What's the Real Altitude?

After giving it a lot of thought - say, about ten years - I finally went to a naturopathic doctor. Enough was enough with the meds, already. I could handle them making me stupid, but I could NOT handle them making me fatter. I've been very patient with this over the last two years, but really, I want to wear my old clothes again.

I sat on a padded Ikea chair in the naturopath's waiting room and tackled her multi-page intake form. What were my bowel movements like? Had I ever been raped? How often did I drink and had I ever been treated for it? All easy to answer. Then came this one:

How would I describe my general emotional state?

Well, I'm here about depression, right? So hadn't I better write some word that describes me at my worst? Like, "spent" or "overwhelmed" or "seething with rage"?

The truth was that another, very different word had immediately sprung to mind. But I didn't trust it. Yet if it wasn't that word, then what word would it be?

"First thought, best thought," says my teacher, Denise. All right , I thought. And I wrote the word "contentment."

Immediately I left my body and viewed this scene from somewhere in the upper corner of the calm, purple, wellness-center-themed room. Ok, I said, let's get this straight. You're a not-actually-fat person seeing a specialist to get off meds for your depression because they make you fat and stupid. Yet you write that your general emotional state is "contentment." Are you really content? Are you really having a problem?


I came back to my body and said to that voice, in the nicest possible way, "Oh, do shut up." Then I finished filling out the forms.


So, contentment. This is a huge milestone. This is a revelation. Nay, a revolution! A revolution has taken place inside my mind! Thank God for all the yoga, the meditation, the loving husband, the children, my good friends, the flowers blooming in my garden, the blue sky, all the suffering that is now GONE!

Or maybe it's just the meds.