It’s an ideal place to go for me, because the behavioral clinic is a “quasi” government agency; a non-profit corporation set up to receive funds from certain government programs and several branches of business that are actually profitable (unlike the clinic). So I have a blend of government subsidy of the underprivileged combined with a corporate concentration on efficiency and quality of care. Plus, it’s nearly free.
The primary reason I like the place is because my Dad knows one of the psychiatrists personally. That means I can probably trust him. He also knows his medicines very very well, and he recognizes that I have read quite a bit on the subject, so he generally takes what I’m telling him is an effect of the medicine as truth. I told him people had been commenting on my transformed behavior due to the Effexor; he suggested dropping it completely and taking only Zyprexa — the one for paranoia — for two weeks. Then we will evaluate symptoms and continue from there. I think I should take St. John’s Wort — all natural and does the same thing as Prozac — but he believes it may affect the blood levels of the Zyprexa. So I will probably switch to whatever medication he recommends as helpful to social anxiety. I think we are leaning toward Wellbutrin at the present time. I’d prefer an Eli Lilly drug, since I trust that company (since my Dr. trusts that company) but we shall see.
Of course there are a whole host of paranoias associated with merely going to the doctor. My files are being monitored. Files documenting my condition being changed or unmade. Computer systems coincidentally going down the day I am supposed to arrive. (I have requested a full copy of my file, including medical records { it will probably fill three thick binders.) The Doctor telling me his vacation was in Chicago instead of Washington D.C. (the location his daughter told my Dad they went). The place being mysteriously empty until a few minutes after I show up, then filling up to the point that I have to wait for hours to be seen.
Power . . . overwhelming!
I did notice an attractive lady there. She looked kind of old from a distance, so I thought about talking to her, but then her boyfriend appeared and he was one of the “white trash thugs” that all the hot chicks seem to think is the height of the social rung in rural Kentucky. Jeans, sweatshirt, intensely filthy ballcap with the bill folded practically into a crease and massive chops on each side of his head. Trendy rednecks, what joy! I realized then her attractiveness had to be higher than I first estimated, so when I got closer my suspicions were confirmed — she looked about 25. When he went in for counseling (probably for alcohol or unchecked rage) he came out in a few minutes and asked her to join him. Aw. I hope they get all their precious problems worked out and she no longer has to tell people how clumsy she is for falling down the stairs all the time.
EDIT: Another funny thing at the clinic: one of those jerk drug reps were there, hawking Lexapro or some nonsense. The clinic barely pays any attention to them and just gives out free samples or writes scripts for the “stamp” program: any prescription $5. Anyway I knew the reps carried around free pens as schmooze gifts so I said: “Hey Lexapro guy, got a free pen I can have?” And he said, “No, sorry, I’m fresh out.” He wandered around a bit and then came back with a pen, perturbed look on his face. It was for Oxycodone. I laughed aloud.