Chapter One
What am I doing? I mean, what the heck am I doing!? Or, if I totally want to ditch this phony NPR therapist voice, what the fuck am I doing!!
I mean, I became a psychologist because I wanted to make a difference. That and the fact that I wasn’t working, had to pay the bills and like to talk. The listening part I had to learn, but I’m pretty good at it now after three years of school and years talking to clients in my office, asking over and over and fucking over again, “So, how does that make you feel?”, working in wise counselor bromides -- “You know, it’s not healthy to hold your emotions inside. It’s like blowing air into a balloon. You blow, blow, blow, without letting the air out of the balloon and the balloon’s going to pop,” -- and performing breathing exercises. Yeah, people pay me to breathe with them for the better part of 45 minutes, and then they thank me – they actually thank me! – for helping them so much. I mean, babies know how to breathe. Babies sleep a hell of a lot better than the clients I see. Babies don’t pay good money to vomit their feelings and listen to someone like me spew variations on Buddha quotes.
I had a bad day today. Andy, who I’ve been seeing for over a year, came in and told me that his wife left him. He came home the previous day, found a note on the table saying she didn’t love him anymore and was taking off for California to find herself.
Andy thought he had found himself last month. Said it to me after our last session. Thanked me profusely, in fact, although I quickly turned it around and said that he was the who deserves the credit, not me, that he had all of the answers and I merely was helping him get to them. And I really believe that. People – depressed, ridden with anxiety, searching for meaning – do have the answers. The best thing I do for them is listen and interject occasionally. Eventually, a light bulb switches on and the depression goes away.
Meds help, too.
Anyway, Andy’s success story – at least, I thought it was a success story until he started talking suicide today – was the exception.
Brian? I was going through my notes before our session Monday, went back to check on our notes from a session the previous year and noticed that we were still talking about the same thing. The same, damn thing. Brian tells me I’m the best therapist he’s ever had. He should check my notes from last year.
Sue? She came to me with self-esteem issues, the product of a mother who never paid attention to her and a father who ran off with another woman when Sue was six. Well, we conquered her Mommy-Daddy issues, but Sue still has plenty of self-doubt over work, over raising her kids, over just about everything in her life.
Corinne? I was happy that she felt comfortable enough with me to disclose during our third therapy session that she was a lesbian. The disclosure led to her changing her life, getting out of her sham marriage with Jim, eventually getting involved with Yvonne, singing in her church choir, starting a garden, getting out of a profession she hated and getting into a profession she loves.
And then she killed herself. Why? I don’t know. She might have stopped taking her meds, although I told her every session to keep up with them even if she was feeling good. Maybe her relationship with Yvonne wasn’t going well. Maybe she started to hate the new job. Maybe....ah, who knows? Here’s what I do know: my “success story,” Corinne, is buried in Harcourt Cemetery.
And today I spent the better part of my session with Andy trying to talk him out of taking his life, too. I don’t expect that he will. I’ve counseled people on the verge of suicide many times and, almost without fail, they show up for their next therapy session.
But Andy? I don’t know, not just about Andy but about what I’m doing with my professional life.
