Reoccurring Ideas About Love, Life, and Prescription Medication

Label Me With The Words Only You Want To Hear

Past the attention that came with my eighteenth year, came the next. Nineteen. The doctors said it was usual to manifest around this time in life. They called this time early adulthood. But it made me feel like a child, unable to think coherently or have any stability. They called it BD, I think. B.D. The doctors never told me what BD meant, what it stood for, So when I got back to my shitty apartment after that shitty Doctor labeled me that day, I opened my shitty laptop and smashed the keyboard with my boney fingertips that ended in nails that were consistently too short. I hated being categorized. Catalogued into the first viable option that the description of my day exiled me to. I felt blood rush up and down my body. Apparently BD means Bipolar Disorder. When I saw what category they shoved me into this time I screamed. There is still a hole in the drywall from where the computer attacked it. Doctors never told me what fucking obstacles came with being labeled with it, as it. I lost myself that day and became solely defined as my disease.
The day that short, ugly smelling, doctor gestured me into his office, I lost something within myself. All I had was the label. The disease. The stereotype. All I had control over was going to the stupid doctor appointments. I only ever felt safe in that stuffy, dirty, waiting room. Control is what makes me safe. With that lady behind that desk, with her beady little eyes and her greasy hair slicked messily back into a bun far too low on her head. I bet she never found love. I bet that stupid, arrogant lady never fulfilled what she wanted in life, so she, in turn, tried to decipher mine. That stupid lady and that stuffy waiting room made me feel powerful. I knew all that that middle-aged, overweight lady wanted to know was how a tall, slim young girl like me, was in a Psychiatric clinic. I knew that lady felt superior because she thinks that is one advantage she has over me. That she sat on the opposite side of the counter. No. When I come here, I am in control of where I sit. I am in control of how much that stupid beady eyed, rat faced woman can see of me. I am in control of how I present myself. I can control how the doctor views me and what medicine the doctor gives me. In that small psychiatrist clinic, across from that run down hospital, down the street from the consignment store I often visited, I felt safe.
That day I parked my car across from the entrance. I looked in the drop down mirror. I wanted to look put together, but not too put together. Not so much that he will think that I'm fine. Because I'm not.
I stroll in and lean over the counter. My face closing in on those beady eyes. I smirk and grab the parking validation paper from her sweaty palm.
The doctor was always late. So I played a game with the stupid lady sometimes. To make sure she knows that she cannot feel superior. I sit in a chair with a clear view of the counter and stare.  I stare directly at her beady little eyes until she looks up at me. Then I keep staring. Usually she looks away. Sometimes she pretends to answer the unringing phone. Pathetic.
I wait, and silently mock the lady until the doctors door opens. He sticks his brown, age spotted face around the door. Looks at me, then gestures me into the office.
That day I walked into the office, secure in what I wanted. The office is a rectangular room with one window. There is a desk and a chair for him and two, sometimes three, chairs facing him. The window was at my back when I sat in the chair nearest to the corner. That day I sat deep in the chair. I looked around for the hundredth time, scanning the room. Looking at the pictures of his kids. Both in too tight of clothes with too large of bodies. No wife pictures, ever. I bet he's lonely. I bet I could play off that. I bet that would be funny. Lonely people always are the easiest. Like that lady. That Doctor. Anyone.
That day he felt a shift in my power. The doctor closed the door and suddenly I feel a loss of control. I feel trapped and scared. He is going to hurt me. I know it. He is going to kill me, he is going to give me the wrong medication and I'm not going to be able to answer the questions he asks and I bet I am locked in this room. I squeezed the arms of the bacteria ridden chair, nails impressing themselves into the fabric. My legs started shaking hard and he sat, oblivious, in his chair across from me. Sometimes I make myself as small as possible in order to be safe. I pull my legs into my chest and my arms around them.
His accent makes him difficult to understand. He has beady eyes too. I start rocking myself back and forth in my immobile chair. He reads my file. The list of past medication. Slowly. Reading how I felt months ago in comparison to the last visit. He raises his head pushes his glasses back up his nose and dryly inquires about my life. I must have said something wrong because he starts tapping his pointed toe shoe. Then he shoves my file into a cabinet. Sometimes he leaves me in that office alone. Then I feel powerful. I can look through anything.
That day he left me alone in his office. Door open. Good. Safe. Powerful. I stretched out and stood up and leaned over his desk. I've always had the ability to put things back exactly where they were so no one can ever tell what I took. I pull out my file and flip through. The picture of me is bad. My hair is a mess and my face is greasy. I rip out the picture. I hear his heavy footsteps and push the file back where it was.
He coughs dryly and walks in. He's going to know what I did. He's not going to let me come back. He's going to hurt me. He isn't going to give me medication. I need medication.