The Second Appointment

The first time, I'd rehearsed it in the car. "I've been feeling low." That's what I was going to say, because it sounded manageable, like a tyre pressure. And I said it, and the doctor, who was fine, who was busy, typed something and asked a couple of questions off a screen and gave me a leaflet with a phone number on it, and I said thanks and left, and I sat in the car park for twenty minutes and then I drove to work. That was in March. The leaflet's still in the glovebox. The second time was last Thursday. Different doctor, because you get who you get. Older woman, glasses on a chain, the kind of desk with photos on it turned away from you. I didn't rehearse. I'd decided on the way in that rehearsing was the problem. So when she said, "What can I do for you," I said, "I don't really know how to do this," and then just sat there. She took her glasses off. Which I've thought about since. Such a small thing. She took her glasses off and let them hang and said, "Okay. Take your time. There's no wrong way." "I came in March. About feeling low. I got a leaflet." "Did you ring the number?" "No." "Right." She didn't sigh. I'd been braced for a sigh. "So it's been going on a while." "Longer than March." "How much longer?" I did the sum in my head and it frightened me a bit. "A couple of years, maybe. It's not, I'm not, it's not dramatic. I get up. I go to work. I just don't, there's nothing in it. Everything's the same colour." "The same colour," she said. "That's a good way of putting it." "I didn't plan it." "Those are usually the good ones." She asked me things. Sleep, which is bad. Appetite, which is fine, weirdly. Whether I'd stopped doing things I used to do, and I said I used to play five-a-side on Wednesdays and I'd stopped, and she asked when, and I said, "I don't know, I just stopped going and nobody asked," and my voice did something on "nobody asked" that I wasn't ready for.

She waited. She didn't hand me a tissue, there was a box right there and she didn't push it at me, she just let it be on the desk. "I'm going to ask you a direct question," she said, "and I ask everyone, so don't read anything into it." And she asked me the question, the one they ask, about whether I'd had thoughts of hurting myself, and I said not really, not like that, more like I wouldn't mind if things just stopped, and she nodded and wrote that down and said, "Thank you for being honest. That's important and it's also common, and we can work with that." We can work with that. I keep hearing that. I've got a follow-up in two weeks. She's referred me for talking therapy and warned me the wait is long and said we'd talk about medication next time if I wanted, no pressure either way. She wrote her name on a card so I could ask for her specifically. Dr Okafor. In the car park I didn't sit for twenty minutes. I sat for about five. Then I texted Danny from five-a-side, who I hadn't spoken to since probably February, and said, "You still doing Wednesdays?" and he sent back "mate. yes. where you been" and I didn't know how to answer that so I just said "long story, I'll come next week." I don't know if I will. I'm going to try. That's the honest version.