It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini Page A

brain from taking too much serotonin back to get more of it in your system. So you feel better.”
    “Craig, excellent! You know a lot. We’re going to put you on medication that is going to do just that.”
    “Great.”
    “Before I write a prescription, do you have any questions for me?”
    Sure I did. Dr. Barney looked happy. He had a nice gold ring and shiny glasses.
    “How’d you get started in this?” I asked. “I’m always interested to know how people got started.”
    He leaned forward, his paunch disappearing in his shadow. He had huge gray eyebrows and a somber face.
    “After college, I went through my own shit and decided that all the physical suffering in the world couldn’t compare to mental anguish,” he said. “And when I got myself cleared up, I decided to help other people.”
    “You got yours cleared up?”
    “I did.”
    “What did you have?”
    He sighed. “What you have.”
    “Yeah?”
    “To a tee.”
    I leaned forward—our faces were two feet away from one another. “How did you fix it?” I begged.
    He tilted the side of his mouth up. “Same way you will. On my own.”
    What? What kind of answer was that? I scowled at him. I was here for help; I wasn’t here to figure this out on my own; if I wanted to figure it out on my own I’d be taking a bus tour of Mexico—
    “We’re going to start you on Zoloft,” Dr. Barney said.
    O-ho?
    “It’s a great medication; helps a lot of people. It’s an SSRI, it’s going to affect the serotonin in your brain like you said, but you can’t expect an instant effect because it takes weeks to get into your system.”
    “Weeks?”
    “Three to four weeks.”
    “Isn’t there a fast-acting version?”
    “You take the Zoloft with food, once a day. We’ll start you on fifty milligrams. The pills make you feel dizzy, but that’s the only side effect, except for sexual side effects.” Dr. Barney looked up from his pad. “Are you sexually active?”
    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. “No.”
    “All right. Also, Craig: I think that you would benefit from seeing someone.”
    “I know! Don’t think I haven’t tried. I’m not really good at talking to girls.”
    “Girls? No. I meant therapists. You should start seeing a therapist.”
    “What about you?”
    “I’m a psychopharmacologist. I refer you to the therapists.”
    What a racket. “Okay.”
    “Let’s take a look for one.” He opened up what looked like the white pages on his desk and started rattling off names and addresses to me as if they made a difference. Dr. Abrams in Brooklyn, Dr. Fieldstone in Manhattan, Dr. Bok in Manhattan … I thought Dr. Bok was a cool name, so we set up an appointment with him—I missed it, though, because later in the week I was doing a history assignment, and I was so embarrassed that I didn’t call to cancel with Dr. Bok that I never went to see him again. The next time with Dr. Barney we had to pick another shrink, and then another, and then another, among them the little old lady who asked if I had been sexually abused and the beautiful redhead who asked why I had so many problems with women and the man with the handlebar mustache who suggested hypnosis. It was like I was dating, except I didn’t get to make out with any of the girls—and I was also bi because I met up with guys.
    “I like talking to you,” I told Dr. Barney.
    “Well, you’ll be seeing me in a month, to check up on how the medication is treating you.”
    “You don’t do therapy?”
    “The other doctors are great, Craig; they’ll help.”
    Dr. Barney stood up—he was about five-foot-five—and shook my hand with a soft, meaty grip. He handed me the Zoloft prescription and instructed me to get it right away, which I did, even before taking the subway home.

thirteen
     
    The Zoloft worked, and it didn’t take weeks—it worked as soon as I took it that first day. I don’t know how, but suddenlyIfelt good about my life— what the hell? I was a kid; I had plenty more to do;