Maybe it's good when your psychologist pisses you off.
Probably a lot of psychologists would say that it is excellent. I am firing my
psychologist anyways.
Psychologists are expensive. Most of them are around 150 or 160 bucks a pop. And that's for fifty minutes. Not even a whole hour. They use the last 10 minutes of your session to absorb your angst and take notes.
The love of my life from elementary school is a psychologist now. His name is Alex Crampton. My grade one teacher Mrs. Vanden Bosch said that I was a gifted child, and so after grade one, I got to be in Alex Crampton's grade three class. At the end of the year, the school put on an underwater ocean musical. Our grade three class got to be the starfish. Me and Alex got to say the opening starfish line together. I was thrilled.
We nailed our lines together. Then all of the grade threes did a little song and dance about starfish. "Star light and star bright, We make such a pretty sight."
Mostly the dance was extending our arms at different angles and wiggling our fingers. The wiggling fingers were supposed to make everyone think of shimmering starfish. Starfish aren't very cuddly. I don't think that Alex and I ever got to touch each other. I would have remembered that perfectly.
"A very long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday...."
Now Alex Crampton has a beautiful baby and fiancee and a
PhD.
I limit my Facebook stalking to about once a year.
I throw tantrums on my way to work.
At work, I spend hours with bottles of lysol, spraying tables and blocks so that the children won't get diarrhea. They get diarrhea anyways.
I have also been to way more psychologists than Alex Crampton. It takes a lot of lysol spraying to pay for each session.
I'm sure that Alex Crampton is worth your money.
While Alex Crampton was getting his PhD, I was puking in my mouth. Now I'm puking in my head. My most recent psychologist kindly informed me of this during our last session.
At our first appointment I mourned, "I'm a gifted child, but I'm not doing gifted things." He told me that the hallmark of happy people is that they're in touch with their own values and they chase after these values just like my Big Black Dog chases the raccoon he wants to murder.
For our next session, I had written down all my values. Yoga, the Boatman, my dog, writing. External affirmation, physical health. I turned on my Verbal Machine Gun and rattled off the list to my psychologist, whining and blabbering away between every point. The job with the lysol gets in the way of everything. I will never have enough money. Nothing you do can ever make you happy. I ended the long list of sorrows and grievances and money and lysol with "I really wish my mother had never had me. I am angry at my mother for having me."
"You're ruminating," said the psychologist. "Do you ruminate a lot?"
"Yes," I said. And wasn't it interesting? I used to puke in my mouth, and now there's puke in my head. And I call out for my mother during sex and having an orgasm is very difficult. "I'm a writer," I said. "I talk a lot."
"When you talk that fast, I shut off," said my psychologist. I told him that I thought you were supposed to talk a lot in therapy. He said that therapy wasn't just that. It was about creating a mutual relationship. "And when you talk like that, I feel like I'm not a real person."
What real person charges 160 bucks an hour for a mutual fucking relationship? Being a psychologist and not letting your patient blabber away is kind of like being a prostitute and not giving blow jobs. It's unrealistic and guaranteed to reduce your clientele.
"When you're like this with Robbie, does he turn off?" I admitted that sometimes he does, but I don't pay him, and often he finds me quite entertaining. Then again, he could just be lying because I'm so excellent in bed. Grinding someone who's calling out for her mommy is super sexy.
My psychologist suggested that he let me know when I'm ruminating in session. And that perhaps during my day I could have a bracelet that I can look at when I feel like I'm slipping into a frenzy. A Frenzy Bracelet. Maybe the children can make one for me out of painted macaroni. We can market Frenzy Bracelets and sell them for 160 dollars each.
The other thing he told me to do was to pay attention while walking the dog. I pay lip-service to meditation and mindfulness and yoga, but my head is all over the place and I'm apparently not "walking the talk."
I left feeling like I'd failed the session. Maybe it would be very useful for me to discuss these feelings in therapy. Probably it would be excellent. But like I said, I am firing my psychologist anyways. Who can resist firing someone who makes 160 bucks an hour? When will I ever have this opportunity ever again?
If Alex Crampton lived in Halifax, perhaps I could go see him. I could ask him about his beautiful daughter and fiancee, and how he manages to keep fit. But until Alex Crampton moves to town, I think I will focus on being the best writer he knows except for Stephen King. Maybe I can resurrect Martha the Hippotamus into a brand new short story.
A long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday, Martha the Hippopotamus had a Frenzy. Then the expensive doctor gave her a macaroni bracelet and she stopped calling out for her mother during sex.
Psychologists are expensive. Most of them are around 150 or 160 bucks a pop. And that's for fifty minutes. Not even a whole hour. They use the last 10 minutes of your session to absorb your angst and take notes.
The love of my life from elementary school is a psychologist now. His name is Alex Crampton. My grade one teacher Mrs. Vanden Bosch said that I was a gifted child, and so after grade one, I got to be in Alex Crampton's grade three class. At the end of the year, the school put on an underwater ocean musical. Our grade three class got to be the starfish. Me and Alex got to say the opening starfish line together. I was thrilled.
"They sparkle and shimmer oh so bright. The starfish is
really quite the sight."
Our costumes were big clunky stars made out of bristol
board. Mine was yellow and covered with sequins and glitter. At the time, Alex
had a big black eye from getting hit in the face with a soccer ball. I thought
he looked very cute.We nailed our lines together. Then all of the grade threes did a little song and dance about starfish. "Star light and star bright, We make such a pretty sight."
Mostly the dance was extending our arms at different angles and wiggling our fingers. The wiggling fingers were supposed to make everyone think of shimmering starfish. Starfish aren't very cuddly. I don't think that Alex and I ever got to touch each other. I would have remembered that perfectly.
In grade eight, I remember writing a story on a computer in
the home ec room. It was about a character named Martha. Martha might have been
a hippopotamus. I'm pretty sure she wasn't a human.
The story began with,"A very long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday...."
Perhaps last Wednesday, Martha the hippopotamus or whatever
animal she was went for a walk in the forest or did her laundry or some other
mundane thing. Alex Crampton read the first paragraph and said,
"Wow, you're such a good writer. I never met another
writer like you. You're the best writer I know. Except for Stephen King."
My heart glowed beneath my chest, and then it melted. My
cheeks got all red. When I was in grade eight, I used to blow dry my long,
thick curly hair. Then I brushed it until it grew wavy and enormous and as
thick and coarse as a horse's mane. Underneath my overalls, I wore homemade
tie-dyed t-shirts. I wanted the overalls to conceal my nipples. I refused to
wear a bra because I was too flat-chested and I thought that people would make
fun of me if they saw me wearing a bra when I didn't need one. As far as making
it or making out with Alex Crampton, I didn't stand a chance.  |
| I think this might be grade seven. Obviously I also played the violin. |
I limit my Facebook stalking to about once a year.
When I found out that Alex had his PhD in psychology, I was
surprised and somewhat jealous. Alex never seemed to like school that much. He
was busy with swimming and girls. Meanwhile, I was a mega-nerd. At grade eight
graduation, we all made silhouettes of our heads and wrote down what we wanted
to do when we grew up. I wrote that I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher with
my PhD.
Now I am essentially a kindergarten teacher's assistant with
no PhD. I throw tantrums on my way to work.
At work, I spend hours with bottles of lysol, spraying tables and blocks so that the children won't get diarrhea. They get diarrhea anyways.
I have also been to way more psychologists than Alex Crampton. It takes a lot of lysol spraying to pay for each session.
I'm sure that Alex Crampton is worth your money.
While Alex Crampton was getting his PhD, I was puking in my mouth. Now I'm puking in my head. My most recent psychologist kindly informed me of this during our last session.
At our first appointment I mourned, "I'm a gifted child, but I'm not doing gifted things." He told me that the hallmark of happy people is that they're in touch with their own values and they chase after these values just like my Big Black Dog chases the raccoon he wants to murder.
For our next session, I had written down all my values. Yoga, the Boatman, my dog, writing. External affirmation, physical health. I turned on my Verbal Machine Gun and rattled off the list to my psychologist, whining and blabbering away between every point. The job with the lysol gets in the way of everything. I will never have enough money. Nothing you do can ever make you happy. I ended the long list of sorrows and grievances and money and lysol with "I really wish my mother had never had me. I am angry at my mother for having me."
"You're ruminating," said the psychologist. "Do you ruminate a lot?"
"Yes," I said. And wasn't it interesting? I used to puke in my mouth, and now there's puke in my head. And I call out for my mother during sex and having an orgasm is very difficult. "I'm a writer," I said. "I talk a lot."
"When you talk that fast, I shut off," said my psychologist. I told him that I thought you were supposed to talk a lot in therapy. He said that therapy wasn't just that. It was about creating a mutual relationship. "And when you talk like that, I feel like I'm not a real person."
What real person charges 160 bucks an hour for a mutual fucking relationship? Being a psychologist and not letting your patient blabber away is kind of like being a prostitute and not giving blow jobs. It's unrealistic and guaranteed to reduce your clientele.
"When you're like this with Robbie, does he turn off?" I admitted that sometimes he does, but I don't pay him, and often he finds me quite entertaining. Then again, he could just be lying because I'm so excellent in bed. Grinding someone who's calling out for her mommy is super sexy.
My psychologist suggested that he let me know when I'm ruminating in session. And that perhaps during my day I could have a bracelet that I can look at when I feel like I'm slipping into a frenzy. A Frenzy Bracelet. Maybe the children can make one for me out of painted macaroni. We can market Frenzy Bracelets and sell them for 160 dollars each.
The other thing he told me to do was to pay attention while walking the dog. I pay lip-service to meditation and mindfulness and yoga, but my head is all over the place and I'm apparently not "walking the talk."
I left feeling like I'd failed the session. Maybe it would be very useful for me to discuss these feelings in therapy. Probably it would be excellent. But like I said, I am firing my psychologist anyways. Who can resist firing someone who makes 160 bucks an hour? When will I ever have this opportunity ever again?
If Alex Crampton lived in Halifax, perhaps I could go see him. I could ask him about his beautiful daughter and fiancee, and how he manages to keep fit. But until Alex Crampton moves to town, I think I will focus on being the best writer he knows except for Stephen King. Maybe I can resurrect Martha the Hippotamus into a brand new short story.
A long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday, Martha the Hippopotamus had a Frenzy. Then the expensive doctor gave her a macaroni bracelet and she stopped calling out for her mother during sex.
The End.
FIRST- this is one of the my fav posts yet!
ReplyDeleteMy therapist-- who I call Hegel-- and who is AWESOME and helped me stop PIM and other such ed-related atrocities moved t Halifax last year. I feel like you are in therapy heaven, but only because Halifax is now home to Hegel. You can, like me, tell her you are broke and its less than 160. I have had a lot of therapy in my days, none tops sessions with Hegel. Without her, I would have never gotten a PhD (which by the way made me depressed and still without a job, so no need to be envious!)
If you want her info, send me a line in the virtual worlds.
With love,
Liberty Bell
Some stranger from the internet who finds your writing delightful.