One of this year’s highlights, and there have been precious few to
get my mouth around, was finding out the name of my condition. I’ve had years and years of stop-gap psychotherapy and no one has ever bothered to slap a label on me; I finally popped the question to my present confessor citing the need to have a code for my insurance forms. The official diagnosis: Dysthymia. Which means: Nothing, as far as I can tell. It’s a diagnosis used essentially for insurance purposes when a patient is fucked up but not so fucked up as to warrant a visit to the Rubber Ramada. It’s sort of shitty knowing that what’s wrong with you isn’t considered very serious when it’s caused you this much inconvenience.
The thing is, I’m just not that fucked up; that is, I’m just fucked up enough for it to be a problem. I can function just dandy most of the time, which makes it really stick out when I can’t. I don’t look fucked up. I don’t. You should see me dressed for work, I look as normal as a bag of groceries. My co-workers still think I’m going to show up with an Uzi in my briefcase someday. I’m not violent, I just tend to talk very seriously about what bugs me, and an awful lot of things bug me. I may actually look just a tad too normal. I went to see Falling Down in my work clothes and people were diving out of my way when I got up to leave.
The bottom line is that things bug the shit out of me that don’t bother anyone else. Dumb things, too. An example: every bar-b-q joint you see has the same basic logo, a leering pig in an apron and chef’s toque prancing on it’s hind legs and carrying a tray in it’s trotters. A tray. This fuck, this collaborator, this filthy swine is just shivering with delight, presenting for your satisfaction a holocaust of its brethren. “Eat my friends and family! They’re just Nummy!”
This bothers me. Not in a reflective, Andy Rooney/George Will asswipe sort of way. It really torques me. The chief reason for this is that no one else seems bothered at all, and they look at me like I’m spreading steak sauce on their kids if I talk about it. I have a great deal of trouble discussing current events with my co-workers, as you might imagine. They don’t get angry about anything. They must drink a lot, beat the shit out of their kids, or just have no fire and passion whatsoever in their anemic pastel souls.
My beloved confessor has told me one of the objects of my present spate of therapy is to get me to where I can go ahead and express my anger without fear. I am skeptical of this. I tend not to express all this anger for fear of getting locked up for something really newsworthy or just dopey. There’s a reason those losers who shoot up post offices tend to save a bullet or twenty for themselves. I mean, what do you say? My shitty job, cretinous co-workers, and cement-headed manager drove me to this desperate act of defiance? Better to eat a bullet than have the whole world say, You asshole, why didn’t you just send out some resumes? No one is going to understand. I don’t. Maybe I just haven’t gotten that angry yet.
Close your eyes, count to ten, and get the fuck out of my way or I’ll customize that arm so you can snake drains with it