A Counselee’s Week

I see my counselor, Susan, on Wednesdays.

On Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, I look forward to my next appointment.  I have conversations with Susan in my head, drawing on the memory of our last meeting and the many before that one.  I try to formulate her response to the things that frustrate and confuse me, like the seemingly normal conversation I had with a stranger that left me feeling angry and dirty and powerless.  Being unused to compassion, I practice it like a stubborn new sonata, transposing Susan’s kindness into the key of my everyday life.

Then on Sunday Jack and I rest from work and everything else, including imaginary conversations with therapists.  I read magazines and take a bath, or maybe two baths.

On Monday and Tuesday, I resume my imaginary conversations, but by then it’s been too many days since my last appointment and I’ve forgotten Susan.  Stronger and deeper memories eclipse her compassionate words from the previous week.  My imagination changes her into a more familiar figure, one whose kindness masks rage and disgust.  I try to win over this harsher imaginary counselor by being witty and insightful.  Then I worry about what she’ll think of me when I go back to her office and am not witty and insightful, but stumbling and confused.  I imagine she thinks I’m incompetent and wonders when someone at Mars Hill will tell me I’m not cut out to be a therapist.  On Monday and Tuesday, I’m afraid of Susan and her silent judgements.

When Wednesday comes again, I trudge in for my appointment, hoping to be witty and insightful, but within five minutes on her couch I’ve almost certainly a) stuttered, b) opened my mouth only to let out a tiny squeak, c) giggled inappropriately, or d) started crying.

A couple weeks ago I was in Susan’s office being particularly mean to myself, narrating the contempt that I’m convinced (on Mondays and Tuesdays) she feels toward me.  She had tears in her eyes during that hour, which I didn’t notice because I was too busy being afraid of her, but she pointed them out to me.  She asked if, in the following week, I would remember her compassion, or if I would instead believe the relentless criticism I project onto her.

I was honest… I told her I’d remember the compassion for a few days, then I’d have trouble holding on to it.  I didn’t tell her that Sunday is a day of rest from work and thinking about your therapist, and sometimes I take two baths, because that sounds crazy.

There are more technical ways to talk about therapy, using words like “transference” and “splitting” and “introject.”  But those words don’t feel right when it’s your life being examined, your heartache exposed, your butt on that damn couch.  I talk about my own counseling in pretty simple terms:  I’d like to remember Susan’s kindness from Wednesday to Wednesday.  Maybe once I can do that, her kindness toward me will become my own.