The Big Black Book

Some people have a figurative black book of all the relationships they've had. The book is heavy and filled with ecstasy and despair, or at least joy and sorrow. If you flipped through the pages of the book you would see an ebb and flow of each relationship, just as we have with anyone, including friends and family. You've long heard the statement that dating would be a lot easier if we had access to these black books -- if we were to know the bad parts about the person we're dating without having to find them out for ourselves. Sometimes exes come together after a breakup with the same man and talk about the problem that they each had in their relationship with him. Other times -- or at least on Sex and the City -- women will spread around a guy's great reputation in bed for the benefit of future lovers.

Bigger than my black book of relationships is my folder of doctor's chart notes. In college I'd feel self-conscious whenever the nurse or doctor would pull out the folder and exclaim how big it was. Women are afraid to tell partners how many men they've slept with... Well, I was afraid doctors would assume I was a hypochondriac based on how big my numbers were. Of course now we all know about my tiny cerebellum, but back then I just had a stack of visits with unfilled answers. Just like in relationships, some of my documented interactions with the doctors were fraught with misunderstandings, misdiagnoses, or what turned out to be silly reasons like a stomach ache that wouldn't go away (duh, constipation). Other times the visits were filled with important advice, diagnostic breakthroughs, or treatments for non-cerebellum related issues that I really needed. With each visit my file got bigger and bigger, just like the time and content that accrues with each day of a relationship.

Sometimes with a move, or a change in physicians, you get a "clean slate" just like you do after a breakup. Your new doctor won't know that your old one thought you had an eating disorder or that you let an important med run out and needed a refill ASAP. He won't know anything about your visits to the counselor or your mom telling the story about a relative getting healed from something like polio by falling down the stairs. But, just like with couples, these big books of information help the next physician in accurately treating your present symptoms and gain a bigger picture of who you are.

As I just had to change doctors last month because of changing insurance, I'm now at the point once again where my folder is brand new. The movement specialist looks at me funny when I say trying to drive is like skiing toward a brick wall, and my new GP doesn't believe that my side effects from a new medication are because of the medication itself and not an anxiety disorder. In time the chart will get filled again, next week with a psych evaluation for my social security claim and a follow up with the movement specialist a couple weeks after that. It's hard to let go of my neurologist of the past three years, who was the first to take my movement disorder seriously. Women with a lot of sexual partners are called sluts, and women with big medical charts are called nervous, weak, or anxious. My neurologist knew I was none of those and took my big black book seriously. A good boyfriend, just like a good doctor, won't run from what he finds within those pages. And if you come to him with a clean slate, he'll do his best to treat the new book with respect.