Upon learning of your condition, who is empathetic/sympathet

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ic? (EEEAGH! This is the fourth time my title is too long!)


Upon learning that it was an antidepressant I'd been prescribed, the pharmacist seemed very helpful and sympathetic, with a professional but genuine solidarity.


I was talking to my mother and another, older guy (in his 50s) at the Y where I live, and we were talking about finding jobs and she said that I got depressed after working at Tim Horton's and had to go on medication (not exactly true... my failure at Tim Hortons was only a symptom!) The guy said that he was diagnosed with Depressive Disorder after he got so depressed after his wife became addicted to cocaine, but that he was taking the right pills... he went up to his room and brought down his pills and showed me... then he went back up to his room and brought down the list of all the stuff he was taking (he's a real mess... he had 8 medical problems: depression, gallbladder problem, cancer, other stuff that he was hospitalized for ) He was very open, talked about his problems, made me feel at home. When I was feeling depressed I remember he would come down with the main purpose of checking on me. He and another diagnosed depressive were the only two people who stopped to talk to me when I was sitting on the stairs in the entranceway crying (but turned sort of towards the wall so I was sort of hiding it; and I don't make a lot of noise). He and the other diagnosed depressive talked to me at length, offered suggestions, cracked jokes, and there was a mutual understanding between the three of us; it was so nice. I talk and joke with them; they ask me how I'm doing, I ask about them, we tease each other (I've had moments of chagrin even with them, but it's still cool).


Also, my father, before he learned that the real me was a lot more wild than he thought, asked how I was doing, brought up something my mother had said about me and something psychological; I forget what, and I said I saw a shrink, he asked why, I said why, I said he gave me an antidepressant, he asked if it worked, sounding relieved. Like he suspected all along that I needed an antidepressant. Well, I don't think I did before, but I did then! When I said, "I must seem like such a pathetic person!" he said no, or nah, or whatever.


My mother was rather embarrassed or in denial or just plain ignorant sometimes; once when she came in with me to see a psychiatrist and a psychologist and one of them commented about me feeling very depressed and dead, my mother said, "Oh, well, she didn't have many friends." She also told people more often that I had anxiety; depression seemed too disturbing for her to contemplate. She also used to prefer telling people that I had AS to telling them that I had depression, or was depressed, but now that's a lot less, as I think she gets it now since I told her, so part of it was probably ignorance. She showed me articles about depressed people who were taking antidepressants, asking if I identified with this, with that, she could get really supportive and interested in me and my predicament. She also pointed out a sign in the pharmacy saying that depression was the ailment of the month and said, "Look at this!" in an empathetic sort of way; it's hard to explain.


When me and my mother and a guy she talked to a lot at the Y went together to apply for my medicare card in the office for that, the woman behind the desk empathized with my mother right away because she was always taking time off work and taking her daughter to doctors because she thought she was dying all the time; she looked at me in a kind, empathetic sort of way.


My shrink wanted me to know that he knew I was depresed and depression was a major factor, so even though I scored much higher on the Rorschach ink blot test for anger than I did for depression, he said that he definitely noticed signs of depression. He didn't mention the anger until later, when he was jsut going over it.


As for AS... not as many people really understood... most of them were either curious due to ignorance (no harm there, at least until they might have developed stereotypes) or prejudiced in a way, thinking I was farther along the line than I actually was and that I might identify with this one or that one (and then the person would describe another person with AS who was way more freaky even than me.)