THERAPY
I hate going to my therapist.I definitely need it, but that does not enhance the enjoyment. Teenagers don’t generally like talking about stuff that hurts them. I go every week on Tuesday after school, and every time it seems to be just as bad of an experience. The therapist (or social worker, I forget what he really is) Bobby is a nice enough guy, but I always feel like I am trying to be cured.
My depression isn’t going to disappear if we just believe and push through it hard enough. I am not saying I want my depression to stay, I am saying that if I could feel like an actual person instead of a diagnosis with him, that would be great. This particular session in late March was a good example of the typical session between us.
(The scene is set in none other than Bobby’s small, cramped office. With white concrete walls and soft, thin gray carpet, there is a desk with trinkets and pictures of his wife and kids, along with perhaps the largest collection of pens in a cup I have ever seen. He looks at me with his big spotlight eyes and a stupid handlebar mustache.)
Bobby: (crossing his legs and adjusting his notepad in his lap) How are you doing? What has been going on in the last week?
Me: Nothing really.
Bobby: (laughs a little) Not anything?
Me: Basically.
Bobby: How would you rate your depression on average this week?
Oh yeah, that. He always asks me this, to rate how high my depression was on a scale of 1 to 10. He keeps track of it in his notepad and on some weird computer graph thing. I never really know how to respond, because I have never been able to measure a feeling. I feel okay or I do not. I feel stupid or I do not. Depression often starts slow, manifesting in the tiny things, growing from there. Sort of like a mind virus that keeps coming back.
Me: I dunno.
Bobby: Well, was it higher than last week? Lower? Somewhere in the middle?
Me: (looking down) I really don’t know.
Bobby: (thinking. I know this because he always does this little "huhhhh" noise under his breath that sounds like what you do when its cold out and wants to see your breath form a dragonesque cloud) Try closing your eyes and thinking about your week, starting with Sunday and ending with our session right now, key moment by key moment. Do you think you have had more good moments or more bad?
I don’t even need to close my eyes to know the answer.
Me: There have been more bad days.
Bobby: Okay. Well, what do you think triggered all those bad moments? (pauses) In other words, why was it a bad week and not a good week?
Me: (just shrugs)
He asks a lot of questions, and I do not know the answers. I want the answers, he just doesn’t really help me get them. Everything he says seems so weird to me. I just don’t want this burden anymore.
Me: Maybe I was just...not having a good week?
Bobby: No rhyme or reason, just episodes being triggered for some seemingly random reason? Like that?
Me: (nods in agreement) Maybe, yeah.
Bobby: That can be very discouraging.
Me: (nods again)
Bobby: (clears his throat) I would encourage to try to, in this next week, try to pay extra attention to your moods, and how they change. Maybe that way we could narrow down some specific triggers and learn how to cope with them and help you out.
Me: (nods for the third time, the action growing redununct. It makes me feel stupid) Okay.
Bobby: Are you sure you do not have any idea what triggered it? Maybe that’s what we could also work on today, narrowing down the ideas for possible triggers. Do you think that would be helpful?
Me: Sure. (fidgets with my hands, still looking down)
And so we do. But no matter what happens in that session, no matter what the chosen topic is, once I am back in the normal environment, my thoughts start that slow cycle. The beginning is optimism. After a rough start, after Bobby and I´s session is done and he is chatting up my mom, and I think about it all. Maybe this could work, this could help save me. My mom drives me home, and I look out the window, thinking. She usually asks me if I am okay, which I respond with yes, which is the absolute truth. In that car ride, I usually wonder why I was even depressed in the first place. I have a family, a cat, a decent school, even a few friends. I was going to stick to Bobby’s plan for me.
Arriving home is when things steadily go downhill. I step out of the car and feel the cool air, look at my neighborhood, which is quiet and small and peaceful. It all hits me suddenly, and my stomach does a weird flip flop within itself. I head inside and start doubting my optimism. I was stupid for believing anybody could fix me. Everything’s mocking you with its niceness.
I go to my room and close the door, cursing mentally. I pace and think and think and think. Things only get worse from there. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I sigh and think more and sigh even more than I think.
Me: (under my breath) Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Just...ugh.
I really need help, and my therapist should help. I want my therapist to help. But something with my stupid brain won’t let it. I’m on my own in this fight.
