From In The Bubble

Reading my old diaries feels like wandering through the mind of a completely different person. The most detailed parts describe what I obviously viewed as important events, though they all seem so trivial now. It’s odd to read about things that so overwhelmingly occupied my mind not all that long ago, things I barely even remember now. However, there are things that still elicit the same feelings they did when I wrote them. Usually they’re the things that pissed me off. Over time my anger doesn’t really fade, it just rests, and like sleeping bull, poking it is not a good idea.

One instance that I came across recently involves my adventures in therapy. When I was 13 I briefly lived with my father, and chaos ensued, but not the funny kind of chaos favored by cheesy sitcoms. It was the kind of chaos that often, if not always, resulted in tears, hurt feelings, and just a little more space in that great divide my father and I seemed intent on building between us. Three months into this ill conceived living arrangement, we decided to try family therapy. That session was pretty tame, so much so that I can’t remember a single question or statement. The fun came in my solo sessions. The therapist, a middle aged woman who served as my parents marriage counsellor (they’re divorced now, so that says something about her skills), was insistent on becoming, if not my best friend, at least my confidant. I didn’t trust her, but I was 13, and completely lost inside of myself. I wanted to be happy, and if that meant spilling my guts to a stranger, I would do it. Unfortunately for me, she was more concerned with impressing my father than helping me. Though I don’t remember the specific information now, she routinely told my father things I confided in her during our sessions. She listened intently, handed me tissues when I had tears running down my cheeks, and hugged me at the end of a particularly emotional hour. Then she promptly ran to my father (who she was clearly infatuated with by the way) and told him everything. That violation solidified my mistrust in the human race, and it guaranteed that I will never visit a therapist again.

Long after my very brief time with her ended, I was still outraged at her behaviour, and decided to include her in a short story I was writing.  It is complete fiction, mostly because I can’t remember what she told my father. It was definitely nice to be able to say all of the things I never got a chance to. So here’s that part of the story….

My opinion of therapy is horrible, however I do admit that I am completely biased. How can therapy have a chance of success when the therapist (formerly my parents marriage counselor) is clearly infatuated with my father? Why would I divulge my secrets to someone who probably has my father on speed dial, ready at a moments notice to relay all of my sordid confessions.

“So Haley, tell me about him.” I can feel her looking at me, but my eyes are focussed on the chair I’m sitting in, my fingers absently picking at a spot where a button used to be.

“Who?”

“Sean. your dad seems to think he has a lot to do with your problems lately.”

“It must be comforting for him to have someone to point the finger at who resides outside of his gene pool.”

“What do you mean?”

Blaming someone who is expendable, someone who could disappear in a *poof* David Copperfield kind of way makes his life so much easier. Wrapping his head around the fact that his precious baby daughter turns to older men for attention because of the absence of a positive male figure in her life would probably kill him, or at least send him into one of his morally righteous (albeit completely hypocritical) rages. He likes to solve problems that have clear cut solutions, and if they don’t, he manipulates them until they do. I tell him I can’t sleep at night because I can’t turn off the IF…THEN track running a constant loop in my brain. He tells me I’m not tired enough and if I exercise more I’ll be tired enough to go to sleep. Yeah, dad, its that simple. And Bush is really just looking for weapons of mass destruction.

“Nothing.” Her office overlooks the river running through town, steps from the banks, situated amongst industrial buildings. I hate the river but I consider making a jail break from her office and running towards it, thinking that maybe the river could carry me somewhere else.

“So why did you get involved with Sean?” She’s trying so hard to look professional. Pathetic.

“I don’t know. There was nothing good on TV. I was bored.”

“Probably lonely too, right?” No. She nods her head and continues before I can speak. “I understand.” No duh. I would understand anyone’s sick and twisted behaviour if I was being paid $100 dollars an hour. “I went through something similar when I was your age.” Of course you did. “I got involved with someone much older, and, uh, it wasn’t good.” How articulate and insightful. I wonder if she would salivate at the sound of a bell. She does seem like the perfect fit for experiments. Dumb, easily manipulated, and its not like the world would miss her if something happened to go wrong.

“That’s nice. Did your father force you to visit a therapist to talk about that bad older man? Perhaps a therapist who wets herself like an overly excited puppy whenever said father makes an appearance? A therapist who thinks that doctor-patient confidentiality can be extended to men she wants to fuck? is that something you can understand doctor? Because unless you can say yes to all of those questions you went through something not at all similar to my current journey through the endless levels of hell.” She squirms visibly in her chair, undoubtedly hoping I’ll cut this appointment short and leave. I’m sure she would like to remove me from her professionally feng shui-ed office but I haven’t raised my voice, threatened her, or become violent. I know the rules, and its time for this bitch to lay in the bed she made.

“Haley, you’re being ridiculous. I have most certainly not broken the doctor-patient confidentiality.” Ooh, nice smug expression doctor, pretty convincing. But the red on her cheeks gives her away as it continually deepens.

“Seth Martin.”

“Excuse me?”

“Last week I told you about Seth Martin. Remember?”

She flips through some notes, her finger moving over a page. “Yes. He was the boy you lost your virginity to last year. And afterwards you thought you might be pregnant.”

“Indeed. Three days after our last session my father came storming into my room screaming ‘You lost your virginity at 13? To someone I’ve never even heard of, let alone met? Who the fuck is Seth Martin?’ Of course I asked him how he found that out. You know what he said Karen?”

“Dr. Cameron, Haley. And no, I don’t know what he said.”

“He said he read it in my diary.”

“You’ve told me that you keep very detailed diaries Haley, so that sounds reasonable.” She looks relieved. She’s probably thinking that she’s home free, he didn’t sell her out and there’s another way he

could have found out.

“That’s true. I do keep detailed diaries. However, ther is no way he could have found out about Seth Martin from any of my diaries.”

“Why not?”

“Because Seth Martin doesn’t exist.”

“Excuse me?”

“That confrontation was the sixth one since I started seeing you and while my father had accurate information he could have obtained from multiple sources the first three times, the last three were completely fabricated. Fabricated and spoonfed to you, the doctor excitedly swallowing any and all information, anything to get herself closer to my father. I don’t know how to hotwire a car, I’ve never gotten a tattoo and Seth Martin doesn’t exist.”

“So you’re telling me that you’ve been wasting our time together by lieing to me?”

“No. At 45 years old you aren’t who you want to be. Dried up. Has been. No husband. Stuck in a career that’s going nowhere. Instead of genuinely trying to help a patient you attempt to pry out her darkest secrets with the promise of redemption, a new life. You then use this information to get in good with a man who epitomizes everything you wish to be and want to be with. You desperately attempted to build a relationship with my father, and while giving him information he wanted got you closer to him, you simultaneously made the distance between him and I exponentially larger. You did the polar opposite of what you have been paid to do. That’s what I’m telling you.”

“You can’t blame me for your poor relationship with your father.”

“I can blame you for making it worse so you could get laid. And you couldn’t even get that done.”

She sighs, rubbing her temples slowly. I sincerely hope I am giving her a headache. “Regardless of what has or hasn’t happened, I think I can still help you. Can you forgive and forget Haley?”

“Oh absolutely.” I smile and her eyes widen in surprise.

“Wonderful.”

“I forgive you. And now I’m going to forget you.”

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