Therapy

Warning: language! I can edit out if needed!

“Can you get me a peach pill? And you might as well get me the white one too. Grab the nitro paste while you’re in there, I’m gonna need it,” Callum says, “Don’t know what this therapy is supposed to be about anyway.” He can already feel his blood pressure rising. Maybe he should also take an extra orange pill too, just in case? Why not, he’s already taken a whole rainbow this morning.

Blythe walks back into the kitchen with the pills, nitro paste and patches, and blood pressure cuff. “We tried it your way and all the therapist did was talk at us the whole time,” Blythe says. “I thought maybe we could try this way, just once and see how it goes? We don’t have to do it again if you don’t like it.” 

The cell phone comes to life on the table so she slides the screen to answer the call and presses the speaker button for them both to hear.

“Hello Callum and Blythe! I’m so glad you decided to join me for therapy today. Let me tell you a little bit about the process. Journal therapy involves writing exercises using prompts that will bring about awareness and improve your mental health. It is through intentional writing that you will be able to reflect and communicate better with one another physically, emotionally, spiritually, and healthily. Journal therapy will help me to help you reach your goals,” Dr. Sherman’s voice is loud and confident on the cell phone in the center of the kitchen table where it sits like an uninvited centerpiece. 

“The act of writing things down often relieves tension and can help to clarify what the issues truly are. As with all things in life, this is a process, and you need to trust this process. Each session will begin with a prompt. You both have 5-10 minutes to write freely and then we will be able to really dig in.

Since this is our first time meeting, let’s set the timer at five minutes and see how we do. Your first prompt is: top ten low points in your life. I’ll start the timer now.”

Blythe begins typing rapidly on her laptop, her fingers flying over her keyboard.

One: The car that my grandmother left me in her will, that I owned for approximately three weeks, I totaled in a snowstorm. Three weeks. My grandmother’s car. The car she left me. The car she treasured. The car that she and I had taken so many trips in to take her to her chemo treatments or for ice cream. We had so many memories in that car together. And I wrecked it within the first month.

Two: I once broke every bone in my head from the neck up. Yes. Every bone. Concussion, eye sockets, nose, jaw. Every bone. Was it painful? My face versus the dashboard of a car? Yes, it was quite painful. However, in looking at the broken bones and the totaled car and all that ensued, the biggest tragedy was that it put my career on hold for a year. I was a new graduate and the recovery period stole a whole year of my life. AND, I had totaled my Grandmother’s car AGAIN. This time it was gone and I wasn’t getting it back. I’d lost the one thing my Grandmother had left to me. She trusted me with her car and I couldn’t take care of it. She must have been watching over me though as I walked away from both accidents and no one else was seriously injured in either accident. 

Three: My Grandmother never met my husband. She was my person. She taught me how to sew. She taught me cross-stitching. Our tablecloth won a Blue Ribbon in the County Fair! She taught me how to make homemade noodles and pierogies. She tried to teach me how to speak Polish and how to roll my r’s. She loved to sit at her kitchen table and drink weak tea and make butter worms on saltine crackers with me. We would walk the perimeter of her house and she would teach me the names of all the colorful flowers she had planted. She put on a dress on the day she thought I was bringing him over to meet her. She was more likely to be wearing a pair of shorts and a sheen of sweat. Her hands loved to be working: in her vegetable gardens, flower gardens, cooking, or sewing. She sewed all of my Barbie Doll clothes! I was too scared she wouldn’t like him, so I stood her up. She died before his next visit. I regret this decision every day. Maybe this should be my number one tragedy? Are we supposed to go in order of importance here? 

Four: We lost a baby at Hershey Park. How do you lose a baby at Hershey Park? We were there on a family vacation with our children. We were expecting another child and then we were no longer expecting another child. I can’t even eat a Hershey bar anymore let alone think about Hershey Park.

Five: A person skips one mammogram and then all hell breaks loose. The doctors promised me that even if I had gone the year before, the cancer wouldn’t have been detected at that time anyway. I think they were just trying to make me feel better. Either way, the cancer was here and it needed to be removed. Now. So off with the boobs! And that was what was done. Lots of fun drugs and appointments and five years later, that tragedy is behind. 

Six: Falling down the basement stairs and breaking two bones in my leg (due to weakened bones from the cancer drugs) and now setting myself up for eight weeks of casting and months of physical therapy. I don’t have the sick time to be taking more days off from work. I need to save all of my sick days. I’m not sure this even counts as a low point. It’s a broken bone. I fell down the stairs. Big deal. People break bones all the time. I am embarrassed that I even wrote this down. 

Seven: ...You know, it’s not as easy as you think to come up with a list of low points as you might think. You should try it. You may discover you are left with more blessings than low points. For example, my husband has been deployed twice and came back in one piece to us. I’ve been a single parent for most of our married life due to the fact that he was in the Army and away a LOT, but we’ve done alright. Another blessing is that my children are healthy, wise, and wonderful. We lost a nephew to leukemia and another niece with multiple sclerosis, so we know there are scary things out there. We have been lucky enough to have healthy children. And, the tiny car accidents that they have had have all been minor so far, so that is excellent. Also, we have all traveled quite a bit and taken vacations and studied abroad. We are very fortunate. Our parents are alive and well. We are very much blessed. 

You are taught from a very young age that life begins with “Once upon a time…” there lived a prince and a princess and some fairy godmothers and some magic. Sprinkled in there will be some magic beans and probably a dark witch or evil tree but a sparkling unicorn slides over the rainbow to save the day. At the end everyone, now say it with me...lives HAPPILY EVER AFTER!  

Wake up and smell the green tea (you drink what you drink and I’ll drink what I drink). LIsten closely when I tell you this: you are living your happily ever after. Warts and all. When you realize you are sitting at the dinner table with your three children who are arguing over who set the table last and who has to clear the table and who has to rinse the dishes and put them into the dishwasher and then suddenly someone spills her glass of milk and it is in your husband’s lap and he starts swearing like a truck driver...and you catch your husband’s eyes as you hand him the dish towel to dry off his pants. In that moment you see the blue eyes you fell in love with, and the hint of a smirk and the glint in his eye as you both start to laugh at the chaos that is now your life. This is your happily ever after. Soak it up. As Frost would say, Nothing gold can stay. 

“That’s fuckin’ bullshit!” Callam says as he peers over her shoulder. “She threw that glass of milk at me when I told her that she had to do the dishes and you know it! Happily ever after BS my ass!”

She quickly closes the laptop. “We are supposed to be writing our own low points. You write it your way; I’ll write it my way.” Blythe hadn’t even heard him moving up behind her as she was so lost in her words and memories. She should have been more aware of where he was in the room.

Callum stares at his cursor blinking. The white screen sitting there mocking him, silently reminding him of the white snowstorm that took his freedom away three years ago. Low points? What kind of therapist asks their patients to talk about low points? Is Dr. Depression trying to lose patients or keep patients? He glances over at his wife who sits with her laptop closed. She hasn’t reopened it yet. She stares out the window, pointedly not looking at him. At least she didn’t start that bullshit crying routine. He starts to type using his one good finger, the thumb on his right hand. This might take a while.

My low point is that I am trapped. I am trapped inside my own body. I cannot move my legs or arms. I am trapped inside the house. I cannot open doors or windows. I cannot open a refrigerator or cupboard to feed myself. I cannot use the bathroom. I cannot stand up. I cannot shake your hand. I cannot drive. I can’t leave the house without assistance. I cannot drink without a straw. I cannot feed myself without a special fork. I cannot cut up my own food. I cannot pick up a sandwich. I cannot hold your hand. I can barely type. I cannot hold a glass. I cannot hold a remote control. I cannot hold a book or turn a page. I cannot brush my own teeth without assistance. I cannot shower or bathe myself. I cannot use the toilet by myself. I can’t pee standing up. I cannot transfer myself from wheelchair to bed. I lost my job. I am a human vegetable because of a slip and fall on a snowy driveway. How is that for a tragedy? I don’t think I need to list nine more. This is all bullshit. 

Callum stops typing. He can feel his blood pressure rising and needs to take a break. “I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Blythe? Callum?” the phone on the table startles the couple. Dr. Sherman says, “It sounds to me like we have a lot of work to do. Let’s get started…”