In a beautiful little paradox coming out of Boston, MA, 24-year-old Maxine King needs to pick up her anxiety medication today, but she needs to take anxiety medication so she’s not daunted by the task of picking up her anxiety medication.
Congrats, babe! We’ve got ourselves a catch-22!
Maxine finally sought psychiatric help after having several panic attacks in advance of a party she attended last weekend. It took her psychiatrist about 30 minutes to diagnose her with generalized anxiety disorder and prescribe a starting dosage of Zoloft, but sources estimate it could take weeks for her to take the next impossible step: literally just picking up her meds.
“I trust my psychiatrist, and I do think Zoloft would probably help with my daily anxiety symptoms,” Maxine told reporters. “But also…what if she’s completely wrong, and fatally so…” Maxine then trailed off ominously.
Scenarios that Maxine has run through in her brain include having an extreme allergic reaction to the medication and dying immediately, getting hit by a car on the way, and the Zoloft working so well that she realizes she didn’t have to deal with this level of anxiety in the first place.
Maxine’s psychiatrist said the sheer number of doomsday scenarios her patient has come up with confirms she should totally pick up the medication.
“Oh, also what happens if I accidentally drop my prescription on the way home, a local dog eats it all, then all of a sudden the dog is on anxiety meds he doesn’t need. That’s a whole other thing!”
Scientists estimated there is a less than 0.05% chance of this occurring, but they guess it’s technically “possible.”
“Ah-ha!” Maxine yelled. “So, it’s possible!” Reporters decided it was not worth fighting her on it.
Maxine’s friends were excited when she got the prescription but have quickly lost hope that she’s going to pick it up any time soon.
“I even offered to pick it up for her,” said her roommate, Kallie Zhen. “But she keeps insisting she’s going to do it as soon as she can guarantee it’s ‘God’s plan,’ whatever that means. She’s not religious.”
Even the pharmacist at Maxine’s local Walgreens is concerned.
“She keeps coming in and getting in line to pick it up,” said Dr. Francine Wallace. “But once she gets to the front of the line, she’ll whisper ‘Never mind’ to herself, turn around, turn around again, then turn around one last time.”
Sources confirmed Maxine stepped in and out of line so many times it looked like she was crossing up the pharmacist.
At press time, Kallie finally pressured Maxine into picking up the meds, but now she needs to work up the courage to take it. This will likely take a few months, by which point she will probably panic about them being expired.