5 about therapy

i. a letter

I’ve been writing you a letter about all the things I feel. It can be hard sometimes to open up, but there’s comfort and control in writing. It seems a little silly or misguided. I’m also not a letter writer generally. I’ve written a few before but never made a habit of it.

ii. glossy

Often we’re given a glossy interpretation of the work of therapy. In media, we see the deeply analytical therapist who helps a struggling client connect to a single incident in their past and, suddenly, heal. This resurgence of past trauma helps the client connect with their present self and, with the new knowledge of its origin, they learn to put aside their anxieties and move on.

The trope is so common it shows up as a joke in the Simpsons, where Marge, struggling with her fear of flying visits a therapist to recount various incidents in her past that might make her afraid. Ultimately she recalls running into her father, who she assumed was a pilot, wearing an apron and serving as a flight attendant. The memory embarrassed her enough to cause her a deep-rooted fear of flying.

“The important thing is we pinpointed the precise moment when you developed your fear of flying,” Marge’s therapist says. Marge then responds that some other stuff is coming back to her:

• Her grandmother fed her food as a baby, pretending to spoon is an airplane, but hitting her eye instead of her mouth.

• Her childhood toy airplane catching on fire

• Her mother and her being fired on by a plane in a cornfield, a not-so-subtle nod to Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.

“You think those things could have also contributed to my fear of flying?” Marge asks and, flippantly her therapist responds, “Yes, yes, it’s all a rich tapestry.”

iii. Concert

Together we go to a Charly Bliss concert. It’s been a rough week for me, I’m swapping meds and am on the lowest dose of an antidepressant I’ve been on in years. Plus I’m doing EMDR so my emotions are all over the place.

Someone important to me introduced me to Charly Bliss and then I in turn introduced them to you. I jokingly tell you that they keep releasing albums for significant moments in my life: a breakup, then an anniversary—though I suppose you could make everything meaningful if you twist it enough.

The venue is small, two stories. We spend the first hour up on the balcony, watching the opening act and counting the number of gay men that walk through the doors. When they start we move down to the floor. I’ve never liked crowds (even small ones) but with you, it feels different.

We are so different, even when it feels like we’re not. I’m high anxiety and lack self-esteem. I stand at concerts and fold my arms, lightly tapping my feet or gently nodding my head to the music. You jump up and down and sing along. I’m always attracted to the traits I wish I could embody.

iv. Branching

In therapy, we start from a single moment and branch outwards. We are tracing the history of the feeling and the origins of a worldview I’ve adopted as core to my identity.

While I sit and remember, my therapist sketches diagrams of my shame: sketchy lines and bubbles recreating the flowchart of my emotions. I think of Shame by Salman Rushdie and the complex family tree that guides the reader through the multi-generational story of shame and anger.

The starting branches are simple:

1. Feeling separated from my family

2. An ex leaves for Spain

3. Another mocks my voice and yells at me for taking a photo wrong

4. A simple ritual performed each night in a king sized bed

But simplicity isn’t so bad. After all, most stories are simple. I think of Kurt Vonnegut’s diagram of stories: the falling lines and plotted parabolas that mark the hero’s journey. Each story is complex and different, but still, the outlines are the same.

v.

You have been going about it the wrong way. Writing backward, hoping to uncover the meaning behind something long since past. Near the end of summer, you are reminded of metamorphosis: how things grow and change beyond their forms. The caterpillar, your therapist reminds you, emerges with wings, soaring high into the sky, no longer trapped by circumstance. Or the person transformed into a bug, wakes one morning to see a world staying normal, despite his twisted form.

You’ll cut and bleach your hair. Buy new clothes that fit your growing form.

You have been writing stories about falling in love. Letters of love to men taller than you with more facial hair. You have packed up your grief, carefully portioning it out to each story, compartmentalizing your experience into the confines of a short story.

Once, you were told that grief does not grow smaller. Closure, whatever that is, is a luxury, it's rarely given to all. Your body expands around your grief. It grows bigger than the initial seed. Soon, you will barely feel its presence. The proportions are out of sync.

One day you will wake up and feel that grief. Ride the familiar sting of it. Just for a moment. A brief flicker of sensation that travels up and down, bringing your body with it. It will be sunny, bright, early October and windy. You will be walking your dog or drinking coffee. You will think about writing a letter, to someone who leaves, but always returns.