. "How've you been?" Christ, that question again. One where she asks and doesn't really want to know. No one ever really wants an answer to the question. I'm not even sure why the sentence exists.

Every time that I walk into her office, it's like someone's filled my head full of silly string or laughing gas. I'm completely not myself. I'm more giggly, friendly, more manic. It's like I don't want her to see what's hiding between my rib bones and prescribe more of these offensive drugs or worse, lock me back up in a looney ward. She knows how I feel about those "hospitals". I've expressed more than once not only to her but to Melfi as well, my complete destain for them. They make me uncomfortable and all four times I've been in one I've felt tremendously worse. I hate the groups. Sharing shit with perfect strangers. I've pretty much lied in every group session I've been forced to participate in. Why would I want a crazy person knowing intimate details? They say it's a "safe" and "non-judgemental" zone, but let's get fucking real. They try to corner me with the "we only use first names in here" argument. It never works. Firstly, I have a Facebook like how many other billion people, and my tattoos make me a bit more visible, recognisable than other people. Secondly, I'm not always a nice guy. Sometimes I can be a right nasty fucker and if provoked, I don't want to have to deal with the fallout of hurting some little snowflake's feelings. And lastly, I do not want another stalker.

"Busy. Good, I guess." Not even been in here 5 minutes and I've already lied through my teeth. "I got a lot of blogs done, working on a new project." "Oh? What are you up to?" "Bakery. I'm planning on opening a bakery. Delectables with Dan is really starting to take off and it's fun so I'm gonna go that route." That's it, Dan. Make it seem like you've got some sort of focus. "I think it's gonna be good." Her face lights up like a Christmas tree. "That's good! I'm glad that you've found something to focus on!" Truth be told, I can't focus on it worth a tinker's fuck. I've got so much going on in my head most days, I've made minimal headway with it. "Mood-wise, how have you been?" I always hate this fucking question. "Up and down. Same, throughout the day." I don't know if I've ever told her just how fast things go through me. How much I actually feel in one day, all the various emotions and shifts. She says something else, but I'm thinking about pizza and I don't hear her.

I change the subject to avoid being caught not properly listening. "Her cancer thing, my nan's it's really bothering me." "What?" "She's on oxygen all the time, complaining that she hurts, can't breathe and that she's tired, yet what does she do? Light up a fucking cigarette! More than once she's been caught smoking with the machine on." "It's a difficult addiction to break." "I quit cold turkey." "Well, you're different.." A nice way of saying I'm weird. "She keeps moaning and groaning about how she doesn't want to suffer or suffocate. That's exactly what's going to happen!" The student looks at Elvira, then to me, unsure of what's going on. "I wish she'd shut the fuck up honestly. Itremendousendous annoyance." Both Elvira & the student blink at me. "She told me if it gets too bad, just put her out of her misery." It's just a tempting request. I start to laugh. And not some little snicker or something, I'm talking a Jermone Valeska laugh. Both of them don't know what to do for a few minutes. "That's a bit of a dark joke there." My smile widens. "She wasn't joking. She was literally asking me that." "Oh." The poor student looked like she didn't know what to do. She'd obviously never encountered someone like me before.

"The whole thing is annoying really. I wish she'd just stop whining about it or die already. The starting smoking again really annoys me as well. It's another cost that I have to carry. Another burden." I left out the part where I was internally debating who her death would please more; her or me. Who'd really reap the benefits of that relief? She changes the subject. "Medication wise. How are we doing with that?" Eh. That shit. "I've stopped taking the higher dosage. It's leaving me too tired, too cloudy to think. It's getting in the way of things." I leave out that I don't want to take the medication. That I have concerns that they will make me fat and even grosser. I couldn't tell her that I fear a weight gain from them so much that it might resort into a relapse with my eating trouble of the past. I just laughed. "It will be alright. I'm working on an even level." What even is an even level? I spin off a few more jokes and bring the focus back to my cupcakes, acting like I'm so excited about them when it barely reaches lukewarm on the emotional scale. 

I couldn't even tell her what was bothering me! Instead, I focused on being more of a goofball. I couldn't tell her just how I really feel about the pills. I want relief from the deep depression and intense, consuming self-hatred, but I can't express all that I want to. I don't want to express, well a certain vulnerability about myself to a woman that I don't know all that well. Maybe if I knew a bit more about her, I'd feel more relaxed. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm a vault of secrets. Fucking hell. Shit. What am I really going to do?

She told me she tried to find my blog to read some of the stuff that I'd written about her. That's all? I have more to discuss on here than just my little chinwags with her. I was supposed to leave the URL at the front desk, but I forgot. I really just wanted to get the hell out of there. I left in an anxious and depressed fog. I'm worried that she'll find it, read it and then I'll be left drowning in a sea of questions I don't want to answer. I don't know why I feel I have to hide anything, well anything like this. Everybody has something to hide. 

Thankfully my week of all my doctors' appointments is over and I can try and focus on the blog, the cookbook and my new book that I'm having to re-write since I lost my laptop a month and a half ago. Rest in Pieces, Solomon. Anyway, does anyone know how to use a cord to try and get data off a Mac hard drive that's been lost? I've not worked that out yet and it's really nagging at me. No? I don't know why I bother, it's not like people like give a fuck. Figured I'd ask or something.

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Delectables with Dan Series
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WATCH THE STEP BY STEP DAN HOWELL INSPIRED CUPCAKE SLIDE/VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PFshSEOt10&t=13s