“You’re sitting there trying to be empathetic or sympathetic or whatever it is that you shrinks do to get people to trust you, but you don’t have any more answers than the idiots they put me in a room with when I was a kid!” I shout.
She just sits there observing, watching.
“Look, this was a bad idea,” I tell her. “I told Ash that I’d come see someone, and now I have. I’m out of here.”
“All right,” Dr. Sadler says and turns to her desk. She picks up a file and starts leafing through it.
I haven’t moved from my spot in front of the leather chair that has been my seat for the last half hour or so.
“All right?” I ask. “You’re really something, you know that? I come in here asking for help and you don’t even care that I haven’t gotten it yet?”
She shrugs, but doesn’t look at me.
“Fine!” I declare and go for the door.
“If you’d ever like to turn the anger you’re feeling into a psychological breakthrough, you’re almost there already,” she says. “Come back when you’re ready to start taking this seriously and we’ll get you all fixed up.”
“Just like that?” I ask. “You expect me to believe that you just figured out what’s going on, right when I’m threatening to walk out of here?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t expect you to believe anything, though for the record, I would just like to let you know that I pretty well knew what was going on the last time you threatened to leave. I’d love to help you—it is my job after all—but I made a rule a while back: When a person tries to leave the office more than once, just let them go. Nobody changes until they become willing to change. The reason so many people say they can’t change is that they’re not willing to do it. So, until you’re there, I’m just wasting my time and there are people in that room out there who’d love the extra time to delve into their psyches.”
“Reverse psychology,” I say. “That’s what you’re doing. You’re trying to convince me to stay by telling me you don’t care.”
Finally, she sets her file down and turns toward me, saying, “I wouldn’t rule that out completely, but everything I just told you is true. If you want to stay and finish the appointment, we can do that, but I’m going to have to insist that you be willing to listen, that you be willing to be open enough to hear what you’ve known for a long, long time.”
“Oh? And what’s that?” I ask, crossing my arms, smirking.
“You don’t think you deserve her,” Dr. Sadler says. “It’s not your fault. Your whole life has been all about you finding out just how limited your choices are. I get it,” she says. “I mean, if I were in a relationship with someone I really cared about after avoiding that sort of thing for so long, I’d probably be scared, too. Add fear to the anhedonia, and we’ve got two of the three emotions you were feeling that night.”
“Why three?” I ask. “Is there some part of the brain I don’t know about that makes sure you feel exactly three things at all times, or—”
“Not that I’m aware of,” the doctor interrupts. “People feel what they feel. Sometimes it’s nice and clear-cut, but most of the time it’s a jumble of often-contradictory things. When a person’s graduating from high school, they could very well be feeling pride in their accomplishment, but most of the people I’ve talked to on the subject mention this overwhelming sense of dread that they’re one step closer to being on their own. Then there’s the excitement for the future, the nervousness about what’s to come, the sadness of knowing a lot of the people who have been such a big part of your life are going to start going their different ways. You can feel anger that you didn’t focus better on your school work, or you could feel anger because you never got out and did anything. There’s never a single emotion going on, even when it feels like there is. The mind has to navigate a whole lifetime of experiences, and it’s this process that gives us our emotions in the moment.”
“Yeah, but what does that have to do with me?” I ask. “What does that have to do with Ash?”
“That’s just the thing,” she says. “You’ve been so used to disappointment that when a real relationship comes along with someone you could actually see a future with—it makes sense that you’d be at least a little conflicted, though I’d say you’re a lot more than a little. Do you like that? I came up with that myself.”
She was about an inch from making a solid point. Then she stopped.
“Very clever,” I say blankly. “So you’re saying that it’s because I feel something real for her that I’m screwing this up?”
“I probably would have phrased it a little differently, but yeah, that’s pretty much what’s going on,” she says.
“What about Chris getting arrested?” I ask. “This didn’t happen before then.”
“Is that really true, though?” she asks. “I’m not trying to discount the upheaval you must have felt when he was taken away, but I find it difficult to believe that there were no indications something might happen even before then.”
“So you’re calling me a liar?” I ask.
“Sit down,” she says sharply.
I don’t even think about it; I just sit.
“Now we can keep going back and forth, but frankly, I’m getting pretty tired of you reacting to everything with an immediate blast of anger,” she says.
I scoff and chuckle a little, smiling with one half of my mouth. “I thought you wanted me to start feeling my emotions,” I say.
“Yeah, but I could do without the tantrums,” she retorts. “You think you’re going to win, but you’re not.”
I’m crying. Why the hell am I crying? I’m not sad. I’m not hurt. Whatever this feeling is, it’s terrifying.
“What are you doing to me?” I ask.
Dr. Sadler passes me a tissue. “People come from all different kinds of backgrounds,” she says. “Some are good, some aren’t so good, but all are a mix of the two. Even the worst childhood isn’t without its joyful moments,” she says. “Even the best isn’t without its heartache. For you, it became very necessary early on to—forgive the pun—fight for your place in the house. It wasn’t simply given to you the way it is with most children, you had to work for every failed compliment, every quiet moment. I think the problem is that all this time, you’ve been feeling like an imposter. You feel like you have to win at all costs, but in the back of your mind, you have this burning question: ‘What happens when I lose?’”
“This isn’t about fighting,” I tell her. “Fighting is the only good thing that’s come out of my life.”
“Yet you insist on fighting in underground matches,” the doctor says. “Is that because you tried to go the other way and failed, or did you just not try?”
“Aren’t therapists supposed to be understanding?” I ask.
“We are supposed to understand,” she says. “Being understanding, on the other hand, only serves a purpose in certain situations.”