Tag: therapy

Therapy

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She realized she’d been jiggling her foot. She had no idea how long she’d been jiggling it. But there it was. Gyrating in front of her, a pogo stick at the end of her ankle sitting at an odd angle on her other knee. Despite seeing it, despite realizing she should stop, it continued. It took a forceable effort to slow it, then stop it, then shift her leg up and off her other knee, lowering the restless foot to the ground.

“Are you uncomfortable?” the therapist finally asked.

“No,” she answered, realizing it was a bit of a lie, but not entirely. She wasn’t uncomfortable in the office, or with the therapist, so no was a perfectly honest answer. She was, however, uncomfortable in her body, in her being, and so no was not entirely accurate.

“You aren’t usually silent,” the therapist observed, “is there something troubling you tat hasn’t been put into words yet?”

“That’s a good way to say it, I suppose,” she responded, tilting her head a bit to the right as she thought about the words to use. “I’m having a hard time,” she finally said.

There was another silence. She knew the therapist didn’t like to fill these silences, preferred that she speak or use the silence to work through whatever she needed to. She was a bit surprised the therapist had broken the last one, but then again, there weren’t usually silences for long and certainly not for nearly half the session, which is where they were at.

“I’m having a hard time being,” she clarified.

When it became clear she wasn’t going to say more than that the therapist asked for clarification, “being…?”

“Being. Just being. Existing has become difficult,” she said.

“What has changed to make it difficult?”

“Nothing. Nothing that I can think of anyway. I’m pretty sure everything is exactly the same as last week,” she looked down at her hands in her lap, they were fingers holding fingers, her fingers, hanging on to one another. She laid her hands flat and wiped them along her thighs. “It hasn’t just become difficult, it’s always been difficult,” she said, emphasizing ‘been’ by picking up her hands and pushing them together and outwards, like an offering.

“If it’s always been difficult why did you originally say it’s ‘become difficult’?”

She sighed, loudly, somewhat exasperated at the use of her own words being turned around and offered up as proof that she didn’t know what she was talking about. “Okay, fine. It has become more difficult,” she said, emphasizing the ‘more’ by drawing out the o and making it sound like a multi-syllabic word. She lapsed into silence again, this time crossing her arms over her chest, an unintentional protection of her heart.

“I see. Sometimes we choose words with our subconscious. Are you feeling threatened by me?” asked the therapist in the same flat tone.

“Threatened? No. Should I be?” she asked, somewhat surprised by a question that wasn’t a twist of what she’d said.

“Sometimes our body language communicates for our subconscious. I see that you’ve changed positions from one in which you were open and receptive to conversation to a closed-off and protective position. It made me wonder if you are feeling threatened by me,” explained the therapist.

Realizing her error, a second time in one sitting in which her body was giving her away, she quickly put her arms back down, hands in her lap.

“I get the sense that you have something you need to tell me but that you’re unable or unwilling to do so,” said the therapist.

She shrugged her left shoulder, “days like today I come here and I have no idea what I’m going to fill the hour with and I think maybe it’s time to stop coming,” she said, surprised at her own honesty, surprised that she’d been thinking that. Her foot came back up to her rest on her knee without her notice.

“People often get to a point where they don’t feel they need therapy any longer. That’s wonderful. It usually comes after they’ve gained some insight into why they decided to start therapy in the first place. Do you feel you’ve gained insight into why you started coming to see me?” asked the therapist calmly, no twitch in facial expression at the bomb being dropped, no change in tone.

“I honestly don’t remember why I started coming. And I feel like I leave every week not having gotten anywhere and wondering why I keep coming back. But today,” she took a deep breath, “today I just feel like we’re wasting each others time.” She noticed her foot was jiggling again, but didn’t try to stop it.

“Wasting each others time? You think I am wasting your time and you are wasting mine. You are paying me for my time, so there’s no waste to my time. Can you tell me how I am wasting your time?” asked the therapist, still calm, betraying nothing at the thought of losing a client.

“I came here for answers. It’s been, what? Six months? Six months and no answers. Nothing is different today than it was when I came in six months ago,” she realized she’d started crying and was surprised. She hadn’t cried in at least a year, not at a movie or a book, not at any of the horrible atrocities being committed everywhere on a daily basis. She touched a hand to her cheek and looked at the water on her fingers. Crying. Huh.

“Can you review for me the questions?” asked the therapist.

Like my very own fucking Yoda, she thought before saying, “why do I keep meeting the same horrible guys? Why do I keep dating the same horrible guys? Why do I keep falling in love with the same horrible guys? And why do the same horrible guys keep breaking my heart?”

“Yes, when you first came in you mentioned you had a habit of picking the wrong partners. I didn’t realize until right now that you felt that was the most pressing issue or the issue we’ve been working on all this time,” said the therapist. “We’ve discussed many issues, none of which have seemed to trouble you more than others. Can you tell me why this issue of partners is deemed the reason you started coming to therapy?”

“Nobody wants to be alone forever, doc. Nobody. I love having time to myself but that’s different than being completely alone. And it turns out I’m either dating the wrong guy or I’m alone. I don’t want to be alone forever, and I don’t want to keep dating the wrong guy. I can’t keep living like this,” she said, running her right hand through her hair and then slapping it down over her ankle.

“I agree. Why is the issue of your partner more important today than the issue we discussed last week of your self proclaimed ‘go nowhere job’?”

“Because I can always change jobs. If I really want to do something else, I can just apply and get a different job. But with guys, I can’t just apply for a new boyfriend after reading about him online.”

“Isn’t that exactly what online dating is?” asked the therapist.

“I mean, kind of, I guess….”

“So you can meet a new partner online and you can change your job online. Why is the partner issue more important this week than the issue we discussed a few weeks ago, your lack of motivation in the evenings and on weekends?”

“Because if I had a job I didn’t hate I’d have more energy after work and if I had a boyfriend I liked I’d be going out with him on the weekends,” she said.

“I see. So you came to therapy to find a better boyfriend and a better job?”

“Not exactly, I mean, yes, in the long run, yes,” she stammered, “I need to figure out why I keep committing to people and things that make me unhappy. But I’ve been coming in here for six months and I still don’t know why I do that,” she said, sitting forward, putting both feet on the floor, and opening her eyes wide as she realized she’d gotten closer to why she was there, why she was really there.

“I do believe that may be the core question,” said the therapist with a small smile, a very slight facial betrayal of what was an otherwise emotionless facade.

“That’s my ‘pattern,’ right?” she asked, “they always say you have to see your pattern to fix it, and this is mine, right?”

“I suppose you could call it that. I like to think of it more as the things and or the people we hide behind when we’re too afraid to know the truth.”

“So everything we’ve been talking about is connected? My job, the guys, the lethargy? It’s all the same thing? It’s all stuff I’m hiding behind so I don’t face the truth? The truth of what?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly.

“That’s what we need to discover,” said the therapist.

“You mean you don’t know?” she asked incredulously. “I thought that was your job? I thought I tell you all this stuff and you tell me what my problem is and I fix it?”

“My job is to help you discover what your problems are. My job is to help you discover what the fixes are. I can’t tell you these things, you wouldn’t believe me. My job is to help you see them for yourself. Your job is to see them and not run away from them.”

She sat quietly for a minute, thinking about this new revelation. She wasn’t making progress because she wasn’t willing to see the problems. She thought she was talking about the problems but really she was just babbling on and on about symptoms. What she needed to do was see the disease itself. Stop treating the symptoms like individual ailments that required medication. So what did all her symptoms boil down to?

“Why don’t I want to see, even though I am coming to therapy for exactly that reason?” she asked.

“If we can discover the answer to that question, you will have answers to all the rest.”

~~~That’s one hour~~~

The Husband

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“I think,” she took a deep breath, “No, I feel like,” she let out an exasperated growl and took a deep breath letting it out audibly before saying, “My husband hates women.”

“That’s interesting,” the therapist said, tilting her head to the right a bit, “you are a woman. Does your husband hate you?”

“No,” she laughed a short, tense laugh, “No, my husband obviously loves me.” She stopped and put her head in her hands for a moment before raising back to a sitting position, head raised, hands and arms at her sides. “You’ve never met my husband so there’s nothing for you that’s ‘obvious’ about his love for me,” she said, using her hands to form air quotes around the word obvious, “I know my husband loves me. This has nothing to do with our marriage. It’s that,” she sighed, unsure how to continue in this new way where she is supposed to state clearly what she needs, wants, and means, rather than asking questions, deflecting and subverting to another, or couching her desires behind feelings that aren’t in fact feelings. “My husband loves me, and hates women, all women, even me, despite loving me at the same time.”

“How does that work?” asked the therapist.

“So, for example, I love my mother. I love her very much. My mother is also toxic, as we’ve discussed repeatedly, and I’ve had to remove her from my life. I still love her, but I can’t be around her. And it’s kind of like that for my husband, only, he actively hates all women, and he doesn’t seem to understand that it’s true. So even though he loves me wholeheartedly, he also hates me just by virtue of my being a woman, and he doesn’t even know it,” she smiled, not because what she’d said had been pleasant, it was anything but; she smiled because she’d just made perfect sense. She’d just said exactly what she was thinking and feeling without excusing herself or apologizing for herself or hiding behind words that made what she had to say sound soft and sweet instead of the harsh reality that it was.

“How do you feel, being married to a man who loves and hates you?” asked the therapist, in what appeared to be a moment of uncertainty.

“It’s odd,” she said honestly, rubbing her hands up and down the outsides of her thighs a couple times, a gesture that both removed the sweat from her palms and massaged the goosebumps that had appeared all over her. “I can’t decide if I’m going to stay with him or not.”

“That’s certainly something we will need to discuss, but you haven’t said how you feel.”

“Right, no, I just,” she licked her lips and her eyes flicked up to meet the therapists eyes before flicking back down, “I feel I married myself,” she was startled by these words, these words that were not feelings but a statement meant to sound better wrapped in the soft cushion of “I feel.”

“Do you hate women?” asked the therapist.

“No, not at all, I mean, I’ve always been a bit afraid of women,” she realized she was lilting so her statement sounded like a question. She cleared her throat and began again, “I’ve always been a bit afraid of women, it seems like we are harsher on one another than men are. And we’re much less predictable and honest, at times. I realize this is all generalization and clearly not fair to all women, myself included, but what I mean is, in my experience with men and women, I always know where I stand with men because they’re so transparent, whereas with a woman I’m always anxious that I’m only seeing what they want me to see.”

“Do you only show people what you want them to see?” asked the therapist, on solid footing again, knowing exactly the answer to the question she’d just asked but unsure whether or not her client knew.

“Yes, I do. And I didn’t even realize I do it until just recently. All these things we’ve been working on, they’ve allowed me to see that I am exactly the women I’m afraid of. I don’t speak my mind for fear of upsetting someone, instead I say things in an offhand way or ask things even when they’re not questions.”

“Have you always thought your husband hates women or is this a new idea born of the work you’ve been doing on yourself?” the therapist asked.

“I’ve always known he was a little afraid of women but it wasn’t until Hillary ran for president that it became clear he actually hates women.”

“How did Hillary running make it clear that your husband hates women?” the therapist asked.

“He was just so angry,” she said, shaking her head at the recollection, “he had no way to explain what he was so angry about and he hid behind things like ’emails’ and ‘liar’ and said things like ‘I’m all for a woman president, just not that woman,'” she said, emphasizing that with a scowl on her face, presumably the scowl her husband wore when saying the quote. “Ugh,” she grimaced and looked back up to meet her therapists gaze, “but now here we are, Elizabeth Warren is running. She’s a prime example of a woman who is calm, intelligent, has a proven track record of doing what she says, has a plan for literally every freaking thing you could ask for, absolutely destroys the other candidates in the debates,” she takes a deep breath knowing that she’s getting a little heated, a little excited in her explanation, “a perfect candidate not only for president but for our first female president, and what does he say?” she asks rhetorically, squinting her eyes a bit before sitting back against the chair and throwing her arms out, “‘she’s too aggressive.'” She throws her arms back down at her side, “how can you, I mean, what about,” she dissolved into a growl before taking yet another deep breath, “no one says Trump is too aggressive and the guy is a batshit crazy bullying asshole. And did you see that interview she did with what’shisname?” she asks.

“Chris Matthews?” the therapist asks.

“Yes!” she nearly yells, “if anyone had a reason to be ‘aggressive’ it was Warren during that interview and yet she didn’t lose her cool once, not once!”

“Is your husbands depiction of Warren as aggressive the reason you say he hates women?” the therapist asks.

“Yes and no,” she bobs her head, “that’s part of it, I mean obviously using words for a woman as a negative that are the exact same words you’d use for a man as a positive is a problem, but it doesn’t necessarily mean hate. No, but it’s all a part of it. Like a symptom of his disease,” she starts laughing, “dis and ease, that’s exactly it, he is uneasy with women and it’s also a sickness. Has there ever been a more perfect word?” she asks, again rhetorically, as she continues, “It makes me sad. And angry. I’m so sad that he hates women, I’m so sorry for whatever happened to him in his life that he hates women. And it makes me angry because how can I not take it personally? And how can I possibly stay with him, knowing that he hates me, even though he doesn’t understand that he does?”

“Do you know what happened to you that you were afraid of women?” the therapist asks.

She leans back against the chair and stares up at the ceiling for a minute before answering, “I’m not exactly sure. I can’t remember any women ever saying or doing anything to me that made me afraid. If anything it was all the warnings I heard from boys and men around me as I grew up, all the warnings they gave one another about women, said within my earshot or directly over my head or sometimes even to my face, a sort of, ‘don’t you grow up like that,’ sort of thing.”

“Would your husband have grown up hearing those same warnings?” asks the therapist.

“Oh, I’m sure of it,” she says without taking a moment to contemplate, the answer immediately on her tongue before the therapist had even finished asking.

“Does knowing that give you any empathy towards him?”

She nods, tears slowly falling down her cheeks, “yes,” she nearly whispers, her voice getting lost in a need to swallow, “I feel very sorry for him, and I do wish he could come to see it, but I also know he has no interest in therapy. I know he doesn’t believe that his problems can be solved by anyone outside of himself. And so,” she spreads her hands in a gesture of letting go, “I think I need to decide if I can live with someone who hates me because I know how much he loves me, or if I need to remove him from my life, like my mom.”

“This is a lot to think about. I wish we could continue talking about it because I think we could get somewhere better with just a bit more time. Unfortunately, I have another client in a few minutes, so we do have to end on time today. I’m going to ask you to promise not to make any major decisions over the next week. I know it may seem like I’m asking a lot, but this is very important. I’m asking that if you notice yourself moving towards a place of finality towards anything major a purchase, a trip, your husband, that you instead stop and consider it an experiment. Say to yourself, ‘what would happen if I pretend I moved forward with this decision,’ and then imagine the possibilities. Go down all the possible roads you can think of, but only in your mind. Is that something you can commit to this week?”

“I think so,” she said, stretching out the word think into multiple syllables.

“Excellent. Really. Excellent. Next week. Same time. No big decision until then,” the therapist said, hand on her shoulder as she guided her out.

~~~That’s one hour~~~