Therapy

At the four-way intersection I narrowly dodge a Tiba 2, who narrowly dodges a Pride. Both their traffic lights are green. You’d think this would qualify as a near death experience, especially considering the roads are slick with Aban rain. But really, this is just another Tuesday in Tehran. Welcome to the city of contrasts: where immodest dressing is punishable by law and yet the level of PDA is surprisingly high. Where people drive like maniacs then pull over at the Wall of Kindness to leave spare clothes for strangers.

Zahra is early; no surprises there. Her eyes are downcast, also unsurprising what with the people in the waiting area. Mental note: ask secretary to make her wait inside my office next time. She spots me and smiles; a smile so open, so true, that I have to catch my breath.

“How was your week, Dr Q?” she asks as I turn on the lights. This is an old ritual; I act like the client until she is ready to.

“Not bad,” I say. “I finally finished my article on cognitive impairment and sent it off.”

As she follows up with more small talk, I notice two things. One, she is wearing her red scarf, which is soaked through. Two, I’m having trouble focusing. Normally I would have made several notes by now: Client playing with sofa seam, appears otherwise calm. Making occ. eye contact. Indicates improv. in soc anxiety factoring in waiting time. I shift in my seat and try taking a deep breath subtly.

But twenty minutes in, I am visibly sweating despite the open window and the 10 degree weather.

“You okay?” Zahra asks.

 I nod, wanting to reassure her but all too aware of my heartbeat, which I can tell is at least 140.

“Actually,” I say, getting to my feet and immediately regretting it, “I think I might be coming down with something. Shall we continue another time, Zahra?”

After she leaves I stick my head out the window and try every breathing technique I’ve ever taught. It has taken me a terrifying few minutes to realize that I am not dying. For the first time I really see what my clients mean: you forget everything you know; all you are is your physical symptoms. It is terror in its purest form. This will end, I try telling myself like I remember telling Zahra. Nobody has died of a panic attack.

***

Bahar is in her 50s and wears red framed glasses exactly like my mother’s. Most people don’t think therapists have therapists, but I can’t think of anyone who needs counselling more.

“Salam,” I plop down on her sofa and take the tea she offers me.

“Salam Maziyar,” she smiles. “How are you doing?”

“Sanctions, rising prices and pollution…it’s a miracle we’re still alive in this city.”

She smiles. It’s an old therapy trick, waiting for the client to fill in the silence. It almost always works.

“I had my first panic attack,” I tell her.

“What happened?”

“It was the single most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me, including everything I went through during the damned obligatory military service.”

“Where were you?”

“That’s what I don’t get. I was in the middle of a session with Zahra...”

“Any symptoms before the session?”

“No. And it’s the damnedest thing, but I can’t think of a single reason. She was wearing a red scarf… but that makes no sense as a trigger, does it?”

“What do you remember, right before?”

“I felt like I was dying. It felt strange, being on that end of it, you know? The whole thing must have lasted about seven minutes.”

“Tell me what you were thinking before those seven minutes.”

I look away.

“Mazi?” she repeats gently. Damn it. She knows only my mother called me that.

“The scarf was plastered to her head because it had been raining, and I… thought she looked beautiful. And there’s this smile she smiles when she sees me…It’s nice to be needed like that, even if you know it’ll be over when the treatment is over.”

“Who does she remind you of, Maziyar?”

“You think its transference?”

“Countertransference…but I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“I can’t think of anyone I might be transferring from…”

“Do you feel guilty? About how you feel towards Zahra?”

“I don’t even know what I feel. Just...the way my body acts when I’m around this girl. I mean, Arezoo is great, and we’re very happy together. You know this.”

“Are you attracted to her?”

“No... I don’t think so. Is it possible to care more about one of your clients? Do I feel responsible because she’s estranged from her family and has no-one? Or is it the way she is around me?”

“How is that?”

“She texts me just to know if I’m still there. She wants to come to the sessions but she’s clearly terrified about coming off as too needy. She’s attached. Dependent.”

“Tell me how she makes you feel.”

“Less lonely,” I say without thinking. “I mean, as an only child I always wanted siblings growing up. But I haven’t felt that way in years…”

“But you feel lonely? In a crowd, amongst friends?”

“At times. Lately more so, I think. Sometimes I feel like something is missing, but I can’t think of what it might be.”

“Next time you have this feeling, can you write it down?”

“I’m not sure what I should be writing…”

“Don’t worry about that. Put pen to paper. Doodle. Let it come to you.”

“Okay.”

“And Maziyar?”

I look at her. “It’s okay to be attracted to her, if that’s what this is. It doesn’t have to compromise your treatment of her. Not unless it turns into action, which you can definitely control.”

“Or if it gets too intrusive…” I add.

“We’ll deal with that when we get to it. For now, remember: you’re human. Your empathy is a big part of your treatment. You’re supposed to genuinely care. If you want my advice, stop fighting how much you care for this girl. Accept it, and take it one step at a time.”

That’s exactly what my mother would have said.

***

Something’s off about Zahra today. At first I can’t put my finger on it, then I realize: it’s her eyes. They’re usually reflective, animated or dark depending upon the subject. When she’s guarded she either looks away or hides her eyes. Today, her eyes are empty.

Half an hour and a few monosyllabic grunts later, I put my file aside and lean towards her. It will probably make her uncomfortable, but I need to get her attention.

“Alright, Zahra. What’s going on? Talk to me.”

An unfamiliar shadow passes over her face. Anger?

“You mean you really don’t know? You actually forgot?” when she finally speaks, her eyes are narrowed and her lip a thin line.

I look at her blankly. And then it dawns on me, both swiftly and slowly; like the clouds descending into your car on your way to the North. I was supposed to have a session with her yesterday.

I’ve never met her anger before. I’m happy for her for letting it out; the part of me not drenched in guilt anyway.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. It’s no excuse, but I’m dealing with some stuff and time got away from me. Are you okay?”

She looks away.

“Did you have a panic attack?”

She nods a tiny nod.

I stifle the urge to apologize profusely, to get her to make eye contact again. “Tell me what happened,” I ask instead.

“Fast heartbeat. Tightened chest. Short breaths. Numb hands and lips,” she recites, then gets up and faces the window. I register a fact that I have been observing since she came in: she keeps feeling something in her pocket.

“What’s in your pocket?” I ask.

She doesn’t reply. “Zahra? Is it drugs?”

She has her back to me, but I can see her shoulders heaving up and down from her deep breaths.

“I thought you said you were done with that,” I say, softer.

She spins around. “You don’t get to be mad at me,” she says, but she is the one that is furious. 

“I’m not mad,” I say.

“No, you’re disappointed, which is worse. But you’re the one that left me waiting out in the cold for forty minutes and didn’t bother to call. You forgot about me.

I counted on you. You were all I had, and you knew that. You listened, and you made me feel like you were there for me. You left me by myself with her while you worked, and I never saw you.”

She is no longer talking to me. But this is what I am here for; I am the perpetual stand-in.

“There were always people in the house,” she continues. “Did you know it made me feel like my nerve endings were on the outside? Like my heart would claw its way out of my throat? I would have told you, if you had asked, that I needed a quiet place, anywhere I could turn off the damned lights and just be...”

She’s sobbing, but she doesn’t stop.

“And then when she found the meth and I said I was going to leave, you didn’t stop me. You left me, long before I left. You don’t get to be disappointed.”

She sinks into the sofa. When I’m sure she is done, I speak.

“No,” I say. “I don’t. “I’m so sorry for everything I put you through. But guess what? I’m so proud of how far you’ve come. And Zahra?”

I wait till she makes eye contact. “Your dad is too.”

After she leaves I wait about forty seconds, then grab my jacket and hit the lights on my way out. I see her a little ways ahead, so I keep my pace slow. We’re at the edge of the city; there aren’t any street lights here.

I follow her all the way to Farahzad Valley. It’s easy because I know this is where she’s headed, even as I’m hoping it isn’t. I know this is where she lived for a year after she ran away from home. The place ends on a steep slope towards the Forty Steps that are mostly in ruins now. She’ll have to come back this way, and I can see almost every makeshift tent from behind this tree, so I stop.

She passes by every reject of society who is lighting up shisheh or whatever they could get their hands on, and stops outside a tent. A girl in her twenties stubs out her cigarette when she sees Zahra and they embrace. Of course. I realize this must be the friend that helped Zahra get clean. I sigh in relief as a man on the ground in a haze of pot smiles a toothless smile at me. I smile back.

This city might be full of addicts, but they’re addicts who’ll offer you whatever you have in the spirit of Iranian hospitality. Sometimes I forget that this is a city where people genuinely want to hear the answer to 'how do you do'. Where it is not embarrassing to be wrong as long as you vehemently (and preferably loudly) believe in it. Because it takes courage of a certain kind to spill your guts to a complete stranger and go on your way as if you did it every day.

***

“I’m having nightmares again,” I tell Bahar in lieu of a greeting. “And I forgot a session with Zahra.”

“Sit down, Mazi,” she says, but I shake my head. “How did Zahra take it?”

“She had a panic attack,” I say ruefully. “She was pissed at me. But it led to a purging. It was good, I suppose. But I forgot, Bahar. I wasn’t doing anything. I just forgot. What is happening to me? Am I losing it?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Why am I having the same dream over and over?”

“Was there anything new, in addition to the fir trees and the pond?”

I strain to remember. “The water’s almost frozen, there are lots of fir trees…from the perspective this time I think I’m a child. Yes… and… this time there’s a red scarf in the pond.”

Then I remember something else. “There’s a girl, I think. I’m not sure when she started showing up but it took me a while to place her because of how she looked…”

“What did she look like?”

“Me,” I say. “I think at first I didn’t notice her ‘cause I thought she was me. But it’s a girl… with my face. How bizarre is that?”

“You were an only child, right Maziyar?”

I want to say yes. But for the first time in my life I’m not so sure.

“It’s just…something my mother said before she died. She apologized and told me I wasn’t always alone. At the time I thought she meant that she would watch over me, but now…”

“You think she meant a sibling?”

“That can’t be right, can it?” I ask. For one, how could I not have known?

And yet. There’re fir trees in my parents' village. Ponds, too.

Bahar doesn’t need to answer. Trauma induced memory loss is real. I’ve seen it, I’ve treated it. Could I possibly be living it?

“Call your Dad. Better yet, go see him.” Bahar says. And as always, I will do as she asks.

***

I’m surprised by how frail my Dad looks, as if he is unfinished without my mother. After we’ve had dinner of bread, cheese and basil leaves, I take his hand. I feel a little foolish as I tell him of my dreams and sense of incompleteness. “What did Maman mean when she said I wasn’t always alone?”

Baba sighs. “I was hoping your mother would tell you this, but when she died, you were still a boy. I couldn’t burden you...”

I can’t believe it. I think up until this point I was hoping the dreams were a freak occurrence. “Burden with me what, Baba?”

“You were born one of two twins. You and Mariam were inseparable from birth. When you were four your mother took you to the pond to play. It only took a second...the lake was freezing, poor Mariam never had a chance. Your mother later said that there wasn’t even a sound.”

“And Mariam wore a red scarf that day?” I ask him.

“I think so, yes. Don’t think we ever saw the scarf again.”

I still have no memory of this, except of how it feels: real. “Why didn’t you tell me later?” I ask Baba, wiping a tear from his thin skin. Seeing your father cry is a milestone in adulthood.

“You wouldn’t sleep or eat for months afterwards. You’d scream bloody murder if we tried to bathe you. And then one day, you just seemed to be yourself again. You were quieter, for sure. But you stopped asking when Mariam would come back, and the doctors told us not to mention it again. I guess it made it easier for us, too, somehow. I’m sorry, Maziyar. We honestly thought you had forgotten.”

“I had,” I say. “I still don’t have any memory of Mariam. I wish I did.”

“She looked just like you,” he says. “It was hard to tell you apart.”

Then he smiles, like the sun emerging from behind the clouds.

“Would you like to see pictures?”

“I’d love to.”

***

On the drive back home, I am reminded of all the reasons I wanted to move to Tehran. And I realize that even though I miss the clean air, there are some things Iranians will always carry with them. Like their traditions of Yalda and Nowruz and saffron harvesting in the month of Aban, and their intellectual curiosity. Like the smell of freshly baked nan in the morning, and their love for camping and all things outdoors. Like their poetry and art. Some might think that men not giving up their place on a packed metro to women isn’t gallant – until you realize how literally Tehranians take gender equality. Here, people take chances, ask for what’s theirs, and men cry unashamedly. I have to admire a city where people say what they mean. I don’t know how not to.

 ***