It would be great to report that, after Luke’s diagnosis that I was depressed, everything suddenly got better, but that’s not what happened. If anything, it made me even more depressed because now I got to be depressed about being depressed. I missed getting up with the boys the Monday after we got back from Santa Barbara, and that made me realize that Luke might have been right. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was looking for a therapist – and that definitely included Maya and Robert – but I had to talk to someone, and I do have a buddy who’s had a lot of experience with mental health issues: Travis.
So I called him as soon as I was able to move around in bed.
“Hunter?,” he was surprised to hear from me. “What are you doing calling at this hour? Shouldn’t you be in the gym or something?”
“I’m actually still in bed.”
“You? Don’t you have to get up at something crazy like 6 to get the boys to school?”
“I…kind of missed out on that this morning. I couldn’t get out of bed.”
Travis’ tone changed. I think he figured out what was coming.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah…that is…no…that is…ok, it’s like this. We were up in Santa Barbara this weekend and Luke said he thinks I’m depressed. So he bet me and I lost and now I have to go see a therapist.”
“You know you’re supposed to go because you want to.”
“The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I think that there may be something to it. What’s been going on with me isn’t normal, at least not for me.”
“Wanting to get help is the first step towards getting better, I think they say,” said Travis.
“Is that how it was with you?”
“Not really. My parents had me in therapy when I was 14. But it was the right decision. My parents messed up a lot of things with me, but that they got right. So,” he continued, “do you want me to help you find a therapist?”
“That’s pretty much it, man. I don’t know the first thing about how you find one. I actually tried googling ‘therapist – San Marino’ last night and all I got were names of massage therapists in Pasadena.”
“You might have tried ‘psychotherapist,’” Travis said, with a smirk in his voice.
“Oh…yeah…of course,” I said, feeling stupid. “See? I don’t know anything about it.”
“I can ask my therapist. She’s in an office with a bunch of other therapists; maybe one of them will be right for you.”
That sounded good.
“How do you know if it’s the right person?,” I asked.
“Talk therapy is a lot like having a conversation,” said Travis. “You gotta feel comfortable talking to the therapist and you gotta have the feeling that they understand you. I’ve been through good and bad therapists. You can tell the difference pretty quickly. Are you looking for a dude or a chick?”
“Luke said I should find a straight dude, and I can sort of see why. The last thing I need is some gayass dude hitting on me when I’m going to get help.”
“They’re usually pretty good about not hitting on their patients,” said Travis. “I’ve never been hit on and I’ve been at this for a decade. Of course, I don’t exactly look like you or Luke. You’re also supposed to keep your shirt on.”
“Fuck you, man,” I said, glad that he’d done something to lighten the mood.
We hung up soon after that, and I actually felt better after having taken a step towards dealing with whatever it was that was going on with me. I was able to get out of bed, went to the kitchen and Belen made me some coffee and something to eat. (A lot of people would be surprised to learn that I eat a real breakfast instead of something that comes out of the blender. Yeah, I’ll admit it, Lucas did get me into drinking recovery shakes after I work out, but breakfast still has to be real food if I’m going to have any energy.)
Belen asked if I was having another micrania, and I said I thought I was having one, but it was better. I then went to hit the gym and I had one of the best workouts I’ve had since everything started. It was a little cold to go swimming after that, but there was a meeting in Maya’s office where we kept trying to come up with an idea for something cool for me to do. I was starting to feel down again, so I’m afraid I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I might have been, although some of the ideas on the table were pretty lameass, like a sports nutrition segment that even Robert called “Hunter and his pet blender.”
Speaking of pets, I just realized I haven’t mentioned Gechitzik in all of this. No, he still can’t jump up and catch a frisbee, but it’s funny how much he seems to care about me. He doesn’t sleep in the pool house, but when I’m having one of my bad days and am stuck in bed, he comes by and camps out by the sliding glass door. I reckon he knows something’s wrong. And he sticks by me when I do manage to get up. It’s nice to know that someone is worrying about me. (Yeah yeah yeah, I know…if I told Joyce or Keaton or Meemaw or Dad that I was having problems they’d probably worry about me, too. But I don’t want that. Maybe I should. But I don’t.)
Both Luke and Travis called me that night. Luke wanted to check on me (see? this is what happens when you tell people…), and Travis said he spoke to his therapist and already had a suggestion for someone I could see. He’s a dude in the same office as Travis’ therapist, and, as far as Travis knows, he’s straight. His name’s Dr. Oliver, and Travis’ therapist thinks he’d be a good fit for me. He apparently even did some of his graduate work in sports psychology. I double-checked that he wasn’t going to give me medication (Travis: “what do you have against psych meds? – they saved my life”), and Travis explained that Dr. Oliver was a psychologist – a Ph.D. – and not able to prescribe anything. For that, I’d need a psychiatrist – an M.D. – and I said thanks, but I don’t need a psychiatrist then. (At least I know the difference now, although it gets more complicated because psychiatrists sometimes are therapists too…super expensive ones, Travis explained. As it is, this Dr. Oliver dude seems pretty expensive to me — $150 for 45 minutes – but I don’t want to get involved with insurance, because Robert and Maya would be sure to find out I was seeing a therapist, and, no matter how much they may care about me, they’re still my bosses.
I had to wait until the next day to make an appointment with Dr. Oliver. I left a voice mail for him, and he called back a few hours later. He sounded real nice on the phone, and said he had a cancellation for the next day at 11:00, which was a good time, since my mornings are usually my own to work out and swim. It would mean missing gym time, but this was way more important.
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