Performer: My Morning Jacket
Songwriter: Jim James
Original Release: Evil Urges
Year: 2008
Definitive Version: none
Evil Urges was one of the
several albums I bought in August 2008, as I noted, to mark something of a
renewal. It ended up being anything but. Starting Labor Day weekend, depression
began to set in with Laurie. Well, it started before that, but it really picked
up in the fall.
Beginning in August, Laurie
and I spent four straight weekends away from home, and it was a real
regression. Torch Lake, as I recounted, was OK; Columbus to see a game at
Cooper Stadium for the last time was fine.
Then came Labor Day weekend,
and our annual trip to Ludington to visit Laurie’s uncle at his summer home
was, well, not bad, but it was the first time that Laurie really started
voicing sadness—sadness at having her summer ruined, sadness at causing so much
pain, sadness at the prospect that things might never be the same.
The next weekend, we went to
Maine—my first time in a decade. I was excited to be there, and the fact that
Hurricane Hanna was bearing down on New England and expected to hit the day we
were planning to leave made it more exciting. Laurie enjoyed it, she said
later, but it seemed as though if she were feeling anything, it was emptiness.
And it only got worse from there.
One thing was certain:
Laurie’s psychiatrist wasn’t helping.
Laurie decided to change
psychiatrists in August. She didn’t feel as though she bonded with her Evanston
doctor, and she decided to go with the psychiatrist recommended to her by her
therapist—Dr. Callahan.
Dr. Callahan was in fact the
same psychiatrist I failed to connect with the fateful day that Laurie went to
Evanston Hospital in May. Actually, as I mentioned, I connected with her
briefly only to have her put me off until she could get to work. Apparently, it
took her two weeks to get to work, because that was how long it was before I
heard from her again. She apologized, saying she got very sick that day after
we spoke on the phone, but by then, the point was moot.
Based on my experience, I
gave Dr. Callahan … well, not quite a thumbs-down but a very tentative
thumbs-sideways. Laurie, however, still was overwhelmed by the weight of all
that had happened, and she wanted to go with a known commodity. A
recommendation from Kay was good enough for her, and I wasn’t going to argue
with it.
Laurie liked Dr. Callahan at
first. She definitely wasn’t as rigid and formal as Dr. Anderson, whom I liked
for reasons I’ll get to eventually, but, well, after the previous summer, I
needed to see good results. The results weren’t good: Laurie wanted to sleep
all the time and didn’t know what to do with herself when she was awake if she
weren’t at work and didn’t have anything firmly planned.
Dr. Callahan tried this
medication, then that one, then an additional one and this extra one, and, oh,
by the way, here’s another one you can try if you’re feeling particularly
anxious. Wait, what are the other ones for then? The mix didn’t seem to be
working. Laurie seemed on a one-way express train heading south. Before long, I
was along for the ride.
A couple of times, I was
asked to attend a session in the evening. I did this with Dr. Anderson, but it
didn’t seem helpful. In particular, the vibe I got from Dr. Callahan, and how
she interacted with Laurie didn’t inspire confidence. When the second meeting
was a carbon copy of the first meeting, I’d seen enough.
Just going to the medical
building in Skokie where Dr. Callahan’s office was (and still might be for all
I know) was creepy. This building was like walking into a Michael Myers or
Freddy Krueger movie. There never was anyone at the front desk or at the desk
in the doctor’s reception area. We never saw anyone walking the halls, and only
half of the overhead fluorescent lights were on. If someone wearing a goalie
mask carrying a bloody butcher knife turned the corner, neither Laurie nor I
would have been surprised. Afraid, yes, but not surprised.
We hit bottom in November
right around Thanksgiving. I remember a particularly depressing evening out
with Steven and Michael where I began to wonder whether it ever would get any
better. But then … just when, like the man said, you wondered how many nights a
soul so full of life remained untouched … something wonderful happened: Dr.
Callahan disappeared. I’m not exaggerating.
I made up my mind that Dr.
Callahan was worthless, but slowly, surely, Laurie started to come around to
that conclusion, too. The final straw happened the night we were to have a
third joint session. When we got to the empty reception area, we waited and
waited … 15 minutes … a half-hour …
Finally, we made enough
noise that another doctor came to the door and said that Dr. Callahan wasn’t
there. He said he’d call her and see what was going on, but it was clear we
weren’t going to have our session.
That did it for Laurie. How
unprofessional do you have to be when you blow off an appointment with a
patient without even an excuse? Laurie had a couple other names from friends;
she was going to call the one most recommended the next day. As we walked out
into the night, it started to snow, and Laurie smiled. It was like the first
time she seemed alive in a month, and it seemed like a good portend of things
to come.
We never heard from Dr.
Callahan again—no phone call, no apology, no rescheduling, heck, no scheduling
of future appointments, nothing. Laurie wondered whether it was because Dr.
Callahan thought she couldn’t help Laurie, which would be unforgivable without
at least passing her off to someone who could. She also wondered whether it was
because Dr. Callahan went nuts herself. Maybe. I certainly could speak to her instability.
It turned out Dr. Callahan’s
disappearance was a blessing in disguise—a classic example of addition by
subtraction—but that’s a story for another time.
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