Skip to main content

My Lexapro Diary

 Sometimes, my shrink suggests that I ought to "up" my Lexapro dosage. This tends to come as a surprise to me.


I might be telling a story along these lines: "And then I just said to the postal carrier...Thanks for your concern. FUCK YOU."

Mildly, my shrink will say, "You advised a postal carrier to fuck off? You know, your dosage is quite low....There is no harm in an adjustment...."

More recently, I have become involved in a silent war with a mysterious neighbor. There is a steep private road next to my house, and if you turn off the main road, you may encounter another vehicle seeking egress from the private road. The road can't fit two cars, so someone needs to budge. It seems to me that there is an unwritten law: If you're leaving the private road, you just back up, you "give ground," because this is much easier to do than retreating onto the main, public road, where traffic is trying to fly by. One of my neighbors made the strange choice to disobey this rule, so I made a mature move: I gave him an intense "death stare." The showdown recurred--!--so, once again, I brought out my death stare. I am so disturbed by this violation of a (fictional) rule that I spend many minutes reviewing the scene, and I visit "Reddit" discussions to try to calm myself down.

But I'm still on the low dosage of Lexapro. Right. I know. I, too, would hesitate to take myself as a patient.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

  When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

 Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...