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“And, okay, maybe we were doomed from the start, because I scored an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs Jungian personality test we took online last summer, and he scored an ENTJ, and now he just wants to be friends and see other people, which is the last thing I want. But I respect his wishes, and I know that if I ever hope to attain the fruits of self-actualization, I have to spend more time building up the roots of my tree of life, and…and…and, really, that’s it. Except for possible meningitis. Or lassa fever. That’s all that’s wrong with me. I just have to adjust. I’m fine. I’m really fine.”
“You’re fine?” Dr. Knutz said. “You’ve missed almost a week of school even though there’s nothing physically wrong with you—we’ll check on the meningitis of course—and you haven’t changed out of your pajamas in days. But you’re fine.”
“Yes,” I said. Suddenly, I was very close to tears. Also, my heart was beating kind of fast again. “Can I go home now?”
“Why?” Dr. Knutz wanted to know. “So you can crawl back into bed and continue to isolate yourself from friends and loved ones—a classic sign of depression, by the way?”
I just blinked at him. I couldn’t believe he—a perfect stranger, WORSE, a stranger who liked WESTERN THINGS—was talking to me that way. Who did he think he was, anyway—aside from one of the nation’s preeminent experts on adolescent and child psychology?
“So you can continue to drift away from your long-term relationship with your best friend, Lilly,” he said, referring to a note on the pad in his lap, “as well as your other friends, by avoiding school and any other social settings where you might be forced to interact with them?”
I blinked at him some more. I know I was supposed to be the crazy one, but it was hard to believe from this statement that he wasn’t crazy.
Because I was not avoiding school because I might have to see Lilly there, or interact socially with people. That wasn’t it at all. Or why I want to move to Genovia.
“So you can continue to ignore the things you used to love—like instant messaging your friend Tina—and sleep during the day, then stay up all night,” Dr. Knutz went on, “gaining weight through compulsive binge eating when you think no one is looking?”
Wait…how did he know about THAT? HOW DID HE KNOW ABOUT TINA? OR THE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES?
“So you can go on just saying whatever it is you think people want to hear in order to make them go away and leave you alone, and refusing to observe even basic proper hygiene—again, classic examples of adolescent depression?”
I just rolled my eyes. Because everything he was saying was totally ridiculous. I’m not depressed. I’m sad, maybe. Because everything sucks. And I probably do have meningitis, even though everyone seems to be ignoring my symptoms.
But I’m not depressed.
“So you can continue to cut yourself off from the things you used to love—your writing, your baby brother, your parents, your school activities, your friends—and go on feeling consumed by self-loathing, yet lacking any motivation to change, or enjoy life again?” Dr. Knutz’s voice boomed very loudly in his ranch-style office. “I could go on. Do I need to?”
I blinked at him some more. Only now I was blinking back tears. I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t.
I don’t have meningitis. I don’t have lassa fever.
I’m depressed. I’m actually depressed.
“I might,” I said, after clearing my throat, because it was kind of hard to talk around the big lump that had suddenly appeared there, “be a little down.”
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re depressed,” Dr. Knutz went on in a gentle voice. I mean, for a cowboy. “Many, many people have suffered from depression. Having depression doesn’t mean you’re crazy, or a failure, or a bad person.”
I had to blink back a lot of tears.
“Okay,” was all I could manage to say.
Then my dad reached over and took my hand. Which I didn’t really appreciate because that just made me want to cry more. Plus, my hand was super sweaty.
“And it’s okay to cry,” Dr. Knutz went on, passing me a box of tissues he’d had hidden somewhere.
How did he keep doing that? How did he keep reading my mind like that? Was it because he spent so much time out on the range? With the deer? And the antelope? What is an antelope, anyway?
“It’s perfectly normal, and even healthy, considering what’s been going on in your life lately, Mia, that you might feel sad and need to talk to someone about it,” Dr. Knutz was saying. “That’s why your family brought you here to see me. But unless you yourself admit that you have a problem and need help, there’s very little I can do. So why don’t you say what’s really bothering you, and how you’re really feeling? And this time, leave the Jungian tree of self-actualization out of it.”
And then—before I knew what was happening—I found myself not even caring that I was possibly being punk’d.
Maybe it was the Navajo rug. Maybe it was the cowboy hat on the peg on the back of the door. Maybe I just figured he was right: I couldn’t really spend the rest of my life in my room.
In any case, the next thing I knew, I was telling this strange, aging cowboy everything.
Well, not EVERYTHING, obviously, because my DAD was sitting there. Which is apparently some rule of Dr. Knutz’s, that for the initial consultation of a minor, a parent or guardian has to be present. This wouldn’t be the norm if Dr. Knutz took me on as a regular patient.
But I told him the important thing—the thing I haven’t been able to get out of my head since last Sunday when I hung up the phone after talking to Michael. The thing that’s been keeping me in bed ever since.
