THE BOXES WE DON'T CHECK

I just finished filling out new patient forms for some acupuncture treatment that I am getting this week and there was a whole section on emotions. I had to check the boxes for all of the emotions I feel on a regular basis and I feel like I checked all of the emotion boxes. I checked and underlined the anger box. Then I went back and highlighted the word ‘anger’. It seems I’m filled with rage these days, but seriously, what woman isn’t? The new patient forms also wanted family medical history and for the ‘mental disorder’ box, I wrote in ‘maybe?’. The questionnaire wanted me to answer questions I was not prepared to answer or even wanted to answer. It wanted to know more information on the state of my mentratution than my gynecologist even cares to know. Which might be a sign that I need a new gynecologist.

It is March, nearing the end of it really, but still 2022 is young. So far this year, I have had to answer more difficult questions than I have ever had to answer. This includes my thesis defense in 2000. The questions I am answering now have nothing to do with emission and excitation wavelengths or bacterial growth conditions. Those kinds of questions are easy. It’s the questions about my personal and mental health that are the hard questions for me to answer. I’d like to blame some of that on ignorance. I just don’t know the answer. Last week, that fortune teller looked at my palms and asked me if there was a family history of depression. I just shrugged and said “Maybe? I know there’s a family history of diabetes?” Diabetes. Depression. They’re the same thing right?

I honestly do not know the answers to most of those family history questions. Medical history of any kind is never on topic and when it is, the information is hearsay because no one knows how to read a medical file or actually listen to what the doctor is saying. My family is sad, but I don’t remember us being sad unto 2005. So I don’t know if the sadness is genetic or circumstantial. Whatever the reason, the sadness exists and some of us are better at staying just above it than others. Depression is the box I never check on these forms. It’s not that I don’t believe that depression is a real clinical disorder. I could give a good long list of scientific journal articles about brain chemistry and rearranged axioms that prove depression is a real thing. I never check that box because I would rather ignore it. It’s kind of like the time I noticed a weird freckle on my arm and then proceeded to scratch the freckle off of my own body instead of going to a dermatologist.

Yes. I did that.

Here’s why I really don’t ever check the box. Sometimes, I am sad. I have some pretty good reasons for being sad and I believe we should be allowed to feel those feelings. Without guilt. But, sometimes I spend a little bit of time wallowing in that sadness, maybe too much time. I always muster up the strength to pull myself up and out of the muckiness of the sad. I have mustering plans for the sad. Exercises like walking outside, getting on my yoga mat and my gratitude practice are integral parts of that plan. The gratitude practice is probably the most important, because there’s nothing like being grateful for this privileged life I have to make me get off my ass and go live it. I figure that when I reach a moment when I can not pull myself out of the mucky muck, that is the day I check that box and get professional help.

Je suis forte.

I am also stubborn. The fortune teller looked me directly in the eyes and said this to my face. Maybe that’s what I need tattooed on my other wrist. I am not stubborn enough to recognize that there is some cowardice in not checking the box. That if I was truly brave, I would ask for help when I need it. So I went back and checked the box. Sometime earlier this year I made a decision to stop bad habits, become my own biggest fan and loudest cheerleader. Sometime early in the year I decided to take the version of me who believed she could do anything and move her from the back of the room to the front podium and put her in charge of the meetings. That version of me used to be in charge, but she got moved to the back of the room when there was an internal vote of no confidence. But I am putting that version of me back in charge because I can do anything.

That includes checking boxes I would normally ignore.