I have a very funny story to tell tonight, my lovelies. And it's nice and long,so enjoy it.
I've been jumping through a Byzantine maze of hoops trying to get all my ducks in a row for the surgery, and one of the things I had to do was go and be evaluated by a psychologist. A little chit chat, a couple personality assesment, nothing too big. So my surgeon gives me a referral to this guy we'll call Dr. D because his last name starts with a D and and I am not creative enough to come up with something else.
First of all, the dude is the same age as me. THE SAME AGE. Second of all, fucker makes $325 an hour doing this stuff. (And yes, I am now really starting to regret giving up on the whole being a psychologist thing.) So I went in there one afternoon after work, after having fought my way through traffic and trying desperately not to get lost. And I discovered that Dr. D's office was inexplicably in a pediatrics office. Seriously. It was very strange, sitting there waitig for a shrink in an office full of small, ill children and a bunch of toys. It was even stranger to find that this guy, this doctor who performs enough bariatric pre-surgical evaluations to be referred by my surgeon, had tiny chairs WITH ARMS that my ass would barely fit into. And you know, I have a big ass, but in the world of bariatric patients, my ass is on the small end. So if I had a hard time with it, I cannot imagine how other patients fit in there.
Anyway, Dr. D and I had a nice long conversation and he was enthusiastic about me being perfectly okay for the surgery. In fact, his exact words were "I see no problems here." So he shuffled me off to another room so I could sit and complete my required personality assessments, one of which was the MMPI. Now, I have a BA in psych and some master's work in education; not only have I seen the MMPI more than once, I've even taken it a couple times. And I was wondering what part I'd score high on this time; I had my money on anxiety, what with my worries about my ass getting out of the chair and all.
Fast forward a couple weeks to this past Monday. Dr. D calls to discuss my test results. And the conversation went something like this:
"Yeah, I got your results and they were valid but I wanted to clarify a few things with you before I write my report."
"Okay, what's up?"
"Well, you answered true to this question: 'I sometimes want to do harmful or shocking things.' Um, could you explain that?"
"It's mostly the shocking things. My friends and I are kind of exhibitionistic and we do goofy, shocking things around each other."
"Okay, well how about 'I am afraid of losing my mind'? Could you tell me about the situation that made you feel that way?"
"There wasn't a situation, that's just one of my general fears. Like, I'm afraid of being homeless. I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid of losing my mind."
"Oh, well that makes sense. But see here's the thing. Your test score came back with a really high score in the anti-social section. Like, REALLY high."
"Anti-social? Really?"
"Yeah, it was so high that I sent it back and asked them to rescore it because it just didn't jive with what I've seen from you so far."
Commence laughing, because apparently I scored high enough that on paper, I am the next Unabomber. Or as I told the lovely Suzanna Danna, my profile should now say I am a Unabomber trying to get skinnier so as to fit into a smaller shack. So yes, my MMPI score indicates an inability to have a steady job (wrong), limited social circle (wrong), limited education (wrong) and lack of close relationships (wrong). In light of the 5 years I've had with my current company, the almost five years I've been with my husband, my rather large social circle and my current volunteering activities, my actual life is a direct contradiction to my MMPI results. And it kind of broke Dr. D's brain.
I think that maybe, just maybe, Dr. D should write me up as a case study about how the MMPI can be totally, completely wrong. He could totally get famous for it I think.
Oh, and for the record, his report was totally favorable. We're at all systems go for the surgery.
I've been jumping through a Byzantine maze of hoops trying to get all my ducks in a row for the surgery, and one of the things I had to do was go and be evaluated by a psychologist. A little chit chat, a couple personality assesment, nothing too big. So my surgeon gives me a referral to this guy we'll call Dr. D because his last name starts with a D and and I am not creative enough to come up with something else.
First of all, the dude is the same age as me. THE SAME AGE. Second of all, fucker makes $325 an hour doing this stuff. (And yes, I am now really starting to regret giving up on the whole being a psychologist thing.) So I went in there one afternoon after work, after having fought my way through traffic and trying desperately not to get lost. And I discovered that Dr. D's office was inexplicably in a pediatrics office. Seriously. It was very strange, sitting there waitig for a shrink in an office full of small, ill children and a bunch of toys. It was even stranger to find that this guy, this doctor who performs enough bariatric pre-surgical evaluations to be referred by my surgeon, had tiny chairs WITH ARMS that my ass would barely fit into. And you know, I have a big ass, but in the world of bariatric patients, my ass is on the small end. So if I had a hard time with it, I cannot imagine how other patients fit in there.
Anyway, Dr. D and I had a nice long conversation and he was enthusiastic about me being perfectly okay for the surgery. In fact, his exact words were "I see no problems here." So he shuffled me off to another room so I could sit and complete my required personality assessments, one of which was the MMPI. Now, I have a BA in psych and some master's work in education; not only have I seen the MMPI more than once, I've even taken it a couple times. And I was wondering what part I'd score high on this time; I had my money on anxiety, what with my worries about my ass getting out of the chair and all.
Fast forward a couple weeks to this past Monday. Dr. D calls to discuss my test results. And the conversation went something like this:
"Yeah, I got your results and they were valid but I wanted to clarify a few things with you before I write my report."
"Okay, what's up?"
"Well, you answered true to this question: 'I sometimes want to do harmful or shocking things.' Um, could you explain that?"
"It's mostly the shocking things. My friends and I are kind of exhibitionistic and we do goofy, shocking things around each other."
"Okay, well how about 'I am afraid of losing my mind'? Could you tell me about the situation that made you feel that way?"
"There wasn't a situation, that's just one of my general fears. Like, I'm afraid of being homeless. I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid of losing my mind."
"Oh, well that makes sense. But see here's the thing. Your test score came back with a really high score in the anti-social section. Like, REALLY high."
"Anti-social? Really?"
"Yeah, it was so high that I sent it back and asked them to rescore it because it just didn't jive with what I've seen from you so far."
Commence laughing, because apparently I scored high enough that on paper, I am the next Unabomber. Or as I told the lovely Suzanna Danna, my profile should now say I am a Unabomber trying to get skinnier so as to fit into a smaller shack. So yes, my MMPI score indicates an inability to have a steady job (wrong), limited social circle (wrong), limited education (wrong) and lack of close relationships (wrong). In light of the 5 years I've had with my current company, the almost five years I've been with my husband, my rather large social circle and my current volunteering activities, my actual life is a direct contradiction to my MMPI results. And it kind of broke Dr. D's brain.
I think that maybe, just maybe, Dr. D should write me up as a case study about how the MMPI can be totally, completely wrong. He could totally get famous for it I think.
Oh, and for the record, his report was totally favorable. We're at all systems go for the surgery.
