The behavioral health facility calls four days after my Concerta has been refilled to tell me that there’s a new opening the next day if I want to see someone sooner. The appointment is with the nurse practitioner but that doesn’t matter to me because they can still diagnose and write prescriptions just like a medical doctor. The Concerta pills aren’t relieving any of my feelings of being overwhelmed or helping my ability to focus on anything. My thoughts are all over the place and it’s difficult to follow my conversations when I’m taking to people.
My appointment is in the Garland building on Wabash in downtown Chicago. The Garland building is a tall, older building that’s gold in color and has valet parking in front. It runs parallel to one of the overground El train lines that Spiderman filmed the runaway train scene at. The beams that hold up the train tracks make street parking difficult because it’s hard to maneuver around them. For this, I’m glad I called an Uber instead of driving despite the fact that I’m cheap and the cost of Uber rides add up.
The Garland building is full of office condominiums. There’s a person at the front desk that tells you what floor your destination is on and directs you to one of the many elevators. I turn left off of the elevator and then make a right to follow it down to the last office on the right. There are two entrance doors to the office and of course I grab the wrong one despite the sign on the glass telling me which is the main. The secretary at the desk checks me in and hands me a clipboard that has two pages of questions on them. I’m supposed to rate how I'm feeling emotionally in different categories then sum it up to a total at the bottom of the last page. A couple of minutes after I sit down, a middle age white man calls me from a door of the waiting room. I hand him the finished questionnaire as he leads me past two closed doors to an office room on the left.
This is Lee, the nurse practitioner. I call him by his first name since he's not a doctor. I tell Lee that his office looks like an old medical exam room even though there has been an attempt to soften it into an office setting. Lee tells me, “Maybe it was a doctor’s office at some point in time. I don't know.” The room feels sterile with its white walls and lack of anything personal anywhere. No plants, rugs, or even a box of Kleenex for my future tears. There’s just two chairs and a coffee table. Lee is nice. He speaks in monotone and I like that he makes a lot of eye contact instead of constantly writing on a notepad. He looks serious but our interaction feels casual. There's something about him that makes me wonder if his wedding ring is from a same sex marriage once we start talking. Lee asks me to tell him about my previous psychiatric diagnoses and therapy sessions with Wendy. He asks me a list of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions. We are barely four questions in when I see that Lee has began to realize that there's going to be a lot of "buts" right after my ‘“yes” or “no”.
“Has there ever been a period of time when you were not your usual self and..” followed by these additions:
-you got much less sleep than usual and found that you didn’t really miss it?”
I say, “yes… BUT I’m a nurse and I work 12 hour shifts so when I get home I’m not tired. I can’t understand how some people say they go to bed at 9pm. I never go to sleep before 11pm on any given night. On my off days I sometimes sleep in until 7am, but on workdays I am up at 5:30am and I usually wake up a few times throughout the night. So.. on average that’s about 6 hours but I’m not tired or anything...”
-you were more talkative or spoke much faster than usual?”
I say, “yes... BUT I have ADHD and I really enjoy people and talking to them. I know a lot about the people I work with, such as the ages of their kids and what they did over the weekend. I converse with my patients much more than my coworkers seem to. I talk fast when I get really excited sometimes and Chicagoans talk fast. I don't know how to shorten things I say so I speak quickly to get as much in as I think they'll listen to.” Lee explains again that these are meant to be one word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers.
-you were so easily distracted by things around you that you had trouble concentrating or staying on task?”
“Yes... BUT I have ADHD.”
-you were much more social or outgoing than usual; for example you telephoned friends in the middle of the night?”
“Yes... Well I don’t call people in the night but if I wake up and see that I have an email on a good sale I forward it to people. My friends just laugh about it. I'm a social person because I move around a lot for work and I meet a lot of new and interesting people.” Lee eyes me but, I think by now he understands that this is how the rest of this conversation will go.
We talk about risky behavior such as adding new sex partners or taboo behaviors. I explain that it’s not that I’m more interested in sex than your average person. Moving to different cities means that I have no choice but to find a new partner. Am I really expected to continue to have bad sex with this new partner in fear of being judged by adding another number?
Lee asks about my spending habits. I tell him that I shop a lot but it has never gotten me or my family in trouble and that I usually shop more during the times I binge eat. Lee eyes me as if he doesn’t believe that my shopping is in control. Maybe he's looking at me like this because I just told him that I've recently woke up on two separate occasions to order a can of metallic silver spray paint and a Blender Bottle. I don't think it's such a big deal because it's not like I have a gambling problem or something.
We are talking about my motivation levels when I burst into tears. I hate that nothing really motivates or moves me. I have no real interests. I envy people who have hobbies and can stick with things for extended periods of time; People who move with purpose. I'm a jack of all trades but only for a short time because I always find a new interest that makes me forget about the previous one. Lee and I continue to talk about other things such as my inability to focus and high anxiety.
By the end of our session, Lee diagnoses me with bipolar 2 disorder which upsets me because he asked me normal questions and I responded with normal answers. Lee talks about the differences between bipolar 1 vs bipolar 2 but it’s still overwhelming and upsetting. I thank Lee for his time and he requests that I schedule a follow up appointment for two months out which I do. I walk down the hall to meet my therapist Rebecca next.
Rebecca is a nice and bubbly, white woman who looks close to me in age. We talk about my session with Lee and she tries to explain to me what this diagnosis means and wants to navigate through my feelings and learn more about me. Rebecca and I touch on similar topics that Lee and I talked about but she dives deeper into family dynamics. We talk a lot about my childhood, my mother, and my two fathers. I like Rebecca but I only schedule 3 sessions with her because a lot of it felt like girl talk and she didn’t understand black family culture. I agree with her when she tells me that I might have some PTSD from parts of my childhood but some of it was black culture and it can be difficult for outsiders to make sense of.
Comments