The Bad Shrink

About 12 years ago I went to a Psychiatrist.  I've always had problems with severe social anxiety which can border on agoraphobia if I let it get control of me.   The internet certainly hasn't helped in that regard, you can pretty much do anything from home now, but that's off topic. I'm extremely shy, get panic attacks frequently and I needed some focused movement in my life.  Pretty much any evening social engagement I had required alcohol for me to be able to get through it without a panic attack  I felt like I was just floating around with no purpose.  My initial impression was that the Dr. (hereforth called Dr. John)  was a pretty strange guy, tall and wiry framed, high voice, pretty nerdish, but I kind of liked his informal style.  I realize now that his informal style was actually why I shouldn't have continued seeing him, he was very inappropriate. Always running behind schedule, perpetually frazzled, sometimes asking me to wait for a while so he could eat, sometimes eating lunch in front of me, occasionally taking short calls while in session, and the big Psychiatrist no-no, talking about his personal life.  But, he didn't seem to have the MD I'm better than you....and you are wasting my precious time attitude that I usually get when I see a physician so I stuck with him.  Big fucking mistake.  I think I was a little flattered that he spoke to me like an equal. God knows that's a rarity. We pathologically idolize MD's, just try watching that perversely bad TV show ER or any number of lame medical gloryfests without a whiskey bottle to anesthesize.

I went to him about once every two weeks for about a year.  Mostly he would just write a script for Prozac, we would chat about various stuff, usually not related to me or my problems, and send me on my way. Then it really started to get strange.  I noticed that he was talking a lot about people that he believe had slighted him in some way, his office mate (another psychiatrist he shared the office with), his landlord, his patients were ungrateful for how deftly he could prescribe complicated medicines to interact, how the world had treated his brilliant parents with disrespect, very paranoid stuff. He also talked incessantly about how he really didn't want to be a Dr., he wanted to be a famous musician but the world hadn't discovered his unbelievable talent, how the medical community didn't recognize his brilliance..."I'm like Mozart because of the delicate artistic way I practice medicine".  Yes, that is a direct quote.  He actually bragged repeatedly that he was a direct decendent of Mozart, which I found strange, because last time I checked Mozart wasn't Jewish.  I'm the victim, feel sorry for me kind of stuff.  And I did feel sorry for him because of my low self esteem. 

But, strangely, I started believing his schtick. I started believing that he was this poor unappreciated ultra brilliant saviour for all of mankind.  I was totally drinking the Kool Aid.  I was being brainwashed.  Actually, I was being prepared, he was working me into being one of his conquests, his followers.  I never thought it would happen to me.  I never thought of myself as some proverbial naive waif being prepped to join a commune in British Guyana, but I was just as brainwashed as they were.  He was my DR so he must be smarter/more important than I, and this is a very difficult admission for me to make,  I was so.....grateful to be let into his life.