“Would you say you feel safe at home?” Her eyes flickered to Dennis but that didn’t seem judgmental, either. More like checking for influence. They always did it when I wasn’t alone.
“Perfectly safe. I live with Ari and her dad, my uncle. I don’t live with him,” I nodded toward Dennis, “but I’m safe with him, too.”
“Good. I have a couple questions about these.”She held up the first paper I’d filled out in the waiting room.“Have you ever attempted suicide?”
“Yes.”I shifted, painfully of aware of Dennis beside me.“Before I started meds, but not after.”
“Any thoughts of hurting yourself?”
“Yes.”
“What about harming other people?”
I glanced at Dennis, suddenly having second thoughts. Maybe I should’ve left him outside. The entire point of the paperwork was to have these answers on hand.I’d never understood the need to ask them out loud too. It was needlessly embarrassing.
“Are you sure you want me in here?” Dennis asked. “If you changed your mind, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s okay. I want you. In here.” I smiled at him before continuing in a stronger voice. “Yes, I’ve had thoughts of hurting people. Constantly before I started my meds. But it wasn’t on purpose. I couldn’t control it. They would just pop in my head at random times. Like thoughts about hurting Ari and other people I’d never wanna hurt. Like my aunt and uncle and the onefoster family I actually liked.”
“Is Ari the cousin you had a fight with?”Dr. Tsai didn’t take any notes this time when I nodded.“What kind of things would you imagine or think about doing?”
“Things like stabbing them or grabbing the wheel when they were driving and throwing us off a bridge. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never wanted to do it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
“Believe it or not, that’s extremely common in patients. You would never wanna do it, but you can’t stop yourself from having random thoughts about it. It’s natural. Or it’s not natural for everyone, but you know what I mean.”She smiled as I kinda laughed.“Nothing to be ashamed of. Now, about how you’ve been lately. I see you haven’t been doing too well.” Her eyes were once again scanning the paperwork, no doubt reading my answers about the past two weeks.
“I’ve been fine.”
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow. “No problems with sleeping too much or too little? Trouble eating, feelings of hopelessness, thoughts that you’d be better off dead?” I shook my head while Dennis shot me a questioning look. “No recent thoughts of grandeur? Trouble focusing?” Once again, I shook my head. “You have to be honest with me, Emery. Otherwise I can’t help you.”
“Do I need to answer for you?” Dennis was still looking at me. He sighed when I didn’t respond. “Fine, I will. She’s been having issues with all of those. Hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, trying to hurt herself. Sleeping for half a day or not at all—”
“Okay,” I cut him off. “Okay, fine. I’ve been having a lot of issues for I don’t know how long. I don’t remember. I think I was too happy for a while. And now I’m depressed. Do I have to give details, or is that enough?” My eyes were on the floor. Admitting it on paper was fine, but saying it out loud felt so pathetic.
Dr. Tsai studied me for a minute before looking to Dennis. He didn’t add anything, which seemed to satisfy her. “That’s enough. Thank you for being honest. With that information, it seems like we should make some adjustments to your medication. I see you’re on 300 milligrams of your mood stabilizer and 25 of the antipsychotic?”
“The mood stabilizer, yeah. But I’m not taking the other one. I haven’t tried that one yet.”
She read a few lines on her computer, then typed a couple more before turning back to me.“Can you tell me about your different dosages and how they all worked for you?”
“They started me off on 100 milligrams of my mood stabilizer to get used to it and see how it worked. Or started on 25, then 50, and then 75 and 100. You know what I mean. But that was way too low, so we kept increasing it until 250. That was my first set dosage. But after I put some guy in a coma and had another horrible breakdown and was hospitalized a second time, they upped it to 300. Which is where I’matnow.”
Dr. Tsai barely heard the ending before she started typing. She eventually stopped to say,“I’d like to try putting you at 350. Let’s see how that works out for you.If you feel any better, we’ll keep you at that dosage. If not, maybe we can try another increase.We’d like to avoid any other incidents mirroring yesterday, right?”She shot me a smile that I couldn’t return.
“Isn’t the highest dosage 400?”I already knew the answer, I just didn’t wanna believe it. I didn’t wanna think about the fact they kept having to increase it to keep me sane.
“We’ll just try it and see how it works out for you. We might need to put you at 400, but it’ll be good to see how you are at 350 first. We don’t want you on a dosage any higher than you need.”
“Okay.”I glanced at Dennis, who looked worried. But the second he noticed me he relaxed. Like he didn’t want me to see it.He was concerned and I hated that.
“I’d also like to recommend an antipsychotic. We can try a different one if the prescribed one doesn’t work for you. There are options. Just try it outfora month or two, see how it helps your sleep patterns and the hallucinations you’ve been having.”She picked up the paper and scanned the paragraphs I’d written, then compared it to formercomputernotes.
“I don’t want to. I don’t wanna lose my personality and be like a zombie. I refuse to turn into the walking dead. It’s not attractive and I’m not doing it.”
“This is something I’d really like you to try,”Dr. Tsai said.“If your hallucinations are interfering with your daily function, which it seems they often do based on notes from your previous team, the medication should help get it under control.I’d also like to recommend some therapy sessions—”
“No.”I didn’t mean to interrupt but my panic was uncontrollable.“I don’t do feelings unless I have to. I’ve done therapy before and I don’t need it again.”
“I think it would be verybeneficialfor you.”
