“I’m afraid I can’t do that today because my serious psychiatric illness is making me want to either sleep or throw up, or possibly both, and my only achievable plan for the rest of the day is to hide in my apartment and contemplate my loserness.  Maybe we can try next week?”

“Oh, I wish I could, but I’m deathly afraid of sixteen thousand things which you really don’t want to hear about.  By the way, I’ll be contemplating how deeply I screwed up this interaction with you for the next thirty years.”

“I’m sorry, but I’d honestly rather take a bunch of pills and lose the next twenty years of my life than attempt to contemplate doing that.”

“I’m actually thinking a lot about suicide and the pointlessness of existence, and how I’ll probably get fired and end up in a psychiatric institution and then in my parents’ basement after that.  My only hope is that I’ll have cable in the basement, and a door to my bedroom.  Not having mice and crickets and giant hairy spiders is probably too much to ask for.  How are you doing?”

“My medications are making me feel like nothing at all, and death sounds like it’d be extremely restful.  But I’ll try to help you anyway because the guilt will be overwhelming if I don’t.”

“I got out of bed and remembered to put on clothes, so I’d say it’s a pretty all right day.”

“I’ll give it a shot, but I want you to know that I’ll be having nightmares about how hopelessly stupid I was while trying it - they’ll only last a decade or so, because I screw up a lot.”

“That sounds like the purest form of torture this side of life in a maximum security detention center in Maricopa County, but I’m too scared to refuse, so, okay.”

(I don’t even know what I’m going to be saying to my therapist on Friday, but I’m sure she’ll be glad I’m the last patient she’ll see through Tuesday, by the time we’re done.)