“I’m really just here to get through the breakup,” I say. “I feel like I’ve been tossed in a blender and can’t get out, and that’s all I’m here for—to find a way out.”
“Okay,” Wendell says, graciously backing off. “Help me understand more about the relationship.” He’s trying to establish what’s known as a therapeutic alliance, a trust that has to develop before any work can get done. In the early sessions, it’s always more important for patients to feel heard and understood than it is for them to gain any insight or make any changes.
Relieved, I go back to talking about Boyfriend, rehashing the whole thing.
But he knows.
He knows what all therapists know: That the presenting problem, the issue somebody comes in with, is often just one aspect of a larger problem, if not a red herring entirely. He knows that most people are brilliant at finding ways to filter out the things they don’t want to look at, at using distractions or defenses to keep threatening feelings at bay. He knows that pushing aside emotions only makes them stronger, but that before he goes in and destroys somebody’s defense—whether that defense is obsessing about another person or pretending not to see what’s in plain sight—he needs to help the patient replace the defense with something else so that he doesn’t leave the person raw and exposed with no protection whatsoever. As the term implies, defenses serve a useful purpose. They shield people from injury . . . until they no longer need them.
It’s in this ellipsis that therapists work.
Meanwhile, back on my couch, clutching the tissue box, a small part of me knows something too. As much as I want validation, somewhere inside, I know that Wendell’s load of garbage is precisely what I’m paying him for, because if I just want to complain about Boyfriend, I can do that for free, with my family and friends (at least until their patience runs out). I know that often people create faulty narratives to make themselves feel better in the moment even though it makes them feel worse over time—and that sometimes, they need somebody else to read between the lines.
But I also know this: Boyfriend is a goddamn motherfucking selfish sociopath.
I’m in that space between knowing and not knowing.
“That’s all we can do with this today,” Wendell says, and following his gaze, I notice for the first time that his clock has been resting on the windowsill over my shoulder. He lifts his arms and gives his legs two loud pats as if to punctuate the session’s end, a gesture that I’ll soon come to recognize as his signature sign-off. Then he rises and escorts me to the door.
He says to let him know if I’d like to come back next Wednesday. I think about the week ahead, the void where Boyfriend used to be, and the comfort of, as Jen said, having a place to completely fall apart.
“Sign me up,” I say.
I walk across the street to the lot where I used to park for my bikini waxes, and I feel both lighter and like I might vomit. A supervisor once likened doing psychotherapy to undergoing physical therapy. It can be difficult and cause pain, and your condition can worsen before it improves, but if you go consistently and work hard when you’re there, you’ll get the kinks out and function so much better.
I check my phone.
A text from Allison:
Remember, he’s trash.
An email from a patient needing to move her session.
A voicemail from my mom wondering if I’m okay.
No message from Boyfriend. I’m still hoping he’ll call. I can’t understand how he could be fine while I’m suffering so much. At least, he seemed fine when we coordinated my returning his belongings this morning. Had he gotten through his sadness months ago, knowing that eventually he was going to end things? If so, how could he have kept talking about our future together? How could he send I love you emails just hours before what was to become our last conversation, at the start of which we made movie plans for the weekend? (Did he go see the movie? I wonder.)
I start to stew again on the drive to the office. By the time I pull into my building’s parking garage, I’m thinking about the fact that not only has Boyfriend wasted two years of my life, but now I’m going to have to deal with the fallout by going to therapy, and I don’t have time for any of this because I’m in my forties now and half my life is over and . . . oh my God, there it is again! Half my life is over. I’ve never said that to myself or anyone else before. Why does it keep popping up?
You’re grieving something bigger, Wendell had said.
But I forget all about this as soon as I step into the elevator at work.
8
Rosie
“Well, it’s official,” John says after slipping off his shoes and sitting cross-legged on the sofa. “I’m surrounded by idiots.”
His phone vibrates. As he reaches for it, I raise my eyebrows. In return, John gives me an exaggerated eye roll.
It’s our fourth session together, and I’ve started to form some initial impressions. I get the sense that, despite all the people surrounding him, John is desperately isolated—and that this is by design. Something in his life has made getting close seem dangerous, so dangerous that he does everything in his power to prevent it. His arsenal is effective: He insults me, goes on long tangents, changes the subject, and interrupts whenever I attempt to speak. But unless I can find a way to get past his defenses, we’ll have no chance of making headway.
One of these defenses is his cell phone.
Last week, after John began texting in session, I brought his attention to my experience of feeling dismissed when he texts. This is called working in the here-and-now. Instead of focusing on a patient’s stories from the outside world, the here-and-now is about what’s occurring in the room. You can bet that whatever a patient does with his therapist, he also does with others, and I wanted John to begin to see the impact he had on people. I knew I ran the risk of pushing too far too soon, but I remembered a detail about his earlier therapy: It had lasted just three sessions, exactly where we were. I didn’t know how long I’d have with him.
I was guessing that John had left his previous therapist for one of two reasons: either she didn’t call him on his bullshit, which makes patients feel unsafe, like children whose parents don’t hold them accountable; or she did call him on his bullshit, but she moved too fast and committed the same mistake I was potentially about to make. I was willing to risk it, though. I wanted John to feel comfortable in therapy but not so comfortable that I wasn’t helping him.
Above all, I didn’t want to fall into the trap that Buddhists call idiot compassion—an apt phrase, given John’s worldview. In idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.
“You know, John,” I’d said the week before as he texted away, “I’m curious if you have any reaction to my feeling dismissed when you do this.”
He held up a finger—Hang on—but continued to text. When he finished, he looked up at me. “Sorry, what was I saying?”