They’re not even clever ones, either. If I had to guess, I’d say the posters are homemade.
“Come on in and have a seat,” Dr. Sadler says. “So, what brings you to my office today?”
“Well, I don’t really know where to start,” I tell her.
“Oh, I can help with that,” she says, scratching her forehead.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “I know I filled out that intake form and everything, but…”
As Dr. Sadler is scratching her forehead, her hair moves—I mean all of her hair. Underneath what’s obviously a blonde wig, a little bit of red hair comes into view for just a moment. She stops and smiles at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, taking her wig off and setting it on her desk, revealing a full head of short red hair. “It can be such a hassle getting ready in the morning. If you’ll excuse me for just one moment…”
I sit and watch as she opens the bottom drawer of her desk. Inside, I can see four different wigs atop four different mannequin heads. She picks the mid-length black one and pulls it out, setting it haphazardly onto her head before putting the blonde wig in the black wig’s place.
“That’s better,” she says. “Now, I think the biggest problem is that you’re not willing to simply accept yourself and the people in your life for the unique challenges you and they face. When we have faulty expectations, our whole world gets thrown off.”
“You got that from my intake sheet?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I got that from your posture. Please, tell me what’s on your mind.”
I glance past the grainy, nonsensical poster of a duck swimming in a lake with the caption, “Get to it!” to the doctor’s credentials, but I can’t quite make out the schools she went to from where I’m sitting.
“Where did you get your degree?” I ask.
“I did my undergraduate work at Harvard,” she says. “I got my doctorate from the University of Guam.”
“Guam?” I ask. “Why not Harvard for your doctorate?”
“I had a falling out with the dean,” she says. “That’s really not the issue here, though.”
“You know,” I say, standing back up, “I think this was a mistake. I’m sure you’re a fine doctor, but I just don’t think it’s going to—”
“How old were you when your dad left?” she asks.
I stop, halfway between standing and sitting and I look at her.
“I didn’t put anything about my dad on the intake,” I tell her. “How did you—”
“Mom, she was around, at least for the first part of your childhood, but she was never really there, was she?” the doctor asks.
I sit back down.
“Let me guess: you got that from my posture, too?” I ask.
“No,” she smiles. “That, I got from your eyes. Listen, Mason, I understand that you’re not the type to easily trust people, and I’m sure all the time you spent visiting court-appointed therapists has left you feeling like we just don’t know what we’re talking about, isn’t that right?”
My mouth is gaping. “Seriously, how are you—”
She smirks, saying, “That part I got from your intake sheet.”
“What do you think I should do?” I ask.
“How should I know?” she responds, reaching into her purse and pulling out a handful of unwrapped gummy worms. She stuffs about half that handful into her mouth and continues. “You haven’t told me anything yet. What’s on your mind?”
“Uh…” I say, trying to remember why I came here in the first place.
“Girl trouble?” she asks. “That one, I ask most men,” she whispers.
“I guess that’s there a little bit,” I tell her, “but what made me decide to seek help happened a while ago.”
I go on to explain my involvement with underground MMA and the fight where everything just kind of went away. She sits, listening, nodding. I keep trying to focus on her eyes, but mine keep moving upward.
Finally, I come to the argument Ash and I had where she basically laid down the ultimatum and the good doctor is finally ready to offer her response.
“That sucks,” she says.
“How much am I paying you per hour?” I ask.
“Not much, but if you stay with me for about a year or so, I bet I can buy a new car off of what your insurance throws at me,” she answers. I don’t know if she’s joking or not. “Listen,” she says, “the troubles we tend to focus on are often not the problem at all. They’re often the symptom.”
“I get that,” I tell her, “but what’s the cause?”
“Keep talking,” she says. “You’ve got a soothing voice. It’s doing killer work on this raging headache I’ve got.”
“It’s too tight,” I tell her.
“Excuse me?” she asks.
“Your, uh…” I motion toward my own hair with my index finger and she lifts the front of the wig just a little. “Huh,” she says. “I guess I can cancel that MRI. I thought I had some sort of berry aneurism or something.”
I glance back toward the medical degrees on her wall. “…and you’re a doctor?” I ask.
“You get so used to things sometimes, you don’t even realize they’re what’s hurting you,” she says.
It’s strange, but I find myself chuckling. “Did you really put on that wig just so you could make that point and have it seem super insightful?” I ask.
She smiles at me, “While being ‘super insightful’ is, indeed my goal, I’m really quite serious. What things from your past do you still hold onto?” she asks. “Yours was a difficult childhood from the sound of things. What haven’t you been able to let go?”
“Chris?” I ask. “I don’t know. Am I just supposed to abandon my brother?”
“You didn’t mention a brother,” she says. “Let’s talk about that.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I lie.
“From the sound of it, it’s exactly why you’re here,” she says. “That fight you got into—the match where you say you ‘lost your head,’ what happened during the week leading up to that night?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I mean, Chris got arrested and everything, but that can’t be the only thing that went into what happened. I’ve been expecting that my entire life.”
“Maybe you should go,” she says out of nowhere. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe therapy isn’t something that’s going to be a positive for you. Thanks for coming in,” she says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“What are you talking about?” I almost yell. “We’re just starting to get into this and now you’re telling me that therapy isn’t going to work? What kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m saying this won’t work if you’re not going to be honest with me,” she says. “A lot of people would be happy to have you waste their time. I suppose I can understand the draw of sitting back and collecting a couple hundred dollars to hear someone cover everything, but I got into this because I actually wanted to help people. If you’re not ready to fit into that kind of category, there’s really nothing I can do for you. The only ethical thing for me to do at this point is to say ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ If we can’t be honest with each other, it’s best that you go.”