Modern Medicine

I went through major depression when I returned from working overseas. All the In-and-Out burgers I’d been deprived of couldn’t fix the sadness festering inside me. After a month of riding my bike to the same cafe every morning, staring at the ceiling in my room during the day and refreshing my empty OKCupid inbox late into the night, I admitted I needed help. The drug kind.

I scheduled an appointment to see yet another therapist. When it comes to expressing my real feelings, I’m not exactly an open book, it takes time to establish a rapport. Being vulnerable isn’t easy. This wasn’t my first psych evaluation, but it was the first time I wanted a prescribed answer.

My shrink wasn’t interested in getting personal. He was all business: name, age, length of time I had felt “out of balance.” His robotic interrogation tactics put me on edge and the tension in the office was palpable. I was less than courteous with my responses. Just give me some pills man, I want to sleep.

Then he threw his curve-ball, “What’s your ethnicity?”

“I’m mixed. A little of this, a little of that.”

“Mixed what?”

“… Why the hell does it matter?…”

The shrink managed to find a trigger within 30 seconds. What an expert. My defiance put the room on mute as I set my blood to boil. His face contorted with anger, ready to retaliate from my right hook.

The expert spoke first, “Why are you fighting me?”

I stopped the first sound that tried to leap out. The silence continued. Maybe I felt like defending myself, maybe I was afraid of someone insinuating that my identity might have something to do with my mental instability. I pulled out my copy of The Sum of our Parts from my bag and handed it to the shrink.

“Look,” I said, “I just want to feel better and this isn’t helping. I study mixed race, it’s why I want to go to graduate school. It’s the only thing that makes me feel anything right now. You’re the expert, but I don’t see what my ethnicity has to do with clinical depression.”

The shrink sighed, shed his robot armor, and softened his voice. According to research, he explained, there are certain chemical imbalances connected to depression that are common in specific ethnic groups. Genetic markers apparently say a lot about our physiological and psychological well-being. Gathering this information was necessary for my evaluation.

“I’m just here to help,” my therapist assured me.

I know you are, but I still need to see those citations.