Your Money's Worth
By Kellie Powell
This ten-minute play exposes the difficulty depressed persons experience when seeking treatment for suicidal thoughts and feelings. At the end of the scene, Carla, a truly awful therapist, confronts her new patient, Jessie.
CARLA:
You give up so easily! You don't get validation, you walk away. You don't get enough attention, you take some pills. That's the problem with your generation, really. You're over-indulged by your parents and you're spoiled and impatient and entitled. Hence the so-called suicide attempts. You don't want to die, you want people to pity you. It's pathetic.
If you wanted to die, you'd be dead. You would keep trying, over And over, until you got it right. But you don't drink bleach. You don't hang yourself or jump off a bridge or crash your car into a wall. You take pills. You stick your head in the oven. It's a cry for help. So stop wasting your time idealizing and romanticizing death and accept the fact that everyone is miserable. Life is hell for everyone. They just fake it better.
Who are you to think you deserve to be different? Just grow up already! Lose 80 pounds, buy some new clothes. Get a haircut and put on some make-up. Stop looking for fairness and authenticity and inspiration, because they don't exist. Get a job at a bank and get a manicure once a week. Marry a dentist. But for God's sake, don't have children, because your DNA is filled with idealism, and no kid deserves to be saddled with that. When you're unhappy, go shopping. Run five miles a day and grow your own tomatoes. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Read to visually impaired gay senior citizens. All you have to do is quit whining, show some willpower! You're not special. You are just like everyone else. You think you're in pain, but that's all in your head. Just SNAP OUT OF IT.
