"Do we really need to do all this again?" I'd hoped this was all in my records, but apparently it wasn't. She'd already gone through the list of expected questions; family history, social history, drug use, alcohol use, smoking, comic books. I admitted to watching South Park and SpongeBob Square Pants. She snickered at that and moved on to my medical history, which at least made some sense. It chewed up most of the first appointment.
"Yes, I'm afraid we do," the doctor answered. "It's been seventeen years, Ms McConnell. We'll have to bring your record up to date."
"None of the information has changed," I grimaced. "Why repeat all this stuff?"
Doctor Merrill smiled. "No, the information hasn't changed. What may have changed, though, is your attitude toward the information. We need to find out what you've moved past, what you've rationalized and what, if anything, you've internalized. There has to be a reason for you to be experiencing depression, so we have to make sure that nothing's hiding in your earlier life. Something that looks to be totally insignificant could turn out to be a major clue."
'Oh, brother,' I thought. 'Just what I need, a bunch of psychological psychobabble. Is this going to be another exercise in futility, or maybe even stupidity?' "Okay," I agreed. "I guess that sounds reasonable. Where do we start?"
"Where do you want to start?" she inquired.
"I don't know. All the movie and TV shrinks start with the patient's childhood."
"That sounds like a good idea for you. You've got to admit, you had a rather unusual childhood."
I frowned. I can't believe we're going to slog through all of this crap again. I hope she can get more out of it than the first one did. "Yeah, I guess so. There weren't too many other preacher's brats in my school."
"Was that a problem for you?"
I shrugged. "Not at first, I don't think. It started to become a problem when I reached high school. The other kids treated me like I was somehow different. I had some friends, but I still didn't really fit in."
The psychologist picked up her cup of tea and took a sip. "Why didn't you fit in?"
"Most of the kids acted like I was some kind of 'goodie-two-shoes', like I thought I was better than them. Even my friends were careful around me. There were a lot of things they wouldn't talk about around me. They tried to make sure I didn't notice it, but it was obvious. Took almost two years before they realized I was just another kid. Then I started to fit in with them and they included me in all the girl talk."
"Did that bother you? I mean, being treated like you were somehow different?"
I grimaced. "Of course, it bothered me. I was a fourteen-year-old girl. How do you think I felt?"
"I'm not sure. I was hoping you'd tell me."
"I felt like garbage. Actually, there's a better way of saying it, but I'm trying to be polite."
The doctor chuckled. Her smile made me feel a little more comfortable. "Well, don't worry about that. I've heard some pretty gross language in here. I doubt that you're going to go that far." She made a note on her little pad before looking back to me. "Did you hold any resentment for your parents because of this?"
"I don't think so," I replied. "They gave me a good family like. They loved me. They protected me and they taught me. Not much to resent there."
"Right," she chuckled. "Now you want to give me an honest answer?"
I felt a surge of irritation at that, but I knew what she was getting at. She was right. It wasn't all that great. "It was so restrictive. Everything was so negative. Thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do that. Don't say that. Don't look at that. By the time I was in high school I was wondering what was so terrible about all these things. I mean, how can you learn anything if you're not allowed to look at it, read about it, talk about it, on and on and on."
She crossed her arms and sighed, looking at me with a piercing regard. "Sounds to me like you're talking about one particular no-no. Were you a junior or a senior when it finally got to you?"
Now I chuckled. I had to admit, she was pretty sharp. This might be worth the effort after all. "Actually, I was a sophomore. I talked with my girlfriends, saw some magazines, but that was as far as it went. It made me nervous and I didn't want to have to explain anything to my father. But the real damage occurred in a biology class. We were talking about pollination of plants. I asked the teacher how the transfer was carried out in mammals."
"Oh," the doctor grimaced. "So, your parents hadn't taught you the 'facts of life' yet."
"No, and when I told them about it, they just laughed. They'd humiliated me in front of all my classmates and they thought it was funny."
"Were you angry about it? Resentful?"
"I'm not sure," I recalled. "I was probably angry at first but it wouldn't have lasted long. What it did was make me suspicious."
Doctor Merrill reached for her notebook even as she regarded me curiously. "That's an interesting choice of words. How did it make you suspicious? What were you suspicious of?"
"Pretty much everything. I started wondering what else they hadn't bothered to tell me. It made me wonder what was actually behind all of this 'thou shalt not' and 'you can't do this' crap."
"Interesting. How did you deal with that?"
I shrugged. "I just started doing my own research. I was an honor student, so I knew where to look and what to look for. But there's only so much info in textbooks and research libraries. I'm afraid I was getting some of my answers from less than trustworthy sources."
"Less than trustworthy?"
"Yeah. My classmates, magazines, internet articles. I didn't know what I could or couldn't be sure of, so it all registered with me."
"And what did your research tell you?"
"It was a mixed bag. Some of it made sense, some of it didn't. What really registered with me was that a lot of it was ancient information that seemed very out of date."
"Anything in particular?"
"Some of it was almost a health code, something that's been long since dealt with. Most of the sexual stuff made sense but a lot of even that seemed to be outdated. I'm not sure."
"So, did you make any decisions?"
I grimaced. "Sort of. I decided that if I had any questions from then on, I'd find my own answers. I kind of gave up on Church, too. I only went because I had to."
"You had to?"
"Yeah. I was still just a kid. I was expected to be there. If I'd said no, they would have made me go and they would have started watching everything I did like a pair of cops."
"Was it really that bad?"
"It would have been. Mom and Dad weren't bible thumpers, but there was no doubt that I was living in a Christian family. They kept a pretty close watch on what I did."
"Hmm. So, did you become sexually active at that point?"
