Posts tagged therapy

                                      MULTIAXIAL DIAGNOSIS

     “There are five axes included in the DSM-IV multi-axial classification”

AXIS I       Clinical Disorders… “Really Fucked Up”

AXIS II      Personality Disorders… “Will Really Fuck You Up”

AXIS III     General Medical Conditions… “Got Really Fucked”

AXIS IV     Psychosocial & Environmental Factors… “History of Chronic & Systemic Fucked-Up-ed-ness”       

AXIS V      Global Assessment of Functioning… “Fuck You!”

“The use of the multiaxial system facilitates comprehensive and systematic evaluation with attention to the various mental disorders and general medical conditions, psychosocial and environmental problems, and level of functioning that might be overlooked if the focus were on assessing a singular presenting problem. A multiaxial system provides a convenient format for organizing and communicating clinical information, for capturing the complexity of clinical situations, and for describing the heterogeneity of individuals presenting with the same diagnosis.”

S ubjective

O bjective

A ssessment

P lan

“Scrub me with soap till it hurts so good.”

                                              A “CASE” HISTORY

                                                              by

                                                   Cassie Peterson

Depraved attempts to wash the depravity away. A do-over. A re-do. Start over. “You’re it,” I will say to my other.

I wanted her to punish me with a cruel cleansing. “Cleaned up” in a dirty way. Secretly harboring it under cheeks flushed with shame for no A Parent reason. I imagined She wanted it too (projection?) and it passed between us, unspoken. In hallways. Parking lots. “Professional” rectangular rooms where we could not look at one another yet were connected by a hot beam of shared attention that bore holes into the back of one another’s heads to Scalp.  Skull.  A Deep Psyche Soap Scrub. I hear her through the tiny hairs on my neck. Sergeants at attention. Antennae of anticipation. Unfulfilled dreams. Desires & Punitive fantasies.

She will save us both from eachother. From ourselves.

When you meet that person, or those people rather, who secrets align with your own, it’s like an electrical circuit grows between you. A private pulsing. Tripping wires. Blown fuses. Exposed copper or water spilt in the outlet. A Natural Disaster from within, quietly hidden behind an easy smile and a oh so tightly, locked jaw. Biting down on a tongue as to not betray ones own self or expose the other.

The most magnificent unspeakable dilemma.

My other eats fancy, artisanal soap at home, after dinner. Just places the bar on her tongue and quietly suffers alone. Not as deep as cuts or burns, but of the same species. Soapus Self-harmus. She hates the alive parts of her life. She Spits up Soapy rage into the sink. The toilet basin. Only her cat looks on. We both have cats. Self and the Other. Clean cats who will never meet but are kin nonetheless. Anthropomorphized substitutes, In Lieu of a Soul. Organic Wet naps for dirty paws. Knitted Sweaters during the holidaze.

Later next winter, a year from now, I will think of my other’s cats and her forbidden cleanliness and in an effort to re-remember EVERYTHING, I will drizzle Dawn Dish soap down my torso and let it drip down into the carpet, before rubbing it in with my heel. (I will tell my friends that I spent the day cleaning the house).Trying to erase the ugly in my other. Scrubbing a filth that will never lift. A grease that will never cut.