Red Chair has a formal name because she’s been through hell with me and is the Thomasville Furniture equivalent of a ride-or-die human friend. On this particular day, the air conditioning vent blew full force under Red Chair making my toes feel like ice cubes. My frigid feet contrasted the heat radiating inward from the windows as I stared blankly at my driveway 3 stories below. It was mid-summer in the Deep South, late in the afternoon. I was in a modest, creme, long sleeve nightgown with black edging. Light and airy. Hair pulled up in a messy bun. My last shower was 3 or 4 days prior, but I didn’t care. Normal people wear pajamas all day, right?
Red Chair was my sacred and safe space that summer; its ruby cushions had the perfect blend of firm and squish. If the chair had a name that accurately depicted her color, it would be I’m Not Really a Waitress, the moniker for the legendary nail lacquer from OPI. The upholstery material is lightly textured, buttery smooth, and perfect for snuggling up with a good book. Or for sitting on endlessly after you snap from reality. Either way, Red Chair was quiet, never got on my nerves, and enveloped me in safety. I could close the door to the bedroom, and lock out any nuisances when sitting with Red Chair. Those nuisances, gut wrenchingly, were my kids and family. Basic household operations. Knocks at the door from FedEx. Barks from my beloved doodle dogs. People that have emotionally snapped frequently lose the ability to govern their emotions. Any response to life’s peccadillos was grossly disproportionate and my ability to function in society was shot to hell. The smallest disturbances acted like a Molotov cocktail in my brain. I hated myself for it.
I had just been discharged from a mental health facility, a place I had self admitted with the aid of my best friend, Iris. After a 16-day sojourn, I had just enough pharmaceuticals coursing through my veins to keep the anxiety, panic, depression, racing thoughts, fear of some unknown, and worries of unaliving myself at bay. I was also numbed enough so that the voices and hallucinations were significantly muted. I hate drugs, but this cocktail rendered me just numb enough while I remained lucid in the deepest recesses of my mind. I was fully aware of what bubbled beneath the surface of my psyche, but I was not bothered enough by it to come unhinged. I was, in a word, neutral.
I opened my MacBook, logged in to Zoom, and waited. It was my first appointment with psychiatrist 8,523. I had seen so many throughout my life that I’d lost count; each left me feeling like a human vortex mixer that big pharma uses when blending the newest synthetic cure-all we see on commercials. I became a human receptacle for every brain modulating drug made by Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, and EliLilly.
I had never met this doctor before, but was assigned to her care following my discharge. As the medical director of outpatient psychiatric services, I figured she had to know a thing or two. Her employer was a leading university, research and teaching hospital where I’d recently disconnected from reality. After nosing around on the internet, I figured she was roughly 8 years my junior, highly educated, and her curriculum vitae oozed experience.
The Zoom connection indicated I was no longer alone in the virtual doctor’s office. You know that horrid beepity click sound. After COVID, we all do. And I could not have been more shocked when I laid eyes on the woman that would eventually decode the puzzle in my brain that had stymied every one of her predecessors.
The screen gave me my first glimpse of Dr. Davis and her impeccable porcelain skin. And I don’t care what kind of filter she may have had on her monitor, there is no correcting a Zoom call to achieve that kind of skin. She was a striking cacophony of style and genre. The first thing I noticed was her hair. Bright red. If it wasn’t from a bottle, I’m jealous as hell. If it was, it’s not the cheap Revlon crap from Walgreens. Dr. Davis’ hair was the kind you pay some fabulous gay man hundreds of dollars to blend. It was a unique color and utter perfection, my guess is crafted precisely for her. The color was a mix of aubergine, topped with a healthy dollop of blackberry, and a little pinch of red currant. The hue was utterly striking on her short mane, which framed her square jaw perfectly. When contrasted against her eyes, orbs of crystalline blue-gray, her look was anything but conformist.
For years, I’d been treated by random, old, white dudes that wore khaki pants, had various stages of unkempt hair or premature balding, wore cordovan loafers, and some version of a haphazardly ironed button down. Don’t shrinks make a ton of money? Iron your fucking shirt, Dr. Prozac. They’d wax poetic about neurotransmitters, puffing up their egos with every syllable that passed their lips. These guys thought they were benefactors to the masses. Frankly, most were arrogant pricks and each treated me like a head of cattle. Dr. Davis would be my first female psychiatrist. Ever. And she was off to a remarkable start.
Dr. Davis was nothing like I’d ever met or seen in a white coat. I immediately thought of Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice. Her presence and resemblance to the benzodiazepine addled, northeastern eccentric was uncanny. Dr. Davis’ hair, skin, and eyes were complimented by perfectly manicured nails in black, and she wore a stunning wedding ring. Simple, elegant, classic. She was deeply cerebral, words chosen with precision, and her cadence was rhythmic and soothing. Her smile, framed by perfectly symmetrical and tiny dimples, accented the brightest of pin-straight pearly whites. Upon initial glance and meeting, she was adroit, beautiful in an elegant and understated manner, and kind. This, comically, is where her outward resemblance to Delia stopped. Hard.
During COVID, practitioners frequently conducted tele-health visits from home and Dr. Davis was no exception. To obfuscate the rest of her home from the camera and prying eyes of off-kilter psychiatric patients like me was a blanket that must have measured 12’ along one side. The decoration was a collision of chemistry and cottage prairie decor. Dead center was a serotonin (or maybe it was dopamine) molecule stitched onto the quilt. The fabric pattern used for each square of her masterpiece can only be described as “grandmother’s curtains,” a floral washout of purple and creme. Oddly enough, it wasn’t haphazardly hung. It was hung with care, leveled evenly, and neatly centered behind her camera. She was obviously proud of what must have been her handiwork. In a split second, Delia Deetz collided with an Amish homemaker. It was the strangest mashup I had ever seen. But wicked cool. My interest peaked. Like any self-respecting badass, Dr. Davis owned her peculiarities with pride. She marched forward, emboldened by an elite education that was perfectly moderated by eclectic style and a healthy dose of self assuredness.
Then I saw her cardigan sweater, and it was a tailspin I didn’t anticipate. Handmade. Knitted or crocheted, I couldn’t tell. But the way she spoke of it, you’d think it was the newest Mercedes Benz and she’d assembled it herself without any instructions in her own driveway. It bore sleeves long enough to cover the palms of her hands and stopped just short enough to leave her digits free to beat on her keyboard while we chatted. When she told me she made it, I was blinded by her toothy grin.
So, it seems my new doctor was likely a Mensa member, could recite the DSM from memory, knows drugs and dosing with an encyclopedic memory, and she quilts and knits too? She’s a fashion mashup of the leading lady from Tim Burton’s eponymous movie and she might also make homemade butter in her backyard. Does she have cows and chickens? I do not know. This was the single most bizarre 90 minutes of my life. Admittedly, I was juiced up on some drug cocktail, but I knew I liked her. I sensed I could trust her. People like me are very fast reads of character; survival requires it. I had nothing to lose, so I resigned myself to just answer her questions.
For those of us that have been through the psychiatric gauntlet, we know the routine. First visit is usually 90 minutes and you get hammered with questions. Pills? Ok, when? Which ones? Side effects? Parents? Dead or alive? Siblings? They have mental illnesses? Your current living situation? Are you angry or sad? Do you feel safe? Education? What about work? Tell me about your mom, discuss the merits of Canadian Geese and do you see things in your eggs when scrambling them, wax poetic about this random concept and then that one, and please balance these books on your head. The list continued. Psych patients know the schtick, and we can practically solve nuclear equations while simultaneously answering the questions. The process is rote and usually requires zero cognitive effort. But not anymore, not with my new psychiatrist.
Most of my prior practitioners were transactional. Visits felt like the healthcare equivalent to a checkout line at Saks Fifth Avenue. Certain protocols followed, a good experience practically guaranteed by my private healthcare secured by my husband’s work, and it could all be defined as a rather high-brow encounter. Dr. Davis was not like this. At all. She was like a grossly overqualified TSA agent who stayed in the job for posterity and loved the bloodhound aspect of it all. She had nothing but questions, time, and she picked up on the smallest nuances. My new favorite person was clinical yet disarming in her approach and followed a taxonomy that lived only in her head. You could see her brain working a huge if-then checklist as she asked me questions. Her mind was a highly sophisticated tool and she intended on using it. But not in an overt or arrogant manner, she was far too learned for any blunt apparatus.
You see, I’d amassed so much knowledge over the years, like how to work the system, and it wasn’t quite deliberate or as manipulative as it sounds. To give away just enough information without giving out too much. Dance just close enough to the devil, if you will. Find a doctor that, with just enough information, would hopefully find a pill, any pill, to help you feel better. To help stop the panic that shows up for no damn reason. The tears. The inexplicable fear. It never worked. The thing is, most people like me don’t make the connection between seemingly unrelated events from childhood, which seems a lifetime ago, to strange happenings today. How could my parents’ fighting 40 years ago connect to my fear of leaving the house now?
Dr. Davis was relentless. Question after question, the same topic asked multiple ways. She was like the personification of a Meyers Briggs exam. And, well, fuck. She snagged me in an inconsistency early on in our relationship. I knew it instantly, and she likely did, too. But she didn’t let on. And I wasn’t deliberately trying to hide anything from her; it was purely instinct. Week after week, month after month, year after year, she slowly, deliberately, and purposefully asked more questions. I’d find things coming out of my mouth and I’d be just as surprised at what I’d heard myself say as I was in the fact that I said it at all. Not only was her Zoom-side manner phenomenal, she must have been trained by the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition or something. There was way more to my personal Delia Deetz, the Amish homemaker. And she hid it well while methodically unpacking my brain until she arrived at my personal area 54.
For our first 18 months together, we did the patient-doctor dance. I’d go back to inpatient care two more times. Have 12 electroconvulsive therapy sessions. We would talk, I’d get questions, we discussed options for medications, and made a plan. By the time I had reached Dr. Davis, I had spent 25 years running through SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs, stimulants, non-stimulants, anti-psychotics, atypical antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, hypnotics, benzodiazepines, beta blockers for anxiety, anxiolytics, anticonvulsants, anti-manic drugs, and anything else under the kitchen sink. And none of them worked. Worse, all of the meds that were prescribed for what many believed to be my long-standing diagnoses, caused horrific side effects and didn’t minimize my symptoms. I’d be consistently managed and then I’d have a spike in anxiety, terror, and more. I know now that those spikes were instigated by trauma hiding in the recesses of my brain.
With every phone call, we would go down the rabbit hole of medications, only to reach a dead end. I was used to this experience. The variable was Dr. Davis. She was different than any other psychiatrist I’d ever had. The constant was Red Chair. When we would talk, I often wondered if she’d have a mid-century modern chair in her office like the one that become my respite for our times together. So, I enjoyed my seat and looked forward to our sessions.
When medications don’t work, patients get more questions, and Dr. Davis was excellent at deploying the most subtle kind. Rather than feeling like I was being interrogated, she masterfully conversed with me. I opened up in ways I never had before, and she connected the dots. People like me have myriad ways to cope, and I don’t think many of them are deliberate. I became great at compartmentalization. Regardless of the question, I instinctively stayed away from the really bad crap in my head. It’s not like I was deliberately hiding the truth, I just though it was irrelevant and I didn’t want to talk about it. Stuart then is not Stuart now. Right? Wrong.
Years before meeting Dr. Davis, I metaphorically packed up my old baggage, put it neatly in a box, stashed it in a closet deep in the recesses of my brain, shut and locked the door. The key was always hidden. After time, the contents of my box became less relevant, or so I thought, and not in my face. I felt not entirely free but not overtly burdened either. But, when questioned, my warning sirens would go off and I’d become guarded. Maybe this is why I went so long without knowing what was really wrong with me. I was an imposter to myself and the world around me.
My area 54 is the box of horrors in my head. And one day, she asked precisely the right question, at precisely the right time, using precisely chosen and disarming words, with precisely the right voice inflection. The serotonin prairie quilt hung in the background and she wore that crazy-ass sweater. I was the dog and she was Pavlov. She put the stimulus out there and I did exactly what she knew I’d do. I led her right to my area 54, gave her the keys to my hidden closet, and let her open the lid to my box. My mouth opened and out came my truth before my brain could stop it.
That was it. She had found out. People had hurt me. Family and friends. I was a little girl, a tween, a teen. She was the first person that would know the truth. All of me. The Stuart that was resolute and successful at hiding herself for more than 25 years and had outsmarted everyone was finally discovered. I thought I had done it, though I wasn’t trying to do anything. But I eventually met my match in an eccentric savior, who happened to quilt, crochet, and pulled off goth like it was expected of every up-and-coming psychiatrist.
Her voice was monotone, her face expressionless, “Stuart, your symptoms and history all point towards PTSD.” Never had those words, or that acronym, been mentioned to me by a healthcare practitioner in the context of why I struggled. I had only heard things in passing about the mysterious illness that I thought was reserved for war-torn veterans. I would later read about my new diagnosis and in an instant it became immediately clear why none of the meds had worked, why I was hearing voices, seeing things, struggled with insomnia, why I was constantly sick, had aches and pains, was always the aggressor so I’d never get hurt, and kept a very small circle of friends. I felt seen and understood, and not just by Dr. Davis. By myself. I understood me. For the first time in my life. It was September 2023.
While the establishment doesn’t like the term cPTSD, it’s the variety that I have. My psychological tumult stemmed from years of childhood abuse and trauma, my parents’ violent fights, my father leaving us unhoused, having no food to eat, my mother’s mental illness, finding dead pets in my freezer, being told by my mother that evil spirits lived in my walls, a very ill younger sister, a step mother that was my aunt, another step mother that was my mother’s best friend, sexual assault and abuse, emotional abuse and neglect at the hand of my father, a few hits at the hands of boyfriends, and so much more.
Many of you are likely wondering why it took so long. Couldn’t I have just told someone all of the torture I’d endured at the hands of my family? The thing is, human brains have evolved, and self preservation is part of that evolutionary development. A lot of the memories showed up as recurrent dreams, persistent and intrusive thoughts, and they’d leave as quickly as they’d come. There were times when I thought I’d lost my mind and refused to acknowledge any of the horrors. I didn’t know any of this was real until Dr. Davis proved otherwise. Plus, who makes the connection between a series of horrid events from 40+ years ago to random and recurrent anxiety while grocery shopping today? It honestly never occurred to me. All I knew is that I didn’t want to talk about any of it.
A wise chanteuse once said, “Band-Aids don’t fix bullet holes” and antidepressants don’t cure PTSD. Benzodiazepines only mask symptoms, they don’t resolve the root cause of unrelenting anxiety. Antipsychotics and mood-stabilizers don’t stop the voices from your past that have been stuck on repeat in your head for three decades. If only Taylor was my psychiatrist when I was 16, maybe I’d be in a different place today.
It took a while to come to terms with this new diagnosis. To shed the old ones that had come to define who I was. Our appointments became less exploratory and more maintenance in nature. Gone were the probing questions focused on unearthing a clue, and in their place were talks of finding a good therapist. One that specialized in childhood trauma. Our appointments gradually spaced themselves out, as my need for medication management took a backseat to therapy. Dr. Davis was a constant, stabilizing fixture in my life.
Like all good things, relationships with amazing doctors also come to an end. Dr. Davis, after nearly three years of being my psychiatrist, informed me that she was leaving. She had accepted a new job, was moving with her family out of state, and returning to her passion of caring for in-patient psychiatric patients. She graciously offered up a list of referrals. I was gutted. It literally felt like part of me died inside. We had two visits left.
As we neared our final session together, I found myself disconnecting. Crying like I had lost a beloved family member, friend, or pet. Like a limb had been ripped off of me. Violently. Her cheerful demeanor became slightly annoying to me. My protection mechanisms were in full force and my brain was attempting to make her less essential to my world. My mind was grasping at reasons to not like her anymore. The woman that found me drowning in the center of the deepest, darkest ocean was extricating herself from my life. The logical me understood; the emotional me did not.
On our last call, I thanked her for saving my life. For finding that part of me that nobody else had taken the time to find. For making me see my reality as an extension of my brutal past. My sadness was palpable. I cut our session short because, as I told her, “I just couldn’t take it.” Quite ironically, there was no serotonin or dopamine to be found on our last call. Not only was my brain depleted of it, but the quilt she so lovingly crafted and hung on display, was likely folded somewhere waiting to be packed up and hauled away.
And, it ended just like it started. I stared blankly at the empty screen in my last virtual Zoom session, sitting alone with Red Chair.
