I don't know what to make of this. Dr. S. is retired and only seeing select patients on Tuesdays, which means he's seeing like 16 people max. And he always led me to believe, or so he said, that not only do we have a special, mutually fulfilling relationship, but that he was fascinated by my particular case in particular, it being a rare semi-psychotic yet totally mundane phenomenon. In short: he made me feel like I belonged to a small elite of super patients, worthy of his Punjabi wisdom, cultivated by not just Yale but many a stay in an ashram (over the past ten years he's regularly escape back to India). I hate to say "in shorts" twice, but yes, in shorts: Dr. S is my guru. So, imagine my horror, when I saw two of his other patients this past Tuesday, two fellow tribesmen of the fellowship of the SSRI. Patient A. trots out of his office, barely lifting his feet off the ground, tattooed from head to toe and wearing a jean jacket that could use some severe laundering. Then bursts in Patient 2, slamming the door and answering her cell: 'Why You Callin' Talkin' Stupid?' Hangs up. Phone rings again: 'Yo, don't be fuckin callin me like that, fool.' I'm just living in my ivory tower (ivory towers are a little racist, I know, but Patient A is white, and obviously, Dr. S is brown and my husband is heavily tattooed, so eat that!), but I really feel kinda weird now.
I think of Ivory towers as elitist more than racist. We all want to be "special" and DE would say "until we don't". har har...
ReplyDeleteagreed. ivory towers are indeed elitist. but somehow racism is a sick form of elitism, as in us superior vs. them. inferior. of course, this doesn't really hold true, because the masses are racist and the masses are definitely not elitist. I never make sense :)
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