MR. CRANKY PANTS RIDES AGAIN

Friends have mentioned to me that I have not posted to my blog for some time. I could say that I haven’t been inspired or that I have nothing to say. But that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is that I lost the use of my mind last month and only recently regained it. A massive depression settled upon me in February and it has made writing, and much else in my life, seem superfluous.
Those of you who know me well, or have read this blog faithfully, are probably commenting, “Gee, Dirty Diaper Dad, we are not under the impression that you are a hotbed of good mental health. On your best of days you are a work in progress. And, honestly, you don’t have too many ‘best days’ as far as we can tell.”
And I, ignoring your biting sarcasm (which, I should tell you, seems a little beneath you) would agree with you. But this latest mental meltdown was unlike my usual stuff. I’ve battled the Black Dog – to use Churchill’s moniker – since my teens. I’ve done talk therapy, chemical therapy, and when nothing else has proven effective, I’ve called upon a large and diverse collection of self medications. I’ve done physical exercise like a demon since my mid twenties solely to achieve the dopamine effect it produces. Hey, I’m nothing if not resourceful.
Still, from mid-February on I was in the grip of a gloom I couldn’t shake. I was moping about the house like a broken-hearted teenage girl. I was saddened for no discernable reason, I was angry at the world, and even though I was working out an hour a day in the vain search for the dopamine high, I was putting on weight at an alarming rate.
And, just to make the effect completely horrific, the inside of my head felt as if some wire had shook loose and was sparking against the inner wall of my skull.
Needless to say I was a real pleasure to live with during this period. I ignored my wife. I barked at Vivienne when she did the things a normal toddler does – steal the dog’s food, bath in the dog’s water bowl, hurl herself at sharp objects, clamber up bookcases. I even rudely bumped the noble Akita out of my way when all she did was follow me around in the eternal hope that I would give her a piece of biscotti.
My wife is a physical therapist who is currently attending Sonoma State to attain certification as a health care navigator. As part of this study she is exposed to a large swath of alternative healing methods. And thus, she sat me down one day and said, “Bubba, you need to see somebody about this depression.”
“Nobody can help me,” I told her. Mr. Positive Thinking I am not.
“You need to see your therapist,” she said.
“What’s he gonna do?” I am noted far and wide for my imitation of a whining, petulant child.
“He’s helped you in the past.”
“That was then, this is now. And nobody can help me now. I am well and truly screwed forever.”
I know this sounds pathetic and it seems sad that an adult could really think this way, but it was a true reflection of my inner torment.
“You need to see your therapist,” she reaffirmed and I grunted acquiescence. “And then you need to see someone else as well, because this latest bout of depression is different from your usual gloom.”
“I’m screwed forever.” After a lifetime in search of a personal outlook I had finally stumbled upon my mantra, and this was it. “I’ll go see David (my therapist) but no one else.”
Ignoring me she said, “I think you should see the Naturopath, Doctor Moses.”
A relative of ours had suffered from a mysterious stomach disorder for years. Allopathic Medicine – that is, Western Medicine – did nothing but throw greater quantities of pharmacology at the problem, and she didn’t get any better. After hearing Dr. Moses lecture to her class at SSU, Rochelle had brought her to see him. In short order he had identified the causes of her discomfort and prescribed natural supplements and cures. Wonder of wonders, after years of suffering and western medicine run-around, she was cured in short order.
“Dr. Moses can’t help me,” I told my wife. And why did she insist of interfering in my life? Couldn’t she see I was doing just swimmingly on my own? Geehsh, some people are such busybodies.
“Well, Mr. Cranky Pants, that’s what we’ll find out,” she said. “Because you’ve got an appointment with him next Friday at ten in the morning.”
“I don’t want to go to a naturopath.” I didn’t even know what it was, but I wasn’t buying any of it; new things frighten me. But I couldn’t tell my wife this because I am also afraid of showing others how I really feel. I’m super well-adjusted you can tell.
“And I don’t want to live with a depressed, angry retired guy. But, ha ha, the jokes on me! Because that’s what I’ve got.”
“Sarcasm does not enhance your natural beauty.” She seemed angry and I thought this might calm her down.
“And yet, sarcasm is all I’ve got to get through this interminable winter living with you, The Mopester. So you can either try seeing Dr. Moses or you can try living alone, without me and Vivienne.”
See, I told you she was angry.
On Tuesday I saw my therapist and he sided with my wife, the dirty bastard, telling me he was delighted that I would be visiting the naturopath later in the week, as it sounded as if my present mental condition was likely due to some chemical imbalance in my system. I began to suspect that the world was aligned against me in a sinister cabal. And as Friday and my appointment with Dr. Moses (and what kind of name was that anyway? Did he look like Charlton Heston and have a great wavy beard and carry around stone tablets upon which he prescribed herbal supplements? Could he part a path through the quagmire of my depression as he did the Red Sea?) approached I perseverated on the supposedly inflated cost of his services – because, wouldn’t you know it, our health care system doesn’t pay for anything but allopathic healing – and Mr. Saved The First Nickel He Ever Earned began to complain to me about the waste of money this visit would be. And I probably wouldn’t get a damn thing out of it anyway and I had better things to do, and so I picked up the phone to call Dr. Moses and cancel this stupid appointment that my wife had pushed me into.
And it was at this precise moment that my moral compass glided silently into the kitchen on soft paws, yawned cavernously, showing her sharp canines and bone-cracking rear molars, licked her lips, sniffed the air for freshly baked biscotti and asked, “What are you doing, Pack Leader?”
“Nothing,” I said and guiltily put down the phone.
“You wouldn’t be cancelling that appointment with that nice Jewish Doctor would you?”
“What do you know about that?”
“Just because I don’t talk a lot, doesn’t mean I don’t hear everything that’s said.”
I walked to the other side of the kitchen and leaned up against the counter next to the cookie jar. “I wasn’t cancelling the appointment.”
What do you call a man who lies to his dog?
Pathetic, that’s what.
“I am in the grips of the worst depression I’ve ever faced,” I told the dog. “I’m already on two types of medication, both of which seem to have passed the point of efficacy, and I am scared that this new doctor won’t be able to help me either. And then I will be fresh out of solutions and staring at living the rest of my life with my brain permanently scrambled.”
“It is at moments like these,” Kebu said, “that I am glad I am a dog.”
“You don’t get depressed, ever?”
“It is not in my nature. I try to live in the moment.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yes, lucky me, indeed. Long runs with you in the freezing rain as you, unsuccessfully it seems,try to excise your many demons, the child yanking my tail, and those wild turkeys parading through our yard like they own it.”
“My wife is fed up with me.”
“You’ve been a wretch.”
“She’s threatening to leave me if I don’t get straightened out.”
“As much as I owe all my allegiance to you as Pack Leader, I will be accompanying The Woman if she departs.”
“Not you too?” Did it get any worse than this; even my dog was leaving me.
“Yes, me too. Though you are undisputed leader of this pack, I just adore The Woman. I would even tolerate The Child to be with The Woman.”
“But I make your biscotti.”
“You humans play dirty, don’t you? Still, I’d rather live biscotti-less than be without The Woman.”
“So I guess I will be seeing Dr. Moses after all.”
“Only if you want to maintain your position in the pack. You’re no good as leader the way you are.” Her gaze shifted to the cookie jar beside me. “All this talking and thinking in cogent patterns has tuckered out my tiny canine brain, might we refresh ourselves with a piece of your world-class biscotti?”
And so it was that on Friday I found myself in the naturopath’s office at the appointed hour. My brain hurt. I was anxious and dry-mouthed. I was trying to keep an open mind. I was trying not to be pessimistic and judgmental.
I wasn’t having a lot of success at anything lately.
Dr. Moses walked up and introduced himself. I followed him back to his office. The lighting in the office was soft and inviting. His children’s finger paintings adorned the walls. I sat in a really comfortable chair. I looked at the doctor. He didn’t look anything like Charlton Heston; he was 20 years my junior, trim and professional looking, with beautiful prematurely gray hair that swept back from his forehead. His eyeglasses were the most stylish I’d ever seen; they made me instantly envious.
In short, he looked like a guy who totally had his shit in one sock. I began to relax. Moses looked like a guy who totally knew what he was doing. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe this guy could help me. For the first time in ages the nasty metal band that encircled my brain began to relax. I took a deep breath and settled deeper into the comfortable chair.
Maybe I was going to be alright after all. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but maybe their was actually some hope in my life.
He asked me what I knew about naturopathy. I had to admit that I didn’t know one damn thing.
He smiled and said, “Jeff, let me tell you how I work.”
And so began my adventure with the good doctor Moses. And I’ll tell you more about it the next time I write in this bog – which I promise will be sooner rather than later, now that I have regained the use of my mind.