Suicide Blonde
When you’re on anxiety medication, a certain level of credibility is lost. Suddenly, to some people, you appear weak, fragile or otherwise compromised, and every legitimate frustration, gripe or momentary flash of anger is chalked up to a simple question, “Did you take your meds today?”
Abe has gotten away with asking this question once, somewhat jokingly, but I don’t think he’ll try again. However, while no one else has asked this question directly, I know they’re thinking it. My father in law sidestepped a stressful conversation last night as he watched me shake out my pill just before dinner. It wasn’t that stressful of a conversation, but I guess the reminder that I am medicated was enough to quell his desire to talk about the housing market. Feh.
As much as I want to be open about this, it’s both amusing and disheartening to see how people perceive any kind of psychotropic medication other than the occasional Valium or Xanax for a one-off condition such as flying or a haul to the dentist’s office.
Everyone is a little frightened of medicated people. Recently, a man at the office openly lamented that his insurance company was no longer covering his Prozac, so he was going without for the time being, and there was a flurry of looks exchanged throughout the room. Granted, that statement might have been more warmly accepted had it not followed a diatribe detailing how he was forced to take the job in customer service because he was recently fired from a teaching job for looking at “nudie pictures” on the Internet.* BUT STILL. He’s not on Prozac because he’s a pervmonster, he’s JUST A PERV. Lots of people who ARE NOT on Prozac are pervy. Prozac does not = perviness.
Anyway.
My sister was recently here to visit and it was a wonderful, fabulous time full of funny stories and statements by my nephews, who are 7 and 9, such as, “I love dairy products. Cheetos, I think, are my favorite dairy product. Auntie, why didn’t you move to Wisconsin, where the dairy products are superior? I’d move to Wisconsin. I hear their Cheetos are fabulous.”
His little earnest face was entirely serious. I miss them so much.
Anyway, despite my sister’s perpetual protests that they were “imposing” on us and taking too much of our time/resources/whatever, I love having houseguests, and I was tickled beyond all belief to spend so much time with the whole family. It was actually more quality time than we’d had in years, for we took their presence for granted when they were a half mile from us in Swampscott.
All of the warm fuzzies aside, her husband doesn’t vacation well, and typically spends the first few hours/days/WEEKS of a trip away from home whining about his new surroundings and complaining that everything, “sucks,” from the amount of time it takes to drive to dinner, to the quality of pillows at Chez Jonniker.
During dinner, when he lamented that it had taken too long to get our food and that “This place sucks!” (for the millionth time), I finally exploded, “ENOUGH. If you don’t like it, GO FUCKING HOOOOOOOOOME!”
It was one of those moments you see in movies where a scratching sound is heard as if on a record and then…stunned silence. For my part, the tension was off my chest, and I was prepared to dig into my crab cakes with gusto. Before I ate, however, it was time to take my pill. Because my dose is 1/4 pill, I’ve got to pour out nearly the entire contents of the bottle to get to the bits on the bottom. When I did so, the silence was broken by sister screeching:
“NOOOOOOOOOOO! JONNIKER! It’s not that BAD! IT’S NOT THAT BAD! IT WILL BE OKAY! THIS KIND OF STRESS IS NOT RATIONAL AND IT IS NOOOOOT WORTH TAKING TOO MUCH MEDICATION!”
I procured the teeny pill, popped it, and stared at her. She thought, I can only assume, that I was distraught with her husband and was about to commit suicide on a grand scale during dinner. Because that’s what medicated people do, when we’re not looking at nudie pics on the Interweb.
*Nudie. That’s what he said. Who says nudie? NUDIE? It’s inherently gross.
**and INXS, of course.
**And I’m working on the tagging Bela! I have to think about this one a little more 
18 comments March 13th, 2006