Your Poor Mother

Please describe your life in as few words as possible:  I feel like I am going to throw up.

It seems strange to me that the pre-examination paperwork included the above question. I understand the necessity for some sort of patient history, but in as few words as possible? The purpose of a psychologist is to provide a safe environment where someone can be comfortable enough to speak their mind. I guess the idea of being concise in a statement to the person who is supposed to understand you strikes me as odd. But who am I? I’m just the patient, what do I know. Ideally there would be a required pre-appointment, written explanation of what is wrong with you. Yes, what’s wrong with you. Because everyone will have something wrong with them.

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All I can ever come up with are bits and pieces of the larger picture. My ability to continue a single thought is virtually non-existent. Everything I have written in this document is vain, selfish, one-dimensional and far from worthwhile. I find it very strange that every time I delve into the one thing I am supposedly good at, and enjoy, I question whether or not this is truly a talent or if I just wish it could be. It makes me feel disgusting. I truly cannot differentiate between what I want to be versus who I am trying to be.

Self-hatred seems to be my only muse. It is far from difficult to put myself down. I have this circumstantially beneficial ability to talk myself into depression, anxiety, and anger. The irony behind the skill of emotional self-mutilation as the basis of my livelihood is overwhelming, but apparently not enough to deter me from feeding into it. Not only am I anxious, and depressed, and angry, but it turns out I am, too, an addict. Everything I detest about my body and mind is the fuel for my interests. It seems all too natural for addiction to drag me into a life of depression and anxiety, but what is to be done when my addiction is rock bottom?

An awareness of the totality of my issues would typically help me in overcoming that which holds me back, in a perfect world. I, however, have decided to abuse my setbacks in such a way to profit from my own misery.

When I walked into the office of Dr. Wayne Fillmon I was in no way doing it with an open mind. This person is supposed to stare at me, listen to me, and on the spot figure out a plan to tell me that I needed to rid my life of what it was I lived for. The horrific hilarity that would soon ensue was my front for not truly knowing what it was that I in fact lived for. I can’t hide behind my emotions whether I am in control of them or not. So to say that I live for my emotions rather than reacting to them scares me, hence my denial of living a reactive existence. I was convinced that there was no way I could be influenced or swayed to believe that I was better off without my misery.

Not only was I under the impression that Dr. Fillmon was “better than me” or in more control of my mind than I but he consistently made me feel worse about who I was in his responses and reactions to my thoughts and memories. At no point during our conversations did I ever feel as though I was in control of what was happening. I was asked questions, spoken to, I received advice and suggestions, and given pages in a workbook to complete. Again, call me crazy for having an opinion of myself, but I get the feeling that an anxious, depressed, angry self-loather might benefit from a bit of control. The more I recollect, the further from real the whole thing gets.

As I listen over and over to the thoughts and ideas and memories that cycle my negativity I realize that I never have definite statements. Everything seems one way or another. For someone who hates change, I am horrified of consistency to the point where not even the words I speak and ideas I think are given concrete definition. To make a short story shorter, this “doctor” of conversation certainly did not possess the ability to fix me, as he so selfishly tried to own me. For if he had, no one would know of this instance. He failed all of you. Although, all of this is under the pretense of public interest in what I have to say, fat chance.

Dr. Fillmon’s job during our first meeting is to screen me and get a basic understanding of my personality to ease his frustration of our newly established long-term relationship. Under this assumption I was ready to spill my guts and see my innards strewn across the doctor’s desk as he frantically scrambled to make sense of the bloody mess. I told him about my drug use and experimentation with alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, painkillers, LSD, and psilocybin right before I went into detail about the time I was forced to live despite my cries for mercy. Naturally there came a point in the conversation where he attempted to determine the underlying cause of the war I had declared on my body, I explained, “When I was thirteen it turned out my father was a sociopathic narcissist who walked out on my mother and I. Right before they got divorced I moved in with my grandparents while I was in high school. As a high school student I had statistically average grades, no desire to work hard, and was tormented daily by my peers. I attended three colleges hoping to find solace and a worthwhile education to no avail. Frustrated with the way my life was going, I needed a drastic change so I up and ran to Boston leaving my mother all alone. And now, I sit before you.”

Every other sentence I uttered evoked an all too emphasized reaction from the man who was supposed to remain unbiased and supportive. Other than a self assessment of his opinion there was only one true summation of thought that came from his mouth, “Your poor mother...”.

He sat there and stared waiting for me to acknowledge the fact that amongst all of my mistakes and missteps the most horrid was the idea that I could leave my mother alone the way I had. As a result, I couldn’t decide if I was angry because he obviously hadn’t listened or tried to care why it was that I was there or if I was beyond repair with sadness because I knew my true nature was inherently malicious. So instead of temporarily minimizing my mental capacity and easing my inner tension, Dr. Fillmon not only managed to make me feel worse about my decisions to leave home but he also created an emotional duality splitting my conscience in two. I was now walking through the world despising half of my personality, and pitying the other.

Speaking to a therapist can very easily be mistaken as a self-help technique. But sitting on that couch and cascading words off my tongue and over my lips helped me realize that the narcissism involved with “self-help” is overwhelming. No matter the content, my mind is stuck on, “Me, me, me, me, me, me, etc.”  So, for me, part of trying to make therapy work would be first to get over the fact that I have no choice but to finally be a part of my own life. There are few things more terrifying than the realization that, up until now, I have been living vicariously through myself. Then, to make things worse, the doctor asked for a single time where I could recall being confident in my thoughts. There was one, once.