So I let John take his time to sort out his feelings about Margo’s “threat” and the softer message that might be behind it. I haven’t seen him sit with his feelings this long before, and I’m impressed that he’s able to do so now.
John’s eyes have darted down and to the side, which is what usually happens with someone when what I’m saying touches someplace vulnerable, and I’m glad. It’s impossible to grow without first becoming vulnerable. It looks like he’s still really taking this in, that for the first time, his impact on Margo is resonating.
Finally John looks back up at me. “Hi, sorry, I had to mute you back there. They were taping. I missed that. What were you saying?”
Un-fucking-believable. I’ve been, quite literally, talking to myself. No wonder Margo wants to leave! I should have listened to my gut and had John reschedule an in-person session, but I got sucked in by his urgent plea.
“John,” I say, “I really want to help you with this but I think this is too important to talk about on Skype. Let’s schedule a time for you to come in so there aren’t so many distract—”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” he interrupts. “This can’t wait. I just had to give you the background first so you can talk to him.”
“To . . .”
“The idiot therapist! Clearly he’s only hearing one side of the story, and not a very accurate side at that. But you know me. You can vouch for me. You can give this guy some perspective before Margo really goes nuts.”
I noodle this scenario around in my head: John wants me to call my own therapist to discuss why my patient isn’t happy with the therapy my therapist is doing with my patient’s wife.
Um, no.
Even if Wendell weren’t my therapist, I wouldn’t make this call. Sometimes I’ll call another therapist to discuss a patient if, say, I’m seeing a couple and a colleague is seeing one member of the couple, and there’s a compelling reason to exchange information (somebody is suicidal or potentially violent, or we’re working on something in one setting that it would be helpful to have reinforced in another, or we want to get a broader perspective). But on these rare occasions, the parties will have signed releases to this effect. Wendell or no Wendell, I can’t call up the therapist of my patient’s wife for no clinically relevant reason and without both patients signing consent forms.
“Let me ask you something,” I say to John.
“What?”
“Do you miss Margo?”
“Do I miss her?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to call Margo’s therapist, are you?”
“I’m not, and you’re not going to tell me how you really feel about Margo, are you?” I have a feeling that there’s a lot of buried love between John and Margo because I know this: love can often look like so many things that don’t seem like love.
John smiles as I see somebody who I assume is Tommy again enter the frame holding a script. I’m flipped toward the ground with such speed that I get dizzy, as if I’m on a roller coaster that just took a quick dive. Staring at John’s shoes, I hear some back-and-forth about whether the character—my favorite!—is supposed to be a complete asshole in this scene or maybe have some awareness that he’s being an asshole (interestingly, John picks awareness) and then Tommy thanks John and leaves. To my amusement, John seems perfectly pleasant, apologizing to Tommy for his absence and explaining to him that he’s busy “putting out a fire with the network.” (I’m “the network.”) Maybe he’s polite to his coworkers after all.
Or maybe not. He waits for Tommy to leave, then lifts me up to face level again and mouths, Idiot, rolling his eyes in Tommy’s direction.
“I just don’t understand how her therapist, who’s a guy, can’t see both sides of this,” he continues. “Even you can see both sides of this!”
Even me? I smile. “Was that a compliment you just gave me?”
“No offense. I just meant . . . you know.”
I do know, but I want him to say it. In his own way, he’s becoming attached to me, and I want him to stay in his emotional world a bit longer. But John goes back to his tirade about Margo pulling the wool over her therapist’s eyes and how Wendell is a quack because his sessions are only forty-five minutes, not the typical fifty. (This bugs me too, by the way.) It occurs to me that John is talking about Wendell the way a husband might talk about a man his wife has a crush on. I think he’s jealous and feels left out of whatever goes on between Margo and Wendell in that room. (I’m jealous too! Does Wendell laugh at Margo’s jokes? Does he like her better?) I want to bring John back to that moment when he almost connected with me.
“I’m glad that you feel understood by me,” I say. John gets a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face for a second, then moves on.
“All I want to know is how to deal with Margo.”
“She already told you,” I say. “She misses you. I can see from our experience together how skilled you are at pushing away people who care about you. I’m not leaving, but Margo’s saying she might. So maybe you’ll try something different with her. Maybe you’ll let her know that you miss her too.” I pause. “Because I might be wrong, but I think you do miss her.”
He shrugs, and this time when he looks down, I’m not on mute. “I miss the way we were,” he says.
His expression is sad instead of angry now. Anger is the go-to feeling for most people because it’s outward-directed—angrily blaming others can feel deliciously sanctimonious. But often it’s only the tip of the iceberg, and if you look beneath the surface, you’ll glimpse submerged feelings you either weren’t aware of or didn’t want to show: fear, helplessness, envy, loneliness, insecurity. And if you can tolerate these deeper feelings long enough to understand them and listen to what they’re telling you, you’ll not only manage your anger in more productive ways, you also won’t be so angry all the time.
Of course, anger serves another function—it pushes people away and keeps them from getting close enough to see you. I wonder if John needs people to be angry at him so that they won’t see his sadness.
I start to speak, but somebody yells John’s name, startling him. The phone slips out of his hand and careens toward the floor, but just as I feel like my face might hit the ground, John catches it, bringing himself back into view. “Crap—gotta go!” he says. Then, under his breath: “Fucking morons.” And the screen goes blank.
Apparently, our session is over.
With time to spare before my next session, I head into the kitchen for a snack. Two of my colleagues are there. Hillary is making tea. Mike’s eating a sandwich.
“Hypothetically,” I say, “what would you do if your patient’s wife was seeing your therapist, and your patient thought your therapist was an idiot?”
They look up at me, eyebrows raised. Hypotheticals in this kitchen are never hypothetical.
“I’d switch therapists,” Hillary says.
“I’d keep my therapist and switch patients,” Mike says.
They both laugh.
“No, really,” I say. “What would you do? It gets worse: He wants me to talk to my therapist about his wife. His wife doesn’t know he’s in therapy yet, so it’s a non-issue now, but what if at some point he tells her and then wants me to consult with my therapist about his wife, and his wife consents? Do I have to disclose that he’s my therapist?”