is everyone crazy in here, or is it me?

i have my first appointment with the person that ben so delicately describes as "the crazy doctor" today. i've been reluctant (get it? the reluctant receptionist!) to call him a therapist, or to say that i'm "going to therapy," getting around it by saying "counseling" and telling the receptionist at the therapist's office that i'd like to "make an appointment to talk to someone." what is it about the word therapy that conjures up images of vanna white or courtney cox bemoaning their sinking careers to an older-but-still-strangely-attractive woman in cateye glasses with a notepad? maybe it's because i've never understood why people who seem perfectly sane go to therapy once a week; how much staring at your own navel can you possibly do?

semantics aside, today i start therapy. this visit will mark the third time in my life i've seen a counselor. i mean therapist:

1. age: 9; reason for therapy: not able to sleep at night unless someone is in the room with me; real reason for therapy, found out a couple years after i came out to my parents: harboring the suspicion that i was a homosexual, my parents sent me to a therapist to see if anything could be done--or if, in fact, my overbearing mother and absent father had already ruined me. diagnosis: effeminate but salvageable.
   
2. age: 19; reason for therapy: after a year and a half of, for reasons unbeknownst to me, laying on the floors of dorms and practice rooms crying while wondering why i kept thinking about killing myself, when i went to a good school and had very little to worry about; diagnosis: depressed but sane.
   
3. age: 24 and 11/12ths; reason for therapy: a double-whammy that took the shape of diagnosis with a chronic illness (chron's disease) followed by a sudden, unexpected breakup. diagnosis: ?

on the verge of seeing another therapist, i'm reminded of something i often wonder. am i only going to therapy because i'm someone who is constantly self-aware? by this, i mean that i never really turn off my brain. i'm very cognizant of my emotions, and am perpetually self analyzing. when i was suffering from depression, i always thought, if i could just keep my brain from going like this, if i could just turn everything off for a while, if i didn't over think everything to this degree, i wouldn't be depressed. i'd be blindly happy. i still wonder, are stupid people happier? are people who are less driven happier? do i only have this quiet, gnawing sadness because i'm aware enough to analyze my feelings and the actions of others, or is it the other way around? which came first, the turkey you eat or the turkey like where people live? if you don't want to say the answer, you can just think it.