Verbal Filter: ON

AD: “Well young lady, it looks like you can go. All your tests came back normal.”

Malingering Teenager: “So what was wrong with me?” AD: (flipping through chart) “Says here you fell asleep at school and when someone went to wake you up, you ‘couldn’t feel your body and your heart was racing’, is that right?”

Trailer Trash Mom: “That’s right! And it’s happened to her three times already!”

AD: “And every time, she was at school, in a similar situation?”

Trashy Mom: “Yes!”

Slow Aunt: “And she doesn’t sleep at night. She stays up till like, two or three in the morning.”

AD: “Sounds like your sleep cycle is a little messed up. My advice would be to go to bed earlier.”

Trashy Mom: (on the verge of nastiness) “And I’m supposed to believe that is what makes her have these attacks? I can’t believe you couldn’t find anything wrong with her!”

AD: (mentally counting to ten) “There is nothing physically wrong with her, based on the tests we’ve conducted. Her labs and her EKG were perfectly normal. She has no symptoms whatsoever at the moment. It’s a little hard to pinpoint a problem when the patient isn’t symptomatic.”

Slow Aunt: “So what are we supposed to do?”

AD: “Take her back to school.”

All Three: (in chorus) “Back to school?”

Trashy Mom: (adamantly) “She is sick, I just know it. Y’all just can’t find it at this pissant little excuse of a hospital.”

AD: “Just as likely, they won’t be able to find it at a bigger hospital, without running a battery of expensive and probably unnecessary tests.”

Mom and Aunt: “Why?”

AD: “Because there is nothing wrong with her. Physically.”

Trashy Mom: (offended) “Are you saying she has mental problems?”

AD: (gently) “I’m saying that she has an altered sleep cycle and symptoms of anxiety. She needs to see her personal physician and possibly get a prescription for a sleep aid, or perhaps referral to a specialist. We don’t do specialty care here.”

Malingering Teenager: “So what should I do?”

AD: “Go back to school and try to avoid stressful situations.”

What I wanted to say: “Look kid, obviously you were dealt a bad genetic hand. You were born into a family of malingering, whining, pharmaceutically enhanced, sporadically employed, baby making Professional Burdens To Society, as evidenced by the two Xanax Sisters here. I’ve met your Dad, and he ain’t no peach either. So in that regard, you rolled snake eyes in the big DNA craps game. But there’s this concept called nature versus nurture that psychologists have debated for ages. You came into this world with your tabula rasa already hopelessly smeared and defaced, and your only hope is to escape the brand of nurturing you’re getting from your family. My advice is to cowboy up, pull up your big girl panties and get an education. Then get the hell away from home as soon as possible, or you’ll wind up as nothing more than a Walking Uterus With a Welfare Check and a Xanax Habit.”

But I didn’t, and I am sooooo proud of me.