In May of 1988, I graduated from college. Naturally, in April of 1988, I was besiged with fears and doubts about the future. Should I go to graduate school? Should I stay with my boyfriend? What in the world should I do for a living? Did I still like any of my friends? How could I structure the rest of my life for happiness?
So I did what many of my classmates did. I went to the school health center. Whether or not we had health insurance, pretty much every student had to pay the $63 health center fee. This entitled us to get Band-Aids and Sudafed and someone to listen to our complaints, all for free. Or at least for no more than $63 for one school year.
A few visits to a brain doctor were part of our health center privileges. I was lucky enough to be assigned to a guy who was young and sympathetic, who made me feel comfortable talking about my innermost frustrations. Dr. Stephen Henry encouraged me to tell him how I wanted to find a place in the world where I would be appreciated. I told him how I tended to need less emotional support than many of my friends. I told him how lately I had needed some support, some slack, but I felt that my friends ignored my problems and acted as though they knew I was too strong to really need them. I told him how my needs might be less frequent, but that did not mean my pain was any less real. I told him how I would sit up through the night while my boyfriend slept soundly. I told the doctor how one of my professors had offered to give me a fellowship in sociology if I would sleep with him.
In a way, admitting my fallibility was painful, but mostly it was a relief. I felt like I was finally getting to vocalize an anguished scream which had been building up in my gut since before New Year's. With Stephen Henry's help, I knew I could pinpoint my problems and make myself happy again.
After two visits, the school year was coming to a close. I told my shrink that I wanted to pay him by the hour over the summer. He told me that he was not fully licensed to practice in Connecticut yet, but that, with another doctor's assistance, he had set things up so he could see a couple of his patients after school was out. Still, he did not think he felt like going through this trouble for me. I did not really need his help. "I mean, it's not like you're going to go kill yourself tonight, is it?" he queried.
Dr. Stephen Henry had just done to me exactly what I had been complaining about my friends doing. I stumbled out of the health center and across campus completely in tears. Totally sobbing. Neither the school psychologist nor one single other person seemed to notice.
Because there was no one there to help me when I needed it, I made some bad decisions. And then I lived to regret them. And then I made some good decisions. But, hell, that was all five years ago. And everyone knows that it is not good for our mental health to hold grudges.
