One Size Fits All

My caseworker out did her self yesterday. She's not really a T, and she's not a dr, or an rn, I think she has some smattering of social work education, and probably some typing skills. Her job seems to be to check in with me once a month to insure that I am still currently enrolled in group, and that my debilitating psychiatric symptoms continue to abide. In this capacity she has done well enough by me. My welfare checks continue uninterrupted. But yesterday was special. Makes me wonder if they weren't having bipolar awareness week in the offices.

Just when I thought she was concluding her compulsory questionaire, she paused poignantly over an item on the page tapping her pen upon it as though deep in thought. She drew a deep breath, leaned back in her chair while steepling her fingers at her lips, and faced me. With no further preamble, she proceeded to lavish upon me such an impassioned plea for me to accept a med program of depakote and lithium, why I was nearly moved to lay aside my direct personal and disasterous experience with those same drugs and to proclaim myself a true believer. At one point she was exhorting me with such vigor to, "LIVE my LIFE with PASSION, ZEAL, and WONDER, but to take a pill twice a day," by the time she got to the take a pill part, her hair had become a wild tangle in her face from waving her arms about.

Now freeze frame that for just a moment. No one can see you, so look at the spectacle for a moment. Me, crazy guy in the client chair, looking at professional person, crazed. I could make a post about the irony of that moment alone. But I digress.

While I can't deny that I was moved on some level by her abandon on my behalf, I couldn't help also being struck by her profound ignorance as to the effects of the drugs whose virtues she so fervently extoled. Similarly striking in that moment was the realization that she had never read my file. If there is a polite way to say to someone in such a moment, that if they had but read the history on which their coffee cup rested that they might never have made such an unqualified suggestion, well I couln't think of it. I said instead that she had given me a lot to think about. Sigh. I try to be honest.

first i just HAVE to say, you write very well....

the desperation i am feeling to end this roller coaster ride is causing me to lean toward trying the very same meds.......
i have been reading book after book about bipolar meds, trying, hoping i will find one with few enough harmful effects. still no such luck.

That was a hilarious post!! I can truly imagine the moment. You were very kind to your evangelical case worker-although it's a little scarey to imagine her loose on the streets looking for her next convert to medication salvation

Thanks all, but I hasten to point out that rather than anything as virtuous as patience i feel my expression to come from cynical exhaustion. But some times an example so vivid comes along it begs sharing. Medication salvation, is brilliant soledad, I'm sure to abscond with the phrase. Thanks

I can certainly understand that you would feel cynical exhaustion. Myself, I'm sure I would have tore a strip off her about not reading the file. I hope you don't have to go through that the next time.