As I mentioned in my previous post, I have CFS, an uncommon (most of the people with it are middle aged women - check out my luck) and heavily debilitating illness about which little is known. The generally accepted opinion is that it is a physical manifestation of several severe and long lasting psychological problems (depression, insomnia, repression, take your pick). Warming to this theory, my parents sent me to a psychiatrist, who I have recently stopped seeing after only 5 sessions. The reason I hope will become evident as I describe her and her process:
Session 1: I walk into her office, a small, cold and bare room with a hard wooden floor and white walls. There are three clocks scattered around the room (none of them work), a chalk board with pictures on it that look like a 5 year-old drew them and three minimalist, red cushioned, wooden chairs from Ikea. There is a small table that has finger paints, crayons, chalk, a CD player and paper on it and on one of the walls is a batik. There is a lone plant. She asks me to choose a seat and I select the only one facing the door. She (a poorly aged 50-something woman) tells me she is a "child psychologist" (I feel patronised) and that she likes to employ art therapy in her work with her "clients". The reason for the chalk board, the table and everything on it is now abundantly clear and my skepticism grows. I am also told that the reason why the room is so bare is because she likes to ensure that her "clients" have a blank mind when they come to draw something so that it is as genuine as possible. I point out the very large, very colourful, very ethnic batik that is dominating the room, she laughs nervously. We talk - she is chatty, kind and very sympathetic to my situation - I immediately take a strong dislike to her.
Session 2: She is wearing a 3-4 length skirt and I notice her legs are hairier than mine - this dominates my mind and I remember nothing else.
Session 3: She calls a few hours before the appointment to say she is ill and she won't be able to see me until after Christmas on the ninth of January, it's the 19th of December. (This was my favorite session.)
Session 4: The ninth of January comes far too quickly and I say a little prayer (she's wearing trousers). We discuss what I did over Christmas (nothing, I've only just started coming downstairs) her sympathy grows - mine does not. Eager to understand more about my situation she draws a graph where the y axis is how I'm feeling and the x axis is time passed and asks me to roughly sketch the progress on my health since April. I start at 5% and draw with slow deliberation a long, shallow curve up to the 25% mark. She then asks where I'd like to be on the graph, I spend little time entertaining this ridiculous question. I take great care to say as little as possible throughout my 50 minutes with her as everything I say is analysed to pieces and questioned further, the answers I give to these questions go through the same rigmarole. A throwaway comment can become the crux of the session, with a myriad of different interpretations waiting, like inmates on death row, to be dealt with. I mention that I used to dig holes at the beach when I went to see my grandparents in my summer holidays and she asks me whether they joined in. Being over 70, arthritic and spade-less they didn't but instead of saying this I choose "They're not diggers". We enter a 10 minute discussion about what it means to be a "digger". I leave.
Session 5: I decide this time to approach with a different mindset - I will do my utmost to understand and get on board with her and her ideals. I will display enthusiasm even if I don't feel it and I will smile and talk and try to be friends. She starts by telling me that the Superman T-shirt I'm wearing was chosen by my subconscious as a way of demonstrating to the world a sense of inner strength, positivity and optimism - she is testing my resolve. I smile weakly and sit down in silence. Talking about my week I mention that I went to Brighton, had a walk along the front and a steak. She clutches her breast, dramatically exclaiming that inside she is "bubbling". She wonders if I'd mind doing a finger-painting that represents how I feel about it - I agree. I paint a yellow circle, with a blue overlapping square around it and a white overlapping pentagon around that. Over the entire thing I smear a few bright red lines. I make it up as I go along and she mistakes my speed as "intense energy". Looking at it, she identifies a large globule of white paint as a seagull, the blue and white mixing as the sea and the spray, the yellow is bright and strong and full of hope. The red is passion and energy. She asks me what I think about this analogy....I lie. The time winds down slowly and I leave, taking the painting with me, vowing never to return.
And that's it, my brief flirtation with psychiatry (though I have no doubt another one will be found for me). My main irritation was (but by no means restricted too) her desperate need to find hidden, complex meanings in things that were simple and basic. Like a confused and radioactive pig in Hiroshima foraging for truffles, she tireless sought hidden depths in the puddles of my subconcious - but as any fule kno, there are no truffles in Hiroshima.
Can I please seek employment as your psychologist, I promise to patronise you and generally make you feel uncomfortable, but at least with me there's the advantage of being able to tell me to fuck off and perhaps even hit me, I'd see it as a physical manifestation of your emotional frustration, or something like that. I'll wax my legs if that makes it any better.
ReplyDeleteYou'd wax your legs whether it helped or not.
ReplyDelete