Chapter Four
Maya
I scan over my diary for the day, checking to see which patients I will be seeing.
Emily, Carolyn, Max, Stella, and Callum.
I try not to think about my clients too much outside of sessions, so checking my schedule is one of my ways of reorienting myself in my workspace.
Some of my clients are actively in crisis or unpacking serious trauma, and while it’s such a privilege to bear witness and support them through it, it’s also important for me to be able to leave them at work so I can focus on my own life too.
And likewise, I need to push away all the external pressures in my life when I’m in work mode.
I can’t think about Dad’s inability to take his health issues seriously or Mom’s high blood pressure as a result of how much she stresses about everyone.
Worrying about whether Pippa and Maddie need anything has been a near-constant concern since Pippa’s husband died nearly five years ago, leaving my sister alone and pregnant.
And then there are my obsessive compulsions and how they keep my monstrous urges in check by preventing me from listening to the voice in my head.
None of those thoughts are welcome when I’m working. So, I compartmentalize; I push them away and focus on my pre-work routines and rituals. My patients deserve my undivided attention in sessions.
Especially Emily, my first patient of the day.
I shouldn’t have favorites, but it’s hard not to feel enamored by Emily Grant.
She’s a survivor in every iteration of the word.
She grew up seeing things no child should, and then she found herself repeating the pattern of intimate partner violence.
The generational trauma and cycle of abuse continued from her mother to her, but Emily broke the pattern.
She got out. She saved herself. She found a partner who is good to her, a best friend who would move mountains, and a new home and job she loves.
Most of all, she found happiness. The thing I wish for all of my patients, even if it looks different for each person. Everyone has their own version, and while I don’t get to decide what counts as happiness for them, seeing my clients find it brings me more joy than anything else in the world.
An hour later, when Emily tells me she’s ready to stop seeing me regularly, I remember exactly why I do this job.
“Is that okay?” she asks. “I think I’m ready.”
“Of course that’s okay, Emily. As much as I love working with you, I don’t want you to need me. I want you to stop coming because you’re ready. And you are. I’ve felt you were for a few weeks now. I was waiting for you to see it yourself.”
She lets out a sigh of relief, her shoulder dropping and her eyes sparkling at my encouragement. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you have done for me.”
“You’ve done the work, Emily. I just supported you through it,” I reply as warmth fills my eyes, and a mixture of pride, appreciation, and joy settles in my chest. This job can be intense.
It can absolutely gut me when I sit with someone in their worst moments, through grief and loss, loneliness and desperation.
But it’s so worth it for the ones I can be with in their best moments. When everything settles into place and the pieces they refused to give up on come together. It’s such an unbelievable privilege.
Our call ends with me telling Emily that she can always contact me again in the future if needed. Hopefully she never will, but I like to give my patients the option.
Carolyn is up next. She’s considering leaving her husband after finding out he cheated on her with her closest friend.
She came to therapy when the two most important people in her life betrayed her, and she needed someone she could trust. Someone impartial and non-judgmental. Someone I am happy to be.
I resume my between-patient rituals, separating myself from Emily and getting ready for Carolyn. I have to shake off the feelings I have for Emily so I can move into the space of what Carolyn needs from me.
It’s different for every person who comes to me. I’m still me, but I’m the version of me that each patient needs. That niggling inner voice I have been avoiding pops up with thoughts about what Ryan might need from me, but I push it down. I can’t afford to let that voice take root.
Breathe in for four seconds.
Hold for four seconds.
Out for four seconds.
Hold for four seconds.
Notice where my body connects to the chair and push back against the firm points.
I can do this. I am in control.
One week later
“Tell me about your childhood. What was it like for you growing up?” I ask Ryan while he simply glares at me with that unwavering stare of his.
Most clients avoid eye contact, but not him.
Even through the computer screen, it’s raw and powerful, making me feel like I’m the one in the spotlight. Like he’s trying to figure me out.
But I don’t squirm under the intensity. I don’t waver. I use the silence as a tool, allowing the seconds to tick by until he’s the one who needs to fill it.
“It was fine. Normal,” he says eventually.
“In my experience, no one really has a normal childhood. Just normal for them. Can you tell me more? Who did you go to when you were upset? How was tension managed in your household?”
Ryan leans back against the white wall behind him, letting my words settle in. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“What would be the point in that?”
That gives me the barest hint of a smile, a minuscule lift of his lips at the corner before he pushes them back into a straight line.
“Growing up was actually pretty great. We lived near woods and a lake where I swam with my friends in the summer. My parents seemed to have a happy marriage, up until my mother left and my father had a… mental health crisis. He stayed in the area but stopped working and moved out of the family home. I was twenty-four, but Sofia was only fourteen, so I took over the business along with raising her. At least as much as a stubborn teenage girl would let her older brother, anyway.”
“That was a huge upheaval. It sounds like your entire life changed overnight.”
He lets out a huff of breath, as if that’s the understatement of the century. And maybe it is. He wasn’t a kid, but he obviously wasn’t ready to run a company or be a parent to a teenager.
“It did,” he agrees and my heart pitter patters with excitement at his acquiescence. He’s starting to let me in. “But it’s not like I had a choice. I had to get on with it. There were hundreds of sh—people relying on me. I was raised to do this job. Born to do it.”
“Sounds like a lot of pressure,” I say softly. “And it sounds like there wasn’t much space to process any of it. You’ve been in survival mode.”
He breathes out slowly, and his shoulders slump, as if he’s never even had a chance to consider any of it.
He probably hasn’t. No wonder he’s resistant to therapy—something that has the potential to highlight all the cracks in the walls he’s built to protect himself.
He saw how much his mother leaving destroyed his father, so it’s no surprise he’s afraid to meet someone.
Afraid to give another person that kind of power over him.
“What about now?” I ask, gently probing and keen to make inroads while he’s not shutting me down. “Are you still in survival mode? Still putting everyone else above your own needs?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. It’s what I was raised to do.”
“And what if you had a choice?”
“If I had a choice…” he trails off as he contemplates his answer. “Maybe the only choice I have left is her. Finding my perfect partner. Maybe that’s why I won’t give up. Why I won’t settle for less than what’s been written in the stars.”
I smile softly at him, allowing him the space to process the words he has just spoken. For a man who had no interest in being in therapy, he’s already making strides. He’s already buying into the process. And that’s all I can ask for.