DAY II: Post Mr. E(nigma)

Apparently, today was the day I learned that being diagnosed with C-PTSD is less credible than a gossip column on Mount Olympus.

Let us begin where all mortal quests for help begin: paperwork. Endless, joy-draining, personality-flattening paperwork. I sat in a beige chair, filled in their beige forms, and politely condensed centuries of ruin into bubbles and checkmarks. Have you ever tried to harm yourself? Yes. Do you dissociate? Yes. Briefly describe the problem. Briefly? Seriously, if brevity were an option, there would not be entire civilizations built on the runoff of my heartbreak.

Eventually, I was summoned into the office of a woman so small I could have mistaken her for a mortal child in possession of a borrowed degree. She had a tiny body, a tiny cardigan, and most importantly, a tiny voice. The kind of voice that belongs on a whispering wind chime, not on someone tasked with assessing whether or not I am stable enough to avoid trying to unalive myself again this week.

She asked the questions, in that careful, clinical monotone that makes it clear she has said these lines more often than Hermes rehearses lies. “Are you planning to hurt yourself? Have you ever?” As if I would sit there and say, “Oh, Lucinda, what a delightful idea, thank you for suggesting it.”

So I told her, as politely as one can when discussing the mechanics of one’s ruin, that yes, I had tried in the past. Multiple times, in fact. That it never worked. I did not explain why it never worked. Rule number one of surviving Olympus while disguised among mortals: never tell them you are immortal. It ruins the surprise.

Then came the coup de grace. I told her I live with C-PTSD, and she tilted her tiny head, squinted through her tiny glasses, and asked in her tiny condescending voice:

“Have you actually been diagnosed with that?”

I nearly wept, not from sorrow but from the sheer comedy of it. No, Lucinda, I do not have an official certificate stamped by the Council of Mortals. I simply woke up one morning, spun a wheel of psychiatric disorders, and decided that complex trauma looked fashionable. Very in season. Goes well with my knee-high socks.

What I wanted to say was this: “Yes, bitch, a licensed mortal did diagnose me. Not Zeus, not Athena, not Dr. Google at three in the morning, but a real, credentialed, degree-bearing human. And unlike you, they managed to do it without making me feel like I was auditioning for the role of Hypochondriac #3 in a tragedy no one asked for.”

But what I thought was worse: she genuinely believed that anyone who takes an interest in their own mental health must be hysterical or dramatic. Apparently in modern society, mortals think self-awareness is a disease, and that if you read too much about how your brain works, you are immediately disqualified from knowing anything about yourself. How dare you research the patterns of your own ruin. How dare you ask questions about the mechanics of your own grief. No, only professionals with four framed degrees, none of which appear to cover the revolutionary subject of “basic empathy,” may have such thoughts.

I swear, if mortals were half as curious about their inner workings as they are about celebrity divorces, their entire species might have ascended by now. But no, apparently we must all sit obediently in our chairs, tell our pain to strangers with pens, and await permission to know what we already know.

And the Olympians are no better. Hera once told me she thought my symptoms sounded like “attention seeking.” Apollo suggested yoga. Ares suggested wine and sword fighting, which is at least more honest than Lucinda’s suggestion that I join a “peer support group.” Peer support group? Mortals who meet in church basements to share feelings over Styrofoam cups of lukewarm coffee? That is what she thought would help me? That is her professional solution to a goddess of ruin?

Listen, I am not opposed to mortals sharing feelings, but what, precisely, are they going to teach me? “Sometimes life is hard.” Really? Do tell. “Sometimes people leave.” Oh, shocking. Truly revelatory. Please, let me take notes.

What I wanted to say, when she finally asked if I had anything else to add, was this: “Yes, Lucinda. Be kinder. Because the way you treated me today is the reason Hades receives so many mortals who came seeking help and instead found bureaucracy with a pulse. You chose a job that requires compassion. If you cannot manage even a crumb of it on a bad day, you should consider a career in accounting, where indifference is a virtue.”

What I actually said was nothing. I smiled, I thanked her, and I left. Because apparently, that is the mortal way.

The rain outside met me with applause, a standing ovation for my restraint. The gutters filled with laughter at my expense. And Olympus, as always, found the entire scene hilarious.

So I remain unsupported, not just by a mortal clinician, but by history itself. By floods. By forests. By the endless cycle of ruin that mortals drink from like it is free wine at a Dionysian party.

— SYL, #22ADAY