The psychiatrist sits across the room
While asking me questions about how the
Medication is going
Seldom looking over at me
As she types my responses at her laptop
I guess this is how they do it now
Despite all the talk about improving mental health
Their minds already made up
About how this appointment will go
It was already predetermined
With little space for dialogue
And she needs to document every single word it appears
Perhaps my questions to her have changed
The exchange and the power dynamics
As I want to understand why labs are never done
In advance of prescribing psychoactive medications
Like how about vitamin D or B12 status or magnesium
Or omega 3 and insulin and blood glucose stability
What about those I ask
But there is no good answer
Despite the fact that those are but a few things that
Can affect depression and anxiety
I donât remember hearing a response at all
So she will probably write down I am resistant to a dosage increase
And type that the side effect sensations I have been feeling are
Due to a new diagnosis she is giving me
Somatoform Disorder
Which is basically pathologizing the fact
That our minds and bodies are completely connected
And so I will leave here more wounded than when I entered
When in fact I am more whole
And normal than this broken system could possibly know.
*****
Return to Poetry
