Oblivious

(Sensitive topics and foul language)

Once again, I sit here on the same worn-out leather sofa. The same dreary repetitive words fall from her mouth.

Again, and again, and again.

It causes me to grind my teeth. Her words, her voice, it is like rubbing two pieces of styrofoam together. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand her. The self-absorbed bitch.

She is supposedly being paid to help me, not to tell me I’m depressed. Not to say I suffer from a myriad of psychological disorders or to tell me I need to ‘understand my emotions and the behaviours and choices I make, that make me feel this way.’ She’s not earning the big bucks to simply tell me what I already know. Fuck, I could do that.

Your cat died? You’re obviously depressed and experiencing a feeling of loss and grief. That’ll be $200.

Oh? You want to know how to make it better? That’ll be another $200. Thank you kindly. Buy a new cat, you’re cured. Please leave me a 5-star yelp review…

Her smug, judgmental attitude really pisses me off. Her entire persona does actually, to put it bluntly. Gerard is such a fool, what a waste of time and money.

“Douglas? Are you paying attention?”

“What? Yeah, I need to understand the shit in my life that upsets me and deal with it... yada yada yada.”

“Obviously you didn’t hear me, or you would have understood what I said.”

“Of course, I did.”

“Douglas, how am I supposed to help you when you refuse to be helped?”

“How am I supposed to be helped when you repeat the same bullshit every session?”

“What bullshit did I repeat this session?”

Her question threw me, truth be told. I hadn’t been listening to a word. I’d been staring out the window. The apple tree in the field next to her office had a bird’s nest perched on one of the lower branches.

“Douglas? What was it I said that upset you?”

“It’s just another disease. It can be cured like all the others.”

“It’s not a disease Douglas. You’re not sick, there is nothing wrong with you. You know that right?”

Her words fall on deaf ears, as I have no interest in what she says. They are all the same at the end of the day. I know her type, I grew up around her type. She only cares about the money being forked out, and what her book says.

Every now and then I could see the babies pop their head up, waiting on the mother bird to come back. She never did. This last thirty minutes I’ve been watching this fucking bird’s nest and the mother hasn’t come to check in once. She abandoned her babies, fucking neglectful bitch.

“The mother hasn’t been back to care for her babies.”

“Sorry what?”

“That bird’s nest, the mother hasn’t been back to care for her babies.”

She turns her head, and her eyes follow my finger to the direction of the nest. They widened; I saw it. She was obviously in just as much shock as I was.

“That’s horrible. Do you have some sort of connection to these birds?”

“No idea, maybe it’s gay? What a stupid question!”

“Why is it stupid? You seem to care deeply for the baby birds.”

“Well of course I care. I’m not a monster. They’ve been abandoned. They can barely walk, and the mother just decided to get up and go.”

“Were you abandoned?”

“What?”

“Do you feel abandoned? Is that why you feel such a strong connection to these birds?”

“What kind of dumbfuck question is that?”

“I don’t think it's stupid. I think it’s a legitimate question.”

“I think it’s a stupid fucking question. Fuck you”.

I stand up swiftly, the sweat on my back clinging my T-shirt to the old leather couch. I throw a few more verbal punches into the air, telling her to stick her pretentious opinions up her ring-hole before storming out the door. Who the hell does she think she is? Asking me something like that? It’s none of her business. People like her should leave me alone.

 -----------------------------------

Once again, I must deal with Douglas. I have come to dread these sessions. We’ve had six of them already and they all turn out the same. I try to talk to him, and he ignores every word. He insults me before finding something to get offended at and finally storming out of the room showering me with insults as he trounces away.

I don’t like Douglas.

Even if he is torn.

Emotionally ambivalent.

He’s told me how much he loves his parents, yet in the very next sentence he contradicted everything he said and explained how much he hated them.

But I don’t blame him. His parents sound horrible and it makes sense. He is in a difficult situation, confused.

I still don’t like him though.

He’s had to endure relentless bullying through his school years from both his peers and family. I’ve put it down to internalised homophobia, brought about by the actions and attitudes of his parents. They blackmailed him, threatening to oust him to his grandparents, uncles, and cousins if he didn’t attend his orientation therapy. Bribed him with a new car if he could “be normal.”

Apparently, he is quite the gifted actor. The only time I ever saw him smile was when he got nostalgic for his old truck.

The guilt, so much ingrained within.

This was topic often brought up in each session.

“I didn’t take my parents feelings into account” he would say, in the rare moments he even communicated with me. Even if I do truly dislike him, it breaks my heart.

I managed to get him to talk for an extended period once in our third session. He described his first experience with a therapist, (if you can really call a “Reparative therapist” a therapist).

His parents organised for it him, apparently it was all done on the down low. He was still young, a teenager. The ‘therapist’s’ words etched into his memory, a scar that can’t be healed. It bothered him; I could sense it. He had to look out the window when talking about it.

“It’s just another disease”

“What is?”

“Homosexuality. It’s just another mental disorder. A disease. Like depression or bipolar. It can be cured. I can be cured.”

“What makes you think it’s a disease Douglas? It’s not, nothing of the sort You’re not sick, you’re not abnormal. There is nothing to cure. Douglas? Are you listening to me? Did you understand what I said?”

He flipped out after I asked this. His pent-up emotions burst through at once and all of it directed at me. Once again, as planned, he gets up and storms out of the room. He mumbles one last comment, something about “shoving my opinions up my own rear end” before making a commotion down the corridor. Obviously his words were a little more colourful than that.

He has trauma. He has gone through a lot, both physically and emotionally. He told me stories about having his hands chained in ice water while being bombarded with pictures of half-naked men, his feet wrapped in heated coils that burnt him when shown pictures of them hugging.

He was tortured, and his parents funded it.

He attempted suicide on multiple occasions.

After the third hospital admission his parents kicked him out of home, he moved in with his friend Gerard and his family. Lovely young man and he cares deeply for Douglas. Gerard’s parents took in Douglas as their own. He doesn’t mention them much, but they have obviously been a godsend for him through the years. I have my suspicions that they are together, but neither have confirmed nor denied this.

Gerard encourages him to see me, but his sessions are not enforced as far as I can tell. There is no blackmail or guilt involved. He doesn’t ask me privately “did Douglas come to his session today?”. If he didn’t want to see me, he doesn’t have to. I applaud him for that. He truly is just what Douglas needs right now.

It really seems to be working too, because here he was again for the seventh week in a row. He might not always stick around for the entire session, but this time however I called out to him. He might be an angry ant, I might not like him, but he doesn’t scare me.

“Douglas. Stop being a dick, you’re not the only one going through difficult times.”

I didn’t expect him to turn around, I really didn’t think he would come back in. Considering how unprofessional my comment was, how I lashed out in frustration. It could have ended up much differently, I know.

I should have just remained silent...

 -------------------------------------------

Once again, I stormed out of the building. It seems to happen every week and it’s due to her incompetence obviously. I might not be a Stanford graduate, but I know she’s dumb as a doorknob. All of her type are. Usually, I'd just leave but this time she didn't stay silent.

I heard her call out, and she caught me off-guard. Her words shook me.

“Stop acting like a prick. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”

To hell with this pompous bitch, I’ll do todays full session and put her in her place. She wants to hear the full story?

Fine, she’d better take down that fucking cross behind her desk first though.