How Can I Help You?

 

 The second time I went to see a mental health professional was about fifteen years later. (See prev post). Somehow I'd survived my twenties without the need to sit in a darkened room and confess my deepest darkest secrets to a stern but kindly stranger. 

By now I had two kids and an ex-partner. Well not quite ex, let's say separated, but that was a grey area as well. We were no longer living in the same house or the same town but we sometimes stayed at each other's places as the kids came and went in a variety of combinations and arrangements. 

It was exhausting, and this is the reason I enlisted the help of a psychotherapist.

The person I found came highly recommended by friends and had been in practice for many years — a feminist of course, well versed in all the favoured theories and techniques of the gurus of the time:  Fritz Pearl, Jung, Marie Louise Von Franz, Alice Miller, with books on her shelves by Germaine Greer (THe Female Eunach) and Linda Schierse (The Wounded Woman). She lived in Balmain or Rozelle, where all the feminist therapists seemed to live in those days.

She came to the door of her low slung sandstone house. There was a bench outside under the wisteria vine to sit on if you arrived early and a bell to ring. I was on time and she took me through to her consulting room which was to the right of a deep hallway hung with Afghan rugs and furnished with an antique Kashgar chest or two. The lighting in her room was dim, matching the muted colours of ancient woven rugs thrown over a couch and facing armchair. I assumed the couch was for me but she took her seat there and gestured me towards the armchair. 

My therapist had a physical likeness to Doris Lessing: a thick and chunky build, dark wild curly hair at medium length, knitted clothes, a strong masculine face. She sat crosslegged in the middle of her couch, a rug wrapped around her and a box of tissues close by. 

'I'm sorry', she explained,' I'm not getting the flu. I've got bad period pains, but not bad enough to cancel. How can I help you?'

I described my situation, the relationship, the break up, the distress. She listened and when I stopped talking she let the silence sit between us. 

Finally I said, 'I'm just so exhausted'. 

She let the silence hang again. She closed her eyes for a long time. So long, I wondered if she had fallen asleep.

She opened them again and said, 'why don't you take an afternoon nap.'

I thought about it for a moment and replied 'no I couldn't, I'd feel so guilty, everyone else is at work, slaving away. I can't possibly do that.'

'Yes you can. Just give yourself permission.Take a nap.'

I thought for a while. 'Ok, I replied, I'll give it a try.'

Our time was up.

She walked me to the front door and as she opened it said,

'I'm sorry, I'm away overseas for the next two months but I'm more than happy to see you again.'

 

 

(c)Jan Cornall 2021