Something's Not Right at the Doctor's Office

“Various monsters have taken over my already annoying body, and I feel like they all have opposing goals” will likely get me moved from this comfortable doctor’s office exam room to some kind of facility with padded walls. I look around the room in an attempt to ground myself. Someone must have been really excited to open a new sticker pack, because there are stickers of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries all over the place. Cherries too. Is a cherry a type of berry? Okay, now I’ve recovered a bit. Time to not talk about the monsters, and instead talk about the symptoms in case there is some kind of medicine available to help.

I’ll start gently. I open my mouth and hear my voice say, “Something’s not right.” My mouth is so dry all of a sudden, and I feel like I’m itching from within. Scratching deeply inside my ears would feel absolutely heavenly. Maybe a little light scrape at my brain. If there were some safe way to just work my hands between the skull and the grey matter, maybe poke at whatever monster is in there. Oh no, now I’ve lost track of my face. Do I even look like a regular person sitting here, instead of some kind of shell containing unknown horrors in a disposable gown? Despite the abundance of fruit stickers (because are they really all berry stickers if cherries are involved?), seeing the doctor always frightens me and seems to bring out a version of myself with an extremely limited vocabulary. This time the doctor’s office sounds more awful than usual. Someone is coughing in some other exam room, the small talk in the hallway is stilted, and the slight hum of the fluorescent light above me is beginning to feel like a drill slowly working into my skull. 

I look at my doctor, well, the back of my doctor’s head. She is facing the computer monitor, scrolling through various tables and charts. I selected her as my primary care physician once I realized that some people in your life must be younger than you are, like your dentist, your financial planner, and unfortunately, your doctor. Their knowledge should carry you to your end of life. I’m supposed to die of old age, not of being consumed by monsters. As the doctor scrolls down the screen, muttering to herself, she raises her volume so that I can hear, “Your bloodwork has not changed since our visit last year. Tell me more about what you are feeling.” She’s clearly laid down my gauntlet. I am to select the perfect combination of symptoms to quiet my newly acquired monsters enough so that I can regain control, without truly exposing these monsters and getting myself committed. After the great ADHD diagnosis of five years ago, I know I have three opportunities to explain myself before I’m dropped out of the office to try again next year. I can do this. Just focus.

I absentmindedly pick at the newly acquired acne on my face as I pick my words more carefully. “My skin feels like it has switched out for something of much lower quality. It gets dry so easily. I turn red now at the gym or from even thinking about going outside. And it itches!” My doctor chuckles, sharing that sometimes skin changes over time, she’ll refer me to a dermatologist, blah blah blah. I see this for what it is: Strike one. I have no mere dermatology problem. Whatever this monster is, it crawls beneath my skin. Stretching it, leaving lines and depth that never existed. Waking up every morning to a new horror, or during the day stopping myself from a never-ending scratch, seeing that I’ve reddened my skin to nearly bleeding. I don’t recognize my skin in the mirror anymore. It’s never been perfect, but this is not the skin I’ve lived with for the past 41 years. This skin on my face and chest and back is as covered with bright red blotches as the cabinets are with stickers of berries. Why are there so many berries all over the place? Alright, I’m getting distracted again, I should select a different monster to share. Maybe a little embarrassment will move this process along. “It’s like I’m going through puberty again, but not quite. My body was changing, and my moods became unpredictable. I had new feelings, or stronger feelings and sensations than I had previously. My happy got happier, and my sad developed new and exciting options like melancholy, heartbreak, and distress. I got everything under control with time, but none of the strategies that I used then seem to be working now. Same with the ADHD counseling, layering on those executive dysfunction management techniques made me the most powerful version of myself about three years ago until about last year. Everything’s falling apart now.” I had started, and now I couldn’t stop, even though I had clearly earned strike two. “It’s not just the unexpected moods. It’s unexpected periods now too. My period has been perfectly predictable since college, now I have no clue when it’s coming. I’m too old for a surprise period!” The doctor looks at me with a small smile. Strike three. Can she tell I’ve edited out the monsters at fault here?

I don’t have a good method for describing the way these monsters turn my mind. With the joy monster, I can look at my house or my life and be satisfied. It gives me an almost delirious lightness about the choices I’ve made and the work I have put in to get this far. It whispers about luck and the joy of the universe before pushing me into the arms of what must be her opposing twin. The joyless monster. This one turns everything into rage and disappointment. This awful monster places filters over my eyes that turn my husband’s kind smile into what must be a grimace, the laughter of a friend into a garish shriek, questions from a team member at work into moments that I have to restrain the other monsters within from knocking over every filing cabinet as I scream into my coworker’s empty brain that the answers lie in the instructions I gave him a month ago. This joyless monster should be the worst, the one that triggers rage and tries to trick me into thinking that the people I care about are actually the worst people on the planet. Instead, it is the monster that comes just before, that tricks me into feeling so much joy before pushing me off of a cliff, that is the worst. 

I’ve been too deep in thought. She’s been talking with that same small smile plastered on her face. I ask her, “I’m sorry, can you repeat what you said?” Her smile grows even bigger as she says, “You’ve shared a lot about your moods, changes to your body’s timing, and you’ve seemed a bit distracted through our exam, more than usual. I think you’re going to hate my response here, but it sounds like berry menopause”

The berry theme does not belong in this appointment beyond the creepy little stickers all over this exam room. “I’ve had more than enough berries after sitting in here for so long, thank you!” I react, and continue, “I’m also too young for menopause issues. Aren’t those the problems you get in your 60s, not your 40s?” I hope my voice is still steady. I do not need a breaking voice to match my breaking personality that it seems I will need to strengthen to withhold the monsters if this is my new normal. The doctor lowers her voice, speaking almost conspiratorially. “Medically speaking, menopause is the moment when you’ve gone a full year without a period. I’ve had a patient achieve menopause at 48, another at 61. The time before menopause is simply called perimenopause.” Her tone moved from a friend sharing a secret into matter of fact and almost flippant. “For some people, perimenopause lasts for years.” 

At this point, one monster suggests that having a younger doctor is a mistake, and maybe I could just push her over and run out of here. How is this horror show some kind of standard human practice? I may need to do years of these monsters living just below the surface? My face suddenly feels hot, and I can feel my eyes welling up. “Focusing on rest and healthy eating can help ease the symptoms. Along with the dermatologist, I’ll add on a therapist referral, and it was great seeing you,” she chirps. “See you next year!” she adds brightly, as she abruptly leaves the exam room. Maybe she does know about the monsters if she scurried out so quickly, even though I didn’t name any of them directly. I ponder more about how loud my monsters may be as I get dressed to leave.

I pay my copay and walk out to my car, deciding which monster will get to pick the next stop on this day off from work. Will I let myself be guided by the joy monster to a self care moment of a manicure or a massage, only for the joyless one to flip it into disappointment over the treatment? Maybe the monster that lives under my skin can take me to a store where I can pretend that maybe one more new cream will soften the harshness of the damage that monster continues to inflict. Then I realize exactly where I need to go. The frozen yogurt shop for some healthy pity eating. Extra healthy if I only top it with berries.