"Aiutare"

Dear Ether, 

I don’t like to speak to anyone in Dr. W’s (my psychiatrist) waiting room.  I specifically arrive 10 minutes early before each session to gather my thoughts.  To collect myself and think about what I’d like to cover that day.  Unfortunately, he shares office space with other doctors, so I often have to sit with other patients. Everyone tends to mind their own business.  The crackly stereo plays classical music from the public radio station.  Eyes tend to stare down at laps. 

But every Thursday, whilst waiting for my 1:15 appointment, I’m always left alone with an Italian woman.  She’s in her late 30’s.  Severe black hair in a chignon.  Badly painted lips in a brick red. A dowdy outfit.  I know as soon as she walks in, flicks the button to let her therapist know she’s arrived, she’s going to begin conversing with me.  She doesn’t seem to notice my body language, my monosyllabic answers.  She often repeats the same things in a very heavy accent. 

“Ciao.  You look GORGEOUS. Always so stylish.  Oh, I wish I was like you.” Let’s just say I don’t wear my Sunday’s finest when I attend therapy, so I think she says this as an opening line to everyone.  I always smile, nod my head, thank her, and look down.  She continues.  “This week, so bad.  I am unwell.  SO unwell.  I drove 1 hour to get here and cried the whole way.  I think something is poor with my medicine.”  This is when she starts to cry—some more, I presume.  Now, I’m not in the best state either, and I don’t know how to deal with her.  She’s a total stranger, and I don’t know if she’s schizophrenic or has some other mental illness.  I attempt to calm her.  Ask her about Italy.  But she has a one-track mind.  She sometimes reaches to grab my hand.  I don’t like this at all.  Now I know this seems so cruel and cold.  But, I can’t stand being touched by strangers.  I’m also slightly scared of her.  She continues, “Please.  Help me?  You look like you can help me.”  I tell her, as I do every week, that I too am here because I have troubles and that I wish I could do something for her.  Then, like snapping out of some trance, she begins to overly compliment me about some item of my outfit again.  

Finally Dr. W. fetches me, and her eyes follow me as I leave.  I’ve told him about her.  He says he’ll speak with her doctor.  But nothing ever changes.  This has gone on for almost a year. 

On December 10^th—my Thursday appointment, as per usual, I walk in to see Dr. W.  I finally have peace as the Italian woman (I do not know her name) does not show.  What relief.  Maybe she has gone home for Christmas.  Dr. W. fetches me, I smile and crack a joke saying that the “Princepessa” has allowed me to think for once with her absence.  That I have some good things to chat about today.  Without any emotion, he tells me that she had actually hanged herself the previous week.  No one had found her for a few days.  She had no friends.  It was the smell which had alerted people of her death.  I nod my head up and down–eyes blinking, taking it in.   “You know, I spent a year with that woman.  1 day a week for 10 minutes.  She always asked for help .  And each time she annoyed me.  I’m sure that’s how she everyone treated her. And, I know I couldn’t have changed her fate, but maybe I could have made 10 minutes of her day a bit happier.” 

I guess, through my selfish behavior, I got my wish.  I no longer had to speak with anyone in the waiting room.  But gathering my thoughts in the waiting room—forget it.  All I’ll be picturing each Thursday–for a while at least–is a woman with raven colored hair, bloody colored lipstick and alabaster skin dangling from the ceiling.  What would 10 minutes have been out of 52 weeks?  Less than an hour?  Shame on me.  

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365

This is Freud's room recreated in his home on Hampstead, North London. You can clearly see the famous couch many heads perched on during sessions. Though I do not lie on a couch when I go to therapy, the couch represents the center of the room. The most important piece of furniture. It is where the patient collects their thoughts, discusses and learns. I have always held my sessions as a special place for me to escape. A womb-like arena (not as beautiful as Freud's) that allows me to be open and honest without any judgement. On Thursday, my womb will be invaded by English gent. My name will be spoken many times. But I shall not be there. I have many mixed emotions--loss of trust, fear, anger--even hope. And I know that this womb is not just mine---many bodies enter it. But, none of them have ever spoken my name without me being present. I wonder how many "Freudian Slips" will occur on Thursday?

Dear Ether,

English gent has stolen Dr. W. Yep, it is official.  MY therapist and MY partner have now booted me out of the loop. Okay.  I’ll tell you the whole story, but here’s the irony. YOU GUYS are now my only source of therapy for the moment (well, at least until next Tuesday) and what’s even worse:  I’M footing the bill!!!!  

English gent and I have been going to therapy together for about 6 sessions now because our relationship has been in a really terrible rut of late.  He blames me for bringing him to Los Angeles and to this concrete grave of misery and I am angry at him for so many reasons, all you have to do is hit the sidebar under “English gent” or “Love” and you can read why.  It was my idea we start therapy because I felt that we needed a mediator–someone who could be in the middle and help us through our discussions (which normally end  in him walking out of a room needing a cigarette or me diving under the duvet crying and dreaming of the life I thought I should have had).  Dr. W took to the English gent (and to be fair, the old therapist has a soft spot for me too) and really wanted to help us.  So one session turned into many and we started to really open up.  But English gent was getting angry.  He felt that it was well and good that we spoke about our feelings in our sessions, but that nothing happened outside the 45 minutes that changed anything in reality.  He said today was his LAST session with Dr. W.  Now of course I was infuriated.  I felt really trapped and frustrated.  If English gent stopped going to see Dr. W, then what?  I mean, we obviously couldn’t handle this relationship problem on our own and we don’t have any other confidants, so what were we going to do?  

I slept until 2pm today, that’s how gutted I was.

3pm rolls around and with my face sullen and sombre we take our seats on the couch in Dr. W’s office.  English gent talks about how angry he is with me.  That I don’t act as a woman should when I expect him to act as a man should (this might be a good point—but his version of acting like a “woman should” is doing laundry, cooking, cleaning….you get my drift…..and as long as he has known me…..that just IS NOT me…….so I was really fucked off…….and my idea of what a “MAN” should be is having money to support himself, having good enough credit to have a fucking credit card for Christ’s sake, being able to drive and not have me chauffeur him around, buy me a thing or two every so often…….but no…….he is  a stinking baby who still calls his mother “Mumma” in Russian.  Kill me).  Then he goes on to say that I’m unsupportive of his work.  Ethers, he sits in the office all day doing work for his business abroad as a freelancer and makes it very clear he doesn’t want to be disturbed.  He is on English time so he drinks Red Bull’s 5 times a day (which are like $2 a pop, chugs coffee after coffee like it’s water and smokes at least a pack a day…have I mentioned he is up until 5am most nights?)  We never go anywhere together because I can’t pay for both of us.  We are stuck in this house and are ironically so far apart is is pathetic.  I’ll leave it up to your imagination to wonder what our sex life is like (he is 27–you’d think he’d be rearing to go—and truthfully, I haven’t been less interested since before puberty, anyway).  It’s dire straits.  It’s always a threat of, “I have a return ticket back to England, why don’t I just go?” Or I say, “This isn’t working anymore, but I don’t know what to do because I don’t want to lose you in my life and I know if we end like this and you fly back to London, I’ll never see you again.”  Ethers, am I bound to grow old with a man who I bicker with?  Where we’re just angry companions, but stuck together because we care for each other from memories and a feeling of family?  And if he goes, I know I will always wonder if I lost the great love of my life because we went through a bad patch and maybe couldn’t work through it.  I mean, no one is gonna be happy in their late 20’s living with parents with no money, no license, no visa, no job (the list can go on).  And me!  You guys know I am dying for that golden ticket.  And soon, that will fade and stop shining and I’ll just be and ugly old hag that no one will want—then that will be the final nail in my coffin.  

So why do we stay together?  Why is the question he and I have been asking for almost a decade.  And we come up with so many pros and so many cons.  Our great times and our hideous times toughing it out.  No one knows either of us better than we know each other.  We are too afraid to let go.  I know many of you would say it’s like a plaster/Band-Aid.  Rip it off fast and it hurts less.  No. No.  I can’t even imagine the idea of unveiling the wound that the bandage shows underneath.  The last look in his eyes before he boarded the plane with no return ticket.  The last time I’d smell his neck.  The smell of his body on the sheets when I returned home from that agonizing drive.  The few gifts he gave me.  The albums full of memories.  8 YEARS OF MY LIFE SHARED WITH HIM.  Every reference of my 20’s with HIM.  Help me Ethers.  But please, don’t tell me yet to leave him.  Please?  Can you try to be constructive?  Can we go into salvation mode 1st?  I beg you out of desperation.

I’ve lost track of where I was.  Right. So. I cannot make it to our twice weekly session the second time being this Thursday, because I have a meeting and then an event to cover.  So what did Dr. W suggest?  That English get come sans me.  I was shocked.  He is MY therapist. The guy I pay.  The man I introduced English gent to.  And now THEY are going to have a pow-wow about ME behind my back?  Yes, yes, yes.  I know.  This will be all fine and dandy.  He’ll get to say his piece and Dr. W might coach him and this is only to help.  But I feel so vulnerable.  As I chauffeur him to that session, I wonder, how many times will my name be mentioned and what will be said?  And the truth is I have NO right to ask.

I wish I was free.  That I could be 21, just out of school and fresh.  I wish this was the beginning.  That I had more time.  That I hadn’t made so many mistakes and hadn’t given into love so fast and hard.  Some of us do it easier than others.  I’m a sucker.  I’ll keep you updated, as you guys are now my clearest and cleanest form of therapy.  Thank you for listening.  I just wish I wasn’t sitting here with my face full of tears and the tops of my hand wet with the drippings of the falling droplets all over them.  What a mess—in so many way—what a giant mess.

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365