One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

2nd March

Long awaited psychiatric consult recommended by specialist arrives and I make my way to mental hospital. (Note to self must remember NOT to call it Mental Hospital out loud as it is merely Psychology Wing of normal hospital.)

Maze like building makes me wonder if I am already being studied and if I will be rewarded with piece of cheese if I make it to office and electric shock if I take wrong turn. Achieve office without any incident of electrocution but sadly don't received cheese either and am directed to waiting area which I would immediately have been able to identify as belonging to Psychology wing by anally retentive arrangement of magazines which I don't dare move.

Exchange baleful looks with other mental patients and then pretend to ignore each other but I am sure that they are as frantically trying to work out what is wrong with me as I am with them. We are joined by very large lady who sits down panting and eyes me hungrily. Consider moving away but decide I could easily out run her if necessary and throw her some of the (assumed) anorexics on the way as snacks. Have to wonder at advisability of mixing the two varieties of eating disorder in same waiting area. Can't imagine the variation in body shape good for health of either.

Am approached by 12 year old mental patient who needless to say turns out to be my psychiatrist and we head into private room.

Spend half hour completing multiple choice questionnaires in which I have to rate how bothered I am by various things and the level of desire I have to kill myself. Sadly there is no box asking me how bothered I am by filling in highly personal questionnaires for complete strangers. I then answer the 50 different ways of asking if I have ever considered killing myself, and find it hard not to reply Not Until I Started This Questionnaire.

This is followed by painful interview in which I am asked to talk about my problem and I manage to paint picture of unpleasant and unstable madwoman while Doctor makes notes at unlikely points in conversation that I am completely unable to read upside down.

Doctor then asks me what I hope to get out of these sessions – if I am approved - and I think not so much What as When, but mumble a reply about improved memory functions and pain management. Doctor suggests memory problem might be lack of focus and inattention to detail and I come back from where I had drifted to and agree it is sheer laziness on my part and she then explains pain management system which seems to boil down to telling ones self to buck up which seems like a colossal waste of time to me and not very scientific, but this is no doubt why I need these sessions in the first place.

Doctor explains that one to one sessions have long waiting list and would I consider group work. I hesitate and she pounces on what she calls my reluctance to join a group and asks what my reservations are. Stem frank and immediate reply that rises to my lips to effect that I don't want to be in room full of mad people and instead waffle on about impressions received from film media (have very clear mental image of Doctor in Butlins style red coat coaxing me into being a joiner and making me weave baskets) before plunging into assertion that I am ready to try anything.

Have great and certain sense of foreboding that I will have cause to regret this at some future date.